"Wanting to divorce, but unable to afford it" - article

An article came out on MSNBC today titled Wanting to divorce, but unable to afford it, which also has a comments section.

Having grown up in Brazil, I remember reading and learning that the United States had the highest rate of divorce in the world. Hollywood actors and actresses, that is, the people with the most amount of wealth and fame in the world, and whose lives are often shown to the public, were often seen as people whose marriage was already set up to be temporary: these people were likely to get divorced again so they could remarry someone else. Having multiple partners through life is fun to some, and in a society that still carries the tradition of marriage, one has have a partner through marriage in order to get approval and be able to maintain the lifestyle and great wealth Hollywood actors seem to enjoy.

The great wealth, comfort and luxury provided by an abundance of fossil fuels has made life easy for a lot of people in the first world. As a result, people have become more reliant on material goods for their "happiness and well-being", which makes them less resilient to whatever challenges they face. In the case of marriages in the US, people are known for wanting a divorce as soon as the relationship becomes challenging. If it's no longer the "sea of roses marriage is meant to be, then the solution is divorce". After all, when you live in a society of abundance where everyone can be independent while have income that provide them with a decent lifestyle, there's no reason for staying in a marriage whose maintenance requires work. Not to mention that after a person gets divorced they are free to marry someone else - hopefully someone who can provide the sea of roses they are looking for that marriage is supposed to be. The problem, of course, is that that other person is also looking for you to be the one providing the sea of roses they feel they are entitled to find in a marriage. So the result is a high rate of divorce in any affluent society where people don't have to "tolerate being married" because getting divorced occurs as such a wonderful option knowing that if you end up by yourself (man or woman) you will still have a decent lifestyle - let's not even mention the alimony and palimony laws that favor women in the US.

I'm trying to be neutral and make no judgment on whether divorce is good or bad, and the same of staying unhappily married. As a matter of fact, I'm not even sure how much work should go into a marriage in order to make it work. All I know is that relationships do take work, and no long-lasting marriage is always a sea of roses. Two people are always going to have their individual desires and needs, but when the two are indeed one body you can only go in one direction. Two go in different directions you'd have to necessarily split which makes it a marriage at that point irrelevant - "Why get married if you're still going to live as if you were single".

Now, the other side of the spectrum can be seen in other countries where people don't have the luxury, comfort and independence that can be found in developed countries. In poor countries, many women stay with their partner in situations they are not always happy with, because they could not be financially independent on their own. Again, I'm attempting to make no judgment on whether such marriages are good or bad. In most cases (speaking from personal experience as I grew up in Brazil) these women who chose to stay in marriages that are tough because the husband is the provider, these women are not in so-called abusive relationships. They are simply in marriages that are not enlivening to them, through unions that took place through their own choice.

The article addresses a likely decline of the standard of living of Americans, which will likely reduce the divorce rate in the US because women (and perhaps men) through less prospects of being independent on their own, will chose to stay in their marriage either by tolerating whatever marriage aspect they don't like, or by trying to work it out - since the other option of getting divorced and having a decent lifestyle being independent seems to become less and less attainable.

I have never been married, so I am far from having much to say on this subject. I do wish people wouldn't get divorced so easily and as soon as they find an obstacle that is unpleasant to them. I also don't wish for anyone - man or woman - to be forced to stay in a relationship that is doomed to be unhappy because they don't have the finances to have a decent life on their own. I am trying to find out what other think since marriage is a goal of mine eventually, and I'm trying to acquire the skills to have a marriage that constantly enlivens myself and my future partner, so that the topic of divorce fades for us as something that we don't even think about because the benefits of our marriage (for both of us) are so great.