Originally posted by Illusionsaregrander
Are we really meant to stay with one other person forever? Like the monogamous ideal insists we are? Or is chemistry just supposed to bring us
together long enough to make genetically good babies and then move on to the next partner so all our genetic eggs are not in one basket? (Create
greater diversity in our own offspring thus maximizing the odds that ONE of them will be successful?)
"Forever", in the days when death could strike with surprise/quickness, used to mean six days/months/years, for example. A man could go through
several wives; a woman could pray for death to take her out of a bad marriage.
Personally, I left after 20 years, because I could see women 20 years older than me, unhappily putting up with the type of spouse I had, and I knew I
didn't want to spend 20 MORE years in that marriage.
I'm sure if I had been given the professor's interview before that first marriage, I would have said, nah, I'm getting married anyway. Hey, when
you're young and dumb, you even ignore family members who could probably predict as well as the prof! I've bought wedding gifts for and been to
weddings of couples I could take bets on how long the marriage would last.
lol The other research presented, on brain tumors, reminded me of how I used to think that my ex's ill behavior certainly must have been due to a
brain tumor. lol Thank God for divorce. Jeez, even business contracts can be broken.
My offspring turned out successful, my Life is great now, and my ex has had the opportunity to figure out his own Life.
Interesting, money and sex weren't the contentious issues for us, but maybe the prof had some other issues to discuss, or maybe he could have gleaned
the negatives anyway if we had been in the experiment.
Bottom line, I think the heart will always rule the head. One couple I know had pre-marriage counseling, because of concerns about one of them, but
got divorced because of something the OTHER spouse had done, not even connected with the concern of the pre-m counseling. Humans are complex.
reply to post by whaaa
Oh, gawd, whaaa, I peed my pants....wait, I'm not wearing pants...oh, oh!