Romance, Marriage and Glass Ceilings...

Cmol

Bear with me on this one, the idea for the post changed as I was writing it so its a little disjointed, sorry if it doesnt make much sense, im happy to clarify anything

Following on from a conversation I had with the OH the other day... do you think that the romance has died?

Marriage as a sacred religious sacrament seems to be a fairly outdated school of thought for the majority of society - do you think that people go into marriages knowing that should they need to they can get out of this so called 'lifelong' contract.....I'm not talking about standing at the altar saying 'I do' and not knowing whether they are doing the right thing but just knowing that they can get out of the marriage should they want to.

Not only marriage though, do you think that in this day and age of women breaking through glass ceilings and going places that our mums and grannies never thought possible, that this has had a detrimental effect on the relationships between men and women through changing the dynamic and therefore the role's that men and women traditionally would have played in a relationship? Are we paying as much attention to our home lives as we would have, say, 50 years ago? Or have our attentions shifted to 'bigger and better' things? And is this a good thing, or a bad thing?!

Jaypers this is very deep and meaningful for midnight on a Saturday night :pac:

*Before you start attacking me, no, im not saying a womans place is in the kitchen or anything like it!

garbanzo

Mother of jayzus..... that is a fairly deep post for a Sat night Cmol. Where do you start from.

Sorry, have run out of ideas... !

brianthebard

I think its a good thing that marriage is becoming secular, people are still getting married so that means they do it out of love and not to make a commitment to be a lay person of the church as it was intended in the renaissance era. I also think that its important that people should be able to leave a marriage that has gone sour. I'm not talking about I'm bored of you I'm getting a divorce, because that sort of person got married for the wrong reason, but if for reasons of abuse, or "irreconcilable differences" people want to leave a marriage, they shouldn't be forced to stay together like they once were. Imo I think this strengthens marriage on an individual level, as people who can leave but choose to stay together make a much stronger statement than people who are married but forced to stay that way.

old boy

romance is alive, life long ties are gone, one time there was no choice, are marraiges something that take place, for not for convenience, but for traditional values, with an opt out clause

The Sweeper

I think women are in a position of massive inequality, and we as a gender have left ourselves open to criticism as never before in history.

We've traded what we felt was a position of inequality and a lack of rights for a position where things are still inequal, because now that we have the right to do whatever we want, we're bloody doing everything.

I've posted this before on another thread - if you compare what women are doing now to what they were doing in the 1950s, versus the equivalent workload for a man, the fact is we're doing 40-50 hours a week at work AND 40-50 hours a week at home.

Most couples will admit that the housework is not shared 50/50 between both partners - certainly not when children are involved. However the working week in terms of time spent in a paying job is similar or identical - but the woman is likely to be earning less than her partner.

There will be women who respond to this thread who are in their early 20s, and they'll shout about how they earn the same as if not more than their boyfriend, but the sad fact is that in 10 years he'll most probably have outstripped you in both promotion and earnings. If you want children, he'll also have outstripped you in where work sits in his list of personal priorities, and unfortunately society will probably have you feeling guilty over that.

We're breeding generations of sociopathic children because the importance of motherhood in the early life of a child has been belittled and denegrated, with a disturbing growing view that a woman who chooses to stay home with her child while her man works is somehow being lazy. The economic situation in western Europe has bulldozed motherhood, whereby couples have to both work to have an acceptable standard of living with the growth in house prices and the cost of living, even if one would rather stay at home with the child. At the same time as science is discovering how vital one to one interaction is in the development of a small child, we're abandoning our children to group daycare at an earlier and earlier age because of economic pressures.

I don't believe marriages are failing more because people don't take them so seriously, as much as that marriages are failing more because never before have our relationships been beset with difficulty and inflated expectations from all sides the way they are now.

And who the hell would want to be a bloke, trying to 'court' a woman against this backdrop? Will she slap you or blow you if you bring her flowers? Are you allowed to be worried about her if she's drinking herself into a stupor at the weekends with her girlfriends? If you turn up to take her home, are you being controlling? Should you pay for her, or should she pay half of everything? Well currently she pays half of everything, but you're going out five years now and you've just been promoted and you know you earn €25,000 a year more than she does. Can you bring her on holidays and offer to pay for her? You're pretty sure she might have a credit card debt, but she still insists on paying half the rent on the apartment you chose. (You'll be very impressed when you propose to her and just before the wedding it turns out she does have a credit card debt. Except it's a €20,000 loan with the bank that she's used to pay off her three credit cards because she could never afford to keep up with your joint lifestyle.)

The world has gone crazy. We wonder how to treat each other because we can't figure out what our respective roles are supposed to be. She's trying to be an independent, hard drinking, hard working ladette with her mates, and you're trying to resist every fibre of your blokish being that says she's being a slut, so now she thinks you're a controlling menace who could turn into a domestic abuser, and you just wish she'd be more like your mother only because your father taught you it was your job to be the provider while she was the home maker, but your girlfriend looks at you as though a home maker was something that banged two stones together outside the cave entrance to make a fire, while secretly she's maxing out her credit card shopping for 200 pairs of high heels because that's what makes a woman sexy these days, and she's hoping she'll be promoted at the end of the next quarter but she suspects that Bob beside her is going to be promoted instead, and she wishes the doctor would sign her off for stress but she's afraid she'll be unemployable if that happens, and at the same time she's sick to death of spending her weekends hoovering your flat, picking up your socks and cleaning the toilet so she wants to go out on a bender with her mates, except you'll make an issue out of that and make her feel like a bad person, and all the while her mother is dropping hints the size of grand pianos about marriage and children and being left on the shelf, but the fact is she's afraid to say she wants to get married in case you run a mile and won't admit to wanting children in case her friends all howl with laughter.

No wonder we're all miserable.

Curlypinkie

Minesajackdaniels: brilliantly put. I have never never been in favour of marriages ust because they've become watered down versions of whatever used to be. But eralier today I saw Hedda Gabler and in fairness, would not want to back in those days. At all.

At least I can go home, drunk, to my flat and write sh8te on the interweb so all is not rubbish but I'm not sure, I might have been happier marrying the first love of my life (as was planned back then).
Sorry for incoherency myself, that what you get opening a thread at after midnight :rolleyes:

Cmol

garbanzo wrote: »

Mother of jayzus..... that is a fairly deep post for a Sat night Cmol. Where do you start from.

Sorry, have run out of ideas... !

Curlypinkie wrote: »

Sorry for incoherency myself, that what you get opening a thread at after midnight :rolleyes:

I know, sorry - shows how exciting my saturday night was :pac:

Minesajackdaniels: Brilliantly put!

Weve all had the 'Girls can do anything' mantra drilled into us over and over and again and while im not disputing that at all, I think weve taken that and morphed it into 'Girls must do everything'
We're trying to take on the world and end up spreading ourselves too thinly - somethings always going to give after a while and unfortunately from what ive seen its the marriage that gives way before anything else.

I love your bit about Men courting Women too, I know myself I like to be able to pay my own way, id feel far too guilty expecting the man the pay for everything... for what reason?! I work fulltime, theres no reason I shouldnt be paying for my own drinks! In saying that though, I dont think any of us would turn our noses up at a nice meal and some flowers . I just dont think that men should be expected to pay the womans way.

CathyMoran

I dont think that romance is dead, the only way that I would ever leave my hubby would be if he abused me, but he would never do that so it is a non-issue, marriage is for life for me.

I was all about putting my career first but then I met my hubby and he made me realise that it is far more important to earn a little less and not be in the rat race, we work in the same building, see one another commuting in, for morning break, lunch and going home and he helps around the house (I am recovering from an illness so he does the housework). I realise that I am incrediblly lucky but there are options like that available if you just look.

We both put a lot of effort into our relationship but we get far more out of it than we could ever dream. It was not always like this for us, I had a change in life priorities 2 years ago which has made my life infinitly better.

,8,1

The "Glass Ceiling" does not exist; it's feminist propaganda nonsense that is well past its sell-by date.

We live in a Matriarchy, ladies. Your arguments are void. :pac:

Reku

Well thought out post Minesajackdaniels.

Cmol wrote: »

Weve all had the 'Girls can do anything' mantra drilled into us over and over and again and while im not disputing that at all, I think weve taken that and morphed it into 'Girls must do everything'
We're trying to take on the world and end up spreading ourselves too thinly - somethings always going to give after a while and unfortunately from what ive seen its the marriage that gives way before anything else.

As I've posted in TLL before, the problem is the stupid idea that men get/got to have it all, or that it is even possible to have it all. NO-ONE gets to have it all, life is always a series of choices, constantly making choices and losing and gaining according to what we feel is most important to us. Being no more than an armchair manager, from the office, in the lives of their kids is hardly getting to have it all, unfortunately the grass is always greener....
The next few decades are going to be rather chaotic as both genders try to redefine themselves;
women - in being both carers and providers
men - in being both protectors and emotional & attractive beings

Throw in the confused, role modeless kids that are being raised and will be raised while this goes on and for a long time there will be a lot of unhappy and angry young adults trying to figure out how they are supposed to fit in and find somewhere they belong.

Zaph

,8,1 wrote: »

The "Glass Ceiling" does not exist; it's feminist propaganda nonsense that is well past its sell-by date.

We live in a Matriarchy, ladies. Your arguments are void. :pac:

Do you think you're likely to have anything useful to contribute to the discussion in the future? If so, we'd love to hear it. If not, please go away and annoy someone else.

BroomBurner

I don't believe romance is dead at all. I think moving marriage away from the Church is increasing romance as people are choosing more carefully about who they want to spend their lives with so as to avoid getting divorced. As much as it means there is an "out", who wants to be looking for a new mate saying that they are divorced 3/4 times? Tbh, I would be wondering what was wrong with him, if it was a guy several times married.

I do believe that people are not giving enough thought to their home lives though. I think we're caught in a transition of changing attitudes, particularly among men. A lot of men would have grown up with mammies that kept the house tidy and clean, did all their washing, etc. and are used to this being the womanly role. However, when they eventually move out of home and in to a place with a partner, they can not understand why everything is not shipshape and blame their partners. Their partners would (more than likely) be from the generation of women that work and have the expectation of men doing equal amounts of housework.

Give it a couple of generations and we may actually see the end of Irish Mammy Syndrome!

Wibbs

Great post by minesajackdaniels.

Honest hat on and speaking as a guy, I would have to say at this stage of my life I'm rather jaded about the whole romance, marriage lark. I could no longer be particularly arsed trying to navigate the ins and outs of the often daft etiquette of many couple encounters or striving to find out what many women want, when in the majority of cases they have no clue themselves. I have found all too often that they don't know what they want, but have a feeling they're not quite satisfied. Of course too often the guy gets the blame for that.

Don't get me wrong. I like women. I've very very close mates that are women, who have been incredibly supportive and simply have been there for me over the years above and beyond the call of duty etc. They're some of the strongest people I know. I will say this though, it's because they're not my girlfriends. There is no way on earth I would go out with them. I've seen the crap they've given boyfriends over the years. To the point where I considered they had an evil twin that I never met. I would literally trust these people with my life, but if I was sleeping with them longterm I would trust them as far as I could throw them. Kinda weird.

Then again I'm 41 so maybe being jaded is par for the course. What does surprise me are the amount of young men who would be similar of not more jaded than me. Look at AH and the amount of threads about irish women/fat chix/bitches in niteclubs etc. IMHO it's bugger all to do with Irish women being any different. It's a level of male mistrust of women that goes quite deep. Irish women are just a focus of that. The men need a fantasy land where women are emotionally consistent, eternally pretty and most importantly loyal and available(apparently that's Poland at the moment:D:rolleyes:). It is a fantasy land though. I say this about "women" only because I'm a man interested in same. I'm quite sure there would be a similar list of issues about men(there's a thread about it here so... )


I would also say that the cathymoran experience of a loving couple is by a long shot the rarest out there. At my age I've seen enough couples and have been in enough to say that on balance really good couples where both grow as better people by being together are rare. Very rare. Really bad couples are more common, but really the most common are couples where it's alrightish. It's not bad, it's not good, it's just meh. Personally I want more. I would rather be on my lonesome than be stuck in mundane land. I couldn't just "settle". maybe that's just me though.

Curlypinkie wrote:

but I'm not sure, I might have been happier marrying the first love of my life (as was planned back then).

Funny I was only thinking of that very thing not too long ago. I know a hell of a lot of people, men and women, who would have been better off with the first/"the one", love in their past. I've had both men and women friends tell me just that(and they're married to others).

The really good couples I mentioned earlier that I know in every case but one they were each others first truly adult love. IMHO the more times you fall in love, the more jaded you become with the failure of that. I reckon that goes double for men actually. We really learn to close off. IMHO I don't think we're as emotionally adaptable as women in this regard. I've known women (not teenyboppers either) who can fall in love one after the other with seemingly similar vigour. I know no men like that. Our mechanism doesn't reset so easily. That would be my take on it with the men I know and have known. Speaking for myself, I've been in love twice and there was a 12 year gap between them. I wouldn't be so sure of a third time. If I'm honest i would say I would defo hold back in future. Funny old world.

As for glass ceilings? I have no clue, having never had a "proper job". I would say this that I prefer dealing with women in business in general. less bullshít basically and easier going.

cson

This is a bit ranty, but how and ever....

I'm 20 and I'm already jaded with romance and all that. In my experience, the only way you can meet women my age is to go out pubbing and clubbing. Where most of them will be drunk and you'll never find out what they're really like because they'll hook up with you and that'll be that. Just another random fella I "scored". Believe me, young women are as bad as young men in this regard, they see their mates hook up with someone and its as if they're in heat or something. It may seem strange coming from a 20yr old male, but I'm utterly disillusioned by the way most of my peers act. I find it hard to describe the emptiness I feel after a one night stand. There's just nothing there for me.

If you try and talk to women outside of the pub and club setting you get the strangest looks and the shortest answers. I've lost count of the amount of times I've tried to start talking to women at bus stops/libraries/shops/lectures/wherever and 90% of the time the response is the same; reach for that universal defence mechanism that is the mobile phone. Automatically be wary of the fella who just approached or started chatting to you. Note that this is just my own experience (Maybe its cos I smell? ). I find that women my age are very, very immature this way.

And the next thing (this goes for anyone in their 20s too). Ask them where they'll be in 10yrs and the answer is almost uniform; good job-married-kids-house. Ask them when they'll get married and its almost exclusively the 27-28-29 mark. Who they'll marry? Well, they don't know yet but he/she will be perfect. Which astounds me. When you hit your late 20s does Mr/Ms Right just magically fall out of the sky into your lap and live happily ever after? Most of my peers seem to think so.

This is a reason I think that a lot of Marriages fail in Ireland. Granted the institution of marriage isn't held in the same regard as our parents and grandparents would have held it, its still seen as the "done thing" by the majority in this country. Personally, I think nowadays its a big exercise in self-aggrandization. There is nothing like the sight of one of womans best friends getting married to make her all broody and lonesome for a fella. You get scared of being left behind as one by one your friends settle down. You end up picking the next fella walking by, walking up the alter with him and bang you're not the odd one out anymore. And this is dangerous, and I think a reason why we've so many unhappy couples in Ireland. Take a look at PI and you'll see it - don't love my wife/hubby anymore. People get too comfortable, they don't realise a relationship and marriage is dynamic not static and you have to continually work at it.

So where does this leave me? Off to the priesthood? :P Nah, I'll stay doing what I'm doing, I'll stay trying to chat to everyone and anyone in the romantic hope that one day I might be telling my kids I met their mother at a bus stop only because I missed the bus!

Wibbs

cson wrote: »

I'm 20 and I'm already jaded with romance and all that.

That's the bit that lately has surprised and saddened me tbh. You would not be the only one either. Now when I was 20 I was so open to the whole romance thing. Wide eyed and hopeful etc. Complete sap truth be told. Being a love lorn sap is part and parcel of being 20 imho and thank the starts for that too. It's bad enough that so many have middle aged spread around their guts in their 20's it's worse that they have middle aged spread around their hearts and minds as well.

cson

Wibbs wrote: »

That's the bit that lately has surprised and saddened me tbh. You would not be the only one either. Now when I was 20 I was so open to the whole romance thing. Wide eyed and hopeful etc. Complete sap truth be told. Being a love lorn sap is part and parcel of being 20 imho and thank the starts for that too. It's bad enough that so many have middle aged spread around their guts in their 20's it's worse that they have middle aged spread around their hearts and minds as well.

Ah I haven't given up hope yet! I do feel about 10 years older than I am though

I really agree with your point about relationships though. Its something I notice amongst my friends myself. Some girl-friends I have, can fly in an out of short and long term relationships no problem. They almost feel inadequate if they aren't seeing someone. Most of my mates who've left LTRs or even ones of a few months take an awful lot longer to have one again. As you said Wibbs, they close up and I'd say the reason for that is they're afraid of feeling something for someone and ending up tossed aside or things not working out. The aftermath of a break-up is hard for both parties but again from my experience the women find it far easier to get over it and start again.

On the flip side I have female and male friends who are more than happy to be riding around like theres no tomorrow. A lot of people would say thats the right attitude to have in College and while I wouldn't disagree, do it for long enough and you'll get disillusioned, detached from reality and end up not being able to commit yourself to a relationship.

Doghouse

farohar wrote: »

Throw in the confused, role modeless kids that are being raised and will be raised while this goes on and for a long time there will be a lot of unhappy and angry young adults trying to figure out how they are supposed to fit in and find somewhere they belong.

I think it's a mistake to think that the children of people couples who both work and must therefore negotiate their family life in a way different from how their parents did will necessarily grow up to be confused or lacking role models. Unlike it seems most people in their early 30s/late 20s I grew up with parents who both worked full-time. It was also a scenario in which my mother was the main earner although she worked shorter hours than my father, and they both shared household duties though to be fair she did the greater amount. I think it's fair to say of myself and my siblings that we all have a huge respect for our mother and no residual problems as a result of her not being there every day when we came home from school. The same goes for our dad. It's also fair to say that none of us (nor indeed anyone else I've met who had two parents who worked...though that's quite possibly not everyone's experience) are nearly as confused by 'our place' in society as some other people seem to be. In my experience it's only ever been people who had a parent who stayed at home full-time who feel that not having a stay-home parent is detrimental. Children are extremely adaptable and the next generation will no doubt adjust to their roles as men/women/humans as well or as badly as humans have ever done. After all, the idea of one parent working/one staying at home is relatively recent in the history of the world.

As an aside to this, I personally think it's unrealistic to think you can work full-time and still dedicate adequate time to your relationship/kids while maintaining the same 'domestic standards' (for want of a better phrase) as you would have if you stayed at home all day. By that I mean that your place might be a bit messier or your meals a little less elaborate than you might like but if something's got to give (which, unless you have superhuman energy and organisational skills, it will) then in my opinion anyway that would be first on my list.

Apologies if the above is off-topic from the OP's original post. To answer the OP's questions: personally I've never been a big fan of the idea of marriage. I love my boyfriend and sure sometimes I think the big party would be nice but overall I'm a bit sceptical about the idea of staying with one person forever. One thing FOR SURE there's no way I'd get married without the option of divorce being present. Ok, it renders the 'til death do us part' bit ridiculous and I'm sure few people marry without hoping it'll last forever but if things go wrong (and they do, despite people's best intentions) at least the couple have the possibility of finding happiness again instead of spending their lives in miserable circumstances.

As for the glass ceiling, I think it exists but perhaps in a less blatant way than previously. Not saying old boys clubs and sexist bosses don't exist (they sure do as I've worked for them) but they're hopefully a dying breed. I've read some interesting research on how companies with more informal progression structures make it more difficult for women to advance as promotions are often the result of friendships forged during social activities, which women (or indeed men) with family responsibilities or different social inclincations are unable to partake in. I think it is possible for women to achieve the same as men but only if they make sacrifices in their personal lives (not necessarily kids but even just stuff like time with your partner and reduced social life, not to mention increased stress). I also think that men also have and have had to make the same sacrifices. It depends on what you prioritise. I still believe it's having the choice that's important. The decisions you make and where that takes you is then your own responsibility.

Macha

Has romance died? No, there's just a more equal-playing field now. Although, I do wish women didn't always leave it to the man to do the asking out etc. I like the American idea of actual "dates", where you can get to know each other with no sense of commitment in the beginning. Here, I dunno..we seem to freak out about dates a bit...

As another poster said, it is vital that people are able to get out of an unhappy marriage. Perhaps this does lead more people into marriage too quickly but on the balance, I'd rather that than have many, many unhappy couples forced to stay together.

Glass ceiling is still there, although it's getting a bit thinner..The changing role of women in society has had an effect on the relationships between men and women. Has it been detrimental? Only insofar as men can't count on their wives to act as brood mares and house maids while they strut off to work every day. No, I think it is a fantastic thing. A true relationship can only be one that is based on total equality of two partners. Now, I'm a better cook than my OH and he does a great job fixing my bike but we are still equal, just different. That's the big difference.

Historically, women's advancement in the workplace (and exit from home life) has always come at times of economic need, for example during WWII. The most recent example in Ireland is the Celtic Tiger and the creation of 80,000 jobs every year that had to be filled - by students, immigrants, women, whoever. Unfortunately, the structures in our society have not also been altered to accommodate this change.As a result, there is a vacuum in the home that women have stepped out of, definitely.

So we have a contradictory society with a constitution that recognises the place of the woman in the home (:rolleyes:) and endeavours to ensure that she won't have to work outside the home for economic reasons. But at the same time, economically women have been forced out of the home (and many have chosen to do so as their right) but no support has been given (flexi-time, creches). Even when men/husbands want to help, legally the government still act as if women are still at home and not working (no paternity leave).

So of course this situation creates friction between men, women, their work and their children. What we need is a government that recognises the role of women outside the home and acts accordingly to support both partners. Then we might see a bit more romance.