Marriage - what's it good for?

There is a lot of hand-wringing and soul-searching about high divorce rates in the Western world today, but I think, as a divorced person, that it's not necessarily such a bad thing. In the bad old days, when divorce was difficult, how many couples had to stay together to the bitter end in misery? There are so many tragic novels and plays about unhappy marriages: A Dolls' house, Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary etc etc. The overall level of happiness in society is probably higher with a high divorce rate. If you get out of a bad marriage, you have all kinds of problems, but along with them you have a very very precious thing: hope of finding something better one day.

In my case, I was trapped in an "empty shell" marriage with somebody with whom I had nothing in common. We had not enough in common intellectually to string a decent conversation together (she never read a book in all the years I knew her and only watched appalling soap operas on TV). She was also a very cold person with no interest in physical displays of affection, no cuddles let alone sex (yes, there were two children, but sex was a three or four times a year activity, and it was clear she was doing her duty).

The moment when I decided I had to get out was when I found myself saying to myself "Solitude would be better than this". At least if you are lonely on your own you have some privacy. If you are lonely with someone else around you don't have meaningful company or privacy. Every time I feel lonely now, I remind myself that it's better than what came before.

I suggested counselling, but she refused point-blank, and also refused to take any responsibility for the situation, insisting that I had to change but not her. So there was nothing more to say.

I take full responsibility for marrying somebody unsuitable, and the last thing I want is sympathy (sympathy is for losers).

My attitude to marriage now is that although I would dearly love to find a committed lifelong relationship, the institution of marriage itself has no added value whatever,and actually harms relationships. It takes a couple of hours to get married and two years of courts and lawyers' fees to get out of it. Sure, you can do a pre-nup, but if you feel you have to do a pre-nup before getting married, what's the point of marriage anyway - just to get tax breaks? Marriage is not romantic, it's anti-romantic, because it encourages complacency in a relationship. If either person can easily get out at any time, that makes both people more aware of the need to make a constant effort every day to water and feed the relationship.

If two people feel they need to get married to show their commitment to each other, that's a sign of insecurity in their relationship. My analogy of marriage is two people getting into a cage together, locking the door from the inside, then throwing the key out between the bars, so far away that they can't reach it anymore. How can that be a good sign of commitment?

I understand people getting married once (it's good to be young, idealistic, naïve), but I don't understand second-time-arounders doing it. Once you've been divorced once, you should be inoculated against marriage. Not against romance, not against commitment, but against that particular outmoded institution.

And if anybody says, why do all religions advocate marriage to protect social stability, well, Buddhism doesn't. There is no institution of marriage in Buddhism, which is a very respectable religion. And don't reply that Buddhist contries like Thailand have high rates of prostitution and other anti-social practices, because Western societies do too (I'll come back to prostitution in a later blog).

No, marriage should be abolished, in order to promote social stability and better family life (and to reduce the need for lawyers).

RIP marriage!

Oscar

Why this blog?

OK, so now I'm a blogger, one of millions out there. Why am I bothering? First, because I find writing very cathartic, and I have a lot of issues in my life which I feel the need to be cathartic about (aftermath of divorce, handling expatriation and homesickness, coping with loneliness and depression, trying to handle the sheer exhaustion of being a part-time single parent with a full-time job, being on the dating scene in my mid-40s after years away from it).

Why am I doing it in public, and not a private diary? Just because there might be some people out there in similar situations who stumble upon this blog and find some things in common that we can exchange ideas about. I don't suppose there will be many such people, maybe none at all, but who knows, there may be some. If nobody ever discovers it, then it's no different from a paper diary anyway.

Why am I doing it anonymously? Because I don't see any point in doing a blog if there are taboos or no-go areas.It has to be no-holds-barred, warts and all, including embarassing stuff (for example, I have resorted to using escorts from time to time, and I'll talk about that). I have a responsible job in a big company (I'm not famous or anything), and I don't want any colleague or friend who stumbles on this to recognise me. There are things you can't say to your friends, because you don't want to burden them, but you can say them to strangers instead (paradoxical but true - you can pay a shrink to listen but blog readers are cheaper ;-)

OK, here are the basics about me (reeally basic to avoid recognition). I'm British but I don't live in the UK. I'm divorced, from somebody who is not British, and there are two kids who have dual nationality and are bilingual. The kids are shared with my ex (I have the usual "alternate weekends and half of school holidays" arrangement). I have a good job, but it involves long hours, and exhaustion is a big issue when I'm alone with my kids at the weekend (I don't feel I do them justice). I earn much more than my ex, and I have to pay her humungous maintenance payments, even though it was a no-fault divorce (I'm kind of bitter about this, and trying to change it through the courts, though of course only the lawyers really win).

Since my separation from my ex, two years ago, I've been on the divorcee dating scene (I call it the "secondary market", based on stock market jargon), and it's been exhausting and frustrating, and so far fruitless. Loneliness is a real issue. I'll blog about that too.

Exhaustion, stress, loneliness, frustration, depression: I'll try not to make it too bleak, and introduce some humour here and there. But it is basically a tough life, and I am mainly trying to reach out to others in the same boat.

I have to give myself a name, so I'll call myself Oscar (I'm a big fan of Oscar Wilde, so why not!)

My next blog will be about why marriages fail, and the pros and cons of separation and divorce (something thoughtful, not just cathartic slagging-off of my ex!).

Oscar