Comments on: Happily Unmarried http://www.boomercafe.com/2008/09/29/happily-unmarried/ The online magazine for baby boomers with active lifestyles Tue, 07 Sep 2010 07:33:28 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Anonymous http://www.boomercafe.com/2008/09/29/happily-unmarried/comment-page-1/#comment-2529 Anonymous Sun, 06 Sep 2009 20:45:19 +0000 http://www.boomercafe.com/?p=1009#comment-2529 To Art: As we Baby Boomers used to say, back in the days when many of us were doing the shacking up the article refers to: “We don’t need a piece of paper (i.e. marriage license) to legitimize our feelings for each other.” Sounds like you and your “significant other” are coexisting just fine using that same philosophy. Kudos. I suspect, however, that it is your greater maturity (as opposed to being married to your former spouses “when we were both young”) that is making your current relationship work, more than any promise or lack thereof. The records of filings for divorce in the state of California reveal the following interesting statistics: If the male is under age 26 at the time of the marriage, he stands a 70% chance of the marriage failing. Same holds true for a female under the age of 24 at the time of the marriage. The odds of a marriage surviving goes up the older the couple are when they take their vows. Also, if the couple has a child within the first year of marriage, they have a 40% greater chance that the marriage will fail. Sounds like you hit ALL the wrong buttons with your first marriage. So, now that you are both over age 40, are “empty nesters” with no children living with you, and do not plan to have any future children, perhaps you need not be concerned about whether to make vows to each other. The odds of your relationship enduring has gone waaay up. By the way ... I’m loathe to mention this, but ...You are only 2 years younger than the youngest Baby Boomers. If you were born in 1967, odds are you are not “a boomer’s kid” as you suggest. (Unless your parents are among the very oldest Boomers and had you at age 21 or younger, you are more likely to be offspring of what is often called the Silent Generation, those born 1925 to 1945). Best wishes for a long, happy, loving relationship ... with or without promises. As the Beatles sang, “All you need is love!” To Art:
As we Baby Boomers used to say, back in the days when many of us were doing the shacking up the article refers to: “We don’t need a piece of paper (i.e. marriage license) to legitimize our feelings for each other.” Sounds like you and your “significant other” are coexisting just fine using that same philosophy. Kudos. I suspect, however, that it is your greater maturity (as opposed to being married to your former spouses “when we were both young”) that is making your current relationship work, more than any promise or lack thereof.

The records of filings for divorce in the state of California reveal the following interesting statistics: If the male is under age 26 at the time of the marriage, he stands a 70% chance of the marriage failing. Same holds true for a female under the age of 24 at the time of the marriage. The odds of a marriage surviving goes up the older the couple are when they take their vows. Also, if the couple has a child within the first year of marriage, they have a 40% greater chance that the marriage will fail. Sounds like you hit ALL the wrong buttons with your first marriage.

So, now that you are both over age 40, are “empty nesters” with no children living with you, and do not plan to have any future children, perhaps you need not be concerned about whether to make vows to each other. The odds of your relationship enduring has gone waaay up.

By the way … I’m loathe to mention this, but …You are only 2 years younger than the youngest Baby Boomers. If you were born in 1967, odds are you are not “a boomer’s kid” as you suggest. (Unless your parents are among the very oldest Boomers and had you at age 21 or younger, you are more likely to be offspring of what is often called the Silent Generation, those born 1925 to 1945).

Best wishes for a long, happy, loving relationship … with or without promises. As the Beatles sang, “All you need is love!”

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]]> By: Art http://www.boomercafe.com/2008/09/29/happily-unmarried/comment-page-1/#comment-2528 Art Sat, 05 Sep 2009 23:39:49 +0000 http://www.boomercafe.com/?p=1009#comment-2528 I was born in 1967, which makes me a boomer’s kid, the so-called “Generation X”. My parents did stay together, and it was not unusual for parents of friends to stay together as well. I married a woman two years younger than I am when we were both young. After two kids and seventeen years, the marriage was over (her idea, not mine). It was difficult for me to consider another serious relationship, and I swore to myself I wouldn’t ever marry again. Fortunately I found someone else who is my age as well, and also divorced with children, albeit younger by a few years than my own. We decided to “shack up”, but both have promised ourselves that we will never marry again. We aren’t having children together, and we are both effectively “empty nesters” due to contentious divorce and visitation issues with her ex and mine while my children were still minors. We never did any of the formal planning you suggest, and we’re getting on to two years now on the premise of mutual love and respect quite well. We have a mutual objective of enjoying what time we have left together, be it five years or fifty. Perhaps we’re jaded, but promises just don’t seem to carry the same weight as they did before “till death do us part” was breached. Now it’s a promise we are keeping to ourselves that we’re going to be happy together or we’re going to be finding someone else to do that with. This gives both of us the assurance that we’re together because we want to be, not because of a promise to stay together. I was born in 1967, which makes me a boomer’s kid, the so-called “Generation X”. My parents did stay together, and it was not unusual for parents of friends to stay together as well. I married a woman two years younger than I am when we were both young. After two kids and seventeen years, the marriage was over (her idea, not mine). It was difficult for me to consider another serious relationship, and I swore to myself I wouldn’t ever marry again. Fortunately I found someone else who is my age as well, and also divorced with children, albeit younger by a few years than my own.

We decided to “shack up”, but both have promised ourselves that we will never marry again. We aren’t having children together, and we are both effectively “empty nesters” due to contentious divorce and visitation issues with her ex and mine while my children were still minors.

We never did any of the formal planning you suggest, and we’re getting on to two years now on the premise of mutual love and respect quite well. We have a mutual objective of enjoying what time we have left together, be it five years or fifty. Perhaps we’re jaded, but promises just don’t seem to carry the same weight as they did before “till death do us part” was breached. Now it’s a promise we are keeping to ourselves that we’re going to be happy together or we’re going to be finding someone else to do that with. This gives both of us the assurance that we’re together because we want to be, not because of a promise to stay together.

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