Marriage
Do Purple WomenTM and their male (or female) counterparts have higher relationship success rate? It has been pondered. We do not have the added pressures of raising the next generation after all. I wonder what a study would reveal if one could be put together. Alas, we, the childfree, are too small a subset to examine, but I have been reflecting lately on marriages.
Last fall, my husband and I re-entered life our former life in Norther California and have been busy reconnecting with our intimate friends since. Perhaps being out of the coutry has shielded us from the reality, but many relationships around us are failing. We all know the divorce rate is uncomfortably high in the U.S. Love brings us together, somethimes it produces a baby, sometimes not...but what keeps us together?
I honestly do not know. I read an article recently in which the CEO of a professtional matchmaker firm was talking about why people should use an expensive service like hers instead of relying on a web-based site like Match.com. One woman wrote a seven page essay on her ideal mate. The CEO was encouraging of this. It made me think about how little effort I put into my social life and still I got lucky and found my Tom. Did our two souls just know each other from a previous life? Somehow we found each other in the primordial soup of this life.
A friend of ours whose wife just left him after only one year said to me:
"You need to be a happy on your own first, You cannot depend on or expect your mate to be responsible for how you feel. You have to live in the moment."
He was determined not to let this crush him emotionally. I think he was trying to say that it important to take responsiblity for your own happiness. If you are not happy, you have to look for yourself first. It does require a certain self-reliance and introspection. This sounds a lot like a Buddhist tennet of accepting responsibility for your outcomes, in a universally kharmic sense. Not unlike the aboriginal boomarang, what you put out there just may come back to you. Not unlike the Christian's belief that "God helps those who help themselves".
I believe a successfull relationship has more to do with this attitude and acceptance of yourself and your mate than the decision to have or not to have children.
What do you think?
Flickr photo by switchpack (cc)
Technorati Tag: Childfree