I'm not getting divorced, but other people are.

And they are telling interesting tales.

Every couple has a limit.

This week, I read This American Ex-Wife (Amazon affiliate link) by

lyz

Lenz. Lyz and I travel in similar writers’ circles, and I remember her telling some of the stories that ended up in this book. Lyz left her husband in 2016, after 11 years of marriage, in part because she wanted an equal partner and he, in practice, did not. A key part of her thesis is that the most efficient way to get her husband to step up to child care, do his share of the household chores, and support her work was to get a divorce with fifty-fifty joint custody.

This book is a very funny and nicely researched critique on marriage. I agree with much of what she says, including marriage shouldn’t be the de-facto social safety net in America. After all, traditional marriage involved entire households with deep community and kinship ties, not one man and one woman who then moved to a town where they knew no one and had to figure it all out, from how to hang drywall to who was going to the dishes. It’s not a surprise that one of the predictors of marital success is family income; having the ability to pay someone to do repairs, chores, and child care relieves couples of an enormous amount of stress.

L:yz also points out that marriage has a high failure rate. “If 40 percent of Honda CR-Vs had engine failures, Honda would issue a recall,” she says. Meanwhile, commentators prescribe marriage (and having children) as the cure to all that ails our nation, but they aren’t willing to do the things that would support married couples with children. Like, could someone please develop a logical, consistent school schedule? That wouldn’t even cost money!

On Valentine’s Day, New York Magazine published an essay by Emily Gould about her decision to stay married. Her situation was different from Lyz’s, and the story takes a different tack: what is it about families that tears us apart but also makes us whole?

We expect a lot from modern marriage. Professor Eli Finkel at Northwestern says that the current style of American marriage offers enormous benefits, but it is so all-encompassing that not every couple can meet its demands.

This marriage discussion is taking place against a backdrop of increasing loneliness. Last year, the Surgeon General issues a long report about the epidemic of loneliness and isolation in American society. Our communities suffer thanks to social media, the frayed social safety net, and a decline in civic participation. (My father was an active Rotarian, which his employer supported wholeheartedly—to the point that his secretary was allowed to do Rotary administration work on company time the year that my father was his club president. That era is long, long gone.)

I don’t know what the answer is. We need to reinvent current institutions or invent new ones, or we’re all going to suffer. So I will leave you with this:

“Life is short. We don't have much time to gladden the hearts of those who walk this way with us. So, be swift to love and make haste to be kind.”

―Henri-Frédéric Amiel