Issues, just tattoo it on my forehead.

[pisces7378]

I don't mean to be the lone voice of opposition but...

I honestly think that Americans have become so ridiculously spoiled in so many areas of our lives, relationships are becoming an endangered concept. I was married for ten years to a German girl. I freaking ruined that relationship seven ways to Sunday. I gained 100 lbs., got us tens of thousands of dollars in debt doing stupid shit, drank beer like it was freaking oxygen, acted like a nine year old but would angrily demand that she treat me like a man, and then after ten years I left her for a 20 year old cashier.

But she never would have left me. Because she made a commitment. Us Americans have it literally THROBBING in our minds, 24/7 that no matter what, there is always something out there better for us. A better job, a better sexual partner, a better father for our kids...
It's just like being at work, and your boss says, "You'd better do good, because I have a stack of applications on my desk from people who'd love to do your job." So we all leave each other without having explained anything to the other. We just wake up one morning and think, "I can't do this anymore", and we're gone.

In 1865 do you think that people didn't have the same thoughts? Picture little Rosy McSoandso. She gets married at age 15 to some man who is ten years older than her. She has her first kid by 16 or 17, and has three by the time she's 21. When she's out raking the hay up behind the plow of her now depressed and constantly stressed to the max husband. Do you think that she doesn't have the same "I can't do this anymore" thoughts? Of course she does. So she goes to her mother or older sister and tells her what's on her mind. Her mother promptly slaps her face and says "Those kinds of thoughts are poison and will pass with time." And you know what... she's right. But the time Rosy is 30, she has literally grown up with her husband and new family. All her sisters are married, her mother's long dead now, and her husband and her look across the dinner table at each other when little Timmy is talking about moving to the big city to go to college, and they smile, because they have been through every disease, natural disaster, infidelity, fear, and pain life has... and they made it.

Now, juxtapose that with your average 30 year old divorcee who never had kids because he/she wasn't sure if their partner or themselves was "ready" for kids or could afford them. And they constantly wanted to focus on their career. Plus each one of them's friends have all been married and divorced, and the one's with kids had the worst time of it. So, they end up leaving their partner because they need more independence and they have made up their mind that they will never end up like their mom and dad, or if they are divorced, they will never let another man/woman treat them like the last one did...

So they watch re-runs of Sex and the City eating ice cream alone on their 31st birthday.

I don't know... I am UBER-cynical, I know. But the emotional laziness, and pretentiousness we all have these days just grosses me out. My ex-wife, who put up with all that I threw at her for 10 years, deserves a medal.

[Gigabitch]

Um, I'm an American and I stuck with a guy much like yourself for 10 years because I had made a commitment. I got out before the 20 year old cashier,thing happened, though. This is not an American problem. It's a "modern man" problem.

[IndiReloaded]

So, what are you saying Pisces? That your GF was good to stay with you for so long, or dumb not to have thrown your bum-ass out sooner?

Unless you had kids (can't remember), I'm inclined to the latter opinion.

[flea]

This is not an American problem. It's a "modern man" problem.

hmmm....I don't think we should ALL be tarred with the same brush, some of us do grow up and realise the errors of our ways.