Marrying young can work – my mother was only 16 and had known my father a short while before their wedding in war-torn Greece.
What is tragic about Peaches Geldof is her bleak description of marriage today. The 19-year-old married three months ago in a Las Vegas chapel to musician Max Drummey, a man she had only dated for a week, having only met him the month before. She said:
"You can’t ignore divorce rates. Every friend of mine has parents who are now divorced. I didn’t go into it with Max thinking, ‘This is going to last forever,’ but I did go into it thinking, ‘I love him right now and I know that I will continue to love him for a long while."
I suspect that many young people today feel the same way as Peaches, but that they would rather not, that they would prefer to have a more optimistic view.
I feel sorry for Peaches who doesn’t have happily married role model friends around her, this might have given her more confidence about relationships.
How often do we listen to what young people like Peaches say about marriage and divorce? It sounds to me like she is being realistic, and yes, it is a tragic admission, especially as less than half marriages are doomed to fail within 10 years.
If she finds one day she needs advice on being divorced and wants to stay friends with her ex, maybe Fergie can help. She describes herself and Prince Andrew as "the happiest unmarried couple."
I think the difference here is, your mother went into the relationship in a positive way.
Peaches comment is negative, the thought paves a path for the future.
I agree proper roll models are the key for a more positive outlook.
and Miss Right?
Ellee you should read “How to tell if a guy is a jerk” blog by Jennifer Jones. Hilarious
Yes, I guess this applies just as much to men who rush in to matrimony, though we tend to hear much less about them.
I think your mother and father were lucky as the odds for marriage at such a young age are not good.
I guess that examples of long lived marriages are rare for the young folks of today and so they easily acquire this attitude. Sad, isn’t it?
I agree, it is very sad that people have this attitude towards marriage. Says a lot about our ridiculous divorce laws in this country, which make it totally unnecessary to commit to someone.
http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com
My parents married young and are still together. In fact, the odds really were stacked against them as my mother was an underage mother who disappointed her parents greatly by getting pregnant instead of revising for her O Levels. They worked at their marriage and it has survived. My mother went on to study for a maths degree as a mature student and all is right in their world despite a rocky start.
So I had excellent role models and yet I have never stuck it with anyone for more than 10 years. I have stopped seeing that as failure. I think some people are suited to long term relationships and others are not. In the past everyone had to work at a relationship and stick with it – or not have one at all I suppose – and I am sure very many people were unhappy a lot of the time. Now it has swung the other way and people who might be suited to long term relationships get out of them too quickly without giving them a proper chance.
I think we need to be positive about relationships but realistic about ourselves and what we are like.
lol Elle,
I’ve never been divorced
mind you that could be because I never married
Well let me see now,
if I’d married only half of my girlfriends
that would mean I would have divorced …
oh no – how many times?
Maybe Peaches has inherited the ‘Tosser’ gene from her dad.
Good post, Ellee, but I don’t think married parents are necesarily a guarantee of marital longevity. I think that depends more on the person you marry and the society you generally keep. Of course if your married parents have brought you up to be servile and to accept that being bullied/dominated is your lot in life then any marriage you make, happy or otherwise, is going to last forever.
Forever is no indicator of happiness.
I forgot to say that your parents were obviously lucky in love. I envy that 🙂
Wants intelligence and doesn’t go for looks…..sounds like a father look alike to me. All very sad, divorce is an awful thing to go through no matter how young you are or friendly the split.