I was much lonelier in my marriage than I have been since my divorce. This has been very eye opening.
Being alone and being lonely are not the same thing and not necessarily even related. Loneliness is an unmet emotional hunger that is not automatically met by being around other people.
Being lonely while not alone is a kind of hell that simply being alone does not begin to match. While married, I really thought I could never tolerate being single. But it turns out my marriage was emotionally vampiric and actively draining me of any ability to experience contentment.
My post divorce experience has not gone remotely like I expected. It has been wonderfully better than the dystopian nightmare I had envisioned for so very long.
Which is not a rebuttal of your remarks. Just some late night thoughts on the topic that hopefully add something to the conversation.
Looking back with hindsight, were there any signs he would not have been a good husband before getting married? Did any of your friends tried to warn you against getting married to him?
Looking back, I made the best choice available to me in an imperfect world. He wasn't a bad husband, though I would have been happier if he had been more attentive.
So your ex preferred sex over social contact with you, as the poster above mentions the use of pornography over social contact; and between the lines, you prefer a free social life over the dominance of sex (apart from other issues your marriage might have had).
Sounds like a familiar source of contention...
Without wanting to generalise individual needs, I wonder if men and women are having trouble bridging their differences now there is less pressure of being a married couple. I imagine that's a large factor in young people trying to stay independent for longer.
So your ex preferred sex over social contact with you...you prefer a free social life over the dominance of sex
No. And your inaccurate inference is obnoxious.
I wonder if men and women are having trouble bridging their differences now there is less pressure of being a married couple.
This is heteronormative. I see no reason to believe that it is only heterosexuals who are putting off sex.
It wasn't all that long ago that people who were not heterosexual felt enormous social pressure to appear to be heterosexual. As one example: A friend of the family dated women for some years before embracing the fact that he was gay and establishing a committed long term relationship with another man.
These days, people have more latitude for arranging their lives where they don't have to put on such appearances while figuring themselves out. Being able to meet potential dates online goes a long way towards reducing or eliminating certain social elements from the process that can be insidious if you can't avoid them.
So I assumed wrong. I assume my own life experiences filtered through then – my apologies.
Of course any discussion about popularity of and reasons for marriage over the last century or so is "heteronormative", for obvious reasons. Still I think men and women experience sex differently, even beyond individual needs. I have several gay friends, but I can't really tell whether any differences they have in sexual needs would be amplified if they were a different gender, potentially influenced by different biological needs.
The title of the piece is Why are today's teens putting off driving, dating and drinking? So, the discussion here is not about popularity of and reasons for marriage over the last century.
Being alone and being lonely are not the same thing and not necessarily even related. Loneliness is an unmet emotional hunger that is not automatically met by being around other people.
Being lonely while not alone is a kind of hell that simply being alone does not begin to match. While married, I really thought I could never tolerate being single. But it turns out my marriage was emotionally vampiric and actively draining me of any ability to experience contentment.
My post divorce experience has not gone remotely like I expected. It has been wonderfully better than the dystopian nightmare I had envisioned for so very long.
Which is not a rebuttal of your remarks. Just some late night thoughts on the topic that hopefully add something to the conversation.