Did you know that I mostly write for eHow and you can see a bunch of my articles there? Honestly, it inspires me to write more tutorials on this site because the format there is very particular and super specific topics (such as those about WordPress or website maintenance) can seem a little out of place on eHow.
So I’m doing my first-turned-on-the-computer routine which includes checking e-mail and going through the featured articles on AIM today (otherwise, you know, I’d never read any news) and I come across this post about the pros and cons for marriage between men and women. Essentially, statistics show that marriage has some health advantages and disadvantages for either gender.
Now, I’m not going to get into the “men have a shorter lifespan than women because women suck the life out of them” thing for two reasons. 1) We all know men have shorter lifespans because they don’t take care of themselves. It’s true. 2) Read number 1. But it’s interesting that married women tend to have less stress but gain more weight. And men? Are less likely to have strokes. Marriage offers an anecdote against depression and high blood pressure, too. But an unhappy marriage basically turns the tables and wreaks havoc on your health.
Still, the article is very hetero-normative so I wonder if any of these benefits or risks apply to marriage (including gay marriage) in general or if some of these are particular to straight relationships alone.
Getting married did not automatically make me a less selfish person. Saying “I Do” did not mean I suddenly gained all the knowledge and learned all the skills I would need to positive contribute to my relationship. Sure, the desire to be happy and to make Ryan happy was there but desire alone does not magically produce results.
I’ve heard it said time and again that there is no manual for parenting, that you can never be truly prepared. I have yet to personally experience that but I believe the same holds true for many other things, including relationships.
We live in a society where there is no mandatory relationship education, no government sponsored textbooks on the subject. If our sex education is lacking, then education about being in an emotionally healthy relationship is a fairy tale.
We’re left to our own devices and while I have nothing against trial and error in some sectors of life, it becomes a whole lot trickier when feelings are involved.
This isn’t to say that resources haven’t sprung up to fill the need. They have. Therapists and talk show hosts, books, chat rooms and webinars all contain invaluable (well, sometimes worthless) information about how to be in a healthy relationship. But these are all resources you have to seek out yourself, often times on your own dime. Realizing you could use some help and then biting the bullet to ask for it are hard enough but, really, we live in a society where it’s all too easy not to realize we need a little help.
I mean, if you have no education about a healthy relationship to begin with, when do you realize it’s not? If no one has ever told you that it’s important to learn relationship sills or what those skills are, why would you seek out that information on your own? Perhaps this is why our society is strewn with broken hearts and divorce papers. Just a thought.
I don’t necessarily think we should be mandating peoples’ love lives. That’s a bit too involved even for my tastes. I just cannot help but wonder if we could be doing more to help people better themselves and their relationships. When “better” is just an option and an expensive one at that, it’s an option left unconsidered by the majority.
It’s true. I am no Garfield. The internet really slows on the weekends and I totally forget about the concept of “business hours” so I am more than happy to see everyone and everything come back to life on Monday morning. Prompt e-mails make me happy. Website updates always bring a smile to my face. New activity in my e-mails and on the forums I visit gives me something to think about, to talk about and generally keep me busy. And mail is no longer stuck in the land of the lost known as Sunday. So I’ll keep Mondays to myself if you don’t mind.
