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Sunday, March 29. 2015

The challenges of marrying outside your social class.

I have seen plenty of marriages hit the rocks on those shores, but on plenty of other shores too. "Class" doesn't mean money in the bank. It means a shared understanding and approach to reality and relationships - and interior decor!

Posted by Dr. Joy Bliss in Our Essays, Psychology, and Dr. Bliss at 16:03 | Comments (8) | Trackbacks (0)

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The qualities and attitudes described could be largely genetic, with the various parties attributing them to their upbringing. We write narratives of our lives, and our past, because we are an explaining species. Conversations with relatives years later, reading letters and diaries (including our own!), watching videos and other primary sources reveals to us that we have often misremembered.

I'm not saying it's all genetic/prenatal. But we speak of such things with the hidden assumption that they are 90% environmental. The reverse is more likely.

This is, in a nutshell, the enormous flaw in most education and sociology studies.

#1 Assistant Village Idiot (Link) on 2015-03-29 20:43 (Reply)

QUOTE:

Her husband, Evan, hated how much Madison ... spent on furniture and gadgets they didn’t need. He couldn’t understand her fixation.

Jessi is a moron. Evan (really?) chose a gold digger, Madison (come on) was on the MRS program. They both chose that type of partner and each of them wanted to be attractive to that type. Maybe Evan wanted to star in his remake of My Fair Pretty Woman in his mind, maybe Madison wanted a sugar daddy. Jessi says the're "settled", so they got and kept what they expected.

If their marriage is failing, its not because of 200 faucets.

#2 The Poetry of Violence on 2015-03-29 23:43 (Reply)

So interesting. I have argued this idea before, once I figured it out for myself. Very difficult to be in a marriage where both people have a different idea of 'success' and how to spend their money.

Why not make it easier on you and your future spouse and find someone who grew up in much the same way you did? I think it is important to meet your boyfriend's family and see how they live. If it doesn't seem familiar to you, be prepared for financial strife and arguments about lifestyle.

Sure, for some couples, it does not pose a problem, but why continue on in a relationship, if there is a possibility this may happen? So many fish in the sea. You can find someone who is closer to your ideal...which includes their economic background.

#3 MissT on 2015-03-30 12:02 (Reply)

One wonders why the problems in these examples weren't foreseen in the dating process?

Then again, young people, and young women in particular, think they can change the behavior of the person they love after marriage. Usually that is not the case.

#4 feeblemind on 2015-03-30 12:43 (Reply)

Even if you marry "within your class" your marriage is in trouble if you don't have the same values. What will you teach your children about what is really important in life?

#5 Hmm on 2015-03-30 17:31 (Reply)

We often choose people to love who will complete ourself in some ways. We all feel incomplete in some way and falling in love is our hope of becoming more complete.

Of course there will be differences! Wisdom is finding the compromises and augmentations that make the couple even more complete.

Not 1 + 1 = 2,
But 1 + 1 = 3

#6 Whitehall on 2015-03-30 20:26 (Reply)

Been at it 59+ years. We just had the college hots for each other. We exchanged visits to our parents homes and met eath others' siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins, but I don't recall ever pondering values, family lifestyle, what will the children be taught, or any of that. Nor do I recall her ever mentioning these things. No problem on how the money would be spent because there wasn't any. Of course that was the mid-50s; different times for sure.

#7 BillH on 2015-03-31 09:51 (Reply)

You probably didn't contemplate these things, because you were similar enough in upbringing and lifestyle. Since you say you met in college (many years ago), I can already guarantee you were from middle class or upper middle class families...as those from poorer families were not regularly sending their kids off to college.

Trust me, you would've noticed if you grew up in suburbia with parents who ate dinner with their kids every night and she grew up in a trailer in the worst part of town and her dad left the minute you arrived to head for the bar.

#7.1 MissT on 2015-03-31 12:13 (Reply)

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Sunday, March 29. 2015

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