Today's Climate

First of all, I just want to thank everyone who has been checking out the page, commenting, encouraging, and just supporting this effort! I am so appreciative and excited for the future! Thank you!!

Alright, so let's get this started :) I found it fitting to start with where marriages are at currently. How do people view them? How does society in general view them? Etc., etc. My hope is to give you my personal view as well as statistics and information about where marriage is really at these days.

On a personal note, it's been pretty sad to see the condition of marriages in today's world. Most of us have heard the staggering statistic that only 1 out of every 2 marriages in America will survive (more stats to come). Meanwhile, as I sit down with my hubs to watch a movie or some primetime TV, to peruse a magazine, take a drive, or even just sit at a cafe, I see and hear a very negative view of marriage. Pornography (varying in degree) is plastered all over our TV shows, billboards, magazines, and media. It's so frustrating to not be able to sit down and watch a movie with my hubs without seeing a little more skin than I wanted to of an actress or two. Movies, media, and shows paint the single and/or promiscuous life as the glamorous, fun, and frivolous life free from the chains, pains, and sufferings of the married life. Marriages are given a negative connotation with messages like - celebrate your last night of freedom before getting hitched, you are about to get a ball-and-chain, good-bye to the fun life. On an even more personal note, before Steve and I got married, we received an alarming amount of comments about how tough and generally negative marriage is. Don't get me wrong, marriage is work (a subject that will be explored later), but marriage is awesome when done "right"! And I have been single before - let's be honest, weekends alone, those awkward first dates, trying to learn someone and be learned from scratch, worrying if he/she likes you or not, playing games - it's not all fun and games for single people either. And the promiscuous life, well that's not all it's cracked up to be either. The risk of pregnancy, STDs, broken hearts, and having to account for all of that when you finally do find the one you want to be with doesn't sound so glamorous or fun to me. Those parts are always left out of the shows though...hmmm. Now I just want to pause to say, I am not trying to make anyone feel badly! I am just being real here and trying to give a different perspective from the day-to-day messages we receive.

Alright, let's get down to some cold, hard facts :) I mean don't get me wrong, I am a women of faith, but I love me some good, solid facts! These are things related to things I mentioned above and just marriage in general.

• Divorce Rates: 50% of 1st marriages will end in divorce (a lot of us have heard that one)

67% of 2nd marriages will end in divorce
74% of 3rd marriages will end in divorce

• By year #7 in a marriage, over 50% of marriages end
• During the period of time when children are in their adolescent years, marriage satisfaction is reported at its lowest.
• 69% of marital fights are perpetual and are never resolved
• Marital dissolution can lead to severe mental and physical complications for both spouses including: increased risk of psychopathology (fancy word for mental illness); increased rates of automobile accidents, including fatalities; increased incidence of physical illness, suicide, violence, and homicide; decreased longevity; significant immunosuppression; and increased mortality from diseases ("The Marriage Clinic" by Gottman)
• Research suggests a wide range of benefits for those who marry, including better health, greater wealth and more happiness for the couple, and improved well-being for children.
  

• Cohabiting couples have a rate of separation that is five times that of married couples, and, in the event of separation, cohabitors have a rate of reconciliation that is only 33 percent as high as that of married couples (Binstock 2003)
• The Center for Health Statistics reports that there is a drastic increase of pregnancies in the U.S. by umarried women - from 18% in 1980 to a current 40%
• As of 2003, there were 1.3 million pornographic websites; 260 million pages (N2H2, 2003)
• The total porn industry revenue for 2006: $13.3 billion in the United States; $97 billion worldwide
• 47 % of families said pornography is a problem in their home (Focus on the Family Poll, October 1, 2003)
• The average age of marriage for women is 26 and for men is 28
• A growing percentage of Americans aren't marrying at all: Provisional statistics released February 2009 report 7.1 marriages per 1,000 people in 2008, down from 10 per 1,000 in 1986.

Well, these are just some general statistics I thought everyone might be curious about or enjoy reading and pondering over. There is no doubt that marriage is on a decline, and there really is not a ton of support for healthy, monogamous marriages out there. There is a constant prodding that the "grass is greener on the other side" but when people who have tested out those greener pastures are questioned, they most commonly admit they aren't at all! Marriage has a lot of statistical benefits to both spouses as well as the children involved, but there are just a lot of benefits across the board. A friend, companion, partner in crime, co-pilot, someone who knows you better than anyone else...the list could go on for a very long time.

The bottom line of today's entry is that society today isn't out there promoting marriage, and there are actually a lot of things out there raring their ugly heads to destroy marriage. Knowing that gives us a platform to rise above those things. Know your enemy, and then fight him!