

Girlfriend’s odd complaint about beau’s freelance career sparks concerns - Articulate
http://m.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/carolyn-hax-girlfriends-odd-complaint-about-beaus-freelance-career-sparks-concerns/2013/05/21/b33da7f6-b748-11e2-aa9e-a02b765ff0ea_story.html?wpisrc=nl_hax

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mnicole
Having just had my boyfriend switch from 24/7 at-home freelance to working at
his shop 7 days a week, this woman doesn't seem to understand the benefits she
reaps from having someone at home and on-call most of the time (Do they have
pets? Does he run errands? Is he there when maintenance shows up?). Not only
this, but his mood has lowered and stress levels have skyrocketed, and given
that I wake up at 6am and he doesn't get home until 8 or 9pm, we hardly spend
time together anymore.

Depending on your drive, you can waste anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 hours+ a
day commuting to and from, as oppose to using that time more efficiently or
memorably.

Are there benefits to working from some office settings? Sure, but trying to
claim he's less of a man for doing so is really the lowest and most absurd
claim she could make. If she can't see that him being his own boss is better
and more effective for him than having one, she's missing the point, the
privilege and the potential.

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a3n
He's going to divorce her eventually, so he might as well break up now while
it's free.

~~~
digitalsushi
We're all going to die eventually, might as preempt that as well?

Why can't marriages be phases of our lives? Why try to avert failure by
avoiding life?

~~~
Intermernet
I think the problem is the whole "til death do us part" line. I saw a stand-up
comedian the other night who compared marriage to a mobile phone contract. You
know, as soon as you buy that new shiny phone, there'll immediately be a
newer, shinier model available! At least with a mobile phone contract, you get
to choose a new one in 2 years.

I'm the wrong person to comment on this as I've been in a relationship for 16
years now with no marriage in sight. We're happy, we're committed, we require
no symbolic ceremony in order to stay happy and committed.

personally, I think that the public perception of marriage is _finally_
swinging around to the reality that over 50% of marriages in western society
fail (that's the term used by those that are married, I'd prefer something
simpler like "end"), and in a time frame shorter than the relationship I'm
currently in.

~~~
rickcecil
The 50% number is actually horribly exaggerated. It is closer to 30%. I'll dig
up sources later, but basically the divorce rate is calculated by dividing the
number of new marriages with the number of divorces in a given year.

This doesn't account for repeat offenders (people on their second, third, or
tenth divorce) or age or region or any number of factors that can affect your
chances of remaining married.

~~~
rickcecil
After much digging, here is what I have found. It surprised me and I learned a
lot in the process. Very excited to share.

The Divorce Rate is not a measure of the chances of your marriage ending in
divorce, though many people use it like that.

The Divorce Rate calculation is a measure of the number of divorces in a given
year compared to the number of new marriages. If we accept that at face-value,
we're okay. I would like to see it broken down by first-time marriages to
first-time divorces; second-time marriages to second-time divorces. I have not
been able to find this data, but didn't look exceptionally long ... as I need
to get back to work. ;)

There are a lot of blog posts about the myth of the 50% divorce rate. They are
attacking this statistic as representing something that it does not. (Even
though it is not far from the truth.)

Still, I think it would be worthwhile to evaluate the usefulness of this
statistic. Sure, it's an easy number to track. But why? Especially when
everyone assumes that this is revealing something that it is not.

Now, onto the chances a first-time marriage might actually end in divorce.

Your baseline chances for divorce in a first-time marriage are calculated
using a Life Table and the chances vary depending on a variety of factors.
Age, region, education, and I am sure there are others. And if you input all
your data, you get the chance that a first-time marriage will end in divorce.

Here's a great, simple description of the Life Table:
[http://contemporaryfamilies.org/marriage-partnership-
divorce...](http://contemporaryfamilies.org/marriage-partnership-
divorce/tricky.html)

Ultimately, the chance for divorce remains around 50-60% on average, but can
be as low as 20%. According to this article

[http://psychcentral.com/lib/2012/the-myth-of-the-high-
rate-o...](http://psychcentral.com/lib/2012/the-myth-of-the-high-rate-of-
divorce/all/1/)

"...a woman who is over 25, has a college degree, and an independent income
has only a 20 percent probability of her marriage ending in divorce"

The article does not cite a source for this statistic, but it does cite
various requisite factors in calculating a first-time marriage chances of
ending in divorce.

More reading from the CDC about first-time marriages and divorce:
<http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr049.pdf>

~~~
Intermernet
Thankyou! Wow, that's some serious digging.

I managed to hunt down that the chance for divorce in Australia in 2007 was
around 30%, down from a peak of around 50% in 2000. It was last around 30% in
the early 80s.

I'm still hunting through some more recent papers on the ABS (Australian
Bureau of Statistics) site devoted to "Family Formation and Dissolution"[1]
but haven't found anything solid yet. I found many sites with unreferenced
figures, and the only referenced figures all came back to the ABS, so I figure
that their census data matches the marriage and divorce registrars pretty
closely.

[1]:[http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/ViewContent?readform...](http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/ViewContent?readform&view=ProductsbyTopic&Action=Expand&Num=5.6.7)

