For more of Al & Tipper, copy and paste this link - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/02/AR2010060202373.html?referrer=emailarticle
Every Other Man*: How to Cope with Infidelity and Keep Your Relationship Whole
Have you wonder about this? What age would a normal couple be after they had spent 40 years of marriage together? Imagine if you are a lady married at the age of 25 years old. After 40 years of marriage, you would already be 65 years old. Your kids are grown. Both of you spent the best part of your life, sharing a dream, building a home, seeing your kids graduating, from kindergarden, from primary school, from secondary school, from college and finally from Uni. Then seeing them getting their first job, progressing to setting up their own little nest and moving up the corporate ladder. At 65, it's now time for both of you to enjoy time together, free from all the responsibilities, time to recapture the magic moments when it was just two of you only, almost like the time when both of you were just starting out to set up your little nest!
But hold on! When finally you had all the time in the world to be together, to do the things that you both had always been talking about, you might just suddenly realized that he's too close for comfort. You can't stand being around him 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 4 weeks a month, 12 months a year. Good gracious and how many more years it will be where you have to adjust to each other's habits. And how come you didn't notice all those habits before?
Personally I felt that couples in their 30s would probably divorced for these reasons:
(1) Boredom - grown apart
(2) Financial Stress
(3) House Stress - looking and setting up your new home could be a time where you discover new things of each other
(4) In-laws Stress
(5) Can't have kids or one don’t want kids
(6) Difference in parenting philosophies
(7) Letting themselves go - am already married, why I still need to dress up, to look sexy. I had kids already and am expected to look fat
(8) Resentment of one always doing all the household chores
(9) Infrequent sex, lack of intimacies due to been caught up with the responsibilities of juggling between office, spouse, kids, parents and other members of family
Whilst for older couples whom has been married to each other for more than 25+ years, I would think the reasons are:
(1) Marriage was never good, just waiting to divorce when children are older
(2) Grown apart
(3) Lost of conversation topics, their conversation exists only when they have mutual topic ‘children’
(4) Too close for comfort, needs some 'personal' space. It's just two of them in the house now
(5) Spouse finally can’t tolerate each other's small habitual behavior; it can be a simple case of one been too tidy and the other been messy. It reach a point where enough is enough
(6) Affairs – started because the need to feel attractive, wanted, or to boost their ego or to feel sexy again
(7) Serious sickness like mental instability
One of the favorite stories I heard about the length of marriage is an old tale, supposedly from the Bessemer division of Jefferson County, Alabama, involving a couple seeking a divorce after 68 years of marriage. The judge was overcome with curiosity and asked “Why now, after all this time?” Their reply: “We were waiting for the children to die.”
You think there are other reasons that Al & Tipper or other long marriage couples would have for divorcing? Other then ‘growing apart’ as per reason given?
Already 1 1/2 foot in the coffin, why lah bother. unless some hunk wants me at 65...khi..khi..khi
ReplyDeleteTHIS IS A GOOD COMMENTARY. AND IT IS SO TRUE FOR MANY COUPLES. IF COUPLES DON'T SPEND TIME WITH EACH OTHER, THEY WILL EVENTUALLY GROW APART. "Remember, the Gores were 20 and 21 when they married. Today, the median age for marriage is 27 or 28. Most 20-year-olds don't even know who they are and certainly not who they will become. The person you commit to at age 20 might not be the same person 20, 30, 40 years later. "Til death do us part" is a vestige of a time when life expectancy wasn't much lower. Given the normal span of our lives these days, such a vow is totally unrealistic.
ReplyDeletePeople change and grow in different directions. That's seems to be what happened to the Gores.
When you look at Tipper's life, you see a life of sacrifice. She was always the helpmate, always the wife and mother, always the number two. She devoted herself to bringing up the kids, keeping the family intact in a long and trying political marriage and subjugating her own ambitions and career opportunities to his. She was, in every sense of the word, the good wife.
While the kids were growing up and life was so full of challenges, there wasn't a lot of time for her to contemplate having a life of her own. Al and Tipper were a team, in it together and in it to win, all the way to the White House.
Her role as wife of the Congressman, the Senator, the Vice President and the presidential candidate was all-consuming. Then, just as she was about to become First Lady, a role that would give her the clout to make a difference, the Supreme Court handed the presidency to George W. Bush. Al won the election but lost the presidency, a devastating turn of events that sent him into a deep depression.
Imagine what that must have been like for Tipper. Her entire life had been tied to his career. Suddenly, it was all gone. "Poor Al," everyone thought. "Is Al OK? How's Al taking it?" What about Tipper? Not only did she lose her career, but she lost her husband, too, at least emotionally.
After he came out of his depression, Al's new career as Nobel Prize-winning environmental activist kept him traveling the globe. His new interests were not hers. Tipper had been the good wife for 40 years. Now it is time for her."
It's so true, women puts up with so much shit with their men. And at 65, if she leaves, she's again a loser cos no man wants a 65, whilst that man of hers still can get a young chick.
ReplyDelete