Society's Child
For example, CNN's Amy Wilson notes in this blog post that the Schwarzenegger-Shriver split comes in the wake of another high-profile breakup of a seemingly solid midlife couple, former Vice President and environmental activist-icon Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, and other failed marriages for prominent boomers. Wilson evokes a 2010 Pew Research Center survey that shows that boomers are more inclined than younger adults to bail from a failing relationship. In the poll, 65 percent said that divorce is preferable to staying in an unhappy marriage, compared to 54 percent of younger adults. (Both boomers and younger adults also are much more inclined than over-65 Americans, by a 70 to 50 percent margin, to believe that the main purpose of marriage is happiness, the study showed.)
Wilson derides a generation of "Howzabouta Second Chancers" inclined to recklessly ditch our longtime mates. "There is a national predilection of boomers to demand midlife happiness, even if it means they chuck a good portion of the first part of their sort-of eternally vowed adulthood," she writes.
Boomers' inclination to divorce -- about 35 percent have split from spouses, and boomers make up the majority of divorced Americans -- has been media fodder for a while. But in the wake of the Arnold-Maria cataclysm, expect to see more wrist-wringing TV news stories like this one. We may also be seeing the first rumblings of a pro-divorce backlash, as evidenced by this Huffington Post piece by author Leo Averbach, with the upbeat headline of "Divorce Can Transform You." And in perfect sync to the Zeitgeist, Alicia (Julianna Margulies) seems to finally be moving toward dumping her philandering hubby (portrayed by Chris Noth) in the hit CBS series The Good Wife.
Reader Comments
not saying all, but it seems like many boomers are self-absorbed narcissists, that's probably why their marriages are failing.
is an artificial construct and not healthy for a relationship. IMO, monogamy is not a natural state and staying with someone for 20+ years is unrealistic. Few marriages are true partnerships - most have one person wielding control over the other. Usually, this is the "man" of the family keeping the woman under his control. After the kids are grown, she gets tired of it and divorces his ass because she is tired of taking care of everyone at the expense of herself. Marriage is truly a psychopathic state for a relationship to be in, esp. if it follows the Christian construct where the wife must obey her husband and the partners believe the cultural brainwashing of what being a husband or wife entails. I just think that the boomers are realizing that they aren't going to live forever, and having the freedom to self-actualize and live out their remaining years as they wish (without spousal control) is becoming super important to them. They have done what society expects of them (got married, had children) and now it is time to live for themselves.
Global Girl: I think you may be thinking in clichés that describe a society of a few decades ago. I am more leaning towards I_tell_truth's opinion: It is due to psychopathology in one of the spouses. And even though statistically psychopathology can be found in higher numbers in men, psychopathology in woman should not be underestimated.
that psychopathology of the individual has much to do with it, and I don't dispute that the boomer generation is more narcissistic than previous generations. However, in my own marriage, once we were wed, the way my husband and I related to each other changed. Unconsciously we began to follow the stereoptypes of the roles of "wife" and "husband" that we had internalized since childhood. The way the sexes have been taught to relate to each other (in western society) is psychopathic. Being that western society is predominantly Christian, and relations between the sexes are based on Christian values that are also psychopathic, very, very few relationships and marriages can escape the psychopathic influence of culture. Also, the "clichés that describe a society of a few decades ago" DO influence the thought patterns of the boomers who were raised with those cliches. While they may seem old fashioned and outdated by today's standards, the boomers have internalized those ideas, and they continue to work upon their minds and influence their behaviour.
although they seemed to make the best of it - they had four children, after all, and that doesn't happen if the parties involved keep separate bedrooms. She softened his Nazi admiring past, and he provided the right-wing pathocracy money fueled political juice her family desired.
Now he's retired from politics, having ushered California into a vicious Hell on Earth fiscal disaster that will take it a generation to dig out from.
And maybe she's figured out that selling out and whoring herself to the champion of the party of 'screw the public and pay off the billionaires' wasn't such a good idea. It's a bit late, but his political mojo has faded now. Time to dump the stupid lunkhead, get a life.
Just watch. In a year or so, Maria Shriver will marry some rich left wing guy from Boston, New York or Washington, DC. He might not be a politician but instead a financial player, a high profile lobbyist or even a (*cough*) intellectual, an academic or author or a playwright or something.
At least she kept her end of the bargain and gave Ahrnold four kids.
More PHILANTHROPY!