http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10483491/

Such a rush for it, now not so much I guess...

This just in, Lesbian and Gay relationships much like "normal" relationships.

But... but... their genitals don't match up!

Elemak, you are so unbelievably ignorant I have to wonder if you believe the shit you spew.

Over 50% of all marriages fail. Probably a good number of those marriages still intact (I.E. not divorced or annuled) have cheating partners and infidelity, or perhaps one spouse abuses the other and a plethora of other not-so-nice things. To assume that every homosexual relationships would remain intact 100% of the time is to suffer some sort of serious mental deficit. The fact that this is the first to come forward after so much time actually shows that there's a good possibility a homosexual relationship to that point is even more stable than a heterosexual relationship.

I've observed many lesbian relationships over the past few years. I have seen some issues where these relationships can turn into situations that at least border on physical abuse and even mental abuse.

One, in particular, stands out where the lesbians had seemed to be getting along quite well and had introduced a third party. This situation turned into a very abusive situation with one woman pinning the other against the ground while the newly introduced third party used cans of whipcream almost as tools of torture. The lesbian that was pinned on the ground was squirming around...breathing heavy...

Ummm...I have to go...will finish this post later.

As a once divorced, and functionally twice divorced man - now dating a divorced woman, I can only wonder (since I'm batting .000) if my odds would be higher if I were gay.

Rover, I hate to break it to you, but the gals on 'The Howard Stern Show' aren't usually real lesbians, the 'Spank-o-Matic' notwithstanding... ;)

Yeah, gay couples have nasty breakups too. Personally, I think sometimes think the whole idea of presumptively predicting that you're going to be able to handle partnering with someone for the *rest of your life* should be trashed, and people should just sign 5 year contracts. By then the bloom is well off the rose, and I've found that it's a good thing to re-evaluate one's relationship/marriage every now and again...

I'm working on year twelve of my current partnership, and my marriage, which I entered into with complete confidence, only lasted six. It's a sweet idea and all, but who the heck knows what they want from the rest of their lives (or are capable of tolerating) at 20?

Regards,
Nydia

Palimax, I can't speak as someone to have ever been divorced personally, but coming from a household where my parents got divorced I've always been wary of marriage being forever. That being said, both of my parents are re-married to wonderful people and are far better people themselves for it :) If I stopped dating just because I knew 99% of the girls I dated wouldn't turn into the girl I married ... well that'd be silly.

On a more serious note. I think relationships are relationships. Gay or straight they all have their ups and downs.I can't imagine one being much different than the other at the core.

We can only hope that Cosmo doesn't get their hands on this thread. :eek:

Gay or straight they all have their ups and downs.
No pun intended, Rover? :D

By the end of 2004, a total of 7,549 same-sex couples had entered civil unions in Vermont, the first state to offer gay couples nearly all the rights and privileges of marriage. There have been 78 dissolutions



That's a pretty small %.

Anyone who thinks that gay relationships are more stable or last longer than straight ones is just plain silly. As others have said, relationships are relationships and each have their own set of issues that both parties have to cope and deal with.

I wanted a divorce from my wife's poodle once...our relationship consisted of his yapper, my foot, and his nuts. Hated that dog...may he rest in pieces.

On the other hand, I had a great relationship with our last dog, a Doberman. It was a lasting relationship. She was the smartest dog I've ever had. The day she passed was a sad day indeed.

Does that make me a doggy homophobe or a just a yapper hater?

Having attempted marriage once, which ended in divorce, I now have chosen to focus on the short-term aspects of the relationship; i.e., the honeymoon:p

Having attempted marriage once, which ended in divorce, I now have chosen to focus on the short-term aspects of the relationship; i.e., the honeymoon:p

Amen!
I will never be married again!

As a once divorced, and functionally twice divorced man - now dating a divorced woman, I can only wonder (since I'm batting .000) if my odds would be higher if I were gay.

You're not gay? Damn, sorry thought you were....heheheheheheheh

Over 50% of all marriages fail.

This statistic annoys me. I think it should come with a clarifying statement, "but not 50% of individuals who get married will get a divorce."

Aye.

I know several people on their 4th and even 5th marriages. Sheesh!

Biologically, marriage is unnatural. It's probably a miracle as many of them last as do.

edit: Any marriage, hetero or homo.

I'm working on year twelve of my current partnership, and my marriage, which I entered into with complete confidence, only lasted six. It's a sweet idea and all, but who the heck knows what they want from the rest of their lives (or are capable of tolerating) at 20?

Regards,
Nydia

Feels like therapy... :)

I also entered my marriage at age 20, ignoring 2 other marriage offers and 2 major relationship offers for me to *not* marry my fiance. Had our first son at 20. By age 21- my husband was already in some form of infidelity, and seriously questioning why we weren't drunk and partying all the time like we used to do. Diapers or a 24 pack? Hmmm...

He left as I turned 21, and we gave 110% to get back together...3 1/2 years worth of being miserably separated as we lived separately/as roommates/with his mother... the majority of my marriage was spent in a one bedroom apartment as a single mother. That's my example of a 5 year heterosexual marriage.

I think that gays and straights suffer with the same root cause issues in relationships, and don't think that my odds would increase if I switched teams. My odds for success would decrease, because the sex would be lacking something.

Not every marriage is doomed for 50% failure. I think that you can increase your odds by SCREENING better and allowing years of maturity and good observation to help select a stronger candidate for lifetime bliss. This strategy works for everyone- gay or straight. It's not 100% reilable either, but is better than 50/50 odds.

Be an informed consumer. Don't pick the cheaters, liars, violent offenders. Beware of the assholes, jerks, and deadbeats. If he/she were awful to someone else in a prior relationship, I guarantee that your turn will come when he/she will be awful to you, too. These are the idiots that continue on to marriage 4 and 5, still oblivious that the common factor of these relationships is their own dumb ass.

It takes two people to enter a marriage, but only one bad apple to ruin it.

if I switched teams. My odds for success would decrease, because the sex would be lacking something.

I would have to dis-agree with the bolded statement above. Most of the lesbian sex that I have studied has been far from lacking, it appears to be quite passionate...as their bodies squirm...chests heave...legs entangled...


Damn...gotta go again...

"I'll be in my bunk"

Homosexual marriages may even fare a little better than hetero, due to the simple fact that most won't have children to disrupt their serenity (h/t Gulor).

There are countervailing factors, of course, but it's plausible.

Kelraz,
Actually you fucking idiot my point was more of: "Beware what you wish for You might just get it." I have a few friends who are of the homosexual persuasion, we have discussed the issue at some great length of them Marrying/Civil Union etc with their partners. My counter point to the idea is the same thing I tell my hetero friends that want to get married. Things change once you put those rings on. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. Make sure this is what you want bad and good before you start fighting so hard for it.

"I'll be in my bunk"

Kudos to the Firefly reference, that show rocked.

I'm a divorced man, who is now in a commited relationship with a wonderful woman. We've discussed marriage, but only for the benefits that we might reap from it. My first marriage was too young (I was 22), and it failed utterly. We had nothing in common outside physical attraction, and once that faded, so did the relationship.

If I were King of the World, no one could marry until they were over 30. By then, you have enough life experience to know what you want in a partner. I'd be interested to see how many people who married after 30 end up divorced. I'd imagine it's a lot less. My girlfriend is my very best friend, and I CAN imagine a life with her when I'm older and greyer. It's all about what you have in common, and if you can have fun with those common interests.

Dear Flashcube:

I was twenty-eight, actually, when I married, and thought I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted - as did my ex-husband, who *had* married his high school sweetheart at 20 and was once divorced at the time. In my case, it was an issue of my partner not being able to be honest with himself about what *he* wanted, and after five years he actually let that slip after several years of frustration for both of us (people are not play-doh to mold into whatever one sees fit!).

I agree wholeheartedly with Elemak that putting the rings on *does* change things, as much as we more free-thinking folk might like to protest. As much as my ex-husband and I said that we were doing to 'do' marriage, it wasn't going to 'do' us (define us in light of society's expectations, not to mention our own internalized ones), this happened not to be the case and the weight of those expectations, for different reasons, had a huge negative effect on our relationship.

I love my partner dearly, and *can* see us growing old together, and perhaps it's one of the oddities of my generation's struggle with feminism (I'm 42, Faervas and I have both noticed that our younger friends don't have some of the same issues we do) but I am fairly confident that I won't marry again...

It'll be interesting to see what sort of effect that *legal* marriage/civil unions (assuming that we get it, and it becomes normalized) has on gay relationships. Since they don't have some of the default societally impressed expectations, will they have as much 'baggage' interfering with their ability to choose well?

Regards,
Nydia

P.S. I'm leaving town for 10 days for the holidays and will be only sporadically on the wire until the night of the 26th. I wanted to start foaming at the mouth on Kelraz's global warming thread, but there's no time! :/ Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone! (I will be celebrate the winter solstice, myself, along with a somewhat traditional Christmas with Faervas' family...)

Just fyi, per a message earlier in the thread, the "marriage failure rate" or "divorce rate" or whatever you want to call it is not over 50%, nor was it ever 50%. It has also been falling for a decade or 2.

The way those stats measure it is dumb. They just take "number of new marriages in a year" and "number of failed marriages in a year."

One quick comment and back to work.

Has anyone ever figured out why people want to get involved with married people, in adulterous relationships?

Each time I have seen this happen, and the eventual divorce so that the two could then marry, the cheating spouse always seems to end up cheating again down the road with someone else, and repeating the cycle.

If someone is going to cheat on their wife/husband to be with you, odds are pretty good they will cheat on you to be with someone else.

"You can't make a housewife out of a whore" -Dad

Never understood that myself. If S/He cheats once, you can just about be assured they'll cheat again. Though at least some are honest about their infidelity, which I guess is better than the ones that try and hide it...

"You can't make a housewife out of a whore" -Dad

True.

Several of us sound like we've been burnt on the marriage thing.
Once bitten, twice shy.

Life after divorce has been one of the biggest eye-openers of my adult life. It colors many of my perceptions and decisions, makes for *lively conversation* at the 'Single Mother's Club Happy Hour.' :p

Let me offer some insight into the "50%" figure.

First, the rate is somewhat lower, in the 40's (and even lower recently, as marriage AGES are on the rise) -- but the divide divorce/marriage method isn't as off as you'd think it is. You'd think the best way was to see if any particular marriage ended in divorce. The problem with that, however, is pretty easy to see.

200 people get married today. Of those people, today, what is the divorce rate? 0%. Next year, 10 of those couples (20 people) get divorced, and the divorce rate is now 10%. You'll *never* know the rate for divorce until the remaining 180 people either divorce or die -- and that's useful for showing that the divorce rate in 1957 is.

Sadly divorce rate / marriage rate is pretty close to correct.

Here's your divorce rates (from the CDC)
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/divorce90_04.pdf

...and your marriage rates.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/marriage90_04.pdf

Nevada is amusing. Everyone gets married there. They get divorced at home. [I did that too, for what it's worth...]

Arizona (where I live) is 8.5 per thousand marriages, and 4.2 per thousand divorces. Considering that dead people don't get divorces, and octagenarians don't do a lot or remarying, I think 50% is *more* than fair.

All you ever wanted to know and more about statistics on marriage:

http://www.divorcemag.com/statistics/statsUS.shtml

Disclaimer: All statistics provided come with a +/- 99% error rate

I think what he's saying is that even if 50% of marriages end in divorce, that doesn't mean that 50% of the people who get married get a divorce. That would only be true if each person was only allowed to marry once.

Kelraz,
Actually you fucking idiot my point was more of: "Beware what you wish for You might just get it." I have a few friends who are of the homosexual persuasion, we have discussed the issue at some great length of them Marrying/Civil Union etc with their partners. My counter point to the idea is the same thing I tell my hetero friends that want to get married. Things change once you put those rings on. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. Make sure this is what you want bad and good before you start fighting so hard for it.

Huh? Are you saying that because the person they married wasn't right for them, they shouldn't have fought for the right to do it? Do I even have to point out how that's hilarious bullshit?

I swear to god, if you people get any stupider I am going to break down and cry.


*IF YOU GET MARRIED BE PREPARED FOR ALL THE SAME BULLSHIT US HETERO FOLKS HAVE TO GO THROUGH IT IS NOT THE END ALL MAGICAL SOLUTION TO ALL YOUR SOCIAL ILLS*

Most, (all 4 or so) of the homosexual people I interact with on a regular basis seem to think that the ability to get married will somehow solve all their relationship problems and tie up all the loose ends in their lives.

Buyer beware.

As a once divorced, and functionally twice divorced man - now dating a divorced woman, I can only wonder (since I'm batting .000) if my odds would be higher if I were gay.

Pali, if you could have done some roving wire taps on your ex's phones you could have nipped all this shit in the bud before you married them!

:)

(all 4 or so)

Yeah.

I've known 4 people that were or are in the military that are total wastes of air. So that means all of them are, and I should make a new topic about it, right Elemak?

Let me break this down to teletubby level for you DiscW...

Marriage is not all it is cracked up to be.
It will likely be damn near the same statistics for homosexual couples.
Divorce sucks.
Make sure you *REALLY* want to be married before you do so.


And apparently we don't have to worry about the oxygen you breath, none of it is getting to your brain to be used. You're trying to turn this into a "OH NO HE H8TS THE HOMOZ! Thread and it's not. Just me pointing out the obvious.

Why, if that really was your oppinion (which I doubt) did you make this thread and set it up the way you did? Now it looks like you are backing up with your tail between you legs ...

Yes Kelraz, I created this whole post just to confuse you and DiscW...

Yeah, there was no anti-gay sentiments in any of your posts, if ya say so. :rolleyes:

You guys should seriously seek help.

What Elemek is trying to say is obvious. If you're gay, and if you are, it's ok with him, just don't expect marriage to solve your problems. Either that, or Elemek is gay and relationships are 4 times as likely to end if you turn straight. Then again, he could be saying that being gay and getting married 4 times will solve your problems. Or, if you are straight and get married twice then turn gay and get married twice, you will equal 4 and that's 50% of the other 4 gay people that turned straight and got married because they wanted it to fix their problems.

Hope that clears things up.

Crystal clear now. Thanks!

:devil

Indeed, thanks for clearing that up.

No problem! Just let me know if there's anything else I can do for you.

I'll be here all week!