15) Does each of us feel fully confident in the other's commitment to the marriage and believe that the bond can survive whatever challenges we may face?
Don't answer 'no' to this question, ever.
I can't imagine getting married without having discussed all of these, except maybe the TV one.
I think that if people asked all those very smart questions before taking the leap, the marital landscape would be tranformed in a very favorable direction. In the same way, if military recruiters worldwide were honest and straightforward, there would be no more war. And there'd be ponies for everyone too.
I can't imagine wanting to get married without knowing the answers to all of these. Although #7 is comically unimportant compared to the others. And #15 sounds more like a wedding vow than a serious question.
Always good to make sure your intended and you are on the same page vis-a-vis polyamory, of course.
Problem: the personality traits that lead people to avoid thinking about these questions also prompt them to give answers that are inaccurate in their optimism and flexibility.
(I guess that's covered by #6.)
When I lasted dating anyone, it was 1953. Evidently. Seriously, this sounds more like a summit meeting than a prelude to an affiancement.
The TV in the bedroom question is funny. Because who the fuck would want a TV in the bedroom?
/flamewar
Will there be a television in the bedroom?
8 -- the better to recline and snuggle whilst watching Trump fire his apprentices.
1: Do not dismiss the importance of the tv question! That sort of thing can be a real dealbreaker--or at least the cause of many nights of disturbed sleep. Granted, you should probably know the answer to it without asking before you get to the point of planning marriage, but nevertheless.
Paul Simon had this stuff all figured out years ago:
So goodbye, goodbye
I'm gonna leave you now
And here's the reason why
I like to sleep with the window open
And you keep the window closed
So goodbye, goodbye, goodbye
Correlation/causation disclaimer applies.
Slol, I sold out my relationship interests at Yalta. I knew I should have held out for all of Germany.
At least we know who to blame for the iron curtain.
A roadmap to a permanent two-state solution.
If you know the answers to all these questions vis-a-vis someone, and they're all favorable, should you be marrying that person?
16 suggests that wedding bells may be in store for Smasher and Sausagely.
'smasher's is an excellent question. Is there no longer romance, mystery? Even if there is not, do you really think a contract brokered like this at point-of-sale -- , er, -wedding is going to endure the changes in your life, or the changes in you?
Oh, you naïve kids.
I agree with Labs's #5: it's good to discuss all of these things, but perhaps not so good to assume all answers will apply straightforwardly in the future. And the sorts of people who pull out a list of questions and answers ten years in to throw in their spouse's face are the sort of people who probably should be divorced. So where's the enforcement mechanism?
This was a lot easier when parents checked the other family out for you, I'm sure.
PSA: John Hodgman's audiobook is free at iTunes this week. Someone was pleased to know you can now d/l This American Life podcasts, and that person may like to know this.
No need to beat around the bush, slo, just fax me the checklist.
I love the people who say "I will never get divorced." They are very confident that they will only marry someone who is firmly committed to staying marriage.*
*then, when pressed, you find out that "Till death do us part" does not apply in cases of infidelity or various other exceptions.
I think the list works best as cold water in the face of the unduly romantic. Labs is right that there will be a lot of self-deception, but if you have troublesome answers to half these questions, you might find yourself slowly reconsidering.
The Ex's dad asked me variants of several of these when I "asked for his daugher's hand in marriage." That's a good way to do things, because presumably he could detect my self-deception, and counsel his daughter appropriately.
Slol bringing the world-weariness in 18 surprises me. I imagine the list being helpful procedurally, as it were; besides the actual answers, discussing these things gives you a sense of the potential spouse's reactions, willingness to compromise, and so on. I mean, it's not a marriage algorithm, but it helps.
20: Or when the Department of State asks all the questions for you. If you have to provide evidence of financial support, it means you have a finance discussion, &c. If you have to decide which country to move to, you have to decide whose career you're following.
More seriously, quite a lot of these questions seem like they're good things to discuss, but better things to learn through observation. Anyone can say they're good with money, for example, but are they saying that while drowning in credit card bills?
We had the TV discussion. It's fine for it to be in the bedroom. It just better not be turned on.
Yeah, I buy it that it's a good way to make sure you communicate well, but I don't buy it that you should take the answers you get and consider them binding. People change. Even on the subject of tv in bedroom.
O, are you kidding about his ability to detect self-deception? Was Ex's dad Clark Kent or something?
I can't imagine wanting to get married without knowing the answers to all of these.
95% of all marriages are inaccessible to your imagination.
When all these questions are put on the table, whichever partner most wants to get married will lie the most. Often marriage is decided on before the partner is found.
are you kidding about his ability to detect self-deception?
No. Can't you usually tell when someone is being self-deceptive, or, at least, making things up on the spot?
If they're being deceptive, yes.
Self-deceptive, usually not without a lot of other information.
30: hard to say if I usually can, because I can't turn to the back of the book to check the right answer in every case. There are obvious instances, of course, but for me it's self-deception all the way down.
Slol, I totally agree, and there's something awful about the person who takes this discussion to be a contract.
I'm not sympathetic to 18. All this talk of needing mystery is just a way of covering up inequalities in the relationship. "Talking about our sexual needs takes all the mystery out of things" really means "I might find out that she doesn't really like all the assfucking"
Yeah, I buy it that it's a good way to make sure you communicate well,
I think you dropped the "as of that questioning." If you were giving up your Top Three Things to Know About Marriage, what would they be, slol? (Then we can compare them to Apo's answers and see how many you got right.)
I have to say, the list helps you understand the strength of traditionalism. In a traditional marriage most of these questions are either already answered in advance (for example, by the wife deferring to the husband and his family) or else answered by third parties during the matchmaking process. The personal-gratification questions are just laughed off the stage. The only question really is, "Do you want a generic marriage or not"?
I remain anti-marriage and anti-relationship, but at least traditional marriage was possible.
Emerson, maybe if you when back to the traditional rules of name capitalization, a relationship would seem more possible. This new thing you've got going is creeping me out.
at least traditional marriage was possible
Seems like that would make it, in the eyes of somebody subscribing to your doctrine, inferior.
Of course people change, which is why when people talk about getting married, they should also be assessing the partnership's ability (and desire) to roll with the punches. And obviously, this conversation shouldn't happen once and be over with.
Oddly, they're discussing this article on WNYC right now. The first caller was a psychotherapist who said that one of the most important things to do before committing to a marriage was to have, and resolve, an important argument.
The most important questions when considering marriage (IMO) are family and money. If you don't like your potential in-laws or they seem overly drawn to drama, be very leery. You absolutely marry a family and inherit all of their issues. As for finances, if one of you is good with money and the other isn't, be prepared to be pissed off lots and lots, regardless of which role you play.
41: Ulp. What if it's your folks that are the problematic 'in-laws'?
The first caller was a psychotherapist who said that one of the most important things to do before committing to a marriage was to have, and resolve, an important argument.
Um...I've never had, and resolved, an important argument with anyone in my life, and definitely not with my s.o. of three years. Should I be worried?
That should be "had, or resolved".
My oldest sister has, pretty much, a traditional marriage. She's mentioned to me recently that there were some things she wished she'd done a little differently, like talking more, up front, about money and expectations about money. She doesn't regret marrying the man she did or as young as she did, but he has a more gung-ho attitude about big (and slightly risky) financial decisions than she does.
be prepared to be pissed off lots and lots, regardless of which role you play.be prepared to be pissed off lots and lots, regardless of which role you play.
See, the "regardless of which role you play" is the sort of insight that, for me at least, justifies whatever pain you had to endure to learn it. But you're not supposed to leave the teacher's edition out for slol to see.
Money issues are so huge. Because of my pathological fear of poverty and homelessness, I tend to freak out about this, and having to share finances with someone who was a bit on the careless-n-spendy side would make me crazy.
Made any important, life-changing decisions yet, Ned?
I actually think the much maligned question #15 -- although poorly phrased -- is really a useful one. I think marriage -- like most deeply meaningful committments -- involves something of a perspective shift. The new commitment is now the fixed point around which other aspects of one's life revolve. It's of course true that before you convert to Judaism (applications now being accepted, by the way), you should consider whether or not you can live without idolatry. But in another way this seems like the wrong way to approach the question. A religious conversion isn't about a summing up of preferences. I tend to think marriage isn't (or shouldn't be) that way either.
49: Basically just
a) me going to grad school
b) her going to grad school 4 hours' drive away but hoping to get accepted here and transfer back here in a year
c) us getting engaged
And yet, FL, you went into philosophy.
For me, it was fear of poverty and homelessness that made me leave academia.
That, and the dissertation was going nowhere.
50: It's maligned because it's impossible to answer beforehand, and anything less than a dreamy 'I believe it will all be fine' is interpreted as a lack of commitment.
Congrats on the engagement, Ned! Don't worry, you'll have a big fight soon over the wedding, and then you'll know how you argue.
baa, you're right about the big issue, but it's hard for me to imagine 15 being the instrument of revelation here. I mean, any appropriately humble person will say, no, I'm not entirely confident, because there are challenges we cannot weather, while callow partners will offer a facile affirmation.
Rejecting the vector-sum view of marriage is surely the way to go, though.
I think it's more a question to ask of yourself.
52: the order of explanation is complicated. Nothing like scraping by for a while to make one (even more) tense about money.
55: I still think we're in leap of faith territory. I can name five reasons easily why I'd leave; but who knows whether I'd be inclined to leave once there were kids? Once I'd moved/he'd moved/we'd been together ten years.
57: Well, you can admit your flaws to yourself before you can admit them to other people. I think 55 makes sense.
Cala and I cannot get married because we are the same person.
Don't tempt fate, Tim.
Clownae: I guess that somehow an actual marriage that actually exists, though bad, is not as bad as an unsuccessful, miserable, failed attempt at a bad marriage. Plato must have said something about people who unsuccessfully attempted to actualize the Idea of Evil.
It has been claimed that I am basing my conclusions on a small anecdotal sample of bad marriages. The second part of my data is the group of happy marriages, which are almost entirely made up of good-natured, easy-going, affectionate, easily-satisfied people who don't resemble me or my friends at all.
As I said, a bad marriage is like a losing lottery ticket.
60: If we're the same person, can I have your job?
As I said, a bad marriage is like a losing lottery ticket.
I would imagine that a bad marriage has more of an effect on a person's life and finances than a losing lottery ticket. Unless you mean those marriages that last two hours, that devout people enter into so they can have sex.
Cala and I cannot get married because we are the same person.
Don't let that stop you from having sex with each other masturbating.
62: to quote Harvey Fierstein, "I love you-- but not enough." Not to worry, I'm sure I'll be out of it soon enough.
Wait. If we're the same person, I already have your job! Hurray for Leibniz!
Complaining about loising lottery tickets is silly. They're normal. Marriage is indeed a very high-stakes lottery ticket. My point exactly.
66: we could combine some recent threads into a riveting discussion of the holy trinity and relative identity. Peter Geach: crankiest philosopher of the last century?
66: Plus, you can take comfort in the fact that as a windowless monad, you are a perpetual living mirror of the universe.
The second part of my data is the group of happy marriages, which are almost entirely made up of good-natured, easy-going, affectionate, easily-satisfied people who don't resemble me or my friends at all.
Hedonic set point theory suggests that this is the major issue. If you are already miserable, it is likely beacuse your default is to be miserable, and it is unlikely marriage will improve your happiness. If you are already happy, it is likely because your default is to be happy, and it is unlikely that marriage will decrease your happiness.
I'm a fan of the set point theory, but I think if there's one thing that could make a naturally happy person miserable, it's a bad marriage. Maybe the question is whether naturally happy people are better at picking partners.
On the other hand, there are people who are less miserable in marriage than out, and vice versa. The last year of my marriage was incomparably the worst time of my life.
A lot of happily married people immediately remarry after divorce or bereavement, because they're sick puppies who can't stand to be alone.
I love that on this blog people get my philosophy jokes.
Geach: yes.
I have not historically been a good-natured, easy-going, or easily-satisfied person, though generally fairly affectionate. I think that being in a happy marriage has made me (seem?) far less bad-natured, difficult-to-satisfy, etc.
60, please revisit the clonefucker thread.
"same person" != "clone" Don't worry rfts, about your coming across as overly good-natured or easy-going.
The bits in 76 need to be separated by a paragraph marker or something.
I agree a bad marriage is really bad. (just as a good marriage can turn around someone's life). But these are not usual events. I suspect most (but not all) people miserable in marriage are just miserable people, just as most people happy in marriage are happy people. Further, I think it probable that assortive mating applies at the level of temperament.
OT: Do any of you well-connected philosophers know where I can get a transcript of Kripke's speech "The First Person," given at CUNY on Jan. 25 of this year?
70: I prefer to think of it less as "hedonic set point theory," and more as "what Apo said." There's clearly something to ogged's claim that happy people in bad marriages become sad. OTOH, in my very, very limited experience, happy people in bad marriages leave those marriages precisely because they're unhappy and that seems so unnatural. Also, happy people are, per eMerSon, more easily satisfied, so future match-ups are much easier for them. Again, very, very limited data set.
Further, I think it probable that assortive mating applies at the level of temperament.
Gawd, I hope not.
frack, no idea, but here's a funny NY Times story about it.
39: My wife & I got very serious very soon after meeting, but were both just off breakups, so wanted to wait - we said "one year, or one big fight." We never had a fight, so I proposed after 1 year. We bought a money-pit house, I quit my job, we got married (with 2 events in different cities), and had a kid - all without anything I'd call I fight. We finally had one after five years of marriage, over disciplining our daughter in front of (very close) friends. I'm glad we didn't wait for that fight to move forward, but I do think that waiting long enough to get some sense of conflict resolution is pretty valuable.
70: I've always been pretty happy, except for a pretty miserable pre-adolescence, but marriage has certainly made me happier. In contrast, my prior, very bad, longterm relationship barely made a dent in overall happiness. My wife has a significantly less happy set-point, but has been happier in marriage (she hardly even hates Xmas anymore). Point being, maybe even marriage/intense relationships affect you mostly in the direction you already tend: miserable people still fairly miserable in a good marriage, but suicidal in a bad one, etc.
Baa Republicanly failed to mention that a good divorce and turn around your life for the better too.
Baa's theory seems to make both marriage and non-marriage futile, since your happiness, or its absence has already been written by the finger of God. This principle would make marriage counseing difficult.
Far be it from me to call RFTS a sick puppy.
Oh, and here you can watch the talk yourself.
Of course there has to be a TV in the bedroom, or there'll be constant whining if one of you gets the flu.
I note that nothing in this questionnaire addresses the issue of change - and people change. What if one of you suddenly decides to convert to Pastafarianism? What if the bride meets w-lfs-n and is overcome by lust? What if one of you ceases to believe that string theory is a viable field of physics and becomes a flat-earther? What if one of you ultimately discovers that there is a part of you "so repulsive and dark"" that you've been subconsciously lusting after Ted Haggard?*
Advice: If one or both of you divorced/broke up after a long relationship, make a list of the things your ex did that were annoying [or just memorable]. Give this list to your potential mate. If he or she cannot give up things on that list - say, wearing beige or raising prize turnips or sulking when you talk to others about politics or Renaissance revenge tragedies, then there will be problems, as every critique or 50 lb turnip will simply remind you of your ex and trigger all sorts of negative feelings.
* Evidently, the New Life Church is a cess-pool of sin; another pastor resigned, as well, after confessing to sex with "another unmarried adult".
frack, no idea, but here's a funny NY Times story about it.
The comments therein about Kripke's looking like a philosopher (ie, old, ugly, male and white) really pissed off some people around here, and rightly so.
The happy marriages I've known have been contracted between less-ambitious people with easily-satisfied aspirations. Not necessarily mediocre people -- sometimes between talented people who have deliberately detached themselves from the rat race.
I'm rooting for the divorce of one of my friends. I like both of them well enough; it's just not going to work out even in the medium-term, they both know it, and it's time for them to move forward with their lives. Gooooo divorce!
86 makes me very sad. You and I could never be wed, DE.
OT, but didn't Kripke parley a tiny amount of philosophy into an enormous reputation? He makes Wittgenstein look prolific.
constant whining if one of you gets the flu
This is more of an argument for a comfortable sofa in the room which has a TV in it, than for some ridiculous thing like a television in the bedroom.
I know a few people who would quibble with the 'invented modal logic' distinction. But the fawning Rutgers students at the end was just classic.
Well, futile is a bit strong, but I do think that yes, much of what makes us happy (defined as subjectively described state of well being) is out of our control. What makes us happy in the Aristotelean sense of a life well-lived, however, is in our control.
And while I don't think that marriage counseling of psychology generally is futile, I do think that if any generic theory implies the futility of psychology that usually counts as a plus for that theory.
I'd guess that counseling can be helpful if people don't realize there's a problem (only having a vague sense that something's not right) or don't know what they're doing to contribute to it. Insofar as the set point isn't really a point but likely a range, taking steps to make oneself more happy isn't necessarily a waste of time.
The problem with the TV question is that it's outdated, like ZF says in 38.
I was also wretched for years in a prior relationship. I don't think I buy this account of the relationship between happy matings and happiness setpoints, though it's certainly true that my partner for the Years of Wretched is far less easy-going and inclined towards contentment than Snarkout is. Maybe my own equilibrium is particularly amenable to resetting to match my partner's.
I think that we can agree that "he" is an irritating fuck. But this only raises the question: Who is "he"? God?
92: No, the comfortable sofa is where the healthy spouse retires to get away from all that sniffling and coughing and up-all-night stuff.
Besides, if one has ankle surgery and is not allowed to walk for 2 months and lives in a two-story dwelling, that comfy sofa idea is just unworkable.
We don't have a TV in the living room - just books and the stereo. That keeps the entertainment neatly divided.
91: Apparently he gives these talks, which are transcribed and privately circulated, but which are never published.
If you have more than one room, the plasma screen goes in the one you don't sleep in.
There is, of course, empirical research on how best to change one's level of subjective well-being. And it's compatible with what the set-point people are saying.
99: Yes, and since Spinoza showed that there is only one substance, viz. God, it follows from Leibniz's Law that we are all irritating fucks.
We are differentiated only under the attribute of irritation.
Actually, that would make us all modes of an irritating fuck, which has much intuitive plausibility.
Good clarification. I don't mean to claim that nothing one can do can effect one's subjective level of happiness, nor that getting out of a bad relationship might not be one such case. Rather, that a person's happiness 'set point' is more powerful than is typically recognized. Generally a person who is happy is a happy person.
inclined towards contentment than Snarkout is
Forgive my ignorance and prying, but are you two like, umm, you know...?
99 -- I thought FL was clearly referring to you in 96.
Holy funny coincidence, Batman! Also, for the record, Kripke is the irritating fuck.
101: another reason to hate the philosophy profession. That sounds borderline unethical in a supposedly meritocratic trade. It's like he's founded a guild with secret recipes and proprietorial methods which the other guilds don't have access to.
The meritocratic pretenses of the philosophy biz already seemed problematic to me before this, but they seem to coexist with egregious restrictions on the flow of critical information. (People in the Kripke network do have weight within the profession, right?)
John, we may have come to a point of agreement about philosophy. Curses! In fairness, there's a lot less of this 'old boy network' than there used to be and though some people get by without actually publishing stuff it's a lot less common. Brian Leiter has been pretty good about ripping into the "but he's so good in conversation" justification for someone's status, as it favors geography, social connections, and so on.
I thought praising Leiter was banned, too. It's a world gone mad.
But what if someone is so good in conversation? Why is that less valuable than being so good in writing? It's not as if journal articles actually advance our knowledge.
Because the aggregate benefit of living and dying by the peer review is pretty good, Ben. Also, fairness.
ecause the aggregate benefit of living and dying by the peer review is pretty good, Ben. Also, fairness.
Is this a truism, or are there studies so indicating? (Sincere question.)
But what if someone is so good in conversation?
You call them articulate, then sign up for sensitivity training.
88:jOHN eMerson is very wise.
I have always been happy, easily satisfied, and generally content, and the negative expectations we each brought to the relationship has served us well for over 25 years. Each day without a homicide or suicide is a successful day. We don't even have arguments. What isn't easily settled is utterly ignored. I find most of the threads here incomprehensible, as to what people find upsetting or intolerable.
Of course, you must have televisions in the (separate) bedrooms. No 50 inch screens, of course, they distract from the computer monitors.
Let me see, six rooms, 5 televisions, 4 computers.
Mr. Kripke beamed in a way that suggested not only an authentic inner state but that indeterminate, hard-to-define condition of well-being and fulfillment that Kant ventured to call happiness.
Fulsome enough for you? (Is Kripke married? Also, did Jessica and Karen blow him? If I had two grad studnets blowing me every day, I'd be a happy person too, as long as they kept being rotated and it wasn't the same two every day.)
I heard Kripke described as "possibly the greatest living philosopher" already in 1963 or 1964, when he was in his early twenties. He says he hates to write. (The poor dear, stuck in a publish-or-perish profession.)
http://www.cle.unicamp.br/seme_2005/kripke/NYT.HTM
Hard to design that study, Tim. (Hey, let's quantify philosophical quality.) But look at what happens when you go with that intuitive gut sense that someone's a good philosopher, despite not getting things in print, for whatever reason: ah, the same social circles keep popping up, and it's more people like us, and so on.
McManus and I are both naturally happy as long as we are allowed our paranoid ravings.
I sometimes think that happy people make better pessimists -- a lot of happy-face people I know seem to be fighting a losing battle against depression.
"You're my favorite Twentieth-century philosopher" she said, subtly letting Kripke know that he was going to be replaced by a younger, more virile philosopher.
We do have a Rutgers philosophy student here sometimes. Perhaps I shouldn't be saying these things.
Leiter has quantified philosophical quality, though some say that his definition is circular.
John, I think you care more about analytic philosophy than all the other non-philosophers in the world combined. I would ask "what the fuck did it ever do to you?" but when a character on The Wire asked that, the unspoken answer was that it had molested him when he was younger.
Man, that's the last time I ever agree with Emerson about anything.
Forgive my ignorance and prying, but are you two like, umm, you know...?
We are indeed.
123: Aren't citation studies supposed to address that?
The issue isn't whether you're on the same page about the answers to all the questions. The issue is whether or not the way you talk about the questions indicates that you can talk about Big Things. Which is actually more important, given that someone's answer to one or more of those questions is surely going to change over the years.
116: Ben, write that up and convince the academy, and I'll be grateful to you forever.
131: yeah, there are ways to get some kind of proxy for quality for a study. What's the alternative to peer review, though, that has a plausible claim to get better results?
If you marry a reasonably happy person from a good family and roughly the same socioeconomic class as yourself, you'll be fine. Mess with any of those, and you've got trouble.
132: B, I'm only 75% kidding when I express horror at the your response to Ben. Isn't the point of blind review to reduce the effects of the sorts of social coercion and gatekeeping that feminists complain about?
135.--Mormon prophets are like Persian aristocracy, in class terms, right?
I went to the marriage retreat discussed in this accompanying article before I got married:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/17/fashion/weddings/17field.html
It was a two day two night event. I was kind of dreading it, but it was much better than I thought it was going to be. They didn't focus on religion, but instead emphasized the type of questions in that list. What they would do was make you fill out the answers individually, then you would get together afterwards to discuss them. This cut down on the fibbing.
There was a lot of emphasis on dealing with unforeseen events. They had a couple give a presentation about a difficulty in their marriage, how it almost broke up their marriage and how they reconciled. It was hugely affecting; everybody was crying. The funny thing is that the couple latter explained that they gave that presentation two times a month and it really wasn't difficult or emotional thing for them to give the presentation anymore.
136: Well, yeah. But I was thinking more of the fact that I can talk shit 'til the cows come home, but apparently in the "writing and submitting articles" area, I suck.
Actually, there's a larger problem that even blind review doesn't get rid of things like solicited essays and so forth. And it doesn't really deal with the problem of confidence/sending stuff out which women may or may not be worse at than men, depending on what you think (and on whether or not you think that that's something that can be institutionally overcome anyway). I'm a chicken about sending stuff out blind, but I love shmoozing and talking out my ass. So, you know, I was only thinking of memememe.
Citation studies might reveal a different sort of old-boyism.
Mormon prophets are like Persian aristocracy, in class terms, right?
Make-believe lineage, social rituals that seem strange to outsiders, tempestuous relationship with the American government...yes, they are.
I am never going to finish my grading and will be out of a job in a semester.
Meanwhile, graduate students are lining up to blow Saul Kripke--even though he hardly ever publishes, and when he does publish the ideas look a lot like things that are already out there--because he talks a good game and looks the way a philosopher should look.
grrr
On the sad fucks who get remarried immediately tip, my evil ex-brother-in-law (the racist, abusive asshole from Buffalo) was married again on the evening of the afternoon on which he and my sister signed their divorce papers. He was practically checking his watch at the courthouse.
It was in the course of this same process that my sister learned, to her surprise, that she was wife #2, not wife #1.
He met wives #3 and #4 in conservative Christian chat rooms and convinced them to leave careers to live with him, jobless, in his mother's basement. Some people will do anything and anyone in order to feel wanted.
I have recently learned, to my shameful but sincere amusement, that wife #4 is violent and he lives in constant fear of her because he has finally met someone worse than he.
What they would do was make you fill out the answers individually, then you would get together afterwards to discuss them.
Did they give you a copy of the home game?
So I guess none of you are members of the philosophy old boys' network who could hook me up with black-market Kripke transcripts. You are all modes of the one great sucking substance, differentiated under the attribute of suckitude.
125: Who's the Rutgers student here?
he has finally met someone worse than he
Ah, sweet justice.
Yeah has nobody put these transcripts up on the net? That would shock me.
shameful but sincere amusement,
You know, that's the reason I hang out here.
My understanding is that while Kripke is brilliant, and certainly has said important things in memorable ways (HI HESPERUS!), part of his mythos derives directly from the desire of the mid-20th century philosophers to baptize another Wittgenstein.
Why the hatred for Saul Kripke? He seems fairly genuine to me, and Naming and Necessity is a great book. Also, publishing infrequently should be encouraged.
Also let me offer a (qualified) defense of Leiter. His rankings are a wonderful thing. They aren't the One True Standard of excellence, but they are a very good way as a prospective grad student to get a sense of how programs are rated and, crucially, of which professors nominally associated with a department will be unlikely to supervise your dissertation. Leiter's response to critics of the rankings, or critics generally, are not what one would hope for, of course.
Why the hatred for Saul Kripke?
As I thought I made clear in 142, the answer is straight up envy.
It's not hatred, I'm just unlikely to blow him for a rambling talk any time soon.
I didn't take your comment as hatred Cala, but Fontana and Emerson seem to have some animosity for him.
which professors nominally associated with a department will be unlikely to supervise your dissertation.
This information you can glean from the Leiter report?
Baa, we agree on Leiter. As for Kripke, I love N&N as much as anyone,* and I think the Wittgenstein book is really interesting, and so on, but it would really surprise me if the gist of the seemingly thousands of stories I've heard about him being an absolutely terrible person were false. And I'm tired of philosophers adopting eccentricities as a way of signaling genius, and I wish more people had said, Saul, cut the crap.
*"Very few people outside of the Black Nationalist movement have actually been named X."
154: yes! If they are part time goging back and forth between here and oxford, or are over 70.
155: As usual, we agree. Cultivated eccentricity should result in tenure ... in a salt mine.
I found the Leiter report useful when I applied. I do agree that there's not a good correlation between rank of department and professor-student interactions, and I also think that too many graduate students worry more about the Leiter rankings than they do their dissertations.
And I agree wholeheartedly on the irksomeness of adopting eccentricities to prove that you r smrt. Get the fuck over it and take a shower, already.
Oh, and 135 is making me think of calling off the wedding. Who am I kidding. I'm a pain in the ass to live with.
155: He isn't alleged to have threatened anyone with a poker, has he? Until he tops that, he can't be the second coming of Wittgenstein.
135 is making me think of calling off the wedding
This could by my ticket to Emerson Heaven. I wonder what goes on there.
Ogged, marry your goddamn hot cousin and quite shilly-shallying. Dog -in-the-manger.
About the happiness set-point thing. What I read in Psychology Today (caveat lector) is that most married people don't report a higher subjective well-being than most single people, but with one important exception. People who did not have many friends before marrying were much happier after marrying.
86: I don't know that making a list of annoying things about your ex is going to help you find a better new partner. People who don't introspect well tend to inflate trivial things and overlook the real problems, (and would be better off with therapy to find out what to avoid in the future) and people who do introspect well presumably already know why they're getting divorced.
To 135 I would add, similar religious beliefs and cultural background would help too.
She's not my cousin, Emerson, you knave. And she's not 19 anymore, so what's the point?
People who don't introspect well tend to inflate trivial things and overlook the real problems
For some value of "well," I guess. My own suspicion is that beyond a fairly low level, the more introspective you are, the more likely you are to be a shitty partner for marriage. Usually, there isn't that much there.
the more introspective you are, the more likely you are to be a shitty partner for marriage. Usually, there isn't that much there.
I couldn't decide whether to make fun of you for being a cyborg or liking Ronald Reagan, but I think you might be right.
"Usually, there isn't that much there."
That much what there?
I concur with 88. It's part of the reason I hope to be happily attached one day.
similar religious beliefs and cultural background
I don't want to be in any club that would have me as a member.
>People who did not have many friends before marrying were much happier after marrying.
This is me.
If 88 is right, I'm proabably never going to be happily married.
people who do introspect well
and are highly intelligent are capable of fooling themselves faster and more throughly than average.
171: I was/am married (estranged, divorcing) to a deeply introspective person. Utterly shitty partner when it came to the hard stuff. She'd already figured out everything when she told me she needed a break; she refused to go to therapy on her own and only came to couples reluctantly; she'd determined that to be happy she needed to fuck other people and live somewhere else, and having come to this conclusion by deep, unaided self-interrogation, she was not willing to entertain a period during which she challenged those conclusions in the interest of making it work before taking drastic action. She was extremely pissed off at me when I came to the conclusion that if she was going to fuck other people I didn't much want to talk to her. I will add that our first series of letters to one another on these issues quoted from Dr. B's blog at length.
On the initial thread, she did at one point say that we never did explicitly decide we were going to be sexually exclusive when we were married. Granted, we didn't, and granted, it would have been a good idea, but I think a partner in that position has to concede that it's the default and argue against it from there, not from "we never said so."
wrongshore--damn it, get a presidential name.
redfoxtailshrub, snarkout--
since you weren't really married until you were married in the eyes of the unfogged community, I want to congratulate you both. mazel tov!
Sorry to hear it, Wrongshore. Sounds like a crap time. But it seems to be more of a considerateness/selfishness problem than an introspection problem. Well, that and reading B's blog. Good luck though.
His point, I think, is that introspection can be a convenient vehicle for selfishness.
cf. 8) Do we truly listen to each other and fairly consider one another's ideas and complaints?
Rah and I are an item, yes, and have been for a little over 4.5 years.
He has made me a much happier person than I was before we started dating. I routinely tell him that I am the luckiest man alive, and sincerely believe this to be the case.
yes, but are you married in the eyes of the unfogged community?
would you like to be?
do you have a television in your bedroom?
177: Being good at introspection precludes that kind of self-deception, by definition. It may be that, in your experience, people who think they're good at introspection are not actually good, but instead deceiving themselves (about that, and other things). But I maintain that being genuinely good at introspection is possible and allows one to avoid much self-deception.
Mainly, good introspection is just being aware of your own emotions, not being defensive about your faults (i.e. actually listening to people who criticize you), and consistently spending time trying to overcome personal problems. I think people like Biohazard is thinking about are probably lacking in the second category, and maybe the first.
And people like in 178 are just heartless and selfish, introspection be damned.
182: Yes, I thought that was ogged's original point. People who think Very Deep Thoughts for very long periods of time find it too boring/threatening to consider that, you know, maybe it's worth examining the assumptions that got you in this pickle, or maybe it's possible to consider one's partner's side of things without feeling that one has automatically squelched oneself by doing so.
(1) Not especially that I'm aware of, (2) sure, I guess? and (3) I had a computer, he had a TV, we have neither.
186: I don't think those traits are linked.
176: You just need to find someone who can be a kept man, is all. (I volunteer.)
179 - You have denied us the naughty pleasure of living in u-sin, you fucker.
127: It's because of analytic philosophy that I am a non-philosopher. That's my whole beef. Is analytic philosophy good enough for its monopoly to be justified? I say no.
Leiter's report is an excellent guide to job-placement in the closed guild. The basic message seems to be that if you don't go to a top-twenty school your chances of being a professional philosopher are slim.
Analytic philosophers drive me nuts because they almost unanimously are purists who believe that sociological forces have nothing to do with science or truth, while at the same doing all their work within a very narrowly-defined hierarchal bureaucracy within a bureaucratically-defined problematic. You get to ouroboric circularity at a certain point, where the philosophy is true because it's professionally instituted (Lakatos?), and the profession is valid because it's True.
so get u-divorced, if it means so much to u.
Ogged, send you hott, aged non-cousin on over. Tell her that in American society the concubines of grumpy, unsuccessful old men are highly admired.
Ogged can do that just by repeating "I u-divorce" three times, but for me it'd be a whole megillah.
88 is nonsense, as are all theories about "what it takes to have a happy marriage." If there were a formula, people would have figured it out by now.
195--
i hope he has to at least think some pointedly deictic thoughts one way or another, elsewise we all be getting split.
(maybe 'u' is a new ultra-deictic pronoun?)
196: It's not a theory, it's a data set ("the happy marriages I've known"). And a very plausible data set, in my opinion and experience of the opposite.
Leiter's report is an excellent guide to job-placement in the closed guild. The basic message seems to be that if you don't go to a top-twenty school your chances of being a professional philosopher are slim.
I thought that this was pretty much the case in all of the humanities. And if anything the situation was slightly better in philosophy, since management consulting companies skim off a reasonable percentage of grad students. Is this incorrect?
197: It wasn't your fault. You just helped get the ball rolling. The ball wasn't going to stay still. (If you just meant to be sympathetic, than thanks.)
I dunno about introspection barring seflishness and self-delusion. A cousin of mine was in Wrongshore's place (at 1st I thought Wrongshore was my cousin). His ex-wife was fairly introspective, but held that since she was so self-aware (through prvious therapy and natural talent) that she knew just what she needed. She used it as an excuse to do what she wanted and relationships be damned. Unfortunately, there were and are kids involved too.
Maybe that's how Ogged can divorce Prince.
he could, but i here he's staying married for the kids.
sigh...
'here' s/b 'hear'
or rather 'hear' should have been there.
damned deictics again.
202: I don't think introspection is incompatible with selfishness at all. Just that good introspection (because there's plenty of bad stuff out there) is incompatible with self-delusion.
201: Yeah, sympathy.
Re. introspection. Genuine introspection is a good thing. Narcissism and/or massive rationalizing skills and/or refusal/inability to talk to other people are bad things that often get called "introspection."
Introspection certainly doesn't rule out open communication with your partner. In my opinion, it's easier that way.
208: In my (and my parents') experience, either your parter is good at introspection or you teach them. Or there isn't open communication.
In practice, it's often hard to separate introspection from paralysis of the analysis. There's a reason philosophy is prone to too much of the smell of the lamp and is best done by talking with other people.
55: I think it's more a question to ask of yourself.
Important introspective questions mature people ask themselves:
- where did I put my glasses/keys?
- does that feel like a lump?
- did I take my morning pills?
- did I turn off the stove before leaving the house?
- what is the name of the person with whom I was just speaking?
- if I had said such a thing, wouldn't I remember it?
Question number 11 depresses me no end. Sigh. I don't like my parents all that much, though I do know that they wouldn't interfere in the relationship.
Genuine introspection is a good thing. Narcissism and/or massive rationalizing skills and/or refusal/inability to talk to other people are bad things that often get called "introspection."
Right. Not many people are actually good at introspection--hyperverbal people tend to suck at it, in my experience.
196: I have no theory of happy marriages. That goes without saying. I was just conceding that there may be some evidence against my theory that all marriages are bad.
There can be a lot of introspection without any self-knowledge and a considerable lack of self-criticism.
I thank Dospog every day that I am well aware of own faults, few and tiny though they are.
213: Hmm. I'm not sure if we're in agreement. I'd either go further than that or perhaps elaborate it. Smart people are good at telling credible stories. Introspective smart people are good at telling credible stories about themselves (and other things). The problem is that those stories are often wrong. No one's at fault, per se--we just don't know much about how we (humans) work. That's what I meant by "there's not much there." I'm not particularly inclined to believe that "deep" stories are accurate stories.
Important introspective questions mature people ask themselves:
- does that feel like a lump?
Yes, now put it back in your pants, please.
I'm suddenly very depressed by all of this. What if you are one of these hyperverbal people given to the bad kind of introspection?
Well I guess I'll think about that for awhile. Bonus: today is the darkest day of the year!
What if you are one of these hyperverbal people given to the bad kind of introspection?
It's fine, text, these people often write well, and they always have stuff to talk about.
217: You become a regular Unfogged commenter. Find comfort in the company of your people!
What if you are one of these hyperverbal people given to the bad kind of introspection?
The good part is you'll never know. The bad part is that everyone else does.
203-204:
Maybe that's how Ogged can divorce Prince.
He could, but i here he's staying married for the kids.
"Prince" s/b eiter "Jerry Lewis" or "Michael Jackson".
212: It's perfectly possible for a marriage to work just fine with problematic family on both sides. I think the only real problem is when the other spouse has trouble with the parents, and the related spouse doesn't sympathize. If one of the spouses is on their parents' side against the other spouse, that's going to be a problem.
(My mother is difficult -- lovely to friends and acquaintances, but very hard on family. When I got engaged to Buck, I was kind of dreading the prospect of spending the rest of my life bitching about my mother and having him say "I don't know why you're so hard on her, she's such a sweet woman," given that they'd been the best of buddies up to that point. Luckily, as soon as we were engaged, that made him family, and now he's as much of a punching bag as the rest of us. Hard on him, of course.)
In exchange for ruining your life and causing pain to others, you are given pretty sentences, without the means to get anybody to read them.
Deal!
Cala, you really need to just elope.
Everyone says that, and then everyone has wedding pictures of themselves in gorgeous gowns. Is it possible to skip it and not regret it?
I don't think good introspection consists of much raw reflection or meditation. You can't just start looking at yourself, no matter how well you introspect, and see what your problems are. Good introspection is about noticing when you react to situations in ways that don't match your ideal self-image, and learning how to react differently to those situations. It requires interacting and doing, and treating your brain like the black box it really is, along the lines of 213.
There's a theory going around (don't know that it's current) that conscious reflection isn't any more privileged than others' observation. You form theories about yourself based on your experience with yourself, and aren't more likely to be right than anyone else who knows as much about you as you do. In particular, the theory states that you don't actually have any direct knowledge about the source of your emotions. The only way you know that something has made you mad, or sad, or lustful, is by connecting the dots, and people can be wrong.
There was a study done that showed that men found women more attractive when the women were standing next to a high bridge than when they were on flat ground. The increased physical arousal due to vertigo was confused with a reaction to the women's attractiveness.
Buy a gown, elope, bring a camera and ask someone to take a picture. Simple.
"Is it possible to skip it and not regret it?"
not for my sig. other, it wouldn't be. she's been interviewing photographers for some time.
Everyone says that, and then everyone has wedding pictures of themselves in gorgeous gowns. Is it possible to skip it and not regret it?
Not in your case, I don't think. Isn't your mom really looking forward to it?
Wait, this is one of several pre-wedding freak-outs, right? Meh, you'll be fine. Lesser schlubs have done it. Have the wedding.
Bonus: today is the darkest day of the year!
I am going to a black-tie dance tonight to celebrate the fact that tomorrow the days will be getting lighter!
228: There was a study done ...
Nonsense. It was sympathetic magic. Big erections cause little ones.
Cala: I don't think you should elope, but not because I think you'll miss the gown and stuff like that.
If you are stressed about planning the wedding, there is an easy solution. Don't think of it as a wedding. Think of it as a party. Design things so that people will have fun--m-fun, even. Don't worry about things being "right." The result is that everyone will be far happier than they would be if either you eloped or you had a really stage-y wedding.
I recommend an open bar and a swing band. Everyone loves swing music. You grandmother, your nieces and nephews.
It's not just a pre-wedding freakout over whether my napkins match my girdle. It's been a logistical nightmare with dealing with the two happiest bureaucracies on the planet: the Catholic Church and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which was more fun when it was INS, I'm sure.
The upshot is that to reserve a church, I needed, as I have been angrily told by my beloved but nitwitted maid of honor, to start this six months ago. But you can't set a date when you have to wait for a visa interview; USCIS explicitly recommends against that, so when they fuck something up they don't feel like they've lost your deposit.
And you can't do anything without a rough idea of a budget, and while I could deal without parental contributions, what I can't deal with is them punting on the question on the grounds that I haven't set a date yet.
So the result is I'm getting yelled at for not having picked a city to get married in, let alone a church, let alone lining things up, let alone how to manage pre-Cana classes.... and I'm seriously wondering if I just say fuck it all and take a taxi to the courthouse, will I regret it?
Don't do it, text!
Don't do it, Cala!
I have fulfilled my minimum obligation.
Don't do it, text!
Don't do it, Cala!
I have fulfilled my minimum obligation.
and I'm seriously wondering if I just say fuck it all and take a taxi to the courthouse, will I regret it?
Yeah, you probably will. Is there a reason you can't get married six mos. after the paperwork comes through from Immigration Services?
I approve of this thread. Cala, marry text. Less hassle.
A taxi to the courthouse? I'd be scandalized. Can't you get married by a priest quickly, use that to leverage the CIS, then have a big churchy celebration at your convenience?
have a big churchy celebration at your convenience?
That would just be for show, you pagan.
I am, ogged. you've missed your window.
Aw shit, that sucks, Cala. Dealing with immigration is the pits. I'd just say that if you're going to feel defeated if you elope, don't elope, but if it's going to break you to plan the wedding, elope.
Thanks, ogged. Don't know how I fooled her into it, frankly.
We have up to six months to use the visa. He's not going to move here before June. So I seem to think that there's no rush to plan until the visa is in hand, but I'm being told that my lack of calling every church in either of the the two cities to tell them that I might be calling them in two months to set a date if we set a budget if I haven't converted to a sane religion and stopped practicing it, too, betrays a revealed preference to avoid having a church wedding. Now I'm being passive-aggressive. Apparently.
The problem with the churchy celebration later idea is that 'later' means 'while Cala is on the job market', and that ain't happening. And pushing it a year later seems silly. No one's going to come to a wedding party for people who have been married a year.
Fire the M of H. Or talk to her, anyway, and ask for a less-stressful relation. Maybe Delegate?
Glad to see Jno. E'son approves of my nuptials, at least.
thanks, Cala. And congrats to you, I don't know if I've already said.
Eleanorararararararararrrrr!
Sometimes I love you, Cala.
I'm also a citizen.
and thanks standpipe. thank you all really, very dearly and truly. Very truly and dearly and really.
Ned, did we not say congrats? Congrats to you, too. Hope she's a citizen. The Department of State can kiss my ass.
Congrats text. I just decided to find the thread in which Before Sunrise/Before Sunset was discussed, in order to make some point about you being a hopeless romantic, but I'm not sure what it was. Uninterestingly enough, that thread also happened while I was in the middle of a take home exam.
Cala, do you know a friendly priest who would be willing to perform a Catholic ceremony outside of a church (in a venue less difficult to reserve on shorter notice)? That would ease up the logistical pressure and keep your marriage on the ups with God, no? Or is that just not done?
And congratulations, everyone!
That is, I'm not sure what the point I wanted to illustrate via BS/BS was.
Congrats to text, Cala, and Ned.
Soon we're going to have little Unfogged babies.
Congrats to text! And to cala too, whom I don't think I ever formally congratulated!
Fond memories though. Maybe the point is to scare away my fiancee.
I went to a wedding for two people who had already been married for a year. People do that.
Also, don't you hate it when really confrontational people accuse you of being passive aggressive? My current theory is that aggressive people get mad at you for not being as aggressive as they are, so they made up this phrase "passive aggressive" so that they can accuse you of being aggressive even when you aren't. You really can't win.
Aww, congratulations Text. And Ned. And Cala too, but we knew she was engaged already.
Cala, do you know a friendly priest who would be willing to perform a Catholic ceremony outside of a church (in a venue less difficult to reserve on shorter notice)?
The World's First Professional Bureaucracy requires all Catholic ceremonies to be in an actual Catholic church. I don't even know why I care at all. I haven't been to church regularly since 2001, and every time I try to go I manage to hit the sermon on the evils of the academy or on women, or on young people, and I tend to walk out for another year.
I guess the reasoning is if it's a church wedding, it had best be in a church I have some nominal attachment to.
I like 261. A friend of mine was married in the chapel at George/town.
I think that people would go to a party to celebrate a marriage. You wouldn't want to redo your vows--just have a huge celebration. In fact, a party on your 1-year anniversary would be great.
oh shit, and Ned. Anyone else getting married?
Also, don't you hate it when really confrontational people accuse you of being passive aggressive?
This is more my sister worried that I'm trying to kill the church wedding by pocket veto so in two months I can say, 'gee, guess we can't have one after all', and trying to diagnose what's preventing me from calling churches. I'm not quite sure why she thinks I wouldn't just tell people what I wanted.
Serious question: Can you get a Jesuit to do it? Aren't they outside the control of the local bishop?
Nothing wrong with a 1-year-later wedding. I went to one where the couple hadn't ever told their grandparents that they'd eloped in Vegas, so it unfolded like any other hippie wedding with dogs and people standing in a circle.
I don't think that this in any way caused the bride to run off to Hawaii with a German and sue the groom for divorce in that state, so he'd have to hire a lawyer there to fight it. In the end, she got the car and he got the credit card debt.
The prospect of a crappy marriage is no reason not to have a wonderful wedding. I'm still glad I had mine. Not that this applies to text and cala. I may still be a little hung up on my own business.
A jesuitical wedding!
Congrats, text and Cala and Ned.
Also, don't you hate it when really confrontational people accuse you of being passive aggressive? My current theory is that aggressive people get mad at you for not being as aggressive as they are, so they made up this phrase "passive aggressive" so that they can accuse you of being aggressive even when you aren't. You really can't win.
This is similar to the phenomenon of total assholes getting mad at you for caring about other people, or as they put it, "pretending to care about other people".
Also, thanks for your support, everyone. I'd like to meet you sometime, although such a meeting would be weird and forced.
273: No clue, but the churches are still part of the diocese even if the Jesuits aren't. To get married in my current town I'd have to get a dispensation from my diocese.
Maybe I could get the Jesuits to fight the consular officers.
This is similar to the phenomenon of total assholes getting mad at you for caring about other people, or as they put it, "pretending to care about other people".
Yeah, but telling people who are mad to fuck off is a lot easier than telling interfering busybodys who are "just trying to help" to fuck off. Because after all, they "care about you," and it's just mean to think that you can mind your own damn business without their help.
Not that I have issues.
So what you're saying is that you're a total asshole? That sounds unlikely.
Aww, thank you. Just don't tell anyone, or people will start trying to be nice to me.
Only assholes are nice to people and pretend to care. Honest people realize that nobody cares about anyone, so they behave like assholes.
It's totally lame. I'm not going to have more than 50 guests anyway. That's almost not big enough to bother.
287: Not at all! That's the perfect size for a wedding. You can actually talk to the guests and will know their names.
Nothing wrong with a 1-year-later wedding.
I did this my first marriage. We got legally married for health insurance in jeans by a notary at a roadside chapel near South of the Border. Then we had the churchy to-do with the big reception and all that the next year at the same time.
Really, nothing wrong with it at all and makes the planning much less stressful, since there's no "omg am I really getting married" crazy thoughts all crowding up your head.
Wait, so text and Cala and Ned married each other? Who performed the ceremony? Why was I not invited?
Is health insurance in jeans better or worse than health insurance in a sarong?
Jeans make health insurance's butt look big.
w/d, you've got to stop focusing on superficialities like how the insurance is dressed, or if she's too heavy or what her hairstyle is -- look deep into the insurance's eyes and you'll know if she's the right insurance for you.
283,286:This thread is starting to become more interesting. More principled misanthropy, please.
Ned! don't do it!
A cheerful form of passive aggression was developed by Svejk (Shweik), a Czech draftee into the Austro-Hungarian Army in Jaroslav Hasek's novel "The Good Soldier Schweik". This "disorder" is highly to be recommended as a Twenty-First Century coping strategy and personal philosophy.
Our wedding was about that size, and it was great. All the tsuris about the church planning and what it supposedly reveals about your true self sounds like a giant pain in the ass, though, for sure.
tsuris
Never seen that before. Straight to Wordie!
Straight to Wordie!
Don't even try to talk street, ogged.
Questions they left out:
(1) Toothpaste: squeeze from the bottom, or squeeze in the middle?
(2) Vacations: Beach, snow, or historically important places?
(3) House: Suburbs, city center, or elsewhere? Apartment or detached home?
(4) Will the woman take the man's name, keep her own, go hyphenated, etc. (Or vice-versa, I suppose, but more rarely.)
(5) Prenup or no prenup?
On the airplane, I was reading an article about successful marriages and an expert was quoted as saying that one of the signs that a couple would surely get divorced is if one of the partners corrected the other's grammar during a fight. Ben w-lfs-n is destined for a life of solitude.
I find this list of questions interesting because we were told to do something similar in my high school course on sexuality and dating. The same class with the primer from which Spencer did dramatic readings.
A friend who works for the State Department had to get married by a certain date, so he and the fiancée had a seekrit courthouse wedding. A few weeks later, they had the ceremony thing, and the preacher (admittedly, not a worshiper of Cathol) was very accommodating about the whole situation. He made it sound like he was marrying them without technically marrying them. Few people know they weren't really at a wedding that day.
Not sure the Catholics will help you out like this, Cala, but maybe?
304 reminds me of the part in Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink", where he talks about the researcher who eventually could tell if a couple would get divorced within 10 years with like 95% accuracy, just by watching a minute or two of them talking on videotape. His finding was, basically, that if one spouse shows contempt for the other (eye rolls, dismissive remarks), you should call in the lawyers. I imagine correcting grammatical errors falls in that category.
305: In Germany it is very common to have a civil wedding, and then a church wedding. They can be on the same day, a week apart, whatever.
We were married in the US, in a small civil ceremony in a Montana ghost town.* No one from either family attended. About 6 months later we were living in Germany, and my parents were going to be there, so we talked about doing a Catholic thing. The village priest in my wife's hometown didn't have any issues about the timing, but we ran into two insurmountable barriers: (a) we found out that the huge old oak tree on the outskirts of the village under which we hoped to do the deed had been a favorite during a recent past no one wanted to remember, and (b) I surprised myself by my unwillingness to make the required promise about any children we might have.
We ended up having a fine party downtown, best man flying over to read vows in English, maid-of-honor reading them in German.
* I loved our little wedding, and have always been glad we didn't put on a huge production. Most people go the other way, and seem happy with it.
259: Since I just watched Before Sunset I actually read through that whole thread you linked to. It had shockingly little about Before Sunset there at all. However, the ragging on Sunshine reminded me of something:
Sunshine is obviously a retelling of Garcia-Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude.
Why am I the only one who noticed this? Anyone else seen/read both of them?
More like window-breakings, ogged.
A guy in my cohort eloped and doesn't regret it; neither, as far as I can tell, does his wife.
308, 310 -- Not this tree. There was a species of neo-paganism that went along with the rest of it all, and weddings under the oak were part of that.
if one of the partners corrected the other's grammar during a fight.
I have a vague memory of having done this at one point during my early years with Mrs. Clownæ. I don't seem to remember its going over well.
A couple of years ago I performed the wedding ceremony for a couple of friends. They had the minister of the church they were using do the legal wedding in his office right before the rehearsal; the next day, their family and friends watched me do the public celebration part of the ceremony, with many if not most of their guests thinking I was a preacher. That was simply too fabulous.
Cala, this might be hopelessly naive, but have you considered responding to these accusations by trying to draft the accusers into doing more so you can deal with the bureaucratic wrangling unperturbed? My sister wanted to do the courthouse-on-lunch-break thing for her second wedding but got talked into a minimum of pomp by our mother. Three days before her wedding she called and announced to me that I was going to be their photographer; a cousin did the flowers, another cousin sang, our aunt played the church organ*, the groom's mother did the cake and our mother organized a potluck reception. It was tiny, very informal and incredibly low-stress.
* ATM, just to beat anyone else to it.
309: Wow, I missed that thread. Good thing, too, since Sunshine is one of the few movies that's made me cry. (And no, not because it sucked.)
269: Cala - are you sure you really want a Catholic wedding? I wouldn't question that choice if you identified strongly with that tradition. But it sounds like you have have some strong theological differences with the Catholicism preached in your area, but are turning to it by default as the only church with which you have any connection. If that's the case, why not take a few weeks now to explore other faith communities with which you might be more compatible? If you find one, you have a new connection with which you can explore either a church or non-church wedding; if not, you had to wait for the government interview anyhow before making your arrangements, right? And does your fiance have any opinions on the subject?