Month: August 2014

“Sliding” Into Marriage, Small Weddings Associated with Poor Outcomes
Small Wedding

Small Wedding

Science Daily has a report on a study of marriage happiness called “Bigger weddings, fewer partners, less ‘sliding’ linked to better marriages.”

Unfortunately this is another study showing correlations but not proving causations, so it is less useful than it might appear:

Rhoades and co-author Scott M. Stanley came to these insights by analyzing new data from the Relationship Development Study, an ongoing national study based at the University of Denver and funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Between 2007 and 2008, more than 1,000 Americans who were unmarried but in a relationship, and between the ages of 18 and 34, were recruited into the study.

Over the course of the next five years and 11 waves of data collection, 418 of those individuals got married. The authors looked closely at those 418 new marriages, examining how the history of the spouses’ relationships and their prior romantic experiences were related to the quality of their marriages.

So far so good. But what they did was select a group of single people, look specifically at the ones who got married, and then question them about the happiness of their marriage, their history and other factors that might be interesting. There are problems with drawing any conclusions: self-reporting of both relationship history and marriage quality, and alternative explanations for some correlations.

Those who have had more romantic experiences — for example, more sexual or cohabiting partners — are less likely to forge a high-quality marriage than those with a less complex romantic history, the researchers found.

Raising children from prior relationships can add stress to a marriage. For women, but not for men, having had a child in a prior relationship was associated, on average, with lower marital quality.

….More relationship experiences prior to marriage also means more experience breaking up, which may make for a more jaundiced view of love and relationships, Rhoades said. It’s also possible that some people have personality characteristics — such as liking to take risks or being harder to get along with — that both increase their odds of having many relationship experiences and decrease their odds of marital success, she added.

From the attachment type perspective, it’s easy to see from the Dating Pool Danger graph that people who have been through several relationships are far more likely to be insecure types: Dismissive-Avoidant, Fearful-Avoidant, or Anxious-Preoccupied. Each of these types would be expected to have a lower-than-typical quality of marriage. So the people who they initially selected were already skewed (since they were single) toward the insecure types, and those with a history of broken relationships were even more likely to be insecure types and thus find marriage rough.

Past studies show that couples often “slide” into living together rather than talking things out and making a decision about it. In this study, participants who lived together before marriage were asked directly if they made a considered decision about premarital cohabitation or slid into it; they indicated their degree of “sliding versus deciding” on a five-point scale. The more strongly respondents categorized the move as a decision rather than a slide, the greater their marital quality later on.

“We believe that one important obstacle to marital happiness is that many people now slide through major relationship transitions — like having sex, moving in together, getting engaged or having a child — that have potentially life-altering consequences,” said Stanley, research professor and co-director of the Center for Marital and Family Studies at the University of Denver, as well as a senior fellow for both the National Marriage Project and for the Institute for Family Studies.

That seems fairly intuitive — commitments that occur thoughtlessly, almost by default, happen when people are not strongly motivated by anything but convenience and inertia. After marriage, they may just as easily leave when it becomes inconvenient. Living together for years before marriage tends to show someone was not especially motivated to get married!

Having more guests at one’s wedding — the biggest ritual in many relationships — is associated with higher marital quality, even after controlling for income and education, which may be proxies for how much the wedding might have cost, the study found. Among couples who had weddings, the sample was divided into those who had weddings with 50 or fewer attendees, 51 to 149 attendees, or 150 or more attendees. Among each grouping, 31 percent, 37 percent, and 47 percent, respectively, reported high marital quality.

“In what might be called the ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’ factor, this study finds that couples who have larger wedding parties are more likely to report high-quality marriages,” said W. Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project and a professor of sociology at U.Va. “One possibility here is that couples with larger networks of friends and family may have more help, and encouragement, in navigating the challenges of married life. Note, however, this finding is not about spending lots of money on a wedding party. It’s about having a good number of friends and family in your corner.”

This also seems obvious — lots of friends and family at your wedding tends to mean you have lots of social support, and the larger the social network you invited, the more you probably believed in your own wedding as a real commitment!

More on Divorce, Marriage, and Mateseeking

Marriages Happening Late, Are Good for You
Monogamy and Relationship Failure; “Love Illuminated”
“Millionaire Matchmaker”
More reasons to find a good partner: lower heart disease!
“Princeton Mom” Susan Patton: “Marry Smart” not so smart
“Blue Valentine”
“All the Taken Men are Best” – why women poach married men….
“Marriage Rate Lowest in a Century”
Making Divorce Hard to Strengthen Marriages?
Student Loan Debt: Problems in Divorce
“The Upside of ‘Marrying Down’”
The High Cost of Divorce
Separate Beds Save Marriages?
Marital Discord Linked to Depression
Marriage Contracts: Give People More Legal Options
Older Couples Avoiding Marriage For Financial Reasons
Divorced Men 8 Times as Likely to Commit Suicide as Divorced Women
Vox Charts Millennial Marriage Depression
What’s the Matter with Marriage?
Life Is Unfair! The Great Chain of Dysfunction Ends With You.
Leftover Women: The Chinese Scene
Constant Arguing Can Be Deadly…
“If a fraught relationship significantly shortens your life, are you better off alone?
“Divorce in America: Who Really Wants Out and Why”
View Marriage as a Private Contract?
“It’s up there with ‘Men Are From Mars’ and ‘The Road Less Travelled’”
Free Love, eHarmony, Matchmaking Pseudoscience
Love Songs of the Secure Attachment Type
“The New ‘I Do’”
Unrealistic Expectations: Liberal Arts Woman and Amazon Men
Mark Manson’s “Six Healthy Relationship Habits”
“The Science of Happily Ever After” – Couples Communications
Free Dating Sites: Which Have Attachment Type Screening?
Dating Pool Danger: Harder to Find Good Partners After 30
Mate-Seeking: The Science of Finding Your Best Partner
Perfect Soulmates or Fellow Travelers: Being Happy Depends on Perspective
No Marriage, Please: Cohabiting Taking Over
“Marriage Markets” – Marriage Beyond Our Means?
Rules for Relationships: Realism and Empathy
Limerence vs. Love
The “Fairy Tale” Myth: Both False and Destructive
When to Break Up or Divorce? The Economic View
“Why Are Great Husbands Being Abandoned?”
Divorce and Alimony: State-By-State Reform, Massachusetts Edition
“Sliding” Into Marriage, Small Weddings Associated with Poor Outcomes
Subconscious Positivity Predicts Marriage Success…
Why We Are Attracted to Bad Partners (Who Resemble a Parent)

LeBron James Cut Carbs for Lean Look
LeBron James Skinny

LeBron James Skinny

Just confirmation that word is spreading — if you want to lower your body fat percentage and start looking lean and defined, cutting carbs way down or completely out is the way to go. The Wall Street Journal reports in their story “Why LeBron James Is Suddenly Skinny” that the basketball star sports a new lean look after a summer cutting carbs:

The basketball world has been buzzing lately about an unexpected decision LeBron James made this summer. It has already had sweeping effects across the NBA, and it has radically changed how everyone sees the sport’s biggest star.

He cut carbohydrates from his diet.

James, who also opted last month to leave the Miami Heat for his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers, has shed a noticeable amount of weight since going on a summer-long carbohydrate cleanse not long after losing in the NBA Finals to the San Antonio Spurs in June.

For more on how to lose body fat and get defined with a clean low-carb diet, see “Getting to Less Than 10% Body Fat Like the Models – Ask Me How!”

Real Self-Esteem: Trophies for Everyone?
Medals for Everyone

Medals for Everyone

I briefly discuss real self-esteem, which grows out of real accomplishments and the esteem of people around you, and false self-esteem, which is artificially maintained, in the book chapter “Self-Esteem and Attachment Type.”

One of the themes of honest relationships based on reality is avoiding false self-esteem. The 1970s “self-esteem movement” attempted to give self-esteem to all children by giving awards and recognition to all regardless of achievement. Children are born with a sense of fairness, and children continuously told they are fabulous when they can see they have not done well at something learn that adults lie to them and that they are really not special at all. Only awards for real achievement can build solid self-esteem, and the achievements are more important than the rewards.

Reason has a poll on the topic: “57 Percent of Americans Say Only Kids Who Win Should Get Trophies.” Naturally there are big differences in who understands tough love and who doesn’t, but on the whole most people understand that rewards for everyone (at least after the age of 5!) makes the rewards meaningless and breeds cynicism.

The poll captures the difference in attitudes between “tough love,” fiscally conservative sorts, who favor awards for real achievement, and the soft squishes who think big government can give away happiness in the form of programs and benefits, who want trophies for everyone (and tend to oppose recognition of high achievement):

The competitive desire for winners to be rewarded correlates with fiscal conservatism. Among those who only think winners should get a trophy, 64 percent have a favorable view of capitalism, 64 percent thinks markets better solve problems than government, and 63 percent favor smaller government providing fewer services. In contrast, among those who think all kids should get a trophy, a plurality (49%) have an unfavorable view of capitalism, 50 percent thinks a strong government better solves problems than the free market, and 54 percent favor larger government providing more services.

Death by HR: How Affirmative Action Cripples OrganizationsDeath by HR: How Affirmative Action Cripples Organizations

[From Death by HR: How Affirmative Action Cripples Organizations,  available now in Kindle and trade paperback.]

The first review is in: by Elmer T. Jones, author of The Employment Game. Here’s the condensed version; view the entire review here.

Corporate HR Scrambles to Halt Publication of “Death by HR”

Nobody gets a job through HR. The purpose of HR is to protect their parent organization against lawsuits for running afoul of the government’s diversity extortion bureaus. HR kills companies by blanketing industry with onerous gender and race labor compliance rules and forcing companies to hire useless HR staff to process the associated paperwork… a tour de force… carefully explains to CEOs how HR poisons their companies and what steps they may take to marginalize this threat… It is time to turn the tide against this madness, and Death by HR is an important research tool… All CEOs should read this book. If you are a mere worker drone but care about your company, you should forward an anonymous copy to him.

 

More on education and child development :

Student Loan Debt: Problems in Divorce
Early Child Development: The High Cost of Abuse and Neglect
Child Welfare Ideas: Every Child Gets a Government Guardian!
Tuitions Inflated, Product Degraded, Student Debts Unsustainable
Free Range Kids vs Paranoid Child Welfare Authorities
“Crying It Out” – Parental Malpractice!
Brazilian For-Profit Universities Bring Quality With Quantity
The Affordable, Effective University: Indiana and Mitch Daniels
Real-Life “Hunger Games”: Soft Oppression Destroys the Poor
“Attachment Parenting” – Good Idea Taken Too Far?
Public Schools in Poor Districts: For Control Not Education
YA Dystopias vs Heinlein et al: Social Justice Warriors Strike Again
Steven Pinker on Harvard and Meritocracy
Social Justice Warriors, Jihadists, and Neo-Nazis: Constructed Identities

Divorce and Alimony: State-By-State Reform, Massachusetts Edition
divorce cake

divorce cake

The Wall Street Journal has a great report on the abusive practices of Massachusetts family courts, and a bill that would reform the system and end the presumption of permanent alimony:

Paul and Theresa Taylor were married for 17 years. He was an engineer for Boston’s public-works department, while she worked in accounting at a publishing company. They had three children, a weekend cottage on the bay and a house in the suburbs, on a leafy street called Cranberry Lane. In 1982, when they got divorced, the split was amicable. She got the family home; he got the second home. Both agreed “to waive any right to past, present or future alimony.”

But recently, more than two decades after the divorce, Ms. Taylor, 64, told a Massachusetts judge she had no job, retirement savings or health insurance. Earlier this year, the judge ordered Mr. Taylor, now 68 and remarried, to pay $400 per week to support his ex-wife.

“This is insane,” Mr. Taylor says, adding that the payments cut his after-tax pension by more than one-third. “Someone can just come back 25 years later and say, ‘My life went down the toilet, and you’re doing good—so now I want some of your money’?”

It seems state law allows a judge to reopen a long-settled agreement if the judge believes the party asking for support might otherwise become an expense to the state.

In Massachusetts a bill backed by a group called “Reform Massachusetts Alimony Laws Now!” has 72 sponsors and would require a spouse receiving alimony to become self-sufficient, or attempt to, after a reasonable time. That would establish alimony as a temporary payment instead of a permanent entitlement, as is often the case now….

The House bill would end the currently common practice of using the assets of a second spouse to determine the ability of a person to pay alimony. Alimony could only be adjusted upward for cost-of-living increases, and alimony obligations would end upon the retirement of the payer, though judges would still have the flexibility to take into account special circumstances.

As it stands currently, in MA as well as some other states, the spouse paying alimony can be asked to pay more if he (or, rarely, she) marries another earner, while the spouse receiving alimony is rarely cut off for cohabiting with a high earner. As someone points out, even this reform bill still gives judges discretion to find a retired person liable for continued alimony payments. What this means is that once you have married, the state takes the power to take your assets when it finds your ex-partner needs them, and the costs of going to court to change alimony or support orders is many thousands of dollars and possibly years of delay. Divorce attorneys make a lot of money from the system as it is, and are quietly resisting reform:

Opponents of the bill say it may not adequately protect those who rely on alimony payments. Massachusetts State Sen. Cynthia Stone Creem, a Democrat and a divorce lawyer who co-chairs the joint judiciary committee, has called for a commission to study all the alimony legislation, a move that could delay a vote until next summer. Sen. Stone Creem filed her own bill, which would modify the state’s law slightly, giving judges greater leeway in setting the duration of alimony payments.

In Florida:

In April, for example, Palm Beach County Circuit Court Judge David French prevailed following a 16-year battle to stop or reduce his alimony payments. A state appeals court ruled that Mr. French should not be forced to pay $3,400 a month to his ex-wife, who has lived for nearly 20 years with another man. The judge ordered the ex-wife to pay Mr. French $151,000, the amount she had received from him since he filed a previous case in 2005. Ms. French’s lawyer did not return a call seeking comment. Amy Shield, Mr. French’s lawyer, said he was pleased with the decision.

And the rare case of an ex-husband receiving alimony and abusing the privilege:

Last month, Massachusetts representatives heard testimony from Brenda Caggiano, a 70-year-old retired first-grade teacher who supports her ex-husband, Robert, a certified public accountant. When the Caggianos divorced in 2003, they split their assets. He got their home on Cape Cod. She got their home in a Boston suburb, and paid him the $57,000 difference in the value of the homes.

Ms. Caggiano earned more at the time, so the court ordered her to pay $125 in weekly alimony until her death or her former husband’s remarriage. Since Massachusetts is a “no-fault” divorce state, it made no difference that it was, as both parties acknowledge, Mr. Caggiano who left home.

Ms. Caggiano says she’s living pension-check-to-pension-check and has had to tap a home-equity line of credit to fix her roof. “It’s a disgrace that this man is taking my money when he’s perfectly capable of supporting himself,” she says.

Mr. Caggiano, who is 68, said in an interview he has no mortgage and that his girlfriend, who works full-time, has moved in. He says the couple recently traveled to Italy, and that he spent $60,000 to install hardwood floors, granite countertops and big windows “to get a beautiful view of the water.” He keeps his accounting practice to a few clients: “I’m not going out there trying to develop new business.”

It’s well past time to recognize that the victories of feminism that equalized access to jobs and professions imply that men and women who marry should not be yoked together for life by mutual obligation after divorce. The state’s role in this system is parasitic and harmful, creating incentives not to work or remarry for the alimony receiver, and putting crushing financial loads on the payer. The system’s cost and lack of flexibility hurt everyone. Reform should include an absence of any obligation to support an ex-spouse (unless provided for by their marriage contract or pre-nup) and presumed equal custody and equal child support obligations unless it can be shown a parent is unfit.

Death by HR: How Affirmative Action Cripples OrganizationsDeath by HR: How Affirmative Action Cripples Organizations

[From Death by HR: How Affirmative Action Cripples Organizations,  available now in Kindle and trade paperback.]

The first review is in: by Elmer T. Jones, author of The Employment Game. Here’s the condensed version; view the entire review here.

Corporate HR Scrambles to Halt Publication of “Death by HR”

Nobody gets a job through HR. The purpose of HR is to protect their parent organization against lawsuits for running afoul of the government’s diversity extortion bureaus. HR kills companies by blanketing industry with onerous gender and race labor compliance rules and forcing companies to hire useless HR staff to process the associated paperwork… a tour de force… carefully explains to CEOs how HR poisons their companies and what steps they may take to marginalize this threat… It is time to turn the tide against this madness, and Death by HR is an important research tool… All CEOs should read this book. If you are a mere worker drone but care about your company, you should forward an anonymous copy to him.

 

More on Divorce, Marriage, and Mateseeking

Marriages Happening Late, Are Good for You
Monogamy and Relationship Failure; “Love Illuminated”
“Millionaire Matchmaker”
More reasons to find a good partner: lower heart disease!
“Princeton Mom” Susan Patton: “Marry Smart” not so smart
“Blue Valentine”
“All the Taken Men are Best” – why women poach married men….
“Marriage Rate Lowest in a Century”
Making Divorce Hard to Strengthen Marriages?
Student Loan Debt: Problems in Divorce
“The Upside of ‘Marrying Down’”
The High Cost of Divorce
Separate Beds Save Marriages?
Marital Discord Linked to Depression
Marriage Contracts: Give People More Legal Options
Older Couples Avoiding Marriage For Financial Reasons
Divorced Men 8 Times as Likely to Commit Suicide as Divorced Women
Vox Charts Millennial Marriage Depression
What’s the Matter with Marriage?
Life Is Unfair! The Great Chain of Dysfunction Ends With You.
Leftover Women: The Chinese Scene
Constant Arguing Can Be Deadly…
“If a fraught relationship significantly shortens your life, are you better off alone?
“Divorce in America: Who Really Wants Out and Why”
View Marriage as a Private Contract?
“It’s up there with ‘Men Are From Mars’ and ‘The Road Less Travelled’”
Free Love, eHarmony, Matchmaking Pseudoscience
Love Songs of the Secure Attachment Type
“The New ‘I Do’”
Unrealistic Expectations: Liberal Arts Woman and Amazon Men
Mark Manson’s “Six Healthy Relationship Habits”
“The Science of Happily Ever After” – Couples Communications
Free Dating Sites: Which Have Attachment Type Screening?
Dating Pool Danger: Harder to Find Good Partners After 30
Mate-Seeking: The Science of Finding Your Best Partner
Perfect Soulmates or Fellow Travelers: Being Happy Depends on Perspective
No Marriage, Please: Cohabiting Taking Over
“Marriage Markets” – Marriage Beyond Our Means?
Rules for Relationships: Realism and Empathy
Limerence vs. Love
The “Fairy Tale” Myth: Both False and Destructive
When to Break Up or Divorce? The Economic View
“Why Are Great Husbands Being Abandoned?”
Divorce and Alimony: State-By-State Reform, Massachusetts Edition
“Sliding” Into Marriage, Small Weddings Associated with Poor Outcomes
Subconscious Positivity Predicts Marriage Success…
Why We Are Attracted to Bad Partners (Who Resemble a Parent)

For more on family law, Red Pill men, and modern feminists:

Divorced Men 8 Times as Likely to Commit Suicide as Divorced Women
Life Is Unfair! The Militant Red Pill Movement
Leftover Women: The Chinese Scene
“Divorce in America: Who Really Wants Out and Why”
View Marriage as a Private Contract?
Madmen, Red Pill, and Social Justice Wars
Unrealistic Expectations: Liberal Arts Woman and Amazon Men
Stable is Boring? “Psychology Today” Article on Bad Boyfriends
Ross Douthat on Unstable Families and Culture
Ev Psych: Parental Preferences in Partners
Purge: the Feminist Grievance Bubble
The Social Decay of Black Neighborhoods (And Yours!)
Modern Feminism: Victim-Based Special Pleading
Stereotype Inaccuracy: False Dichotomies
Real-Life “Hunger Games”: Soft Oppression Destroys the Poor
Red Pill Women — Female MRAs
Why Did Black Crime Syndicates Fail to Go Legit?
The “Fairy Tale” Myth: Both False and Destructive
Feminism’s Heritage: Freedom vs. Special Protections
Evolve or Die: Survival Value of the Feminine Imperative
“Why Are Great Husbands Being Abandoned?”
Reading “50 Shades of Grey” Gives You Anorexia and an Abusive Partner!
Why We Are Attracted to Bad Partners (Who Resemble a Parent)
Gaming and Science Fiction: Social Justice Warriors Strike Again
Culture Wars: Peace Through Limited Government