I saw this article when I logged off of hotmail.

http://lifestyle.msn.com/relationships/couplesandmarriage/articlemc.aspx?cp-documentid=5352156&page=1

If you don’t want to read the whole article, I found these snippets very interesting.

Of course, our generation can afford to chuck the Cinderella story when the glass slipper doesn’t fit. While our grandmothers were forced to remain shackled to unhappy unions for monetary reasons, most women today have the financial wherewithal to cry uncle and bolt whenever we get uncomfortable.

More and more women have that throwaway mentality with their first marriage — the ‘I want it now’ attitude.” Until, of course, you don’t.

And that’s just our prerogative, says Generation Me, fingers poised above the do-over button. We can pick and choose among limitless possibilities seemingly unattached to consequence because today’s 20-somethings are living out an extended adolescence in a manner unlike any generation before them. We’re still knocking around and figuring it out, often on our parents’ dime.

It’s easy to write these women off as callous or self-absorbed. And yet on some level, they just might be pioneers: Why stay put in an empty shell of a marriage — an arrangement on paper only — instead of calling it what it is? “This generation is reinventing marriage,” says Paul.

“I think women our age are like, We’re either going to fix this, or we’re going to end it

and that’s for the better,” says Kay Moffett, coauthor of Not Your Mother’s Divorce. She married her own starter husband in a funky, flamingo-filled Florida wedding at 27, then divorced him four years later after realizing she could never make the real commitment of having children with him. But don’t call her divorce a failure; in this enlightened world, it was simply a relationship that ran its course. “I think maybe we’re moving more toward a serial-marriage society — maybe you have three marriages in your life and several different careers. That’s where I’m heading,” she says.

As a married woman with a successful career, the ability to provide my own financial security, and thousands of “other” options thrust at me every night I work…I can empathize with the above sentiment…but I don’t know if I buy it.

50% of all first marriages end in divorce.  67% of all second marriages also fail (this includes marriages where only one partner is a divorcee).  No one enters into marriage thinking they’re going to get divorced, but the odds are stacked against us from the very start!

Sure, there have been times I’ve wanted to pack up and go back to Philly.  Ugh, GOD that thought didn’t last very long!  At one point this summer, I had to give some “tough love” when I felt my better half wasn’t pulling his weight.  After his intial backlash where we missed our FREE dinner in Chicago, he has since stepped up to the plate.  (I’m still pissed about missing free food….)

I think the problem lies in accountability.  No one wants to be accountable for their actions anymore.  It’s always someone else’s fault, or “I can’t because….(fill in the blank with lame excuse)”

People just aren’t accountable for their relationships anymore.  It’s always “He did this” or “She did that” or “He cheated on me, so I cheated on him to get back at him”

And it’s not just strippers!  I was on the treadmill at the gym chatting with a woman who takes my classes.  I must have “tell me your life story” emblazoned on my forehead because people spill their guts to me.  Anywho, she thinks her husband is going to leave her…so instead of being accountable for her actions, communicating with her spouse, and finding the root of their marital issues…she’s trying to get pregnant.  She stopped taking her pill and is using an ovulation predictor to figure out the exact best day for conception.  Apparently they don’t have sex very often (hmmmm maybe that’s the root of their marital issues) because she kept saying that she doesn’t want to “miss the best day”  I told her to just screw him everyday, ya just might like it!  An absolute look of horror crept over her face.

So here’s the kicker….she’s not doing this to save her marriage….she’s doing it because (direct quote) “I’ll get more money in child support than I will with alimony.”  I almost fell off the treadmill!!!

Here is a woman, who is planning on bringing another life into the world just so she can have a monthly paycheck!   I don’t know if I should be disgusted by her lack of accountability or feel bad for her because she is a user and probably will never be able to sustain a meaningful relationship.  She prides herself on being a nice church-going girl too.

A “user”  Remember the term from high school?  A person who uses someone to get what they want.  That is what some people seem to be turning marriage into.  Some use their spouses for financial security.  Others use their spouses for great sex until he/she gets fat.  Then they discard them for a “newer” model.

Duh!  No wonder our divorce rates are so high!  You can’t discard people!  Of course 2nd marriages fail at a higher rate than 1st marriages do.  If you weren’t accountable for the first relationship, why would the 2nd (or 3rd or 4th) be any different?

As an entertainer, I see customers ebb and flow with their current relationships.  They come see me regularly when they are unattached.  Then they get a girlfriend/fiance/third wife and disappear for weeks, months, years.  Then they resurface again, bewildered about how they thought this one was different.

Yeah….well.  Maybe that one was different, but you are still the same.

So, everytime I start having thoughts that the grass is greener in Philly (hahaha) or that I want to reclaim my independence, or that I want to get bigger boobs and travel the country on the stripper circuit (well, I DO want to do that, but I don’t need bigger boobs)….

….I open up my wedding album.  I look around my house.  I sit out in the grass under my fruit trees that hubby so painstakingly planted by hand.

I have my independence.  I make my own financial security.  And I’m accountable for the relationships that I have entered.

Besides, I had such a fairytale wedding…it would be such a shame to draw mustaches on this.