Is marriage dead?
Marriage is going down. I’m sure of it. Never again will it have the place of prominence that it once had in our lives.
Predicting the future is perilous. In the mid-1950s, marriage and nuclear family in the United States were at their peak. People got married younger than they had ever married before, they almost always had kids, and they stayed married (divorce was rare). When pundits and scholars and prognosticators were asked about the future of marriage and family, they predicted more of the same. No one saw the upheavals that were coming. It would have been utterly inconceivable to them that the future held a huge surge in the number of people staying single and living alone, along with big decreases in having children. No one predicted those things.
So how can I be so sure that marriage is going down?
There are solid reasons to think that the current trends are going to slow or even reverse. Can the proportion of single people continue to grow with each new Census Report? Is it even possible that the age at which people first marry–of those who do marry–will continue to climb? What about those millennials–will they be taken by nostalgia and start marrying sooner and more often than the generation before them?
All of this demographic slowing, and even some demographic reversals, are possible. They could happen. But I stand by my prediction: Marriage is going down.
It is going down in the more fundamental sense than mere numbers. Regardless of the numbers of people who do or do not marry, or how young or old they are when they do so, marriage is never going to be what it once was.
For women, marriage used to be economic life support. When there were fewer jobs open to women, and when those jobs paid even less than they do now, many women had to marry if they did not want to live in poverty. When attitudes were different, people had to marry in order to have sexwithout shame or stigma. They also had to marry in order to raise children without shame or stigma (though surely, some single-parent shaming persists). Now, with the pill and other forms of birth control, women can have sex without having children. Because of advances in reproductive science, they can also have kids without having sex. And they can do all of that outside of marriage.
None of that is ever going to change.
During these decades when the number of people staying single has been growing, when divorce has become commonplace, and when the age of first marriages is increasing, the millions of people without spouses have been innovating. They have been finding ways of living that suit them. Maybe they are living alone–lots of people are living alone. Maybe they are sharing a place with friends, not just as roommates splitting the rent but as housemates sharing a life. Maybe they have found a way to live close to friends or family while still maintaining a home of their own (some even keep their own homes even if they do marry–that’s the “living apart together” or “dual-dwelling duos” phenomenon). Maybe they have created their own community, as has happened in more than 120 neighborhoods known as cohousingcommunities.
Some of these trends are very small. Added together, though, they are mighty. They are powerful enough to upend marriage and to topple to nuclear family.
What all of the choices and possibilities of contemporary life have really vanquished is a mindset. In the 1950s, it was obvious that there was one way that we should live our adult lives–as a couple, and then as a nuclear family. No one needed to write books with titles like “The Case for Marriage” because the case was self-evident. Even people who really did not fit into the mold of the heterosexual couple and nuclear family did not often make much of a fuss about it. They didn’t realize that within the overwhelming numbers of people who got married and had kids were other people just like them–people who were doing that because that’s what everyone else did, because that’s what needed to be done to survive, because there were no models of other ways of living (or at least none that got much attention).
Marriage dominated not because it really was the best way to live for everyone, but because it was uncontested. No, it was even more extreme than that–hardly anyone even thought to try to contest it.
That’s over.
Even if more people get married tomorrow than they did today, even if next year, people start marrying at younger ages than they did last year, marriage will never be the same.
Marriage was once the only way to live. It was, we thought, the only truly good and moral and deeply rewarding way to journey through life.
That’s over. That is so over. That marriage is dead. It's been 15 years. Dead!
He Took a Blood Test.
He Took a Blood Test.
His Mood Changed and Our Marriage Imploded. Then He Took a Blood Test.
Surely NY’s JFK Airport has been backdrop to myriad spousal spats, with its maddeningly unavailable gates, terminal transfer buses that inexplicably stop running at 8:30 p.m., and weather that goes from fair to foul in minutes—all while a balmy aroma wafts from the food courts. But for my husband and me, ORD was the scene of more than a stressful travel tiff—it saw the nadir of our marriage.
We were headed from L.A. to Paris and on around the world to attempt a marriage reset. For the past year we hadn’t been connecting the way we once had. We were still adjusting to parenthood, but it was more than that. He rarely laughed anymore and seemed distant and mentally exhausted. In return, I felt rejected, abandoned, and resentful. We had yet to spend a night alone since the birth of our son, and we needed a quick fix.
My husband had a conference near the Arc de Triomphe—a monument famous for victory marches—and another in Sophia Antipolis (bet. Nice & Cannes, in the French Riviera)-- so we scraped together frequent flier miles so I could tag along for a few impractical days. As our first flight landed at the airport named for Butch O’Hare—a WWII pilot famous for being gunned down by friendly fire for a stop over—I fantasized about crepes and Sancerre. Even the long transatlantic flight to follow appealed to me as glorious uninterrupted screen time.
He rarely laughed and seemed distant and mentally exhausted. I felt rejected, abandoned, and resentful.
We were wheels down in Chicago with plenty of time before our connecting flight. But with no gate available, we sat on the plane for hours. Finally off the plane, we sprinted to see our Paris-bound Dreamliner rolling back from the jet bridge. There were no more flights to Paris until the next night, and we had to face reality.
All the resentments and anger we were trying to cast aside exploded in a revival of blame. We blamed each other for the missed flight and then we blamed each other for blaming each other. He disappeared into the bathroom and emerged having booked two tickets: one for himself, to Paris via JFK the next morning, and one for me, home to Los Angeles alone. He flew east and I flew west, putting a continent and an ocean between us.
On my flight home I thought about how my husband’s personality had evaporated over the past year. Some nights he barely had the energy to talk. He struggled to recall basic things, like people’s names, too often for a 36-year-old. He was in a constant state of mental fatigue and it felt like he had given up.
When he returned from Paris we talked about the state of our union. The conversation devolved into his and my shortcomings and our own scapegoats, but we concluded that repairing the marriage was possible. We simply needed to work harder.
We tried everything: counseling, meditation, melatonin, detox diets, CBD oils and screen bans.
We tried marriage counseling. At times it buoyed us, but it also required childcare and ate into the scarce time we had alone together. We tried everything on offer in the wellness world: meditation, melatonin, detox diets, CBD oils and screen bans. We were willing to try anything that promised results, but it felt like flinging rocks in the air, only to watch each one inevitably succumb to gravity.
Things felt dark. My mother asked if my husband was alright. Of course he is, I’d say. My cousin, looking at his sunken face, asked if he lost weight. No, I’d joke, men just get better looking with age. What was I supposed to say, his personality changed and our marriage is imploding? In the mornings, I’d often wake up to the sound of him rattling a bottle of Advil. It was no big deal he said, just another allergy headache. We limped along.
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Outside of our marital coursework, I scheduled overdue physicals for us. He told me he’d never taken a sick day in his life, it would be a waste of time, but obliged. Then we got the results.
A routine blood test showed so much calcium in my husband’s blood that his doctor assumed it was an error. After more tests, he was diagnosed with hyperparathyroidism. In simple terms, one of four rice grain-sized glands near his thyroid, in his neck, had become overactive. It had grown to the size of a gumball and was allowing a surplus of calcium in his body. Hyperparathyroidism is rare—about 100,000 Americans are diagnosed with it yearly, most commonly postmenopausal women—and it is easily cured by surgically removing the overactive gland.
My husband’s endocrinologist recommended surgery. He assured her that he felt great, but she explained that hyperparathyroidism comes on so gradually that he may not have realized how bad he felt. As I read about the disease, I started to connect some dots.
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His doctor said the disease comes on so gradually that he may not have realized how bad he felt.
Symptoms of hyperparathyroidism can include headaches, bone fractures and kidney stones, as well as depression, fatigue, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. The Annals of Surgery associates the disease with decreased ability to complete daily tasks and an inability to interact socially. According to The Mental Health Clinician, changes in calcium levels are thought to slow nerve functions and neurotransmission rates, which can lead to personality changes, depression, anxiety and hostility. Curiously, many patients, like my husband, feel they are asymptomatic before surgery. I, however, began to wonder.
Home from surgery, with his stitched neck still covered in a bandage, he perked up and did a little dance in the bathroom. I was taken aback. He started razzing me again with a devilish wit. Was this real? His cheeks came back, maybe only because he was noticeably smiling. Finally we both acknowledged the change. “Do I seem different to you?” he asked. I froze. I was scared to say it out loud. I cracked a smile. “Uh, yes?”
He was amazed by how much easier his life had become. He said he felt as if he had been living in first gear, spinning his wheels so hard, when everyone else cruised. He started conversations again, and befriended parents on playgrounds. He made dinners and planned a weekend away. Small things all of the sudden seemed momentous. The laughter came back. He had an energy for life that had been dormant for a year. Had a surgeon solved our marital problems by cutting a gland out of his neck? It seemed too good to be true and too sci-fi to be real.
'Do I seem different to you?' I froze, scared to say it out loud. I cracked a smile. 'Uh, yes?'
As things returned to normal, the pressure to stay happy nagged at me. When a disagreement came up about childcare or schedules or finances, I caught myself watching him like a specimen and filing any marital complaints quietly to myself. Any potential conflict was quickly ceded, usually by me, because he was cured, so we were happy, so everything had to be fine, forever. But no marriage can rely on biology alone. We had to remember and relearn that it was normal for us to have fights, even stormy blowups.
It’s been eight months since the surgery, and the lightness and laughter between us remains. I still wonder about how neat and tidy this has all been, if it’s possible we both rallied around the same narrative of a blood test saving our marriage, and in doing so made it truer than it actually was.
But maybe that doesn’t matter. Maybe he feels better now, and we were given a gift to offload all the blame, frustration and resentment onto a disease no one was responsible for. Maybe the therapy and all the other efforts came together at the same time. But when I glimpse his scar across the bottom of his neck it makes me smile with gratitude. Paris wouldn't have been the magic pill we needed. It took sweat and tears to reset us, but mostly a blood test.
Surely NY’s JFK Airport has been backdrop to myriad spousal spats, with its maddeningly unavailable gates, terminal transfer buses that inexplicably stop running at 8:30 p.m., and weather that goes from fair to foul in minutes—all while a balmy aroma wafts from the food courts. But for my husband and me, ORD was the scene of more than a stressful travel tiff—it saw the nadir of our marriage.
We were headed from L.A. to Paris and on around the world to attempt a marriage reset. For the past year we hadn’t been connecting the way we once had. We were still adjusting to parenthood, but it was more than that. He rarely laughed anymore and seemed distant and mentally exhausted. In return, I felt rejected, abandoned, and resentful. We had yet to spend a night alone since the birth of our son, and we needed a quick fix.
My husband had a conference near the Arc de Triomphe—a monument famous for victory marches—and another in Sophia Antipolis (bet. Nice & Cannes, in the French Riviera)-- so we scraped together frequent flier miles so I could tag along for a few impractical days. As our first flight landed at the airport named for Butch O’Hare—a WWII pilot famous for being gunned down by friendly fire for a stop over—I fantasized about crepes and Sancerre. Even the long transatlantic flight to follow appealed to me as glorious uninterrupted screen time.
He rarely laughed and seemed distant and mentally exhausted. I felt rejected, abandoned, and resentful.
We were wheels down in Chicago with plenty of time before our connecting flight. But with no gate available, we sat on the plane for hours. Finally off the plane, we sprinted to see our Paris-bound Dreamliner rolling back from the jet bridge. There were no more flights to Paris until the next night, and we had to face reality.
All the resentments and anger we were trying to cast aside exploded in a revival of blame. We blamed each other for the missed flight and then we blamed each other for blaming each other. He disappeared into the bathroom and emerged having booked two tickets: one for himself, to Paris via JFK the next morning, and one for me, home to Los Angeles alone. He flew east and I flew west, putting a continent and an ocean between us.
On my flight home I thought about how my husband’s personality had evaporated over the past year. Some nights he barely had the energy to talk. He struggled to recall basic things, like people’s names, too often for a 36-year-old. He was in a constant state of mental fatigue and it felt like he had given up.
When he returned from Paris we talked about the state of our union. The conversation devolved into his and my shortcomings and our own scapegoats, but we concluded that repairing the marriage was possible. We simply needed to work harder.
We tried everything: counseling, meditation, melatonin, detox diets, CBD oils and screen bans.
We tried marriage counseling. At times it buoyed us, but it also required childcare and ate into the scarce time we had alone together. We tried everything on offer in the wellness world: meditation, melatonin, detox diets, CBD oils and screen bans. We were willing to try anything that promised results, but it felt like flinging rocks in the air, only to watch each one inevitably succumb to gravity.
Things felt dark. My mother asked if my husband was alright. Of course he is, I’d say. My cousin, looking at his sunken face, asked if he lost weight. No, I’d joke, men just get better looking with age. What was I supposed to say, his personality changed and our marriage is imploding? In the mornings, I’d often wake up to the sound of him rattling a bottle of Advil. It was no big deal he said, just another allergy headache. We limped along.
Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
Outside of our marital coursework, I scheduled overdue physicals for us. He told me he’d never taken a sick day in his life, it would be a waste of time, but obliged. Then we got the results.
A routine blood test showed so much calcium in my husband’s blood that his doctor assumed it was an error. After more tests, he was diagnosed with hyperparathyroidism. In simple terms, one of four rice grain-sized glands near his thyroid, in his neck, had become overactive. It had grown to the size of a gumball and was allowing a surplus of calcium in his body. Hyperparathyroidism is rare—about 100,000 Americans are diagnosed with it yearly, most commonly postmenopausal women—and it is easily cured by surgically removing the overactive gland.
My husband’s endocrinologist recommended surgery. He assured her that he felt great, but she explained that hyperparathyroidism comes on so gradually that he may not have realized how bad he felt. As I read about the disease, I started to connect some dots.
Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
His doctor said the disease comes on so gradually that he may not have realized how bad he felt.
Symptoms of hyperparathyroidism can include headaches, bone fractures and kidney stones, as well as depression, fatigue, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. The Annals of Surgery associates the disease with decreased ability to complete daily tasks and an inability to interact socially. According to The Mental Health Clinician, changes in calcium levels are thought to slow nerve functions and neurotransmission rates, which can lead to personality changes, depression, anxiety and hostility. Curiously, many patients, like my husband, feel they are asymptomatic before surgery. I, however, began to wonder.
Home from surgery, with his stitched neck still covered in a bandage, he perked up and did a little dance in the bathroom. I was taken aback. He started razzing me again with a devilish wit. Was this real? His cheeks came back, maybe only because he was noticeably smiling. Finally we both acknowledged the change. “Do I seem different to you?” he asked. I froze. I was scared to say it out loud. I cracked a smile. “Uh, yes?”
He was amazed by how much easier his life had become. He said he felt as if he had been living in first gear, spinning his wheels so hard, when everyone else cruised. He started conversations again, and befriended parents on playgrounds. He made dinners and planned a weekend away. Small things all of the sudden seemed momentous. The laughter came back. He had an energy for life that had been dormant for a year. Had a surgeon solved our marital problems by cutting a gland out of his neck? It seemed too good to be true and too sci-fi to be real.
'Do I seem different to you?' I froze, scared to say it out loud. I cracked a smile. 'Uh, yes?'
As things returned to normal, the pressure to stay happy nagged at me. When a disagreement came up about childcare or schedules or finances, I caught myself watching him like a specimen and filing any marital complaints quietly to myself. Any potential conflict was quickly ceded, usually by me, because he was cured, so we were happy, so everything had to be fine, forever. But no marriage can rely on biology alone. We had to remember and relearn that it was normal for us to have fights, even stormy blowups.
It’s been eight months since the surgery, and the lightness and laughter between us remains. I still wonder about how neat and tidy this has all been, if it’s possible we both rallied around the same narrative of a blood test saving our marriage, and in doing so made it truer than it actually was.
But maybe that doesn’t matter. Maybe he feels better now, and we were given a gift to offload all the blame, frustration and resentment onto a disease no one was responsible for. Maybe the therapy and all the other efforts came together at the same time. But when I glimpse his scar across the bottom of his neck it makes me smile with gratitude. Paris wouldn't have been the magic pill we needed. It took sweat and tears to reset us, but mostly a blood test.
Describe the Morning Marriage Imploded
(NEWSER) – In an extensive New York Timesprofile that takes a look at Gwen Stefani's upcoming solo album (her first in a decade, out next Friday), the singer describes the morning she learned her marriage was over. It was the morning after the 2015 Grammys, and when she woke up, she learned something that caused her life to be "literally blown up into my face." She won't say what exactly (presumably that was the morning she learned her husband of 13 years, Gavin Rossdale, was cheating on her with the nanny), but she says "it's a really good, juicy story" that would "shock" readers.
How she felt: "I'm gonna die. I am dead, actually. How do I save myself? What am I going to do? How do I not go down like this?" she recalls. She decided she had to turn the experience into music, and This Is What the Truth Feels Like is the result. As for her new romance with Blake Shelton, all she says to the Times is that when she went back to work on The Voice, she found out a "co-worker" was "going through literally the exact same thing in literally the exact same time frame," and the rest is history. (Click to see Gwen and Blake's flirty New Year's messages.)
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