An Answer to TheSearch's post below

[MarkInTx]

Greg,

I do not strongly disagree with anything you said. However, it is not EXACTLY the same as an "Arranged" marriage.

In a truly arranged marriage, the two participants don't have any say so in the final decision.

I agree that this method of marriage leads itself to "We seem to fit, let's see if it works out" mentality, but at least both people make that decision.

I want to say one other thing about all of this, though. My mother and I recently had this discussion. She wanted to know how I could marry someone that I didn't really "know."

I said: "Let me ask you this. Do you think that the better you know someone, the better your chances for success in a marriage?"

She answered: "Of course."

And yet, I can (with empirical evidence) prove that this is not true.

It seems like it should be. It certainly seems to make sense. And yet it is not true.

How do I know?

Well everyone knows that the national average for divorce rate in our country is about 50%. Do you know what group has a worse average than that, though?

THOSE WHO LIVED TOGETHER PRIOR TO MARRIAGE.

It's true. The couples who lived together for a year of more had a much higher incidence of marriage than the national average. In fact, when you remove them from the national average statistic, the national average of divorce drops significantly.

And yet, these people knew each other better than anyone. They actually lived with each other. They had the chance to fight over the toilet seat being left up, and the toothpaste being squeezed from the middle. If getting to know someone were the best ingrediant for success, sure these people would have the lowest incidence of divorce, and yet it is exactly the opposite.

Why?

Because getting to know someone is not as important as two people committing to make a marriage work.

The people who live together before getting married are inherently afraid of risks, and afraid to commit. This attitude is not conducive to making a marriage work.

I remember once reading an interview with Billy Graham's wife as they celebrated a wedding anniversary. (I forget, it was something like the 30th year anniversary.)

Someone asked her: "In all of that time, did you ever even consider divorce?"

She laughed and said. "No. Never. " Pause. "Murder a few times, but never divorce!"

It is that attitude that makes a marriage work... not knowing someone. The only thing you REALLY need to know about someone is: "How badly do you want to make this work?"

I firmly believe that if two people (any two people) want to make a marriage work badly enough, then it will...

And then you have your whole life to get to know each other...

[thesearch]

... in response to An Answer to TheSearch's post below, posted by MarkInTx on Jun 26, 2002

The way I see it Mark, your post and others under yours prove my point that people involved in this process rationalize away the concept that this is not more like an arranged marriage than anything else.

Your point is well taken that in a true arranged marriage in that the two participants usually don't have any say so in the final decision. However, I still contend that these marriages are more closely related to arranged marriages then traditional courting and marriage in the Western world.

Mark: "I agree that this method of marriage leads itself to "We seem to fit, let's see if it works out" mentality, but at least both people make that decision."

Mark what decision have the two people made? The guy has made a decision to find a woman who is more attractive and not uncommonly younger than he can acquire at home. That is his decision. Not uncommonly this is clouded with comments about how bad AW are and that it is the values that he is seeking that FSU are supposed to have as the real reasons for his quest. But, you know, I do not see many guys bringing back older women who are not too attractive who also have "those family values" that everyone is talking about. The priority is reflected in the woman he brings back.

What did the lady decide,  I want to marry a man who lives in a country where life has more promise and fortunately that may include - there are not many good men where she lives and thus she just wants a man.

So both parties or at least one in most cases set out to arrange the meeting and K-1.

Now Mark, I have to agree with your mother.

Your mother's response to your question

"Do you think that the better you know someone, the better your chances for success in a marriage?" - her response was yes with your response in your post to us being no followed by:

"And yet, I can (with empirical evidence) prove that this is not true. "

Your empirical evidence is about the national divorce average is 50% with supposedly a study revealing that this is skewed high because people who lived together before getting married have a much higher divorce rate. Your proof is that these couples who lived together first must have known each other better than the other couples and thus knowing someone better is not a help.

However, with reasoning that you use to arrive at this conclusion you would have to also say that getting to know each other is thus a hindrance and increases divorce rate----for as to how you arrive at this - extending it to this additional conclusion is no less logical. Where did the study conclude that these people somehow know each other better or how did you come to that?

Now, could all of  this be true? I suppose but, I certainly do not know that and your argument does not provide anything to prove such.

Keep in mind, NO ONE HERE has ever found any statistics about these MOB marriages. We do have stats from the INS on thousands of abuse claims since 1995 with over half being accepted by the INS as being valid whether they are or not. A ton of these marriages go down in a very nasty way.

Getting back to those people who lived together before they got married --- You say that these marriages did not work because ----------

"Because getting to know someone is not as important as two people committing to make a marriage work."

I agree with you totally here but how do you know what that has to do with the study you mention as you are using this study to somehow prove your point? You go from one topic to another almost assuming that therefore people in the study who lived prior to marriage do not have commitment to marriage. Where did you get that?  Part of your logics is that since they lived together before getting married they ............. in your words...........

"The people who live together before getting married are inherently afraid of risks, and afraid to commit. This attitude is not conducive to making a marriage work."

Now how did you come up with that relative to wilingness to take risks? It is assumtion as far as I can see.  I am not saying that it is not true, it is just that I personally do not feel I can arrive at such a conclusion.

Mark, the way I see this you have proven my point perfectly by your manipulation of some facts and  observations arriving at conclusions to support what you are doing. And responses of those below support you in this.

People in this venture not uncommonly  use facts in a fashion to suit their own needs so as to justify what they are doing. You did an excellent job of it in your post. I mean you go from one thing to another painting a picture that  does not seem that unreasonable so, it is easy to convince yourself.

But, if we go on what seems reasonable you also said that it seems reasonable that getting to know one before getting married will improve your chances of success ---- but decide to totally reject this with all this so called proof. When you want to come to an end result, there is commonly not much scrutiny of the logics  but more of a non thinking "Right on" chorus from others wanting to belief the same conclusion.

Your comment ----------"I firmly believe that if two people (any two people) want to make a marriage work badly enough, then it will..."  I would say "it has a better chance" not "it will" myself but other than that, I agree totally. But Mark, what does this have to do with MOB success relative to the masses anyway? How does this increase the success of MOB marriages? Are you saying that those involved in MOB are more this way and thus again justifying such? If you do not know your MOB very well how do you know this about her?

I will agree with you on one thing, for the lady coming over here who does not speak English, can not make a living, she only has two choices either make it work, go back home or scam. She is in a very vulnerable position and thus is not likely to do anything else ------------------at least until she is confident and can make it on her own. Then, if the guy she married has not treated her right and other better looking men approach her --- bang ----- it may all change. However, if he has been a good husband and she is of the loyal type her arrival at being confident in her new surroundings will not be a problem - but that is getting off the subject.

Now a very likely reaction by some because of this post would be to ask me "If you feel that way why in the He11 are you here anyway?" Or, if I was new here to be called a Troll.

Mark you see, I do believe that the better you know someone, the better your chances are for marriage. I am not talking about one couple but the averages of all couples. I am not saying that I am correct. I can not say that, I have no proof but since it seems more logical than the opposite, I would have to see real proof that such is not the case.

So, for me, since I believe this, I would have to find one heck of a woman for me to make the leap. I happen to think, without proof that there are a lot more women in the FSU that could be that woman then there is here where I live.

So, I am not agin ya )

[MarkInTx]

... in response to Sorry, the way I see it, you just proved..., posted by thesearch on Jun 27, 2002

I really don't see how the FSU marriage is like an arranged marriage.

You say that you agree in the arranged marriage, the participants don't have a choice... but say you still think that the analogy applies...

To me, that's like saying "Yes, but other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?"

The fact that the FSU marriage participants have a free choice is exactly what makes it not at all like the pre-arranged marriage.

The only thing that seems similar, according to what you have said, is that the people don't know each other very well.

My point was that knowing each other well is not a guarantee of success, and I feel it is highly over-rated. For the record, I have felt this way since my divorce from my first wife. I thought I knew her very well. And I did. However, she changed...

The statistics that I cited about people who lived together are well known and publicized... it wasn't something I read in Mad magazine or something. Any marriage counsellor can tell you the same thing.

The fact that these people knew each other better than someone who had only dated can be reasonably inferred by the fact that they actually lived together. You're not really questioning the veracity of that, are you?

It does not hold true that if knowing someone well does not guarantee success, that not knowing someone at all will increase your chances. Don't be silly. If I make the statement that a fish cannot live out of water, you cannot say: "then anything living in water must be a fish!"

I simply said that in indicators of success in a marriage, I have never seen any evidence that proved that as the "intimate knowledge" of the parties increased, so did likelihood of success in the marriage.

If you know of such a study, I would certainly like to hear about it.

I still think that the evidence of couples who lived together's  high incidence of divorce does indeed indicate that spending a long time getting to know someone does not increase your chances of success. I am not saying that blind dates should be instantly married. Don't twist my words.

Again: My whole point was that you seem to place an inordinate amount of stock in this whole "You must get to know the person first" and all I am saying is that I have never seen any body of evidence that said that is true.

Now, you ask: "Why do I feel that the FSU process somehow has a greater likelihood of success?"

That is a fair question.

Again, I think it comes down to internal values. I am not talking about bringing a woman over who is young, naive, and can barely speak English, and thus limiting her choices, and "forcing" her to stay by keeping her some sort of cultural prisoner.

My fiance is not too young (I dated younger AWs) she is not naive (she has lived a life that is far too harsh to have her be naive) and she is diligently studying the language so that she can be fluent as soon as possible.

So none of those reasons are why I have a high expectation.

Instead it is the fact that what she wants out of life is to be a wife and mother, and have happy family.  Those are personal goals that bode well for developing a family that will stand the test of time.

I compare that with most AWs I dated who wanted: A career, to be self-sufficient, and for a man who "made them happy..." and it doesn't come close to being conducive (in my opinion) to making a good marriage.

And, unfortunately, I know something about unhappy marriages...

I will say this again, I think Victoria is a babe.... but she is not the most beautiful or youngest woman I have dated in the past two years. I could have married young and pretty if that is all I was after. It wasn't, and I didn't.

It is the whole package that I am in love with. That is what I was seeking, and that is what I believe I found.

Do I have a guarantee? No. Certainly no guarantee better than someone who had stock in Worldcom, or Enron... My point is: what in life is guaranteed?

You want to say that the guys involved in this are in "La-la" land... but how do you account for the fact that so many guys on the board are happily married? Yes, we have had some guys on here who have posted sad tales of woe, but only speaking anecdotally, there are a lot more happily married men on here, than bitterly disappointed ones.

And you can't really say that those who failed wouldn't post it because they don't want to admit it, because most of the men who have been married do post from time to time.

How many of them report that their wife left them? (Not the guys who come on, make one post: "I was scammed" and you never hear from them again.. I don't give those any credence...)

I am talking about the guys who have been on here, we followed their search, and they got married... Of these, how many ended up in divorce that you know of?

I can only think of one. I know, that is purely anecdotal evidence... but come on.. what evidence do you have that all of the guys here are in la-la land?

I've rambled on long enough... let me just end with a quote I heard recently:

"To those who cannot hear the music.. the dancers are insane..."

[Ramblin]

... in response to An Answer to TheSearch's post below, posted by MarkInTx on Jun 26, 2002

to that!

[squirecam]

... in response to An Answer to TheSearch's post below, posted by MarkInTx on Jun 26, 2002

Very good, and accurate, post.

Squirecam

[Oscar]

... in response to An Answer to TheSearch's post below, posted by MarkInTx on Jun 26, 2002

Well Mark, you said a mouthful and ALL of it is true!  As a therapist, I can confirm what you say about "living together" and divorce, you are quite correct that they have a higher divorce rate.

And the point about the most important thing in a marriage being the committment to the marriage, is again (in my opinion) the most crucial aspect that will determine success or failure in a marriage.

When we decided to go to the FSU to look for wives, we completely departed from anything even remotely resembling traditional dating as most people know it..  
Extreme circumstances call for extreme measures, and sometimes those extreme measures call for extreme courage..  My hat's off to those of you who have married these women, to those of us who are in the process of marrying them now, and those who are just starting or still searching there..  ;-)

Later

[MarkInTx]

... in response to An Answer to TheSearch's post below, posted by MarkInTx on Jun 26, 2002

The sentence reading:

"It's true. The couples who lived together for a year of more had a much higher incidence of marriage than the national average. In fact, when you remove them from the national average statistic, the national average of divorce drops significantly. "

SHOULD read:

"It's true. The couples who lived together for a year of more had a much higher incidence of DIVORCE than the national average. In fact, when you remove them from the national average statistic, the national average of divorce drops significantly. "

I hate it when I do that...

[snowwego]

... in response to Correction, posted by MarkInTx on Jun 26, 2002

I agree with you and think that was very true I read that somewhere before and i lived with my EX ( bad word again) before I got married. Biy did she have an opposite attitude change after we got married.Rick