Why Marriages Fail

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Why Marriages Fail

• by Roiphe

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Pre-reading

• What experiences or assumption do you bring to an
  essay about failed marriage? Do you know of
  marriages that have failed? If so, what were the
  causes?

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In-reading

• 1. The topic sentence of par. 3We all select
  with unconscious accuracy a mate who will
  recreate with us the emotional patterns of our
  first homesis repeated in par. 4The human way
  is to compulsively repeat and recreate the
  patterns of the past. Do you recognize this
  assertion as a reality in their own lives? In the
  lives of their parents or relatives or friends?
  What does Roiphe mean by unconscious accuracy?

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In-reading

• 2. Roiphe begins par. 5 with of course. But can
  we move that easily, that swiftly from the
  definitive, deterministic views she attributes to
  Freud and psychiatry to behavior that overcomes
  childhood? Similarly, when Roiphe concludes par.
  9 by saying that the key to a good marriage is
  to set up new patterns of communication and
  intimacy, is she being any less delusional than
  when partners vow romantic love forever?

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Building Vocabulary

• 2. Among the many such items there are
• A. loneliness, regret, loss of self-confidence
• B. despair, crisis points, intimacy
• C. unconscious, emotional patterns, addictions
• D. conscious and unconscious memories,
  compulsively repeat, unmet needs

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Building Vocabulary

• 2.
• E. angry feelings, frustrations
• F. tension
• G. unfulfilled expectations
• H. communication patterns
• i. intimacy, identities

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Understanding the writers ideas

• 1. Sacred vows are the promisesreligious and
  secularthat are made during the marriage
  ceremony. Among these are to love and honor till
  death do us part, so presumably the couple will
  live happily ever after, as in a fairy tale.
  These are time-honored expressions, almost
  cliches they may become obsolete if the divorce
  rate rises even more and proves that these
  phrases are invlaid.

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Understanding the writers ideas

• 2. A home in which the child or children live
  with only one parentmother or fatherbecause of
  divorce or death.

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Understanding the writers ideas

• 3. As the capacity for both intimacy and
  change. In par 2 outside pressures are those
  problems that do not derive from the relationship
  between husband and wife directly, but may affect
  them greatly. Roiphe mentions job loss, illness,
  infertility, trouble with children, care of aging
  parents she feels that while they indeed make
  marriage difficult, the primary causes for
  failure are more internalized.

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Understanding the writers ideas

• 4. We choose based on the emotional patterns of
  the home in which we lived as infants and young
  childrenour parents home (first home). This
  method may cause problems because in addition to
  bringing the positive aspects of early childhood
  to a marriage, we also bring unmet needs, angers,
  frustrations, and so on. Marriage may then become
  a battlefield where we try to resolve these
  negative aspects of our lives.

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Understanding the writers ideas

• 5. The basic myth is that getting married will
  solve all our past problems, that it will
  automatically change our lives for the better.
  This attitude can create a bad marriage by
  putting too much pressure and expectation into it.

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Understanding the writers ideas

• 6. They have changed and expanded sexual
  expectations, gender roles, and responsibilities.
  Some couples are unable to cope with these
  changes.

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Understanding the writers ideas

• 6. They have changed and expanded sexual
  expectations, gender roles, and responsibilities.
  Some couples are unable to cope with these
  changes.

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Understanding the writers ideas

• 7. In other words, not just all the wonderful
  things, but the day-to-day realities of a partner
  as well. A good marriage must be able to
  incorporate both the blissful and the mundane.

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Understanding the writers ideas

• 8. Communication is essential although often
  difficult to achieve. Poor communication
  prevents a healthy exchange of thoughts and
  feelings. This can be overcome by setting up new
  patterns of communications and intimacya process
  which in itself requires good communication,
  however.

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Understanding the writers ideas

• 9. Growth as a couple and as individuals. They
  are composite, representative character examples
  of husbands and wives who have been unable to
  grow together.

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Understanding the writers techniques

• 3. The questions serve multiple purposes They
  pinpoint various aspects of the overall
  condition they provide statistical information
  they involve the reader in the discussion.
  Obviously, the questions dictate casual answers.
  One method of involvement is for Roiphe to use
  first-person plural pronounsus, we, and our.

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Understanding the writers ideas

• 10. The hope that a new partner will solve old
  problems. The results of dishonesty, hiding, and
  cheating are often divorce.
• 11. The fact that people today are unwilling to
  exercise the self-discipline that marriage
  required (14). Sacrifice and compromise.

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Understanding the writers ideas

• 12. Roiphe views divorce as something favorable
  if there is no other recourse. She presents both
  positive and negative effects to balance her
  conclusion realistically. Divorce can produce
  initial devastation, but it can also be a healthy
  step toward new health and ending mutual
  unhappiness.

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Understanding the writers techniques

• 1. Paragraph 2, sentence 1.
• 2. The why promises a causal answer to the
  condition Marriage fail.

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Understanding the writers techniques

• 12. She is ultimately an optimist. A great part
  of her purpose in analyzing divorce has been to
  instruct in and praise the possibilities for
  successful marriage.

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Understanding the writers techniques

• 4. In par. 2, she maintains the high level of
  reader involvement by beginning with familiar
  responses to the opening questions.
• 5. In par. 3, We all selectour first homes. in
  par. 4, A man and a womantogether. In par. 6,
  The altering of roles Par. 3 and 4 deal with
  psychological causes par. 6 deals with societal
  ones.

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Understanding the writers techniques

• 6. Problems of lack of communication, form anger
  to loss of identity to infidelity and to divorce.
• 7. She is beginning her conclusion, acknowledging
  to her readers the validity of all that she has
  just written while at the same time preparing for
  her final account. As such, it maintains the
  familiar, yet serious tone of the opening.

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Understanding the writers techniques

• 8. She cites Dr. Carl A. Whitaker, a martial
  therapist and emeritus professor of psychiatry at
  the University of Wisconsin (3, 15) and Dr.
  Stuart Bartle, a psychiatrist at NYU Medical
  Center(10). These identifications may lead us to
  believe that they are well versed in the subject,
  but she may have used other experts with more
  noted credentials as well.

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Understanding the writers techniques

• 11.
• A. marriage and divorce compared to climate and
  storms (2)
• B. lifes realities seen as agents (7)
• C. anger as volcano (8)
• D. infidelity as the last straw (13)
• E. expectations of easy joy as superficial
  entertainment and pleasure (14)
• F. marital bonds as chains and shackles (15)
• g. cathedrals of the world marriages that
  improve as wondrous shelters (16)

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Understanding the writers techniques

• 9. She uses them in the opening paragraph both
  for their shock value and to set up the
  importance of her discussion.

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Understanding the writers techniques

• 10. Introduction, pars. 1-2 conclusion, pars.
  14-16. This structure allows her a fuller
  development at both ends, and, as discussed
  earlier, it allows her to develop more personal
  identification with the readers.

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Mixing Patterns

• A. Work observing your part in a rotten
  pattern, bringing difficulties out into the open
• B. A Good Marriage growing as a couple but also
  growing as individuals
• C. Divorce no an evil act like the first cut
  of the surgeons knife
• D. Marriage that do not fail but improve offer
  a wondrous shelter in which the face of our
  mutual humanity can safely show itself