Dennis Prager Show - When Spouses Have Incongruent Evaluations of the Marriage
Aired: 2020-06-18
Duration: 05:49


=== Marriage Expectations (05:23) ===

[00:00:00]  Were you or are you in a marriage?
[00:00:06]  Now you may not even be able.
[00:00:09]  Well, yeah, you would be able.
[00:00:11]  Were you or are you in a marriage in which one party thinks things are fine and the other one thinks things are pretty awful?
[00:00:23]  This came about after a discussion of Were you shocked when your spouse left?
[00:00:36]  I think most people think that if there's a divorce, the couple were having trouble and it finally ended the marriage, right?
[00:00:51]  That's how most people think about a couple that divorces.
[00:00:55]  Well, you know, it didn't happen overnight.
[00:00:58]  It was a gradual erosion of respect, love, liking, and whatever it was that eroded.
[00:01:09]  So I posed the question on a previous male-female hour, were you shocked when your partner decided to leave?
[00:01:18]  So that raises a related question, and that's the one I want to talk about now.
[00:01:23]  Not were you shocked when your partner left, but rather, Are you or were you, I guess it's related if it's the were you part, in a marriage where one party thought things were fine and the other one thought things were awful?
[00:01:40]  1-8 Prager 776. 877-243-7776.
[00:01:50]  I can imagine that.
[00:01:53]  The question is, is it...
[00:01:57]  Is it common?
[00:02:03]  Also, I think people think if one thinks things are okay and the other one thinks things are awful, that the one who thinks things are okay is clueless.
[00:02:17]  That's the way I think most people react.
[00:02:21]  You agree?
[00:02:23]  But it's not necessarily the case.
[00:02:28]  This is a very important point.
[00:02:31]  I can imagine a marriage in which the person who thinks things are okay has simply less expectations, fewer expectations of terrificness than the one who thinks things are awful.
[00:02:49]  Maybe the one who thinks things are awful is wrong.
[00:02:54]  When I ask this question, I am sure most people think, oh boy, there sure are clueless partners out there, not knowing how bad things are.
[00:03:06]  By the way, I have no doubt that they exist.
[00:03:10]  But I think that it is just as likely that one thinks that things are fine because it's all relative.
[00:03:21]  One might think, That things are not fine, things are awful, because they're not excited.
[00:03:29]  Well, excited is a tough term.
[00:03:36]  What if things are peaceful and kind and mutual respect, make a home, have friends, hopefully go to church or synagogue, But, and with all that, you know what, I'm just not getting something out of this.
[00:04:03]  What does that mean?
[00:04:09]  A lot of whether or not one is happy in a marriage is not dependent upon how the other treats them.
[00:04:19]  I may use them.
[00:04:20]  Him or her would be more accurate.
[00:04:23]  But rather the expectations you bring into marriage.
[00:04:32]  The sort of pretty regular fireworks.
[00:04:38]  Now, by the way, I'm not against pretty regular fireworks.
[00:04:45]  But when I pose the question, The question of the hour this week.
[00:04:58]  The implication that the person who doesn't know that the other one thinks things are bad is clueless is not necessarily accurate.

=== Life's Philosophy Matters (00:41) ===

[00:05:08]  I believe it is often accurate.
[00:05:10]  I just want to make that clear.
[00:05:13]  All right.
[00:05:14]  1-8 Prager 776. 877-243-7776 is the number.
[00:05:25]  We ought to do that about...
[00:05:27]  The whole thing, it shows you how much of life is the philosophy you bring to it.
[00:05:38]  Two people experiencing the identical marriage in almost identical ways and one quite okay.
[00:05:48]  Even grateful for it.