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(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2024
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There’s a weird feel from this comic for me. I’m glad that these two people could have an amicable divorce. I think the thing that feels off is how casual the decision feels in the comic. I suspect this might be why some people are having a negative reaction as well.
Even if you think marriage isn’t forever, it’s still a promise to love and care about someone, to cherish them and share your life with them. I think if you’ve been in a marriage and seen your loved one through hard times together, this comic just feels capricious. A discussion about ending such an important component of your life happening in the span of two panels in a car ride just feels abrupt and unserious.
I imagine in real life the conversation was more serious and the impact of changing you relationship from one of romantic love to friendship weighed on both parties more than the comic has space to show.
If you’ve loved and supported your spouse through difficult and unexpected change or been the recipient of that love and support, this comic can feel dismissive. If you’ve gone through the heartache of losing your special person, even if they are still a part of your life, the celebratory tone sounds wrong.
I am happy that they can separate and still care about each other, but I also understand why people feel like something is wrong about the comic.
Sometimes big life decisions come easy. Sometimes small life decisions come hard (no double entendre intended). As long as they're both on the same page when it comes to commitment, hopefully the concerns you mentioned don't apply to them and we can feel happy about it as a third-party spectator.
I liked that about the comic.
Our society has adopted this expectation that once a relationship has turned into love, it must remain that, and if its not eternal soul mates in total devotion, it's not true love. You're not allowed to dial it down, take a break from it or return to being friends, or it's a "failed" relationship.
The message of the comic subverts this, showing that without such baggage, you could just change the relationship to something else and still be happy.
Instead, we assume from the beginning that the relationship is forever, throw our households together, and when the point would be right to return to normal friendship, we force ourselves to stick close until we can't stand each other anymore.
The comic isn’t talking about love, it’s talking about marriage.
I’ll preface this with the fact that I’m a straight male atheist, and I’m married. My wife and I have had rough patches, as every relationship does, but I made a commitment to her. I swore an oath that I would support her through whatever happens in this life. I didn’t swear this to God or anybody but her and myself.
I’m a very principled person, one of those principles is that if you say you’re going to do something, you should try your level best to do it until it becomes clear it’s not possible. I don’t make promises I don’t expect to keep.
The thing that strikes me as off about this comic is the fact that they are married. If they’d just been partners, then that’s one thing, there’s less commitment there. But marriage is a commitment to a person. It’s not a promise to having sex or feeling romantic every single day, but just a promise that you’ll be there with them during the good times and the bad times. That you’ll support them in what they want to do. There’s no need for these people to divorce if one of their sexualities is changing, because marriage isn’t about the sex.
If my wife told me out of the blue that she thought she was interested in women, or might be trans, I would never offer divorce first. We’d have a conversation about what that means for our romantic relationship, but I still respect and care for her as a person, and would feel like I’m failing as a husband if I wanted to cut and run during a hard transition like that. I made a commitment to her, and if that’s what she wants to do, then I’ll ride it out and make sure she has as many resources as she can for a major change like that, and I know she’ll do the same thing for me. Hard times and changes don’t mean the end of a marriage, it means it’s time to buckle down, come together with your partner, and come up with a plan on how to face it together.
I also respect that nuance like that is impossible to fit into a single page comic like this, and there does seem to be that message of supporting your partner in their decisions. I just have issue with the flippant call for divorce. Relationships and people do change, and it’s good to talk about that and acknowledge that that we should support people when they change, but divorcing them is not supporting them. The comic would have been just as good if they left out the panel about divorce and just went to “my wife is single” because an open marriage is still a valid marriage, it just means you’re not devoting your genitals to one person.
I agree with you that our society puts a lot of importance on love, maybe too much. I’ll always love my wife, eventually. Believe me, marriage is hard, you’re not gonna feel the warm fuzzies every day, or maybe even every week, but the point is that you try. I promised myself to her because I love her. But my takeaway is that I loved her so much for years, that I promised I would always be there for her even if we’re both sick, or I’m mad at her for something, or if she’s changing as a person, and she promised the same thing. That commitment is more important than the love, because love is temperamental. You marry someone because you love them so much, you promise to be there even when you may not be feeling that love.