RICK'S PART II COMEBACK TO PL'S "AVOIDING MARRIAGE"

HERE'S RICK:

"Thanks for the response. As usual, your responses are much more informative and less reactionary. I just wished you could get to the much more balanced and credible tone the first time around! Your last paragraph indicates a need for connection to others. Who cares what form it takes as long as it is not faked? An agreement. A commitment. A marriage. A civil union. Who cares?
The one benefit of actually institutionalizing one's commitment is to insure that what you build together will remain if one dies. I think "love ran its course" was a phrase you have used. Without the institution, love will not be the only thing that a parter can run away with:)
As I have written before, you clearly have much to offer. Why make it so difficult on your readers to benefit from your experience? What is the point of having to swallow the medicine without the elixir?
Back to the original article. I shake my head regarding single parenthood. A happy parent is a good parent. Single or married. How Bella got those assertions by her editor is truly remarkable.

Part II
Let’s get to some of the claims.

Single people are happier.
The article supports this by stating singles jump into marriage for the wrong reasons or are not ready to be able to give themselves totally. Of course one would end up unhappy. What a scholarly conclusion! It’s like buying a stock because the guy at the barber shop said it was a can’t miss buy. Then, when it tanks, one is surprised when it fails. If you are able to qualify the purchase, just as if you are able to be whole before going into a marriage, happiness/success is much more probable.
Anyone who follows this blog and actually believes in its premise, understands that being single or married has nothing to do with being self actualized. And, if you’re lucky to have someone to help you in giving yourself that permission, all the better. Married or not.
If you’re a banged up individual with lots of baggage from your youth or experiences and fail to work on yourself, happiness becomes that much more elusive. Married or not.
I’ve been both single + married. My character structure demands sharing love + life. Even in my failed marriage, I was truly happier, until the end of course. (Again another brilliant conclusion by the author that as people near a break up and shortly thereafter unhappiness prevails. Duh?)

Single parent children do better than children of married couples.
I should have killed one of my parents when I was 3. That way, I would be more successful!! Gulp Gulp on the Kool Aid!
Once again, if you believe in this blog, if you’re giving yourself full permission to live whether single or married, you will be better parent.
It is impossible to be a mother and father as a single parent. You can only do ½ the job very well. For most, having a single parent leaves a huge void and some serious issues. However, that single parent may give you the tools to allow you to be influenced positively by friends, family and community members.
It is not the absense of a parent that determines success of all those actors, but the struggle one goes through that builds confidence + success. Very healthy families produce stalwarts as well. They instill a sense of discipline, mental toughness and commitment that determine success. These are the same traits that children of single parents or of harden lives need to develop to survive such predicaments. Again, how you get there can be different.
Obama succeeded because his father wasn’t around? If anyone believes this stuff can now move into the Michael Jackson-less Never Never Land.
I have two parents that were married at 20 +21. Erikson would have given the ok for them to marry. Why? They knew who they were and had conviction in their parenting.

I see the results of bad marriages and single parenting through my students. They run the gamut. Both produced greatness and great failures. I would be interested in hearing from those who grew up in single parent households and qualifying their success +/or failures."