I came across an article in Today which said that there is a rising divorce rate in Singapore, hitting 7061 cases in 2006. More couples are seeking help to rebuild their relationship and save their marriage. According to the article, problems may range from extra-marital affairs, lack of sexual intimacy, conflicts with in-laws, and difficulty in handling children who are rebellious or who lack interest in studies.
Marriage counselors encourage couples to handle the issue at hand, instead of targeting each other. Being more respectful and sensitive to each other’s emotional need is also important in maintaining a relationship.
Close relationship between two people involves some degree of interdependence (sharing of contributions and outcome). Theorists had identified two different ways in which this interdependence can occur. Exchange relationship, in which partners tend to keep track of what they had given and what they have received, and they strive to maintain a balance. Communal relationship on the other hand, is where the recipient of the benefit is not required to return that benefit. Communal relationship is more giving, prioritizing the needs of their partner.
Equity theory is used to explain the idea of perceived fairness or balance in interpersonal relationships. An equitable relationship is one where both partners perceive that they are receiving relatively equal outcome. And satisfaction in a love relationship often depends on how fair you perceived it to be. For example, when someone had an extra-marital affair, their spouse felt unfair and unjust. It is my assumption that the spouse will try to make this relationship equal by punishing the person with an event of the same magnitude (such as them committing adultery themselves, etc). When no event can make the relationship equal, divorces occur. Thus, it is believed that most marital conflict and divorce results from the perception of unfair treatment.
Intimacy is also important in enhancing marital satisfaction and reducing conflicts. Some important determinants of Intimacy are 1) Self-disclosure and 2) Understanding of each other’s emotions. Self-disclosure involves communicating one’s feeling and emotion. Whereas Understanding emotions involves looking out for emotional cues and responding to it, spontaneously. These two factors require a significant amount of motivation and effort. Due to the increasing workload and stress in Singapore, less effort or time to spent with family might have resulted (thus, no self-disclosure and empathic accuracy). This is assumed to reduce the satisfaction of marriage, and may result in conflict, or even divorce.
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I think with intimacy, closeness, attachment but without love, the marriage will not "blossom". Define love?- probable a strong feeling and sense of attraction. I think passion is also important, serves as the 'fuel' for love to carry on. Passion,commitment and intimacy thus leads triangular theory of love, by Sterberg.
According to Sternberg, most long term relationship only consists of commitment and intimacy. thus it was assumed that for marriage to last in the long run involves commitment and intimacy (which also involves closeness and attachment). Although passion is also important, it is only prominent in the beginning of a relationship and only serves as a bonus in long term relationship.
Besides being a legal binding contract, marriage between two people also serve as a moral promise to be loyal to each other. However, due to westernization, Singaporeans are becoming more liberal nowadays. Thus, our attitude and thinking towards marriage and divorce have changed. It seems that our society have accepted the fact that divorce is the only way out of an unhappy marriage.
Modern marriage is also different from the old days when a divorce is frown upon and the women is reflected badly.
The faults now can be from both parties and there is no stigma being labelled a divorcee or divorcer. The society has become more open-minded due to the westernised influence and higher education which everyone receives.
One of the ongoing trend nowadays was the shotgun marriage, so how many of them actually had the commitment to the marriage or rather merely responsibility to the unborn baby. These people does not had much commitment to the marriage as this is just an accident to them, so they had no choice. Hence, after a few year when they are sick of each other they just get divorce.
singapore is a place famous of its efficiency, people are tend to make desicions faster than other countres' people, hehe, so they decide to get married because they think the first time they meet, they were "mr and mrs right", however, the next time, one meet another person, that is more suitable for the mr. right hat, the ex. is immediately become their mr. mistake in their normal life. but this time, they do not conform to the majority, they divorce, they like to go with the minority and it seems the minority has a ambission to become the majority. so should we propose a revese-conformity theory then?
Stress such as work stress, financial stress can lead to couples having relationship problems such as lack of communication, sexual intimacy, patience in handling their children. Especially when couples could not cope with stress well. Therefore before jumping into a lifetime commitment, couples should try to work out how to overcome stress such as financial stress before tying the knot. Once committed, communication, trust and patience with each other would be important.
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