phuketrichard wrote: ↑Sat Apr 23, 2022 8:32 pm HUH???

"....We have absolutely no intention of ever getting a divorce"

LOL

Did ANYONE that married have the intention of getting divorced at a later date?

Clutch Cargo wrote: ↑Sun Apr 24, 2022 3:29 pm

Doc67 wrote: ↑Sun Apr 24, 2022 11:12 am Why bother getting married in the first place? It's just a religious construct designed to exert control, via control of sex.

Sex must only occur in marriage (Corinthians 7:2–5) as sex leads to immorality, (according to the God Squad), so if you prohibit sex outside marriage you have an endless queue of people to sign up to marriage and therefore to the church. Those were the rules up to about 60 years ago, and everyone signed up.

Throw in elaborate costumes, man-made rituals, celebrity status for a day, a party afterwards and previous generations looking on you approvingly. It's almost irresistible. Back in the good old days the bride's father picked up the bill. Now you'll need a mortgage to pay for it all.

Once the fog clears and everyone has gone home, you are then at the mercy of the state endlessly imposing laws to govern your marital lives, all effective retrospectively, and lawyers feeding off the 30%+ failure rate.

Why get sucked into it in the first place, or in the case of the OP, for the second time?

Couldn't agree more with you Doc. Having been a soldier of fortune doing what society expected ie get married, have kids and a house with a white picket fence (does a pool count haha). Hence, I don't see much in it anymore and reluctant to commit again.

Having said that, if your partner/live-in is Khmer, there is still a lot of traditional pressure for marriage from my experience in Cambodia.

Examples. Mrs Cargo went to wedding recently for a relative in the province. 17 yr old girl! And some 'aunties' asked my GF Are you married yet? (I affectionately refer to her as Mrs Cargo on here but we aren't married). And if you're older and the answer is 'no' you're somehow seen as an outcast.

3 of Mrs Cargo's best friends. Girl 1 is 30 yrs old, no BF, original, not married. Parents apparently ask her nearly every day: When are you getting married? Girl 2 is 25 yrs old, same as girl 1 and the parents do the same. Girl 3 is about 27 yr old, originality unknown, not married. Has a barang BF who comes for for holiday in Cambodia. He's promised to marry and take her to his country as soon as the paper work comes through. All are unlikely to move in with a guy in a GF/BF live-in situation unless marriage is on the agenda.

Now I say all this coz here there is still incredible pressure on local girls to marry imo. More so if from the province. I think it's changing for the educated PP girls who are maybe more free spirited and don't listen too much to their parents. After all, they see so many girls marrying too young and then hubbie skipping off later. So I daresay barangs with GF's here have, in turn, pressure put on them for marriage also. Whilst many westerners are not keen on marriage, many Khmer partners I think still want that.