An expose of bad businesses and their unethical practices

I normally write about corporate mess-ups on this blog- but recently an article came to my attention regarding careers and divorce.

A story published by editor Michael Noer at forbes.com  (see google finance) makes the claim that men should avoid marrying "career women" as these marriages often end in divorce. Noer sites such factors as competition over wages, despecialization of household roles, greater access to other desirable people (causing extra-marital affairs) and women fatigued by taking on "bread winner" status, as just some of the causes for marital disharmony.

Noer's claims are offered counterpoint by Elizabeth Corcoran, who suggests that women avoid marrying "lazy" men. She explains that men who fail to continually grow and develop are the greater culprit in dual career divorces. She makes reference to her own marriage, pointing out that her husband is an equal partner at home. Corcoran claims that two careers gives them fewer money troubles to work out  and since both contribute to their coupledom equally,  a true sense of partnership.

Here's my  take on this: both Noer and Corcoran are close to the correct answer, but they each miss the mark. The real answer to a happy marriage is this: Once you get passed all the usual compatibility issues (religion, desire for children, etc.) you need to make sure that you are "lazy/non-lazy compatible. To explain:

1. If you are a lazy, good-for-nothing,  you should marry an equally lazy, good -for-nothing.

2. If you are someone who has his/her act together, can keep a clean home, knows how to be financially responsible and solvent, continues to learn, develop and grow, pursues life with some vigor, then you should marry someone who's just as "non-lazy" as you are. 

It really doesn't matter whether or not one or both are working. Lazy people will mess up the home, fail to pay bills, watch too much TV, leave their clothes and their dishes around etc. They won't develop beyond where they were when they were 20. For some like-minded couples, this is the making of a contented home life. Both spouses can wallow in their collective filth and intellectual stagnation as they watch their home and finances fall into disrepair.  For some folks, sleeping until noon is more important than accomplishing anything - but if it makes the marriage happy, that's fine, after all, plenty of happy, lazy marriages fill out the ranks of the lower class.

Marital problems arise, however, when a "non-lazy" marries a "lazy." The failure of this type of marriage has nothing to do with whether or not the wife has a career. If both spouses work then neither should expect  their mate to be fully responsible for all the at housework. Since neither person is around during the day to take care of the home front, then both spouses must split the work or be willing to hire someone else to do it.

No marriage can withstand having two working spouses where one spouse hits the sofa and TV remote while the other: cooks, cleans, mops, dusts, vacuums, scours bathrooms, shops for food, mows the lawn, trims the hedges, takes full responsibility for caring for and entertaining the children, pays the bills, answers all the mail, manages the social calendar, shovels the snow, deals with repair people, does the laundry, fixes billing errors, makes the bed etc., etc., etc...

When this scenario arises, I can bet you, that the non-lazy spouse will also most likely be the one who reads books, follows current events, takes evening or weekend classes and volunteers. All while Mr. or Mrs. Lazy leaves rings on the coffee table because he or she is too damn lazy to even find a coaster. 

As for me, I've always had a professional career, though I've never defined myself as a career woman. I'm a wife and mom-first and foremost. I've also never been lazy. If I wasn't gainfully employed you can bet I'd be volunteering with my kids school and extra-curricular activities even more than I already do. My home and garden would be perfection (they're quite nice now), I'd indulge some hobbies, work on yet another college degree and take on some charitable work. I already spend lots and lots of time with my kids and I'd welcome the opportunity to do even more with them. My husband is also a "non-lazy" and so our marriage is happy (with both of us working) and it would continue to be happy if I quit my job because then I would take on a much greater share of the work that makes out home life so terrific.

My point is - if you want a happy marriage - either both of you need to be worthless ballast or both of you need to be worthwhile contributors. Pairing one of each will always end in disaster.