I’m sure someone finds this relatable
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.
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.
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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.
Tossing relationships like this away is a sign of narcissism. It’s fine to move on but it’s definitely maladapted to be giddy about it.
“Several months ago” … Not exactly suggesting it would happen over night. Recognizing a schism and supporting eachother through the changes in life is preferable to doing so depressed and hatefully, no?
Why should you have to be miserable about it? They still have a relationship, it’s just no longer a romantic one.
You don’t have to be miserable, but the misery from leaving someone you love, even if it’s 1000% mutual and friendly is not really a choice, but a natural and healthy emotional reaction.
Sure, but it’s not the only valid response. It’s perfectly natural to be upset when a relationship falls apart, but it’s just as natural to mutually decide things aren’t working out and move on without grief or regret.
Amicable divorces are narcissistic?
I see you didn’t read my post.
I literally did. I don’t see why you’d believe people have to mournful about an amicable divorce or why that would be narcissistic otherwise.
They said “tossing away relationships like this is narcissistic” not “amicable divorce is bad”.
But the way this relationship is ending is amicable divorce lol.
The way this relationship is ending is throwing away a relationship. The divorce method is irrellevant.
The author specifically stated they’re still close friends. So they’re still in a relationship. Again, how is this narcissistic?
I’m still confused here, what’s the difference?
The difference is having a relationship with the strength of a wet noodle and celebrating it.
That’s not funny that’s just sad
But they are both happy now? They can still be best friends.
I feel like the fourth panel is what throws me off and left me scratching my head. Based on the previous one I’d imagine both of them to hype each other up, not just the man saying his former wife is single.
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Why’d you delete that? It was pretty funny. Unless it was real and not a joke in which case that’s sad.
That’s exactly why I deleted it. Seemed a little too dry and slightly mean right after I posted it, so I immediately hit delete.
(from the link)
I thought the comic was wholesome.
But they’re claiming that if they stop being funny, they’ll die. Was this supposed to be funny?
Artists are funny like that
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It says the driver is open to dating all genders. So only the wife doesn’t lineup here.
The comic makes sense to me if the driver is not identifying as a trans man while the passenger is a lesbian. It doesn’t make sense to me if they’re nonbinary or any other form of gender queer. I say this as someone whose spouse has come out of nonbinary and have friends whose spouses have come out as nonbinary. It doesn’t feel “divorce worthy” to me. To be honest, I don’t view your partner coming out as trans as being “divorce worthy” but I would at least understand an amicable split. It feels enbyphobic to split because they’re nonbinary.That’s why I interpret it at the driver being a man, because the comic makes more sense that way to me and it feels, to me, maybe a little bigoted otherwise. But I say that with a grain of salt because I’m not sure if the comic is meant to be like a joke or a story or even biographical of the author’s own life. Not sure if that makes sense lol.The comic is biographical of the author’s life. Also the extra panel clearly addresses everything.
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Forgive my ignorance, but what exactly is a boy side of the spectrum? I’m not familiar with the phrase.
It means they are transgender and possibly non-binary and identify as more masculine than feminine. So they are closer to “guy” than “girl” (but might identify as neither).
🤣🤣🤣
This would have been easier to follow if they kept the same outfits throughout the comic.
It took me a second to work out who was who in the last panel.
To all of the people saying this is sad, not all relationships have to last forever.
It’s okay to get separated, even if you are married. It’s actually good to realize your differences, decide that you work better apart, and provide support to an ex-spouse emotionally while you move on with your life as well.
The whole point of marriage though is for it to last forever
The whole point of marriage used to be ownership, not anymore. Things change. Divorce is better than the alternatives. Cold bitter resentment that lasts until one of you dies and then just the feelings of what might have been. Or murder.
It’s ok to change your mind. To grow apart. To recognize that and to act on it is a blessing.
Then don’t marry someone you’d resent
People grow and learn and change over time. Unless you have the power to predict the future you can’t “just not marry someone you’ll later resent”
I’m not sure that I fully agree. I mean, to each their own etc., but what you’re describing seems to be more suited for relationships without marriage. The whole idea of being married is that your discuss this stuff before your wedding and then don’t just get separated because you “don’t feel it anymore”. The idea is that, if you feel like you drifted apart, that your work on that and don’t just get out of that relationship on a whim. That’s the promise you give. And even if you agree with your partner to just go separate ways (yeah yeah, consenting adults can do whatever the fuck they want, sure), a divorce has the significant chance to screw you financially for decades. I mean, I don’t know how it is in the US, but I’ve seen too many people who got their finances completely fucked by partners that they consentingly parted ways with, who they swore would treat them fairly. Too many houses repossessed, too many careers ruined.
Is it okay to get separated? Sure. It’s obviously also okay to remain close and support each other, of course. But this comic promotes a lighthearted approach to something that deserves a much more careful and serious take that I don’t agree with. Those first few panels should have made them get counselling, not divorced.
Ok, I mean if you’re getting financially screwed by your partner in a divorce, it’s probably a good thing that you’re getting divorced.
Depends. Marriage being for ever is social baggage. Marriage existing is social baggage. Society unfortunately doesn’t make it easy to get divorced because it doesn’t tolerate any alternative types of unions. Why can’t I marry my two boyfriends if we all live together?
What? You and your two boyfriends can live together all you want, but marriage is a legal construct that shares responsibility and burden between people and because of the responsibility part it’s by design hard to get out of. Don’t like how hard it is to get divorced? Easy: Don’t get married.
I didn’t criticise that this comic promotes getting in and out of relationships. I criticised that it suggests that a divorce has virtually no ramifications and boils down to two respecting adults separating on best terms, which is pretty fucking far from both, my personal experience and what’s written in the law.
Maybe your limited experience and the law is not respecting people who just happen to fall a bit outside the norm? The OP comic and my personal experience being just 2 examples of how the law is incompatible with our lives. You’re making a hell of a lot of assumptions about our lives to decide that we’re not serious about marriage. Heck, western countries were still figuring out gay marriage some yes ago.
The main reason why we can’t have different modes of marriage is bureaucracy.
But that’s not what this is about?
Should marriage be rethought and adapted to new realities? Yes. Good that we’re on the same page there.
Thank you and that’s why I won’t get married ever because it’s very unlikely that my understandings and morals aligne with anyone else. We live in a time of tiktok and people don’t seam to feel obligations for anything anymore. Then they shouldn’t get married, but you can’t trust the other one anymore to be mentally grown up enough to understand this.
Marriage is just for a fancy dinner and tiktok short clips to share online, right? /s
People change. They discover things about themselves. Their goals change. Of course anyone thinking of getting married should try to uncover any potential deal breakers before committing, but it’s still no guarantee they won’t encounter unsolvable problems later.
I know and that’s also not what I said.
unsolvable problems
That’s the key word right here. Two panels of “you know, I’m feeling boyish” “and I kinda want to have kids” isn’t “trying to solve it and realizing it’s not possible”, that’s just “starting to share feelings and needs”. The way this story is told just suggests that this slight notion of plans no longer being aligned perfectly warrants a divorce, which is far from what that legal construct of “we’re a financial union now which means we can royally fuck up each other’s lives if we feel like it” should entail. This isn’t a story of unsolvable problems, this is the story of two people that don’t take the legal responsibility they got into seriously. It suggests a lighthearted approach to getting divorced that is so far from the possible legal fallout of it that I just think it’s absurd.
If this was a comic that told years of them trying to meet each other’s needs and not being able to, I’d be on the same page. But that’s not the story that was told here. There wasn’t a single panel where either person even just tried to suggest how things might still work for them or find some common ground. No panel about acknowledging the other person’s desires and trying to merge them with one’s own needs. The comic was “I feel this”, “I feel that”, “great, let’s just happily divorce”, which is absurd as soon as we’re talking about anything that’s beyond teenage finances.
Well, it’s a comic, not a documentary. Yeah in real life this would take a lot of discussion and a long time, but this is a comic about how you can find out that your desires no longer align and still be friends.
Also, the comic itself says it took months.
They’re talking about wanting children. Disagreeing on that is absolutely an unsolvable problem.
It certainly is if you don’t talk about it. There may be various middle grounds here but you won’t find them if you just get divorced.
That’s why the very first panel says “several months ago”, not “several seconds ago”
And that’s why the third panel says “present day”?
Oh wait, it doesn’t.
Buddy, let me explain something to you. I do not want children. Ever. If I were married to someone who decided they wanted children, I would for sure get a divorce, because there is no compromise to be made. Having a child is all or nothing. You can’t halfway become a parent.
Of course, anyone I might marry would understand why a divorce is necessary and wouldn’t fight me on it.
that your work on that and don’t just get out of that relationship on a whim.
y tho?
You’re making statements predicated on your beliefs that may not be shared by everyone.
y tho?
You’re making statements predicated on your beliefs that may not be shared by everyone.
This is not about my belief. You know a marriage is more than just a pinky promise? If you don’t want to take a relationship seriously, that’s fine, but marriage as a legal construct entails a lot of regulations that may screw up either partner and, with enough legal battles, both of them, so yeah, you kind of have to take it seriously and it doesn’t make much sense to just enter and exit it on a whim, unless you want to be paying for other people’s houses or cars.
The idea is that, if you feel like you drifted apart, that your work on that and don’t just get out of that relationship on a whim.
This part is separate from the legal framework.
Is your argument “you shouldn’t dissolve a marriage because the legal frameworks we built don’t support that well”?
If so, is that how things should be?
Regardless, there are steps you can take to minimize legal challenges in divorce.
You are making the assumption that the divorce won’t be amicable. The situation in the original text here is extremely amicable.
If the legal framework was adjusted to remove the risks of “paying for other people’s cars”, would you still advocate for taking it seriously? Why?
Lol why? what moral ground are you coming from to suggest that other people should be serious about what you think is serious? Nothing is serious, we’re all just meat bags. If you want to get counseling go for it. For most people it’s better just to divorce quicker and not prolong your dissatisfaction because of some weird social or pseudo-religious adherence to norms.
Nice nihilism you got there. If “nothing matters and we’ll all die eventually” is your counterpoint to “marriage is a legal construct that goes beyond well meant promises and might result in severe financial issues so don’t lightheartedly get married or divorced”, then fine, yeah, in the grand scheme of things I guess you’re right.
Those that want to keep the small existence they built and don’t want to lose their house in the current economy might disagree though. The universe doesn’t care about their demise, true, but they themselves might just do.
A random person on the internet would like you to not die. Take a breath.
Im not a nihilist. I didn’t say nothing matters. There’s no -objective- meaning. I create my own. What matters to me is education, sex, music and freedom. I want to create a society where people don’t need to stay in bad marriages to survive.
Cool. Try the “there’s no objective meaning, I create my own” strategy in court when they tell you that the meaning of the law is that you have to pay up after a divorce and tell me how that went for you.
I’m divorced, it was amicable and there was no property to divide. Not everyone is living in your sad little world. For example, the people in the comic. Which I thought we were talking about.
really shit
I’m slightly confused, was this a lesbian relationship where the driver came to realize they are more gender fluid or a trans man? The rest I get.
I was confused too, but the blog mentions his pronouns as he/him, so that’s the interpretation I also arrived at.
Seems like it, they are announcing that the wife is single to the ladies after all.
That’s my take on it, they’re lesbians and the driver realizes they’re more into men
No. The driver is still into women, but is realising that they prefer to present as mostly male, despite whatever their biology might be.
In oversimplified terms, you could say they’re a straight man in a biologically female body.
The implication is that when they were dating and married, driver was presenting as more female or androgynous, and non-driver, presumably, has a preference for that.
However, it’s not really that preference that’s causing the real rift - if you love someone, you love someone - it’s the desire for kids. Driver doesn’t want them. Non-driver does.
They’re both able to deal with this like adults. Win-win-win. (Third win is the eventual kid(s) who might get to have a cool uncle rather than a grumpy, distant dad. Assuming “uncle” and “dad” are terms driver would use anyway.)
Thanks for the detailed breakdown!
In oversimplified terms, you could say they’re a straight man in a biologically female body.
It actually says they want to date all genders, so pansexual/omnisexual rather than straight.
I guess not all comic strips have to be funny or you know make sense.
I’d get a divorce if the person driving on the highway took both eyes off of the road.
You’d get a divorce if your partner checked the speedometer?
Yeah, I mean what is that shit
They start discussing how to split their assets and suddenly it becomes less peaceful
That’s amazing someone did that, and now we know they were all worthless anyway so it was even more ridiculous.
Cringe
we used to call it caring
Why is it cringe?
It’s making it out like such a revelation wouldn’t be damaging. Being a single woman and not being young is not easy. Her taking it in stride like that is unrealistic.
Ask yourself how you would feel in that situation after investing years in a relationship. Would you be that thrilled to be on the dating scene again and having to start over with someone new?
Not saying it couldn’t be amicable like it has been portrayed, but this strip makes it out like there is nothing sad or difficult about the situation, only focusing on the perspective/agenda of the trans person.
The person you expect to be sad also wanted to end the relationship because they realized they wanted children and were married to someone who didn’t. It isn’t just about the perspective/agenda of the trans person.
If I was faced with a choice between breaking someone who I loved’s heart or never being a mother, it would be relieving to have that no longer be weighing on me.
My brain hurts
