the exact same forces that lead people to re evaluate
their relationships sometimes l people to say I've
just decided life is short. I don't wanna be in this
relationship. Yeah, this is in the loop of christian
Bryant. It's a core concept in countless love stori
It's a matter of yours. Richard patrick brewer, you are
my happy ending. But in reality marriage rates have
been dropping for decades. Don' look at me if the idea
is so much a part of american culture and a goal in
life for many people, why is it that fewer people are
tying the knot tonight We're looking into some of the
factors driving the drop in marriages and how shifting
ideas have led to other ways of spending forever
together. Many psychologists believe the lower marriage
rates after do with shifting cultural norms. For
starters there's this idea of cohabitation these days,
just under 70% of adults believe it is acceptable to
live together even if they don't plan on getting
married. That was the case back in the day. Just ask
older relatives, they'll let you know. Some states also
have common law marriages, whic can give you some of
the benefits of marriage after living together for a
certain amount of time. The exact rules vary by state,
and in some places, common law marriages don't even
require a marriage license. In the 1950s, the median
age for women to get married was around 20 years old
Now that number is closer to 30. While more Americans
are increasingly putting off marriage, it doesn't mean
it won't happen for some people, they're just on a
different timeline. In 2019, a Pew research study found
many single adults felt little to no pressure To be in
a committed relationship from friends, family or
society. And there's a shifting mindset around startin
a family, Supreme Court decisions in the 1960s and
1970s increase the rights of Children born out of
wedlock to financial support and inheritance. So
there's no Jon snow of it all. It's not a good life for
a child. Then there's also the fact that just 29% of
people surveyed in 2020 believe it was important for a
couple to marry. If they have a child in 2006, that was
closer to 50%. It's hard to say how long this drop in
marriages will last, but we know another factor which
has historically caused marriage trends to fluctuate
significant moments in american history. Marriage rate
dropped during the Great Depression and they reached an
all time high when the country came out of World War
Two. So what impact has the COVID-19 pandemic hat on
relationships for better or worse, this is a very
strong explains, hey christian, you know, it's hard to
pin down the exact impact COVID-19 had on romantic
relationships whether people we running to the altar
or divorce court Through Richard, poor and global
pandemics, love conquers all in 2019 Clear Boko and her
high school sweetheart of nearly a decade, we're ready
to tie the knot. They set a date May 2020, I just
remember no one was flying, no one was leaving their
house. That was when we decided we had to postpone this
huge wedding that we had invited 300 people to the
couple decided to have two weddings something small
immediately and a bigger bash later I were fun white
dress. My mom picked flowers from her garden and it was
only our immediate family vocal story coincides with
early reports suggesting a rise in people racing to the
altar during the pandemic At the same time, early 2020
data, mostly from divorce attorneys and legal sites
Reported an uptick not just in marriages but also in
divorce. Fast forward to 2021 and researchers say maybe
maybe not. So in the nine states that we had availab
there were over 48,000 fewer marriages than we would
have expected to see Krista Pain. And the team of the
National Center for Family and Marriage Research have
been tracking marriage and divorce transfer years and
say among the states with available data so far,
monthly divorce filings were also down in 2020. The
five states that we had for divorce were in new
Hampshire Oregon florida, Misso and Arizona. And for
them we saw a reduction of nearly 16,000 divorces. Been
Carney, a social psychology professor with U.C.L
Says there could be a few explanations for that, like
people postponing their wedding and when it comes to
divorce, if you can't leave the house, you can't break
up, you have nowhere to go. Plus divorces take time. So
any increase is caused by the weight of the pandemic
may not be readily available for at least a year.
However corny says Throughout history, crises forc
couples to reevaluate their relationships, good or bad.
COVID-19 added the extra dynamic of being home together,
24 7 or apart much more. The people who were in good
relationships say, wow, I bette hold on to this good
relationship. And you see cohabiting couples getting
married, you see married couples having kids. Uh the
exact same forces that lead people to re evaluate their
relationships sometimes lead pe to say, I've just
decided life is short and I don't want to be in this
relationship now, christian dr Carney compares that
pent up demand for marriages and divorces to sort of
putting a kink in a water holes so once things retu
to normal and you let go the holes expect an explosio
of both marriages and divorces back to you. Marriage is
a well known traditional form of commitment, but it's
common for people to explore different types of
relationships like consensual, monogamy or C and M.A
survey from the Institute for Family Studies found
millennials and gen xers were way more open and
accepting of C.N.M. Than older generations. And
naturally a part of that conversation should includ
polyamory. It's the practice of being in multiple
romantic relationships with the consent of all parties
involved. And social media is shedding light on this
type of setup. Here to talk to us more about all things.
Polly is Newsy's Cody logro christian, you know this
ain't my first rodeo when it comes to polyamory. Okay.
I think you may remember Caroline and company t
remember them. So Caroline you have a wife and a
boyfriend. Yeah, I most certainly remember Caroline and
company one. That was one of the first series that you
did for Newsy and two. It has truly laid the foundatio
for all the things we're going to talk about today. It
has, it gave me a good knowledge base. So I first
reported on polyamory five year ago and a lot has
changed since then. So a 2021 study revealed that one
in nine Americans have tried polyamory and one in six
are interested in trying it. And one in 15 know someone
in a polyamorous relationship. back in the day when
I first started reporting on this finding people who
were openly talking about polyamory was a little more
complicated than it was today. Okay. And I remember
scouring tumbler and blogspot just to find people
openly discussing it. And today you just need ticktock
to expand your horizons on what a relationship and
family can look like. People said having a baby would
be really hard, but we've been sharing the
responsibilities really well. I made the milk, I feed
them and I burnt the baby together. It's been pretty
pretty easy. A lot of people say it's gonna be super
hard man. This is a braise polyamorous relationsh
runs now correct me from wrong. I believe that's called
a pollock. You'll mm excellent observation, christia
pollock you'll is what we call a polyamorous unit. Okay,
so their names are chana to jimmy and summer and they
got a new baby. Okay, so we're just having a newborn
alone defies those types of, you know, salacious
stereotypes of people in polyamorous relationships. I
mean, I'm sure you can imagine the types of questions
they get Christian, that's why, you know, this triad
has over 650,000 followers on Tiktok because people are
interested and they're demystifying polyamory to the
masses and sharing what they're learning along the way.
Even when followers question their legitimacy, we'v
been together for almost nine years, all three of us.
So I don't think like a comment on instagram or
something is going to, you know, persuade us anyway,
but that's very common. People just think like this
isn't real, this is or it's not gonna last long. How
has Tiktok allowed you to clear up some of those
misconceptions that you encount At first I thought we
were swingers. Like that's the label that I thought
like in the beginning with me and her story, 50 girls,
we didn't know about polyamory or about Polly, like not
until we did it hurt. She was like no, you guys are not
saying that you guys are actually a polyamorous. Wel
actually I was big on tumbler so I knew a lot of the
terminology and stuff, but again, there really wasn't
much other than definitions, there was like no advice,
no real people that you can be like hey, if this
happens or you know, if I feel this way, what do I do
with that feeling And it's just there's so much in
monogamous like relationship ad and not enough I
think for our dynamic so we really have to like pave
that way and created you guys have a beautiful new baby
in the world how just being in a public, you'll just
kind of impact parenting. Were able to like share the
feedings and you know, if chapter has to like pump, I
can help feed or jimmy can help like change diapers an
kind of like taking over the roles of parenting I think
help a lot um you know like me or can't get the car
seat in the car jim, you can help with some muscle and
like there's roles that we can all like share and Phil
and um that's something we also do well, like in our
relationship, like not one person really wears the
pants, we all kind of like share all the rules, so um
we've been able to do that so far so good with the baby
and um just hearing like all the other moms out there
that are like, oh I wish, you know, I could have that
and I follow these pregnancy pages and they're lik
you know, oh you should have a wife instead of a
husband if you want to help with certain things, and
I'm like, well why not have both So you guys have been
in a relationship for nine years I mean what, what is
the secret sauce to keeping your partners happy I think
communication like just constant communication, like it
doesn't matter what we're doing if one of us are just
like disagreeing, we'll stop whatever we're doing and
we'll sit down, learn like on a table like this and
we'll start talking and a lot of people don't
understand that dynamic, they think it's just all fun
and you know, get you know, have the whole threesome
and or whatever it is, you know, and that's really par
of it, but not ideally the whole idea behind a
polyamorous relationship, so that's the best takeaway
christian at the end of the day. These are
relationships and like any relationship, whether that
be with a partner, a relative or a colleague
communication should be the foundation if you wanted to
succeed, that's the truth. And I'm going to waterboard
myself later for saying this, but love is love is love
is love is love man, right It's love is love and love
is a phone call. Love is a text message. Love love is
having those uncomfortable conv So so you got
my number christian, you give me a call anytime I was
about to say, I was like, are you throwing me hints
right now I'll make sure to do my wellness check this
weekend then Cody logro. Thank you so much for joining
us. I appreciate it man. Always a pleasure when you're
back, we're taking you to date ing's next frontier
virtual reality.