Lost a relationship or marriage over peak oil?

Gimme_Shelter · Coal Joined: Feb 10, 2008 Posts: 1

i'm a long-time lurker as a guest - this is my first post.

have a question -- have any of you lost (or given up on)significant relationships/marriages over peak oil?

if so - why? what happened?

G_S
_________________
Oh, a storm is threatning
My very life today
If I dont get some shelter
Oh yeah, Im gonna fade away
(Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter)

auscanman

No, but the requirement for any potential partner of mine to understand peak oil, and want to do as much as possible to prepare for it rules out 99.9999% or so of all women around my age.

americandream

Narz

Nano

Nano

Grifter

I think if your marriage fails over peak oil then I believe the marriage would have failed anyway.

A subject like this may bring problems to the fore but those problems were simmering away anyway, disguised by the current lifestyle of living like lords.

JJ · Heavy Crude Joined: Aug 07, 2007 Posts: 294

Good topic....my wife was Peak Oil aware before I even met her (growing up in a third world country). Her posture has always been for us to be prepared, but Americans won't believe it until it happens to them, because they are stupid. Harsh words, but true.

Lumpy

This has not happened to me. However, like with any other 'basic tenet', I can see where peak oil 'stuff' (the attitude of making serious preparations, backing off from gross consumerism, etc) could create a real rift if one partner was marching to that drummer and one was not.

Even in my marriage -- with both of us being total believers -- there is some strain caused by peak oil. It has to do with personal approaches. I am the pragmatist who sees the problem, wants to work out the solution, then move forward. He is the much more inclined to expend energy worrying about what will be coming.

We all only have so much energy. I am not saying that I don't worry -- but the more energy one expends worrying, the less energy one expends "doing" (preparing, etc.)

This is a source of frustration -- and it would probably not exist to the degree that it does if I (and he, too) did not see the reality of peak oil, and the urgency for change. It's just the difference in responses that cause a problem.

Still - how could a PO person who REALLY believed be in a solid relationship with a person who wanted to buy bigger cars, couldn't stand the idea of getting dirty by growing one's own veggies, etc. (Those are examples -- you get the idea.)

Lumpy
_________________
Dean Karnazes : "Run when you can, walk when you have to, crawl if you must; just never give up." --- Jackie Joyner-Kersee: "It is better to look forward & prepare, than to look back & regret."

Nano

dinopello

gnm

davep

Well, my wife was used to having a well-paid husband, while she looked after our daughter and spent my money. Smile

Then I told her I had quit my job and we were moving to the country. This went down like a lead balloon for some reason. Shocked

However, despite all her threats, here we are in the country, I'm finishing my farming placement this week, to become a recognised farmer (i.e. to buy more land).

She would enjoy it if it weren't for the financial insecurity. I've sorted that by getting a well-paid job again. So, hopefully we're in the best of all worlds.

After this smug little post, she'll probably leave me tomorrow. Sad

_________________
All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become. - Buddha

MattSavinar · Elite Joined: May 09, 2004 Posts: 1990

JJ · Heavy Crude Joined: Aug 07, 2007 Posts: 294