I know what you are thinking. This is the manosphere, and we tell women to settle. We’ve got a nice gig here, and Dalrock is trying to ruin it! But before you try to take away my man card, hear me out. Ladies, I hope you’ll hear me out as well.
In my previous post about Hypergamous Addiction to Choosing, I referenced a blog post by Aunt Haley on the bad advice given to Christian women on dating. I was pretty critical of the woman in the example she discussed, because the woman wasted two years of some poor beta’s life while imagining she had options which didn’t exist. In the woman’s defense, Haley pointed out that she was only trying to do what many in the manosphere would advise her; settle while she is younger/hotter/etc. I agree with Haley, which is why I’m making this bold stand. Telling women to settle is wrong and ultimately confusing for them. Women should never settle on who they marry. Women should only marry a man they are head over heels in love with.
Furthermore, I created a post specifically to help men select an appropriate wife, and I’ve been asked to do something similar for women. As I see it, the key challenge for women is knowing how to manage the whole choosing process. In my observation, women seem to get into trouble by either choosing at the wrong time, or not choosing when they really should. This is tricky stuff, so I’ve created a flowchart.
Follow this chart and you will marry the man of your dreams!
How to choose the perfect husband.
Guys: I’ll hang on to my man card.
Married women: Can you vouch for this process?
Unmarried women: No need to thank me. This is a public service.
I got a big kick out of this. Good stuff. And pretty true too.
I’ll vouch with the proviso that it’s OK to think about stupid stuff; it’s not knowing the difference between a fantasy and reality and then acting on fantasy that’s problematic.
Women should only marry a man they are head over heels in love with.
This is too idealistic for me. Women should marry a man they could be married to. Being head over heels in love with someone now is no guarantee of being head over heels in love with that person in the future, plus women often marry for love, only to discover after the fact that they forgot to check for any signs of long-term compatibility.
At some point, most people get practical and settle for a person who can be a good life companion. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, especially when the alternative is spending the rest of your life alone.
I think there needs to be some attraction, but also a women needs to use her head as you point out.
I agree that women should be practical, and readjust expectations in line with reality along the way. But I’m not a fan of loveless marriage, so I really can’t endorse people marrying if they aren’t really deeply in love up front. If the “head over heels” term makes you cringe, I’d say hold off on renting the church.
My wife and I knew a woman who married a man she didn’t really love, and then divorced him 3 years later because she didn’t love him any more. So her son gets to grow up without a father and a mom who is busy with her career and looking for a man. Poor kid is Lifetime movie roadkill.
As a man I can’t imagine a compensating factor for marrying a woman who doesn’t love you. A man would be better off marrying a 6 who loved him than a 9 who didn’t. Not a realistic scenario but I think it makes the point. So for an honest woman this probably makes it a moot point. Some women might be willing to be deceitful and give a man the impression that she might learn to love him down the road, or let him fall deeply in love with her first and then tell him the truth. Fortunately I think guys with options wouldn’t be likely to fall for this, at least not past their mid 20s. But lesser betas and omegas are people too, and even they deserve a shot at real love.
I can’t imagine that it would be any different for a woman. I think a woman would be miserable marrying a man she loved who didn’t really love her back. Again, I wouldn’t advise it even if she was afraid of being alone.
I guess you could also have a situation where two people find that for some reason they are both incapable of love, or at least incapable of loving someone who might love them back. At least this way you wouldn’t have the deceit or the problem of unrequited love. But I still wouldn’t advise it because it still isn’t fair to any potential children.
Instead of trying to find a way to contort people into miserable marriages because they are afraid to be alone, why not focus on helping them overcome whatever problem is preventing them from loving someone who will love them back?
A man would be better off marrying a 6 who loved him than a 9 who didn’t.
That’s refreshing!
That’s refreshing!
Thanks J!
It is true though, isn’t it? In real life such an extreme choice isn’t likely, but I think we’ve both seen young men who picked say an 8 who didn’t love him over a 7 who did, and was miserable as a result. Luckily as I said I think men start to get much wiser on this specific issue once they are just a little older. Guys with options by that age know what it feels like to be loved and once they experience this won’t settle for anything less. So the 7s, 8s and even 9s who for whatever reason can’t fall in love end up digging much deeper. They pull lesser betas or even omegas out of retirement.
This is something I don’t see discussed in the manosphere. Some women make it to their 30s and while they may take a slight hit because of lost youth still marry quite well (I think you know such a person…). Others remain quite beautiful but can’t even pull mid level betas. They settle for a guy who never really had any success with women, and he’s so grateful to finally have a pretty girl in his life that he overlooks the fact that she is incapable of love. I think people misread this because on paper the guy seems ideal. Lesser Betas are after all perfect marriage material. He’s probably not bad looking and has a decent job, and the nicest guy you could ask for. But he’s just not the guy other women were ever interested in.
BTW, this post is getting lots of views but almost no comments. I’m not sure why. Thanks to you and Haley for being the few who spoke up and shared your thoughts!
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Hi Dalrock
I hadn’t really come across your blog before, but it is great.
For what it’s worth, I really agree with this post, and your comments above.
dalrock – I really like your flowchart. 🙂
Thanks!
“I think we’ve both seen young men who picked say an 8 who didn’t love him over a 7 who did, and was miserable as a result.
Yep, guys are ofter willing to trade anything to be with a beauty. A while ago there was a spate of studies being reported on the net that said the happiest marriages are one where the woman is more beautiful than the guy might ordinarily attract and feels grateful/spends money. There may be a biological basis to that attraction, but I do see women who take advantage or that and men whio eventually figure it out and are hurt. It’s one of thoise cases where people need to use their heads, not their instincts.
“Guys with options by that age know what it feels like to be loved and once they experience this won’t settle for anything less.”
In some cases. OTOH, when you see some rich, old guy with a teen hottie, does he really believe it’s love on her part?
“Some women make it to their 30s and while they may take a slight hit because of lost youth still marry quite well (I think you know such a person…).”
🙂
With people putting off marriage for career, you do see more and more of that. I know a surprisingly large number of women who married late but well. It’s infertility that becomer the big problem.
“They settle for a guy who never really had any success with women, and he’s so grateful to finally have a pretty girl in his life that he overlooks the fact that she is incapable of love.”
I think some women go for the gratitude because it gives them power.
I think some women go for the gratitude because it gives them power.
Excellent insight.
I would add that while this is what they think they want, they end up miserable too. Feminism can’t change the fact that women measure their status at least in part by their husband’s stature. So she beats him down thinking she is climbing on top, but in reality the whole platform is sinking. And neither of them understand why she is so miserable.
Dalrock, you in fact DID call him a “cad” over @ another blog (forget the name of it but it’s linked to on this site, I think).
You are archetyping him, and inaccurtately, more than the young lady who pines for him.
He was just a young guy who treated his girlfriend well but decided to take another direction in life for the time being, and I see nothing wrong with that. He was honest enough not to string her along when his interests lie elsewhere (in communal living rather than in romantic relationships and getting laid).
He may end up becoming a great “provider” at some later stage of his life.
You seem to be judging him and guys like him harshly. The young lady did not. Nor did she indicate anything less than kind and flattering behaviour from him when she was with him.
I have seen that MEN like to stereotype/archetype other men as “badboys” or “cads” when in fact the only fault of these “bad boys” is that they have other hobbies/interests than do the “quality mainstream guys”.
That men with mainstream (often materialistic by default) interests get classified as “quality men” is suspicious to me.
What makes the med student “quality” as opposed to a communal guy with a spiritual rather than a materialistic bent?
If I’ve offended the guy I apologize. I’m pretty sure he isn’t a regular reader of my blog though.
Someone brought up the same question on Hooking Up Smart. He doesn’t fit the typical definition of “Bad Boy Rocker”. True. But you have to put it in perspective. The girl in question is a chaste Christian writing to Focus on the Family for advice on who to marry. From your other comments I’m guessing you don’t run much with the Focus on the Family crowd, so this might not resonate with you. A musician who dropped out of college to join a commune is likely about as edgy as she can conceive. If he once rode a moped, it probably morphed into a Harley in her mind.
I’ve never heard of Focus on the Family. What is it?
Anyway, Christians sure as heck aren’t strangers to drop-outs and communes.
They create and inhabit some of the craziest communes around!
“A musician who dropped out of college to join a commune is likely about as edgy as she can conceive. If he once rode a moped, it probably morphed into a Harley in her mind.”
Projection.
She said he was a musician, you turned him into a “rocker”.
She said he was a good and spontaneous boyfriend who did romantic things for her and you called him a “bad boy”.
She merely said he dropped out of college and joined a commune and you call him “edgy”.
If anyone will morph a mo-ped into a Harley, it will be you, not her.
You seem to be clearly out of touch with young people AND reality in this case.
This is getting tedious.
She said he was a musician, you turned him into a “rocker”.
No, she said he “plays in a band” and was “popular”. Polka guys are nice and all, but they don’t pull a lot of status with the ladies. Don’t ask me how I know…
You seem to be judging him and guys like him harshly. The young lady did not.
Her exact words were: “he eventually dropped out of college and joined a commune, making him an unmarriable companion for me”
You are archetyping him, and inaccurtately, more than the young lady who pines for him.
She is the one who said the two were opposites:
I’ve never heard of Focus on the Family. What is it?
A Christian sect into free love, peace, that sort of thing. They specialize in sticking it to the man.
The problem is that women are conflicted. They want one thing, but their instincts are programmed differently. And they’re programmed not to see their own instincts, too.
And they don’t even like talking about it: this is like learning how the magic works.
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Well, I’m reading this on what would have been my wedding anniversary, if the ex had not decided to change her mind when we agreed that I would move islands to get my current job. Older boy asked why I was unhappy. In part, it was because I was thinking about what went wrong.
When I met my ex, she was stunningly beautiful: in her late 20s, but being carded everywhere. She was smart, capable, driven. And… I was recovering from a previous relationship which had exploded. I was grateful. I missed the warning sign: which was her mother in law was actively unpleasant and I both pitied her and was repulsed by the conditions in which she lived.
Yes, I’m a lesser beta. I score around zero on the Roissymeter, and I would have scored less then.
Then… over 20 years, with me trying to make it work and feel loved, I ended up living with a woman who was very much like her mother. People thought we were perfect. I wonder if she could ever have loved: because I spent a decade feeling damned.
You have to be prepared to fall in love with him Ladies. Head over heels. And you have to choose to fall for him over and over again. He has to do the same… and together you can make something wonderful. But one of you, carrying the relationship?
That will fail.
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You are missing a critical step that comes before looking at a man as marriage meat- does he pass the friend test? If you can’t be friends with him, have things in common, and hang out together and enjoy each other’s company, you will NEVER (and I do mean never) last once the knot has been tied.
When I say last, I mean for the duration of your lives together, not just until the children have reached 18 year old and moved out of the house. I think that’s likely, if people are committed to the children. If the children are the only tie that binds, then once they are gone, so is the tie…..
So, my mother doesn’t believe in love (or rather, she believes it always fades, and therefore shouldn’t have anything to do with marriage), and I’m quite certain my parents both knew quite well that they were entering a loveless marriage (note that this is not at all the same as a sexless marriage. That aspect of their marriage is very healthy). They wanted children, and considered each other likely to produce good offspring. To be fair, they were both in their mid 30s. I’ve often felt it was a bit like an arranged marriage, except they arranged it between themselves as parents would have done in the past.
I would certainly not want the sort of marriage they have, but it’s honestly a much happier marriage than many that started with love. They’ve considered divorce, but because it’s a hassle and neither of them are interested in anyone else I think it’s unlikely. Honestly, neither of them wishes for love, but they do wish they were better friends or roommates.
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Reblogged this on My Heart Guarded and commented:
Happy reading
I will agree that settling, for men or women, is unacceptable. The problem with your view point is that the “head-over-heals” feeling is temporary. Some of us would call this the rose-colored-glasses phase, when you think your potential spouse can do no wrong. At some point, be it days, months, or years, you will start to notice things about this person you don’t approve of. Things that you have ignored and eventually become deal breakers, all because of some inaccurate, preconceived notion of human behavior. This is where the REAL choice comes in. Either you stick to your commitment or decide to toss it to the wind because they didn’t meet your idealistic model of a romantic partner. Guess what? NO ONE EVER WILL. According to your flow chart, ALL relationships are just settling until something “better” comes along, even up to the point of marriage. That “better” is just a facade. Of course there could always be a “better” partner. Why? Because no on is perfect. You, like most people in modern western society, suffer from the “grass is always greener” mentality. And no, I’m not guilty of a straw man fallacy. It’s just that you, like so many others, simply do not fully understand the issues they’re trying to grapple with. In fact, this is some of the most sexist, hedonistic, subjective (i.e. nonobjective) piece of literature I’ve ever read. Completely useless. I would say you’ve wasted my time but I’m going to publish some of the bits I’ve written hear in response to your nonsense because you’ve drawn out of me a coherent response to the ridiculous demands of modern, western, American women like yourself. I’ll continue to look for a suitable mate . . . abroad.
To sum it up, there is no other choice but to settle because no one will ever live up to anyone else’s idealistic standards. Is there any wonder why the divorce rate in the U.S. is so high?
My apologies for not proof reading before posting. Thank you for reading rant.
I know I keep going here, but I should clarify an apparent contradiction. I initially say that settling is unacceptable and end my rant by saying there is no other choice but to settle. I mean that the common consensus about settling is wrong. There is a general misconception about what it means to settle. I would define settling as accepting the undeniably inherent flaws present in all human beings, INCLUDING ONE’S POTENTIAL SPOUSE. I think others would define settling as being with someone you don’t really want to be with out of convenience. My personal experience tells me the latter is quite undesirable.