I stumbled on a post by Captain No Marriage recently which makes me think I have been remiss: Newsflash: Marriage Sucks ……Still! (crass site warning). It starts off describing a scene all too familiar:
While talking to a buddy of mine today in my office, we heard the shrill sound of a old hag’s voice as it carried across the office “All men are stupid!”
Actually this particular warpig loves to frequently complain about how stupid her husband is and about how lost he’d be without her. This of course gets the other dried up hens echoing the same brainless chatter.
While I might have worded it differently, I have to say I’ve witnessed similar scenes. I even agree to a large extent with his next point:
The real joke is on these typical loud mouth American bitches, too bad they’re drinking too much of their own kool-aid to figure it the f*ck out. They don’t have a husband, they have a hostage. A hostage who if he did decide to leave would be stripped of not just his current assets, but his future American bitchassets including his retirement!
The irony is that these women are miserable precisely because they got exactly what they thought they wanted. Not unlike Ms Belle, they are in a hell of their own creation.
What made me want to post on this however was this next bit:
Trust me, if marriage kicked ass you’d be hearing about it from your married friends. We’re not sitting on some fucking golden ticket here, let me tell ya!!! Have you ever had one of your buds talk about how ever since marrying his wife she goes to the gym more, loves blow jobs, can’t get enough sex, cooks dinner every night, doesn’t try to change him………you get the point.
That shit NEVER happens, especially the so called “perfect couple”, if you get the guy off to himself and a few beers in him he’ll open up about how little sex he really gets, about how he’s one minute away from financial ruin because of all her spending, basically he’ll tell you just how perfect they are NOT!
While not denying the reality that the Captain has witnessed, this isn’t the world I live in. At least it isn’t a complete picture of the world. I won’t go into TMI territory, but I don’t have any of the complaints as a husband that he is listing. My wife cooks nearly every day and is a fanatic about keeping herself in shape. The sex is great in every way. We laugh all the time and even after 16 years of marriage still stay up late talking about any topic you can imagine.
Every night I put our son to bed; no matter what is going on he always makes me laugh. Actually I make him laugh first by tickling him and he makes me laugh by being so contagious with his wide mouthed grin. If I am fixing or working on something, our daughter appears instantly to watch. It doesn’t matter if I’m fixing the dishwasher or tuning up the lawn mower; it is all fascinating to her.
My wife and daughter make me laugh too, especially when they play Barbies. It all starts with one of the Barbies announcing that she is trapped in marriage and needs to divorce to find herself. Then Hunter Ann lures the frivolous divorcée Barbie into the Divorcée Jam arena with promises of more alimony before driving over her in Scarlet Bandit. Shoes, handbags and designer hats all go flying in different directions. I need to get it on film one of these days but as you can imagine a good time is had by all!
I don’t always write about this kind of thing because it strikes me as potentially in poor taste. There are no shortage of men or women suffering because of the dysfunction feminism has wracked on our larger culture. But I also think that not talking about these things can be in poor taste as well. Blogger One STDV emailed me a while back asking if I wanted to weigh in on the anti marriage attitude in the manosphere. I struggle some with this because I don’t want to minimize the risks. As Athol Kay commented in response to my post on interviewing a prospective wife:
Good marriages are great. Bad marriages are terrible.
I would add that I also see a lot of marriages which are somewhere in between. I know wives who put up with profound betaness in their husbands and yet aren’t looking to cheat or divorce. I know other couples which are pretty happy, but could be amazingly happy if they made some basic changes. I also know couples where neither one knows anything about game but managed to achieve the same results just by trial and error.
For those of my readers who are happily married, I ask that you share your own experiences in the comments. None of this is to deny the bad cases we all have seen and read about, but we need to tell the good stories as well.
My marriage has had a lot of hills and valleys. The valleys include: extreme poverty, job loss, homelessness, many cross-country moves to find jobs, cancer and chemotherapy, debilitating back injury and subsequent surgeries, frequent unexpected pregnancies, giving birth (twice) with husband overseas, homelessness, war, PTSD, trouble-making family members, drug-addiction (to subscribed pain meds), severe depression, bankruptcy, etc etc etc.
Except for the pregnancies none of those things happened because we were married…they were all just par for the course of a life gone somewhat awry. Some of these valleys we walked through with grace and others caused quite a bit of marital problems.
When things are good they are quite good. We have a rhythm and things flow well. We have plenty of sex and good conversation.
When things are bad it tests our virtue and our character but we usually come out the other side better people.
No dice, Dalrock. I’m stealing the idea and writing a post!
[D: Even better!]
I actually have a great marriage. We gave 5 cool kids. We have been married for 16 years and I get loads of sex. The sex increased once I learned game and how to keep a grip on our family. Women do appreciate that without realizing it. I married a good woman and we both take good care of ourselves. I do very well financially which helps.
No happily married man yet? What a surprise!
I think that basically any marriage where the couple can grow children without damage to adulthood and exist without one partner seriously abusing other is reasonably happy marriage. You can break up but chances the second marriage/relationship is better are slim (statistically). But people overestimate their options.
“For those of my readers who are happily married, I ask that you share your own experiences in the comments.”
After a rough patch about 5 years in, my marriage has been quite good – lots of sex (with a wife who actually enjoys it and often initiates it), 3 well-adjust (now) adult children (one grandson and another grandchild due Nov 12th), plenty of travel together, and a wife who’s long been my best friend.
Do we have a perfect marriage? No!
My wife’s an attorney, and very busy, so she really only cooks on weekends (but, she does a lot of it for the coming week). We still struggle over “control” (as she really doesn’t grasp the “submission” stuff too well), and it leads to a few arguments here and there. She does like to shop and spend money – but, then again, she also makes a lot of money. And, she is self-described “high maintenance”, needing copious amounts of attention and accolades. [I, of course, am the ideal husband at all times ]
But, I’m quite happy, overall.
We enjoy each others company, and have a lot of fun together. We’ve kept fit, and look forward to many years together.
I have no fear of divorce, both as I have developed enough in the way of “Game” to keep her interested and attracted, and because she has no (financial) incentive towards doing so. I know a lot of the traditionalists would argue that a stay-at-home (SAH) wife is preferable, but I tend not to be in full agreement. While my wife was pursued by one boss many years ago, several of the women who’ve propositioned me for “affairs” have been SAH wives. And, of couples I’ve known who had issues with cheating and divorce, there has been a roughly equal number of SAH wives and working wives. I’d view the inherent risks as being roughly equal.
Beyond that, not only do working women have a greatly reduced financial incentive to divorce (I suppose I should differentiate between women who have “professional” careers, and those who are working to make ends-meet), having an exciting and challenging career can provide a woman with all the drama she can handle (so she doesn’t need to start-in on her husband to generate it), as well as keeping her focused and busy. Yes, working women can find time to have affairs, but, unless they are busy with young children, most SAH’s seem to have way too much idol time on their hands (and, we all know what that can lead to).
But, since I’ve been married 26 years, I’m also painfully aware that my experience does not equate well to what most young men will face today. I worry a great deal for my 18 year-old son, as I know the deck is stacked even more against him, and the pool of marriageable young women grows smaller and smaller with the passage of years.
I’d like to think that the collective knowledge which has been shared in recent years will lead to better marriages, and I will definitely share my copy of Athol Kay’s book with him (or, better, get him his own). Still, I think the real obstacle to over-come is now, more than ever, the rather poor quality of the young women – even those in “Churchianity” (I’m tempted to detail my son’s last girlfriend, but I’ve gone on too long already).
In the end, while I do enjoy and value my own marriage, I have an increasingly difficult time recommending it to young men.
Well, since you asked, wifey is 6 months out of our final child and already getting back in shape, she is a SAHM and brings it in terms of cooking, cleaning, raising the kids, and basically treating me like a king. I get way more sex than when I was single, almost any time I want it. I get to hear about the exploits of the kids, and get to be the dad in the evenings and weekends which is very satisfying to me. Wifey listens to me and seeks my opinion, and respects it. Though she and I are only human, it’s truly marriage as it is meant to be, a joining of two into a one.
I’m looking forward to getting older with the kids and her, looking forward to enjoying all the their lives and as they grow up, the grandchildren. Though I certainly miss the freedom of life without the kids, I do not miss the lonliness of life without my wife. Our marriage is like that old joke about sex being like pizza, even when it’s not great, it’s still pretty good.
Interesting thread here. I actually don’t know any happily married people. It’s a shame I have to go the internet to find them.
Oak – ”I actually don’t know any happily married people.”
I think that you’re far more likely to hear about a given marriage being unhappy, than on that is happy (or, at least, contented). Unhappy people tend to make more of a point of broadcasting their discontent.
Just as an attempt to interject some element of controversy into the discussion, I’d note an old Jeff Foxworthy bit:
”If mamma ain’t happy, nobodies happy. And, if she unhappy long enough, your going to be unhappy…with half your stuff.”
I believe that there is a strong correlation between overall marital satisfaction and the level of respect/admiration that a wife has for her husband.
Of course, there are those instances in which it’s the husband who expresses the dissatisfaction with the wife, but it seems to me that, in the aggregate, men find it much easier to be content with the situation they have, and the wife they’ve chosen – so long as their wives don’t express dissatisfaction.
I think that even women (who’d no doubt loudly denounce my appraisal) subconsciously recognize this. I’m reminded of Mary Chapin Carpenter’s He Thinks He’ll Keep Her, in which the blind-sided husband though that everything in the marriage was just fine, while the wife was growing in her discontentment. [Note – that song plays right into the marketing of divorce to women, playing on their general sense of entitlement.] Carpenter intends it as a nod to “female empowerment”, but I always took it as just another example of just how whiny married women can be when they lose respect for their husbands (note that the husbands work and domestic efforts are not mentioned at all, but the wife’s are the primary focus of why she’s justified in her discontentment). (http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/carpenter-mary-chapin/he-thinks-hell-keep-her-5180.html).
I know that in my own marriage, our greatest problems have always been when my wife starts (started) to lose respect for me (I’ll cop to my own behaviors being at fault in that). Keoni Galt (Dave in Hawaii) as detailed his own marital issues which seemed largely due to his wife’s disrespect.
And, even though we’ve only heard from Paige (at this point), I would bet that most every women who regularly posts here would indicate that they are happy in their marriages. I’d make that guess based on no other knowledge than that they have expressed some degree of admiration for their husbands.
On the other hand, when one reads accounts of unhappy husbands, even when they complain about their wives having gained weight, let themselves go (etc), the one common denominator always seems to be that theirs wives constantly nag and complain. While I have nothing go back it up, my guess is that those same men, if those wives made no other changes than to cease their nagging and complaining, would be able to find contentment, even with a less than (physically) perfect wife.
So again, I put it out there to be challenged, marital contentedness is based more on the wife’s level of respect for her husband than any other of the multitude of possible factors.
Happily married, wonderful kids, wouldn’t trade it. My wife stays in great shape, and it’s been so long since she said “no” to sex that I can’t actually remember it (I remember it happened, it was just so long ago…). It would be nice if she initiated more, but that’s an okay problem to have. She wears her hair the way I like it and I calibrate my alpha-beta mix based on how short/tight/revealing her clothes are. It’s great to see how happy she is to wear something ultra sexy for me when I’m really pouring on the Alpha charm. Her face has more lines than it used to, but I still love caressing her cheeks. Age of course is slowly chipping away, but she has held onto her looks far better than most.
Financially, she tries to be frugal but has a terrible time managing money. Oh well, we’ve adjusted to account for that. I enjoy cooking so I’ll do it once or twice a week, but she does the bulk of it. She’s a great mother to our kids, keeps up our social network when I’m swamped with, and doesn’t nag. We do fun things together, work out of disagreements like functional adults, and make each other happy.
I know there are unhappy marriages – I’ve seen a few. Mine isn’t one of them. Beyond that, I’d say the majority of the couples we are close with have happy marriages. Maybe not as happy as ours, but pretty happy. Among our extended circle, the divorce rate is small, under 10%. The divorcees we know are to a woman miserable – no Eat, Pray, Love fantasy reinforcement to be found.
I know that’s not “average” but it is “normal.” We’ve never consciously choosen friends or community based on that, but I’m pretty sure we’ve unconsciously done it. Maybe the better way to put it is that we have a vision of what “normal” ought to be and that guides our choices in life.
Paige – ”Except for the pregnancies none of those things happened because we were married…they were all just par for the course of a life gone somewhat awry. Some of these valleys we walked through with grace and others caused quite a bit of marital problems.”
Before it goes too long, I did wan to note my admiration for Paige. From the details she given (here, and at other times), one might expect her to be one of those malcontent wives, bad-mouthing her husband.
Instead, she still seems to be able to show us her respect for him.
”When things are bad it tests our virtue and our character but we usually come out the other side better people.”
I think this speaks volumes about you, young lady.
I don’t agree with you on any number of issues, but you certainly have my respect.
[Here’s hoping my wife doesn’t read this…]
After 22 years and 8 kids, my marriage still doesn’t suck. We’re conservative, homeschooling converts to the Catholic Church (2006). With the RCC came, finally, after years of Protestant laxity, a seriousness about contraception and related sexual sins. Abstinence during the fertile period (NFP), combined with a few “game” principles, has raised both our libidos significantly. [… This narrative will now pause briefly for corporate snickering about the 8 kids…. ] We now average about 1.5 coiti per day during the infertile epoch, which, given an average “desert period” of 7-8 days, runs us up to just about 1/day overall.
The coital quality has also vastly improved: Each encounter lasts between 30 and 90 min (depending on available time), involves usually multiple (if not most) positions, oral foreplay, and at least one orgasm per person (if male, in the RCC-approved orifice).
We both workout at least 3-times a week. My wife weighs less now than the day we got married, and can dead lift her body weight easily. I’ll be running my 7th straight annual half-marathon next month, although because I’ve become more focused on muscle mass over the past year or so, I’m not expecting this year to get very close to my PR of 1:41 (2009).
My wife almost always cooks for the family, and prepares take away lunches for me and my oldest son, who is a freshman at a local college. Oh yeah, and the rest are homeschooled, mostly by my wife, although I handle the math from Algebra I on.
Married life, in short, is not easy, but it is good. We view it as a vocation from God (which it is), and it definitely does not suck (oral foreplay excepted).
I think for the most part, the happily married couples tend to blend into the background. There’s no drama, there’s no bashing of the other sex. Most really happily married husbands and wives would not talk about their sex life with their friends, because they would see it as a betrayal of their best friend at home. I would rather be hit by a bus than talk badly about my husband to other women and I will stop others from doing it around me because I don’t want to hear it. But that doesn’t get attention, the male-bashing does.
Talking about how great your husband and kids are is probably a little boring to someone on the dating scene, at least that’s been my experience with my single co-workers. They wonder why I am happy and content with my “boring” life because my husband is not “important” and I have 5 children and never “go anywhere”! I think the expectations are out of whack. No, I’ve never been to New York or Paris. I use a lot of my vacation days for when the flu sweeps our house and everyone gets sick at once. I can’t spend money like I would like because someone always needs a pair of shoes or something.
But-
every Friday night after we tuck all our kids in and wash off the sticky kisses, I get a movie and date night with my best friend who loves me more than anyone in the world. He thinks I’m beautiful, and I think he’s handsome, and we try and make each other happy in all ways. I know he doesn’t have a wandering eye because he’s too busy chasing me (and I’m too busy being caught!). It’s a good, good life. When bad things happen in life-and they will, because it’s life-we’re there to come out on the other side together.
Kudos on the good marriage, Dalrock. I suppose thanks are also in order, because it’s probably very easy for a busy dad to ignore issues that the rest of us are facing.
I’ve seen quite a bit of griping about men and how we’re useless. The whiners are usually older women who lack proper respect for their men for whatever reason. Shocking that no one in our society challenges these people, yet people find it quite easy to do the same to men. Just goes to show you which gender in this society is the meaner one.
My marriage doesn’t suck, despite my being part of it. 🙂 Most of the marriages I know of are happy or normal/boring, few are unhappy, and there are only a couple of miserable ones.
I congratulated a young couple at a party recently on her engagement and she broke into tears, “Thank you! Everyone thinks we’re insane to get married. That marriage is horrible. That married people are all miserable. You’re the first person to congratulate us.” I felt really bad about it, as she seems like a really sweet girl, but I heard the same thing from a lot of people when I was engaged.
Trust me, it’s not just men who are down on marriage. Most of the negative comments I and she received were from women.
I’m getting married in a couple weeks to a traditionalist, conservative girl. We’ve been very happy since we met, and we both know that life is about to get even better.
This has the appearance of a huge group hug.
Well old Bob hasn’t got much but he values his boots
He values the time he spends growin’ flowers
He still loves his babies that grew to be men
He recalls all the days ‘n’ nights and the hours
When he and his woman worked on the land
In the heat and the dry, in the cold and the wet
He still picks her a rose and his old heart still races
She’s still the most beautiful girl that he’s met
And you ask is he happy…and you ask is he happy…?
He’s got wrinkles from smiling, he feels lucky and free
And he knows what it means to live here in the sunshine
He’s got wrinkles……
He walks with Amelia down to the store
With a little cane basket for the bread and the daily Sun
Still hand in hand like babes in the meadows
And young faces turn
Love is so beautiful, it can be so deep
And a man is a king when he has his own princess
Bob wears no crown, no long flowing robe
But there in his mind he still rides on his black stallion
Then a cold winter came, and Bob was alone
His beautiful princess had flown with the angels
He faded so quickly, the man became old
And the wandering dew soon covered the roses
First just a cane, then a strong stick for walking
Then just a chair with a grey old man dying
All that he lived for was always beside him
So Bob left in peace, to join his lady
And you ask is he happy…and you ask is he happy…?
He had wrinkles from smiling
He felt lucky and free
And he knew what it meant to live here in the sunshine
He had wrinkles……
John Williamson “Wrinkles”
Unhappy people are often thrilled to explain, at great-to-tedious length, just how unhappy they are, and why. Happy people are usually more quiet about it.
If you’re married and not getting sex anymore, you’re probably bitching to your buddies about it all the time. If you’re getting more sex in the typical month of your marriage than you did in the typical decade of your single-hood (a phenomenon about which I know rather a great deal)…well, do you really want other men staring at your wife, the way you just KNOW that all your friends would if they found out what a tiger she was? No matter how much you might trust that she’s not going to cheat on you, it’d be damned uncomfortable to go out together and know all your friends are fantasizing about her, and more than a few of them would probably try to make it more than a fantasy.
Marriage requires a lot of trust. It’s pretty foolish to hand out that much trust without a lot of evidence. But when the evidence is there, it’s just as foolish to ignore it, just because you’ve watched other people bitch about how bad their lives suck because of the mistakes they made.
I don’t generally talk too much about the details of my marriage in public. The details don’t matter to anyone but my wife and me. But we’ve been through a lot together, including some stuff that, without her, would probably have cost me the last of my hope for life, and some that would have led any other woman I’ve ever known (including not merely ex-girlfriends, but female members of my own family) to divorce me.
Yet here we are. Still happy.
Interesting topic, that rarely appears in the manosphere.
I’m one of the lucky ones, too. I’m coming up on my 5th anniversary of my 2nd marriage, and the last time I had any kind of major quarrel with my wife was June of 2007. Getting close to four years now.
There’s never any passive aggressive games about sex, never any financial problems because of her spending habits, no weight gain for either of us, etc. etc. None of the problems so many men complain about. And thinking about it now, I cannot remember a single example of when she lied to me about anything.
All very boring and comfortable, without any drama. Funny thing, too: I married this woman because she pretty hot, and looks great in a short skirt. The stable personality and the good character we bonuses that I learned to recognize and appreciate long after the wedding.
I suspect such traits stemmed from a strong relationship with a good father. She grew up in a situation that was devoid of radical feminism, and any form of misandry.
Oak:
Same here. I only hear about these happily married couples by anecdote. Practically every other guy I know has been fleeced of everything he had after his loving spouse sued him in court.
“And, even though we’ve only heard from Paige (at this point), I would bet that most every women who regularly posts here would indicate that they are happy in their marriages. I’d make that guess based on no other knowledge than that they have expressed some degree of admiration for their husbands.”
Well, you know how I feel about my hubby slwerner. I have been quite open about my marriage and feelings for my husband..
We have our ups and downs..And, yeah, I probably drive him mad sometimes… Lol.. But I love him deeply, and know that he loves me. We have great sex(and it has only gotten better over the years)We can talk about anything…
He can wake me in the middle of the night like he did last night, and I just think BONUS.. 😀 Then snuggle up afterwards and fall asleep..
To be honest, though, marriage isn’t easy. It’s hard work. Spending time on your own as a couple is very important..
Kids are very demanding and time consuming, and whilst I love mine to bits, I make sure that there is a balance there in our marriage.. I don’t have as much patience as many other women do with their kids…
Frankly I would go nuts if my husband worked away and I had the kids all the time..(that is a weakness on my part-I am certainly not perfect.)..Well, on the plus side at least my husband knows that I would never take off with the kids and leave him.. 😉
@ S N
Troll alert.
For the same reasons the nightly news focuses most on the odd & unique news items, for the same reason Jerry Springer only hosts guest who are mentally dysfunctional, for the same reasons the nightly TV viewing public favors the emotionally dramatic (After all, who would watch Desperate Housewives if it were instead themed Domestically Contented Housewives?)…
…Most marriage stories we hear about from the media, the blogosphere, or around the water cooler likewise tend to be of the odd, dysfunctional, or emotionally dramatic variety.
It reflects the human need for positive self-comparison or schadenfreude.
I’d share more of my own and Mrs. MNL’s marriage but I would only bore you all with its copious sex. great companionship, many happy times, well-adjusted kids, and its dearth of negative drama.
MNL
(After all, who would watch Desperate Housewives if it were instead themed Domestically Contented Housewives?)…
Oddly enough, an older guy was talking about this the other day. It started out as him grouching about how rotten TV is now, and then branched out. Let me stay on this one little subtopic, though.
Basically, it’s that there are still people alive who watched “Father Knows Best”, “Andy Griffith”, “Life with Father”, “My Three Sons”, etc. on the TV set not as reruns, but as prime time shows. Perhaps it was because in, say, 1955 it had only been 10 years since Hitler was defeated, and normal life was precious. But the fact is, there was a time less than 60 years ago when shows about domestically contented housewives, happily working husbands, and their mildly fractous children were quite popular.
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We have been married 25 years, with three children. My wife still has a reasonable figure and is quite pretty. I still find her attractive. I still get sex when (and how) I want it. She prepares just about every meal I eat. She is pretty submissive. When we went away on a retreat at a monastery recently, she brought me my breakfast in bed and got me cups of tea in the dining room. It is just the way she was brought up, and I find she will do what I want most of the time. She wears skirts and dresses, not pants, because I prefer it. She gives me a lot of “cheek” but I think she fundamentally respects me. Learning “game” has helped a lot, and she seems happier when I am on the tough side, although I have a gentler side too.
We have had some difficult times, especially with autism in two of our three children (one mild, one severe). But we have “soldiered on” and survived.
My wife can be very emotional and volatile, but I have learned to handle her calmly and firmly.
I’ve been married for almost two years now, and I can say that most of those two years has been full of suck. Just about every bad thing that could happen to married couple, has happened to us: Job loss, multiple miscarriages, running out of money, you name it. The only thing that has made the last two years worth living has been my marriage. The marriage, and then our son, are the only beacons in the dark. Without the love and support of my wife, I’d have slipped off into a massively beta funk, and would probably still be moping about, and I know she would say the same about my love and support for her.
We haven’t had any major fights like the kind you hear about, for a couple of reasons: we have been so busy surviving that it required us to be unified and be on the same team, and we put a lot of time and effort into communicating with each other, so things couldn’t fester.
We don’t have sex as often as I would like, but that is because she is pregnant again, (she has been pregnant for all but 3-4 months of our marriage). Pregnancy tires her out so we can’t get it on every day, but its a sacrifice I’m willing to make. When she is up for it, the sessions are long, intense, flavorful, filled with multiple orgasms, and fun.
I’m happier than all my single friends, when we have a few beers they confess to being lonely and talk about how flings aren’t enough for them. Honestly I think that men and women share the blame for marriages sucking. The manosphere is well aware of the problem women bring to marriages, but men need to understand that if you want women to be marriage material you have to reward the good women with marriage. PUA’s hurt the cause in that way. We need to reward the women who are good wives and mothers, and encourage our daughters to be like them, the shrikes we need to abandon to spinsterhood.
A bad marriage is worse than hell, we’ve all seen one, but a good marriage is the best thing you can have. The support and companionship far outweigh anything you could gain from being single. I wouldn’t take back getting married for anything.
You know, it’s funny.
To friends, I’m more likely to talk about the rough aspects in my life than the positive ones — though I try to share both. And, online, I’m way more likely to be brutal about myself, which includes my marriage — particularly if I’m feeling way off kilter.
But, I have to say — overall, my life is *really good*.
We have had, I would say, two patches that were rough. One was before marriage, but we were married without the paperwork really. There was some stress/anxiety in DH’s life, and I hadn’t realized why it was as it was. We talked it out, and he worked on his stuff and I worked on my stuff. Second patch was after our son was born. High stress, the whole family dynamic (including extended family) went completely ape-poop. You’d think it’d be time to celebrate the most amazing DS. Instead, everything went off-kilter. And, I’m sure my hormones did not help. LOL
Then, we moved to the other side of the planet. It was great — and is great now that we’ve been here a year — but I cannot imagine (nor do I want to) a more stressful two years. We have finally figured a lot of things out, and are doing well, and it’s right back to being awesome.
I love my life. I have an amazing husband who is a good dad to boot. He’s great with our business — even though it’s not his first priority/mission in life. He still does what needs to be done, and does his own work (mission/priority), and also does some work on the side for extra income. I consider that to be the most awesome romantic gesture on the planet. Seriously.
We live in a beautiful country, we have a good lifestyle, and we have an amazing kid. I do my dream job through my business. It’s great.
WE are both in great shape. DH is ripped at 7% body fat, and I’m at 18/19% (depends upon where I am in the fertility cycle and glycogen/water weight). So, we’re both very fit and lean and happy with our healthy bodies. We take good care of our selves, eat good food, etc.
I do most of the housework (DH does trash, mouse traps, tidy with the kiddo in the evening tidy time when I’m not home, and some laundry), and DH does most of the cooking. I love to cook, but our current work-schedule means he does most of it. I look forward to taking it over in the future. 🙂
I hate spending money nearly as much as DH does. We live very simply — and plan to continue with that. We live very well, but minimally and simply. It’s the way we like it. Look at scandinavian design (http://emmas.blogg.se/) and that is our style. Less is *way* more. I can’t help it that I’m a minimalist, seriously. I just can’t. I hate stuff. (My love language is experiences).
Sex life is finally getting back in line with what both of us want — and I’m thankful for it. I’m sure DH is too. It’s taken a while, but we are getting there and happily so, too.
I’ll still evaluate myself regularly — and sure, there are LOTS of things that i’d like to see improve (like profit margins!), but overall, I”m very happy.
You shouldn’t have gotten the back surgeries, and should think very, very carefully before ever getting another one. That goes for everyone.
Back surgeries can have severe negative consequences which will never go away.
Odds are very good that whichever one of you had back problems would have been WAY better off without the surgery and with some other, much lower-key therapy. Even going all the way to doing nothing for 3 months and hoping things get better. Or NEVER doing anything.
My aunt is now 350+ pounds, mentally dazed from drugs, has extreme difficulty walking, and incapable of doing her job as a nurse as a result of “back surgeries”. The last one caused her to lose feeling in parts of her feet. It’s been over a year, so that’s probably permanent. She was significantly less impaired before the surgeries. She only had trouble performing heavy lifting. Which WAS necessary for her job, but she wasn’t extremely over-weight and having difficulty walking with no feeling in her feet.
My father, while a monster, has refused all back surgeries and simply tolerated his back pain because he can read data. And it wasn’t “maybe” or “sorta”. He was always very clear that it was an unacceptable risk.
Looking at my aunt, and comparing her condition to his… that is “can’t perform heavy yard work(at least for hours at a time) and occasional pain”… I have to agree.
Yes, I am aware that there are doctors who lie about the benefits of back surgery. Their lies amuse me. I’ve seen MD’s also lie about how breathalyzers work. I’ve read and understand how Breathalyzers actually work, according to the manufacturers of the breathalyzers. It is somewhat amusing to see how wildly those doctors will lie in published articles. Then they expect me to take there other wild lies seriously. I mean really. It’s one thing to laugh at me for being stupid enough to trust you, but to get angry when I don’t?
90% of Doctors=Liars
Just because it makes you scared doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
You should be more scared of the potentially disastrous consequences of back surgery.
I can only recomend the opening lnes of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, which (without checking) goes something like:
‘All happy families are happy in the same way; all unhappy families are unhappy in their separate ways’. Tolstoy was unhappy. Most of my married friends are in differing ways unhappy (no sex – spendthrift wife – violent wife – drunk wife).
Right on Dalrock. I have been married for 11 years and we have two sons. My wife and I met while in college. I left one week later for a seven month police academy (weekends off) and she finished her senior year. We were 21 when we met and were married a year later. She is now an engineer. After working for awhile, she stayed at home for 4 years until our boys were both in school.
We faced some challenges at first. She was offered a job out of state upon graduation early in her senior year. We had only known each other for a few months and she turned it down.
If you can find a quality girl (she was a virgin, great work ethic and shared similar but not exactly the same religious views as me, she was Catholic and I grew up a Baptist ) marriage can be great and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I have often thought that one of the biggest problems with marriages these days is the “wait” mentally. Yeah, sorry, but I don’t feel like sharring. Even quality girls on average won’t wait forever, not to say a quality girl has to be a virgin but we are talking probabilities here.
Also, when you are young or in school you are in a target rich environment and can meet a lot of potential mates. We live in a rural area and I can’t imagine trying to find someone today while working.
The only thing I’d object to in the tone of these admissions is the idea that being happy is boring. You know what’s boring? Lonliness and unhappiness. Knowing that all you have to do once you get home is watch the same dull tv shows you hate, or maybe going to clubs to meet with self-absorbed people and try to have a ONS with someone who doesn’t even like you, just to have sex once in a while.
You know what’s exciting? Sharing your life with someone. Seeing a beautiful sunset and snapping a picture of it on your phone, so your spouse can marvel over it, and being excited with anticipation of her joy. Chasing after happy kids, sharing their love and interest in the ordinary. Being terrified when they wake up with nightmares, being boundlessly happy when they get in bed and you steal kisses on the sofa. Having your 2 year old daughter squeal with delight when you come home.
Boring? Married life is far more exciting than the typical spy’s life. The main reason married people tend to outlive single is they are excited about life.
PT BARNUM
My husband was in a wheel chair before the surgery. The surgery was basically a “Hail Mary” when we were desperate and had tried everything.
I’ve been married 13, together nearly 20. Sex averages more than daily, despite having have three young children — I laugh at people who “don’t have time” for sex. It always means “working on our marriage is not a priority anymore”.
People who bitch about marriage being totally evil are just bad choosers, men and women alike. It’s one thing to realistically asses the risks of getting married, or to decide that you don’t want to get married — but to say all marriage is bad just shows weakness.
The marriage was good because I picked the right person based on character. It became great when I rediscovered self-improvement for myself, and embraced my leadership role.
slwerner: “I believe that there is a strong correlation between overall marital satisfaction and the level of respect/admiration that a wife has for her husband.”
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. The wife is the key to marital saisfaction for both partners. Men tend to define themselves by what they do. This translates into men blaming their dissatisfaction with their own lives on themselves and the choices they’ve made (or on others outside the marriage). This takes the focus off the wife and places the responsibility for his dissatisfaction elsewhere. Wives are seen as companions and partners who help reduce the stress of homelife. Thus anything the wife contributes is a positive that increases his satisfaction. If she becomes unhappy, then he becomes unhappy, but he probably still views her as an asset even if he thinks things could be better.
The woman’s focus is different. whether or not she’s willing to admit it, she married her husband because of what she thought she could get out of him (provision, safety, status, children, stability, love, etc.). Any failure by him in any of her chosen tasks for him results in disappointment and dissatisfaction. Her failure is that she married a man who could not provide what she wanted, therefore everything becomes his fault. Her task is to “change” or “improve” him. When this proves impossible, she opts out.
TDOM
@TDOM:
Yeah! That’s what I meant. You just say it so much better. Thanks.
TDOM – “Her task is to “change” or “improve” him. When this proves impossible, she opts out.”
This is exactly why, as I noted earlier, that I admire Paige for her perseverance in her marriage. What one typically sees is that it take far less adversity to have spouses turn on one another, most notably women blaming their husbands for a failure to provide for them in the way they expect.
She’s sometimes a bit “flaky” as with issues such as her stance that woman should not volunteer info as to their sexual histories, and her disconnect from the reality that women do (selfishly, or so they intend) initiate most (frivolous) divorces (even though, as she correctly notes, it isn’t truly always in their best interest to have done so). Yet, she seems a “throw-back” to those days when married folks saw each other through the tough times. I really do admire that in her.
I think it’s understood by most men in the Manosphere, and downplayed or ignored by most women, that even women who are self-described “Traditionalists” are not above switching to full-on feminist-spoils mode when their husbands fail them is some way. Paige has “been there”, but hasn’t “done that”. This elevates her above the suspicion of being “all talk”. [/pedastalizing Paige]
Your definition of “tried everything” is without a doubt very different from mine. But if you rolled the dice and got lucky, and you seem a little angry for that, then good for you.
As an amusing example of doctor behavior, there used to be a solution to gall-stones that was 100% effective, out-patient procedure that was very low-risk.
http://www.nytimes.com/1985/09/17/science/the-doctor-s-world-gallstones-removed-without-major-surgery.html
However, it was decided in the Halls of Power that since the gall bladder stones could re-occur in a few years, it was MORE EFFICIENT to just rip the gall bladder out.
So now you have this:
http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/gallstones/treatment.html
I especially love their little quote at the end on the “danger” of MBTE treatment:
Temporary pain, a very, very serious side effect. Dangerous to. What if the person was a werewolf? The pain could trigger a transformation to his wolf-form that would then result in the death of everyone in the room! Except the super hot nurse chick he would press to his bloody pelt and carry off to his lair! Oh, wait, this is the real world not a romance novel. Sorry about that.
Those of you who wish to know the truth can goggle “gall bladder removed” and “digestion problems”.
It would seem that the MOST EFFICIENT solution does come with some problems.
Aren’t you glad that doctor man is there to make the choice for you?
Well, actually he doesn’t make the decision. His owners, the AMA and US Federal Government, make the decisions and then he does as he is told.
Cause that’s what a free market is all about. Free Market, woot!
I’d say my perseverance is mostly inspired by my kids and I think the same goes for him. His parents got divorced and eventually remarried…the period where they divorced was very hard for him. I was raised without an involved father and hated it. Because of our life experiences I think we are more committed to making sure our children grow up in an intact family.
Neither one of us are saints. We both have a fairly bad temper but because we are alike in that way I think we are more tolerant of each other. Sometimes when I lose my temper he just laughs and says “you are cute when you’re angry” which usually makes me laugh.
“Her task is to “change” or “improve” him.”….I think there is a range of female behaviors, especially wife-behaviors, which range from INSPIRING a man to NAGGING him. The first can be an incredible source of supercharged energy for a man; the second is an energy suck that brings him down. But many women probably think they’re doing the first when they’re really doing the second. It’s something that women would do well to spend time consciously thinking about.
D–
I am happily married.
Today is my 21st anniversary! But, of course, I am a badass, as is my wife, so that may help.
We are fellow warriors in the same foxhole of life. And we will go down guns ablazing together until the very end.
Dalrock,
Good for you.
I hope I can replicate part of this.
Question for the Happily Married Men out there: What percentage of men among your male aquaintances (e.g., relatives, co-workers, friends, &c.); married only once, is still happily married and raising a traditional family?
The majority.
Eric – “What percentage of men among your male aquaintances (e.g., relatives, co-workers, friends, &c.); married only once, is still happily married and raising a traditional family?”
Off the top-of-my-head guesstimate:
~60% are still married, appear to be happy, and most have children;
~10% are still married, but appear to be unhappy, about half have children;
~30% have been divorced, almost all have children (the majority of which involved pretty ugly custody fights).
Eric, that’s a good point, but here’s another good point: I know far more happy married men than I do happy single men. Of course, I’m 40, and maybe things are different for younger “Jersey Shore” types, but the few guys my age I know who never married are not happy ones.
Marriage is one of the few things in life which has a real shot at providing happiness, which is one reason for it’s popularity over the years. Given that most men I know will marry sooner or later, I like to encourage them to make their marriage as rewarding, fun, and happy as possible. This actually starts before they get married, but even in the midst of an unhappy one, there is always hope. People can change, and men can change not only themselves but the women they love through learning leadership (aka game).
It’s great to see some people step up and say marriage is not the hell hole people seem to want to make it out to be. I LOVE MY HUSBAND. He is my best friend and the coolest person I know. I have no doubt he will sacrifice whatever it takes to provide for his family because he has proven it over the 13 years of marriage. Has he been perfect? No. But I am faaar from an angel myself. I know he feels the same just b/c of the way the guys around him seek his advice. Often the young men in his work place will tell him he is the only one they know who has anything positive to say about marriage. When I read some of the post about marriage out on the web it makes me sad. Marriage is just not supposed to be that hard. I will tell you be careful who you chose it is one of the most important decisions you will EVER make. And no test drives hardly ever work.
Dan in Philly – ”Of course, I’m 40, and maybe things are different for younger “Jersey Shore” types, but the few guys my age I know who never married are not happy ones.”
I’m of a similar age (48), yet my experience tends to be the opposite. The few men our age I know who never married are all quite happy. They all seem to have traveled extensively, engage in numerous outdoor activities (Denver, Colorado area, so there’s plenty to do in the mountains for those that have time and money), and are all doing well financially.
But, there are not many of them my (our) age. Most of the never-married and happy men I know are younger. The researcher who has the office next to mine is a 28-year old, who finished his PhD a few years ago, now makes six-figures, and takes off to the mountains to ski, for weekends in Mexico, or even afternoon baseball games (that time of year again) as he pleases. He’s carefree and unencumbered. I know he dates plenty of women, but isn’t interested in long-term relationships, and says he has no desire to have children.
I don’t know many like him personally, but I am quite aware that there are many such young men.
Given what young men who might be considering marriage today, his life-style would be hard to argue against for a guy who’s well educated, and well employed. I’d guess that many would actually prefer to forego the carefree single life-style in order to settle-down and start a family, but the pitfalls are now many, and the guarantees…well, there are no guarantees other than that a divorce will be costly and painful.
When I listed for Eric my own observation of the marital happiness status of men I know, it was without an age-related demographic breakdown. Most of the still happily married men I know are closer to my age, and of those who been divorced, most of the men closer to my age are also quite happy (after some years of readjustment to a typically unwanted divorce, most of them have ended up happier than when they were married, and from what I can tell, much happier than their exes).
Most of the unhappy marriages I know of involve younger men, as do a significant number of the divorces.
I cannot say for sure what all the cause(s) may be (but, I can guess), but it sure seems that in my experience, those of us who married 20+ years ago have had a greater probability of being able to work-through any difficulties and develop our marriages into happy unions. My guess is that the “pop culture” messages aimed at woman are largely to blame for the relative lack of marital satisfaction in younger couples.
My marriage doesn’t suck either. We’ve been together 14 years, married 12. We’ve been through illness, surgery, infertility, adoption, family stress, etc., and we still talk and laugh and take walks together and…well, I don’t talk about my sex life.
My husband regularly tells me how happy he is to be married – and he tells other people too!
OK… time for the buzzkill…
Marriage was awful for me. I was the alpha guy (sort of) to be “repaired”. So, I was fixed – like a tomcat – and then it all went to shit.
We never had kids.
We made damned good money. Actually, she made most of that damned good money until my career caught up with me.
I followed her around two states so she could pursue her career.
I was a SWPL, she was a self-proclaimed feminist.
To get my needs and desires met, I relied on the beta male passive-aggressive method. That was the cancer that eventually destroyed the marriage.
I will never get married again.
slwerner,
Something to consider is that happiness for men tends to take a serious hit between 35 and 45, and it’s nothing to do with marriage. That’s about the time men start running into serious job competition and many high achievers start encountering their first significant career setbacks, seeing their career velocity drop off or vanish. And at the same time they are saddled with immense amounts of work and, if they’re married with kids, the family puts huge demands on their time too, with sports, school, etc.
Guys in that age bracket are burying a lot of their dreams, while everyone around them is trying to saddle them with as many burdens as possible.
Been married nine years now and I’m happier now than when I was single, no question. And I don’t know what planet bloggers like Roissy are on when they claim married betas get sex once or twice a month, it’s like 3-5 times a week with us. Compare that with practically zilch as a single guy.
Well, maybe I’m not so beta. I met my wife at age 30 and by then had the worst of the blue pill out of me, even if I had never heard of game. It took me a long time to feel my way out of the dark and get more focused. My wife says I am alpha (good to hear).
We did have a rough patch about two years ago. Her mom is really bad with money and got saddled with raising two granchildren (the kids of my wife’s bad-attitude brother and his deadbeat ex-wife). My MIL got pretty dependent on us, financially and in other ways too, and I got pretty resentful about it. I fought her pretty hard for a while and then there was a period where she gave a lot of that bitterness back at me. I think if it ever gets that bad again, I’m just moving out for at least a while. Life’s too short to fight all the time.
My main fear right now is that my wife’s career is basically failing at this point (she trained as a librarian and has never found a full-time job in it, and is totally unemployed in the city we’ve moved to). If this goes on much longer she’s not going to be happy and is going to start to regret coming here. But she seems happy with me and we do value each other.
I’m of a similar age (48), yet my experience tends to be the opposite. The few men our age I know who never married are all quite happy. They all seem to have traveled extensively, engage in numerous outdoor activities (Denver, Colorado area, so there’s plenty to do in the mountains for those that have time and money), and are all doing well financially.
In my experience (43), there’s a distinction between the guys who have always been single, and the ones who are divorced, among the ones who are in my age range and currently single. Most of the never-marrieds are quite content, really. This would have surprised me when I was younger, in my 20s, I think, but it surprises me less now. I do think, however, that they have different personalities than the guys who are married (who are easily the majority of the guys I know) — more independent by nature, less tendency to get lonely, very active and engaged in a lot of different things. It’s a different bag of tricks, in general, than your typical married guy.
Most of the married guys I know are fairly content. I think this generally depends, however, on how happy the wives are in the marriages. In my own experience, guys can be content in a marriage more easily than women can, and if the women are not content it messes up the marriage, and then the guy’s experience of it as well. On average, men are lower maintenance in relationships than women are (again, on average … there are very needy men out there, too).
Divorced guys are in their own class, really. You can’t really compare them to the guys who are currently married and the guys who never married — the experiences are too different.
“In my own experience, guys can be content in a marriage more easily than women can,”
I think generally speaking, you are right Brendan..
A guy can be happy and content in his favorite old armchair, whilst a woman will want a new sofa, more new clothes, more shoes… etc..
Women (not all) can be very superficial, and convince themselves that unless they have “what she is having” they are not happy..
Fortunately for me.. I never had a choice. Lol..
My son who is autistic, has all but wrecked the stuff in our house.. So.. old sofas are
de rigueur around here.. Especially if they are intact.. 😉
My son has taught me to value the important things in life.. Health , happiness and love.. :).. When your son has passed out on the floor after an epileptic fit.. well, it really hits home to you what is most important to you in life..
There but for the grace of God go I..
I don’t have any happy marriage stories for you. My own marriage went down in flames. I just wanted to say that for those of you who are married I wish you all the success and happiness in the world. I hope your children grow up right and have great marriages of their own.
I have not given up hope for marriage.
These are some really interesting responses. My own answer to the question (although I’m not married) is two: both of them married to foreign-born wives.
The interesting thing about these responses is that they are statistically anomolous. Census figures for example, show that about 20-25% of children under 12 are not living with both their biological parents. (About half the ones who do have foreign-born mothers). Another shows that, for the first time, over half of children under 3 are born either to minority, foreign-born, or mixed-race couples. Even the respondants’ lowest figures were still higher than what would typically be expected.
So the next question would be: how can these responses be interpreted?
By-the-Sword:
I suppose in some ways another question got answered. When men ask where all the good women have gone, at least now we know where they apparently all went! LOL
I think though that your story is a lot more typical. If marriage is an option, it’s best to look in a culture not infected by feminist misandry.
By the Sword – My first marriage went down the tubes. By the time I got married the second time, I was more mature and more ready to take on the responsibilities of a wife, and more desireable, and better able to handle a woman. My first wife ended up with a dude 15 years older than me from Europe (now he has a green card, by some strange co-incidence), and works for her dad. My 2nd wife is a hottie and just had our 3rd child. So yeah, don’t give up on marriage, and advise any single guy you know not to get married until he learnes about women through game.
@Eric
So the next question would be: how can these responses be interpreted?
I think you can only take them at face value. Many marriages are quite good, but you typically won’t hear from those folks unless you specifically ask them. As I stressed repeatedly in the post, this isn’t about denying the bad outcomes that we all have seen and read about happening. It doesn’t lessen the risks or the need to have your eyes open. If anything I think this highlights the opportunity cost of marrying the wrong woman. Not only will the bad outcomes everyone describes still happen, but you will have also missed out on potential great outcomes. I don’t see anyone here saying man up and marry some party girl or harpy and everything will work out just fine.
These are some really interesting responses. My own answer to the question (although I’m not married) is two: both of them married to foreign-born wives.
I wish I believed this was an easy way for a man to assure a happy marriage. I certainly wouldn’t talk a man out of marrying a woman from another country if he felt she was the right woman for him. By the same token I wish I believed that prenups were the answer, or that marrying a woman of a specific faith was the answer.
Could you share the link to the census figures you are referencing? I’m always on the lookout for just that kind of data.
I might have no right to add to this given that a) I’m foreigner and b) I haven’t been married long.
But I want to mention that for a long time I though marriage sucked, I was always the shoulder for my girlfriends to cry on and they usually told me all the horrible things their husbands did to her. One day I told my best friend that I will never marry because of that and she gave me a big speech about the fact that women bitch about the bad of the marriage and don’t about the good and I should don’t listen to women that bitch about their husbands but stay married and keep bearing kids and making plans about the future, they obviously can;t be that unhappy can they? It was a real eye opener.
I’ m so far very happy and my husband tells me he is, we still had not have any crisis (no kids yet, he makes a decent living and I’m frugal…) but I’m confident we did a great choice and we can survive anything. I do agree that respect and love go hand in hand I really think he is the most wonderful man I ever meet, and he wants me too! What else could I ask? 🙂
Dalrock,
It might be from the 2000 census; it seems I read it before the results from 2010 were out. I’ll have to look it up over the weekend.
What interested me most about the responses wasn’t so much that happy marriages to US women actually occur, but that the men responding reported higher than typical successful marriages among their male acquaintances. Truthfully, most US marriages fail because of the women involved; it might be that a man is fortunate enough to find and marry a really decent girl here, but the odds are against it and the odds against the majority of a man’s friends and relatives also having great marriages is extremely high.
Since feminocentrism dominates US culture, I’m thinking that there must be some cultural variable among the men here who have happy marriages that’s unique to their own demographic in some way. It would interesting to delve further and see what they have in common. Maybe starting a thread on how their relationships initiated or evolved?
As for foreign women, I’m not saying it’s a panacea, only that a marriage-minded man’s chances of finding a good wife are better if he looks outside the Anglosphere. The same factors involved in a normal relationship apply to foreign women as well; only they have higher commitment abilities and better attitudes in the long run.
Since feminocentrism dominates US culture, I’m thinking that there must be some cultural variable among the men here who have happy marriages that’s unique to their own demographic in some way. It would interesting to delve further and see what they have in common. Maybe starting a thread on how their relationships initiated or evolved?
It’s largely demographic. The divorce rate among dual educated couples is quite low (~10%), and the responses here reflect that. The marriage rate isn’t sky high, but the unmarrieds of this demographic tend not to live in the same places as the marrieds do, nor do they tend to socialize as much with the unmarrieds (it’s typically awkward for marrieds and unmarrieds above a certain age to frequently socialize closely, because of the very different lifestyles involved). So, it’s quite true that among the middle class dual educated couples, divorce rates are low as you are seeing reflected in this thread — Game or no Game, doesn’t seem to matter much. It seems to be based more on later marriages, more future time orientation, and more expensive divorces in terms of the lifestyle hit for both.
The Game issue isn’t terribly important in my own anecdotal experience. Most of the fairly content married guys I mentioned above are quite beta and not running Game — some are even awkward. They are mostly married to average looking, but educated, professional women, and both seem to have accepted their respective “equal beta weighting” assortative mating choices. I don’t know many guys who aren’t quite high status who are married to very hot women, and the women I know professionally are mostly rather average looking, not hotties, and yet seem happily married, mostly to betas.
Problems seem to arise in this demographic when people marry earlier, before they are more realistic in their assessment of their own mate value. You can end up with mismatches, and that screws up marriages. Another thing that screws up the relatively small marriages in this demographic which do end up failing is when mate value begins to diverge (i.e., one person gains weight, or one person becomes more beta, less valuable), because that begs the question of looking elsewhere for satisfaction.
Brendan;
I agree with you about Game Theory; I think you make a lot of good points too on the educational levels being equal. This might also be a factor with foreign women, since a lot of those who marry/date Anglo-American men tend to be better educated (e.g., most are bi-lingual).
Brendan, I’ll agree with your observations, however with the following dissent: age cohort is also a factor. Married people in their 40’s and 50’s were adults before the worst of phase-three feminism came into effect (Bradley amendment, VAWA, re-interpretation of Title IX, etc.) and thus the women in your example are all but certain have not drunk from the heady font of “girl power”.
Consider a randomly selected American woman of 30: she was 5-6 years old when Bradley was passed, barely a teenager when VAWA was put in effect, and very likely in mid school or high school during the whole “Reviving Ophelia” scam & the AAUW “study” flap. So she’s more likely to be empowered and entitled just because of the social milieu of her youth. And therefore, a riskier proposition for marriage.
Now drop down to a 25 year old, a woman who’s been out of college for 2 to 3 years. She’s all but certain to have been exposed to all the “self esteem” claptrap, she benefited from the anti-male changes in K-12 schooling of the 1990’s, if she ever did sports in college then Title IX benefited her, now AA has helped her get a job. I submit she’s even more of a risk, because likely she’s never really had to compromise with any man, including her profs in college.
And that’s a key element in any LTR, but most especially in a marriage where children come into play. If one of the parents is unable, or unwilling, to compromise then that means the other one has to bend quite a lot. It pretty much means the LTR isn’t going to be all that LT. Much of ‘game’ has to do with interactions at the subconscious level inside a woman’s head, that convince her not only to go along with what the man is suggesting, but to believe that it’s her idea to do so. At least that’s what I think is happening, based on my reading and some experimentation in my own life.
But a woman with a lot of “self esteem”, entitlement programming running in her head on top of that older, lizard brain stuff, is going to be harder to be around for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is she’ll require very tight game continuously. Most men are just not going to find that appealing. And that ties back to the declining marriage rate, & increasing age of women at first marriage IMO.
I daresay that all the women who have responded on this thread don’t require continuous tight game…and there is a definite self selection involved in reading this blog, reading this thread, and lastly responding. A Venn diagram would show that.
For all of the above, this is a good thing to write about, for those men and women who on the one hand do want to marry, but on the other hand are uncertain about the whole thing.
I don’t wish to get pedantic, but definitions matter and so do words:
“Game” is not “Game Theory”, although I suppose one could argue that there is some Game Theory in Game.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory
Be that as it may, calling Roissy/Roosh/etc. style “Game” by the term “Game Theory” really does not make a lot of sense.
And Eric, “game” works. I understand skepticism, been there myself. But “game” is really applied psychology based upon inherent differences between men and women, differences that are biological in nature that cannot be erased via experiental or educational programming. Although it appears they can be damaged by experience and/or training/education.
I’m satisfied from my own experiments that there are things I can say and do that change the way women see me and react to me. These things tap directly or indirectly into the deep recesses of the female brain, although post-hoc rationalization can lead women to justify their reactions with all sorts of claims.
I repeat: “game” works. It’s a fact. You should learn about it, for your own benefit.
“I believe that there is a strong correlation between overall marital satisfaction and the level of respect/admiration that a wife has for her husband.”
This is gold. I was very unhappy in my first marriage and as much as I said it over and over and tried hard to get us to fix it…he never felt there were any problems and told me he was “deleriously happy” until the day I left. as a side note he was the first guy I ever slept with. Looking back it boiled down to both of us wanting to be the girl.
Been married now for the second time for 12 glorious years. A totally different dynamic. My husband knows how to be a leader. We both have careers we enjoy, 2 kids, and we each are in charge of what we are good at. I will say I am not a spender and I love to cook so that is my area. We love to do things together and as a family …skiing, hiking, playing games, etc. We eat dinner together everynight as a family which we deem as a huge prioity. The sex is unbelievable and gets better and better ( certainly something I never knew was possible)
With my first husband I always felt like I was trying to recapture the love I found in the beginning…with this marriage its the opposite the love and passion just keeps increasing. I dont know if it was maturity or just luck…but I hit the jackpot WE hit the jackpot.
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I’ve been married seven years, have 3 kids, and I’ve never been happier. We’ve had some rough spots, but nothing we couldn’t work through. Most of our problems we’ve had were caused by her post-partum depression, and a car wreck she was in years ago, which leaves her in almost constant pain. If it weren’t for those, I’d have nothing to complain about.
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“My marriage doesn’t suck” is just another way of claiming “not all women are like that.”
It’s also deceptive, as it should be “my marriage doesn’t suck so far.” Which is not only more accurate, it reflects the risk of a wife destroying her husband’s life on a whim.
“It’s also deceptive, as it should be “my marriage doesn’t suck so far.” Which is not only more accurate, it reflects the risk of a wife destroying her husband’s life on a whim.”
Sheesh, this post is about marriages that DON’T suck.
Nothing deceptive about it at all. People are just sharing POSITIVE experiences about their marriages.
Yes, some people do have ’em 😉
No one here is trying to convince some poor unsuspecting man to put his neck in the noose.. ie get married.
Go do your hand wringing somewhere else.
Btw, I could walk across the road tomorrow and get hit by a bus….. Or not… shakes head..
“Which is not only more accurate, it reflects the risk of a wife destroying her husband’s life on a whim.”
Sorry. Not buying it.
If you’re married to somebody inclined to do that, then either you already know that your marriage sucks, or you’re in serious, clinical-level denial.
I was once engaged to somebody like that. I knew who and what she was…I was just stupid enough to think that my only choices were her or celibacy. I was also stupid enough to think that, of those two options, marrying her was the better one. So yeah, I was pretty stupid. Even as stupid as I was, though, I wasn’t going in blindfolded. I knew if I married her I’d eventually get screwed.
A few years after I decided that, even if those two _were_ the only options, celibacy was the better one of the two, I found myself romantically involved with the woman to whom I’m now very happily married.
If she’s the kind of person who abandons her values on a whim, don’t marry her. If she’s the kind of person who doesn’t have any values at all, don’t marry her. And if you don’t know her well enough to be sure, don’t marry her until you are. But the fact that a lot of men have made it all the way to the altar without being relieved of the very common variety of stupidity under which I suffered back then doesn’t mean that all married men are just suckers.
Awesome thread. Inspiring for a 25 year old man to look at the other side of things.
Some good advice (stolen from the long gone manosphere legend Pook): If your woman loves you enough you can reshape her how you want her. To be more precise, your role as a man is to be a leader and woman is a follower and if your alpha-ness is strong enough she will do whatever you want. So you don’t find the perfect woman, you find a great woman and work to make her perfect.
I guess women would have their own version of this advice.
Don’t be the kind of man that a woman thinks she can screw and you won’t attract those women.
Even if I didn’t have the basic morality to not screw my husband over, I know I couldn’t actually get away with it. Nobody messes with my husband without paying a price. He has a very strong sense of justice and he would devote his life to making your life hell until he felt that you had properly “paid” for your crimes. He wouldn’t break the law- of course- but he would use every legal means necessary to teach you a lesson.
My husband gets his way because few people have the stamina to go to battle with him.
Nothing could compare with the thrill of seeing my children grow, thanks in part to my genes and in part to my committed and constant presence in their life, into strong leaders, creative forces, and contented human beings. Even aside from that reward (much more difficult to achieve, it appears, outside of marriage), though, I would remain enthusiastically married.
Marriage hasn’t always been easy; in fact, it’s been tested in fire. In a profession—hell, in a world in which few can be trusted, my wife is my trusted partner and confidante. I know that I have a woman who will stick with me through thick and thin, who will keep my secrets, and—maybe most importantly—who will get my jokes till death do us part.
How many men can I with total confidence say the same of? Two, both related to me by blood.
But marriage isn’t for everyone. Men shouldn’t settle in marriage any more than women should. You’re not going to fix her any more than she is going to fix you. If you don’t find someone already willing to fight for you no matter what, and for whom you will already do the same, don’t bother; not getting married is a shorter route to dying single than is marrying to divorce.
Thanks for the post, Dalrock, and for the blog. I found you via C&F.
[D: Glad you like it. Welcome.]
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Dalrock, you old salt! You should have dropped me a line, I would have gotten here much sooner.
Well my friend, I’m glad you’re happy. I really am. Being serious here, but even you would have to agree that your situation is probably not the majority. I wish it was.
Look I get emails every day detailing all sorts of horror stories. Now do I know that there are happy couples out there, of course. It’s a lot like the lottery. Yes there are winners, but chances are it won’t be you.
Thanks for the publicity, don’t be a stranger.
Take Care,
CNM
I don’t know why I missed this when Dalrock originally posted this in April.
I’ve been married 15 years. It’s been mostly good. We’ve survived major surgery, serious medical problems, four miscarriages, her becoming a SAHM and gaining proficiency in that skill set, two job changes, job unhappiness, two home purchases, five car purchases, and serious financial problems. With the help of Game we have been recently weathering the storm of her revelations to me of lying about her premarital partner count, a revelation which, while not a marriage ender, certainly changed some things. Game has improved us. We have sex 3 to 5 times a week. I don’t hear her complaining anymore about most things. My work has improved. I don’t have a perfect marriage; but it is getting better — much better.
Thanks for putting this post up, Dalrock.
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I think that your being happily married shows in your writing. Until I get to the comment section, I don’t see any of the “women suck because they wouldn’t have sex with me because they were having sex with someone else so they are all sluts who I need to trick into having sex with me,” whining that most of the “manosphere” is made up of. You make logical points that don’t seem to driven by bitterness, dislike of women and revenge over rejection.
The problem I see with too many of these comments is they keep confusing “marriage” with having a solid relationship and acting as if you have a choice of either being single or married and that’s it. But being unmarried does not have to mean being single, it means exactly as it sounds, that you are not married. You can very much have a loving relationship with someone without being married to them. People are confusing the argument about whether to remain single versus having a relationship with the argument of whether to be married or unmarried, which is completely separate from the argument about whether to remain single or have a relationship.
Those who talk about how their life has been hard but the one bright light is their “marriage,” no it isn’t. The bright light is your RELATIONSHIP with a person, to whom you just happen to be married to. You’d be just as happy with that person being unmarried. Signing what is a legal contract does not suddenly improve the relationship.
It never ceases to amaze me the number of people who, when discussing marriage, talk about their “single” friends, as if all unmarried people are single and just go to clubs and party. As said, being unmarried does not have to mean being single, and not all single people just go to clubs and bars and parties and so forth.
The problem with marriage is the risk it entails. Unless for religious purposes, it gives no benefit whatsoever, minus a few tax benefits. The other things it provides you can get separate from it, and without the major liability that marriage entails.
“Unless for religious purposes, it gives no benefit whatsoever, minus a few tax benefits.”
Two words: spousal privilege.
Maybe a few things, but most benefits can be gotten separately. Marriage bundles them together in a package, but comes with the problem of enormous liability if the relationship fails.
Mark Bennett was talking about “spousal privilege” as a benefit of marriage. He’s talking about the legal privilege. It’s an evidentiary rule which prevents a spouse from being compelled to testify to confidential communications made to a spouse during the marriage. The privilege requires the spouses be legally married to each other.
I thought that notion (spouses cannot testify) was knocked down years ago. That still stands?
Rock Throwing Peasant, yes, though there have been exceptions made—for example, one cannot invoke the privilege to avoid testifying against one’s spouse in a case involving a family-violence allegation.
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