Received wisdom in the manosphere is that women need to settle. I have to say I enjoy a good hamster carpet bombing as much as the next guy. But in the end the entertainment value isn’t worth the human cost. I’ve touched on this before, but after seeing the article Did You Marry the Wrong Guy? from Marie Claire (H/T GudEnuf) I wanted to revisit it.
The problem with telling women they need to settle isn’t that they won’t listen. The problem is that they will listen, or at least use this message as rationalization for wrecking an honest man’s life. The problem occurs because women don’t think like men. If you tell a man he has too high a sense of his own value in the dating/marriage marketplace, he is likely to be humbled by this. Actually no one needs to tell the typical guy this because they tend to figure it out based on which women are and aren’t attracted to them.
Too many women (especially the kind of women the message is aimed at) however hear this message and decide this means they should marry the well off guy they aren’t attracted to, ultimately doing him the favor of taking his kids and half his stuff when they figure out they don’t love him anymore. According to the Marie Claire article this is quite common:
According to recent research conducted by Jennifer Gauvain, a therapist in Denver, 30 percent of now-divorced women say they knew in their gut they were making a mistake as they walked down the aisle — and kept walking anyway. Only a handful backed out.
Being a women’s magazine, the article goes on to explain that the women themselves aren’t to blame for leaving a trail of wreckage in their wakes because society made them do it. The reality is they feared loosing the option to choose, and wanted the status that came with getting married as well as his money. He wasn’t likely to give up half of his stuff and pay for her to have children if she didn’t pretend to be in love with him in order to marry him:
Clark had dated a handsome businessman for four years before they got engaged, and although he didn’t make her heart race, she still loved him. “We were best friends, and I thought he’d make a great husband and father, even though I wasn’t ‘in love,'” she says. “I walked down the aisle thinking, What the hell? During my vows, I wasn’t making eye contact with my fiancé.”
Five years and two kids later, their sex life nonexistent, Clark wanted out. “I’d often wish he would cheat,” she says. Finally, her husband, sensing her unhappiness, ended it.
I see this woman as beneath more traditional gold diggers and prostitutes. She isn’t just harming him, but putting her children through great pain as well. Aside from stealing his wealth and children, she also stole his opportunity for great happiness. The truth is another woman would likely have found this same man quite attractive and lovable. She had no right to rob him of that because she lacked the capacity to reciprocate love but still wanted all of the benefits of marriage. Some might say that he should have learned game and all would have been well. Aside from the fact that this isn’t common knowledge in our culture, had he learned game he would have been able to marry a much better woman. She wanted a man of his appearance wealth and status with game, but none of them wanted her or she would have married one of them.
My guess is the root cause of women who are incapable of experiencing reciprocal love and attraction is a blend of the mismatch feminism has created between men and women, the impact of alpha chasing/promiscuity, and an overall entitlement complex. Whatever the cause of the issue, it does appear to be real for a significant percentage of women.
Making things worse, older women consistently advise younger women to pass up men they are in love with and attracted to with the assumption that another better man will be along shortly. We have seen this with Advice Goddess, Amy Dickinson, and the authors of Last one down the aisle wins. The reality is that experiencing mutual attraction isn’t a given for women, and should therefore not be abandoned lightly. This also is why the advice to women to postpone marriage and “just have fun” for a decade or more is so detrimental to them. Finding a man who they can reciprocate love and attraction with is difficult for many women, and only gets harder the older they become.
So stop telling women to settle. I beg you! The innocent (but clueless) beta you save may be someone you know.
I think this is the single biggest risk a man looking to marry faces. This is even bigger in my opinion than a woman’s sexual history, although the two are often connected.
See Also:
There is no rescue short of taking your vows seriously. Even if a woman thinks she is marrying the man of her dreams when they walk down the isle, I promise you that sooner or later, she’ll wake up and think less of him, and therefore believe she settled. That belief will cause her to reinterpret her feelings on her wedding day, and will cause her to falsely believe she knew at the time she was settling. People lie to themselves all the time, men and women, it’s part of the human condition.
The important thing to to train your daughters and wives to recognize the truth: What they have is good enough to be happy with. I cannot bang this drum any louder than I have been recently. Just as some men who think they are taking their dream job will suddenly sour on it when they hear their old roomie got a better one, so too will a woman who married Mr. Right will suddenly think she just married Mr. Right Now when her younger sister snags a better man.
Change your outlook on life and teach your women to do the same. Constantly remind them of how happy they are, despite what they don’t have, by focusing them on what they do have. Husbands, love your wives by causing them to admire you and constantly reinforce their understanding of how good they have it.
To sum up, marriage does not end on your wedding day, it begins.
Back when Lori Gottlieb’s book came out, Ask Men had an excellent editorial on it. An excerpt:
http://www.askmen.com/dating/curtsmith_300/371_please-dont-settle-for-us.html
I’m not sure why Amy Alkon has so much cred – her own relationship history is not a story of success. The MSM loves her, though.
[D: Great quote Susan.]
Hi, I’m new around here, and I hope I have something of value to contribute to the discussion.
When I hear of women being advised to “settle” in order to find a husband, my take on it is that women need to be realistic, and not expect the Old Spice Guy to sweep in and rescue them from their dull, wretched lives. I think women need to figure out what their non-negotiables are, and then realize that everything else is up for grabs. For instance, if she wants a man who is tall, of the same religious faith, and who likes to attend the opera, then she should be willing to give up on whether or not he is colorblind, likes cats, has an exciting job, or speaks Italian.
I agree that the advice to “settle, already!” is fraught with risk, especially for the man, if the woman isn’t crazy about him but is convinced to “settle” because, on paper, he’s “good enough.” That’s just cruel in the long run.
(I’m a 37 year old thrice-divorced single mom, and I am lucky as can be to be dating a guy I am absolutely crazy about.)
The part about the 30 percent of divorcees knowing on the wedding day it was wrong, sounds rationalization hamster to me. They want a way to mentally annul their marriages instead of owning up to their decision to eat pray love.
It smacks of buying into others’ immaturity. Like when a high strung person tells you that you should have known I have a hot temper so why did you bring up subject X at all, you should have known I would verbally abuse you.
No matter what you or I tell women they aren’t going to listen, they might tell you they did if it suits their purposes to spread the blame later but they really don’t. They take what they feel is the best thing available when they want a wedding and a kid and maybe trade up later. I’m not going to be made to feel responsible by their hamsters.
IMO, Alkon gets a lot of attention because she’s a tad less ridiculous than most of the other feminists. In fact, she’s been attacked by other feminists for her understanding and respect for the visual aspect of male sexuality. Anyone who’s seen as pushing the grain—even a little—is going to get some attention.
And to be honest, I don’t really hear the “women should settle” message all that much. Maybe it’s really starting to crescendo, but it doesn’t seem to be that way from where I’m sitting. I don’t know many young women who are willing to settle, and I know more than a few who are in their late-30s and have no plans to settle either (I live in Boston). But to the extent that this message is getting around, I agree it’s bad news. Perhaps we should be telling women to “learn to value the love of a decent man”? But in any case that’s not nearly so catchy as “learn to settle”.
I also wonder if the message can’t be tweaked further. Obviously “settling” is bad…but what about “satisficing”? Would women—and their future husbands—be better off if that was the prevailing philosophy? I’m skeptical, but giving it thought…
@My Name is Jim
The part about the 30 percent of divorcees knowing on the wedding day it was wrong, sounds rationalization hamster to me. They want a way to mentally annul their marriages instead of owning up to their decision to eat pray love.
My wife and I have watched this happen too many times for me not to believe it is very common. When my wife and I first met she had a roommate who was around 30 and engaged. She kept all of the gifts the man who got away* had given her and almost never returned her fiancé’s calls. She treated her fiancé with fairly open disgust and frequently asked my wife “how do you know if you love him?” This was especially strange because my wife was only 18 and her roommate was the youth pastor at the church. Another woman my wife knew told her over lunch “I guess you should know, I’m going to marry Tom” in an obviously unexcited tone.
I don’t know why so many men deny this. Women come outright and tell us they are going to do this. Then after the divorce they say they did it. Yet so many men refuse to believe.
*She had turned down the man of her dreams’ proposal of marriage a few years prior because he was a different (but very similar) flavor of protestant than she was. After he married another woman she realized how foolish this was.
Yeah, I think that the “settling” meme can be abused if it is interpreted to mean “not really attracted to, but looks good enough on paper”. That kind of settling is a bad idea.
When I think of the word settling, what it means to me is paring down the 1000 item checklist of must haves to a more manageable list – not picking someone you’re not attracted to. The problem, of course, is that when some of these women are younger they are with men whom they *are* attracted to, but are missing this or that from the 1000 item checklist, and so they are passed over and relations are terminated. The cost of doing that is high, precisely because high and mutual attraction is relatively rare, and therefore relatively more important than the rest of the 1000 items on the list.
The trouble is that when women hear “settle”, it seems many of them take that to mean “compromise attraction as long as I get more of the rest of the list” — which is an absolutely terrible way to proceed and the precise opposite of what should be done. What should be done is to pare down the list so that the next one you are attracted to has a better shot at running your list’s gauntlet than the guy you were really attracted to at 26 but dumped when because of the list. In other words, compromise on the other stuff, not attraction and core values.
Of course there are complications. It’s true that, as time marches on, the more attractive MMV members of the opposite sex will become more scarce. The question then becomes whether one’s attraction can be calibrated or not. If not, then it is a big mistake to move forward anyway, because you’re just buying into a lot of misery down the road (you can’t make a marriage work on fumes, if there is no real baseline attraction). In other words, for some people, men and women alike, for whom the time of peak attraction may have passed and the numbers of attractive MMV peers has dwindled, it may be the case that they should simply not get married. Tough decision, but also a realistic one, I think, for more than a few people.
” Another woman my wife knew told her over lunch “I guess you should know, I’m going to marry Tom” in an obviously unexcited tone. ”
Dal, I know we basically agree here and I think we’re just arguing semantics. To my mind though, any woman who would enter any marriage (even arranged) with such an attitude as you describe would never make much of a wife. Maybe they would be more enthusiastic at the beginning, but familiarity breeds contempt, and sooner or later they would think their husbands do not deserve the love they (the wife) is giving, and will stop giving love.
This cycle will not end as long as women have a choice addiction. I say go ahead with the “settle” theme, because it gets the hard part out of the way: accpeting that at one time or another you are going to think you do not love the man you married. But that should not change your behavior towards him.
There’s an old saying which I think is appropriate here: You marry the person you love, and you love the person you marry. In the first phrase, the word “love” is why we do something. In the second, the word is what we do. The second meaning is far more important than the first.
I know a lady who married for the specific purpose of finding a surrogate father for her child. She ended up marrying a man she had almost no attraction for. It lasted only a few years.
Every woman who knew her saw this coming and several dropped a few hints “Are you SURE you are doing the right thing?” To no avail.
This woman just did not have a temperament suited for marriage and everybody knew it. Her personality wasn’t feminine in the least. She kept saying how grossed out she was by her fiance because of his weight issues and beta-ness. He was a standard “nice guy” and religious to boot, so I think he was totally naive going into the situation.
I don’t think the woman was trying to be malicious…I think she really thought she could white-knuckle through her whole marriage…or that at some point attraction would just develop. She is a very logical type of person who is use to separating her feelings from her behavior (she use to be an escort). I think she was surprised by how deep her contempt for her husband would become.
So yes, let this be a warning. Men- Don’t marry any woman unless you are sure she is madly in-love with you. Women- Don’t marry any man you aren’t attracted to.
Good post. But I think this statistic:
“30 percent of now-divorced women say they knew in their gut they were making a mistake as they walked down the aisle”
…is pretty questionable. (a)How many women felt that same sort of last-minute “this doesn’t feel right” emotion, but the decision still turned out to be the *right* one? Surely everyone has made decisons–taking a particular job, going to a particular college–that felt wrong at the last minute, but still turned out very well. (b)How much of this is due to modified memories–hamsters running in reverse, if you will–whereby a few normal wedding-day jitters are amplified all out of proportion when things start going wrong?
Why tell women anything?? Tell men to avoid marriage, cohabitation and kids and save themselves a world of trouble.
Paige’s story kind of unintentionally proves my point. I.e., The “lady” did it for her own reason, not because anyone told her to settle or not settle. She was even counseled away but didn’t listen. I guess I just don’t believe That they will listen. The using it as rationalization for something I never intended “settling” to mean, I do believe. (I never said marry someone you can’t be attracted to in a million years.). But I just don’t think their rationalization is my problem, and isn’t under my control anyway.
@Paige
I don’t think the woman was trying to be malicious…I think she really thought she could white-knuckle through her whole marriage…or that at some point attraction would just develop. She is a very logical type of person who is use to separating her feelings from her behavior (she use to be an escort). I think she was surprised by how deep her contempt for her husband would become.
I know what you mean. I once knew a guy who accidentally robbed a bank. Some money fell into his backpack while he was working in the vault. Once he got home and realized what had happened, he returned the money. I’m sure it was the same for your friend. She let her ex husband keep the kids, didn’t sue for alimony or half of his stuff, and paid him child support, right?
Prenup!
In almost all marriages there develops a taker/giver dynamic. In a so-called “egalitarian” relationship the “taker” is often the woman. In a traditionalist marriage the “taker” is often the man.
Women go into marriage assuming that the man and the woman will have a 50/50 situation though this rarely actually happens. The dominant personality takes charge and the submissive personality obeys.
Men rarely enjoy the “giver” role, though a woman can enjoy it if she has significant physical attraction to her husband. The problem is that you can’t go into a marriage assuming you will always be attracted to your husband. It isn’t something you can just will yourself to feel.
When a woman loses attraction for a man she will resent catering to him as much as a man would resent bringing his fat-ass wife breakfast in bed every morning.
Men who can sustain their wifes attraction to them will have happy wives who love to cater. Men who can’t will either have a wife who turns into a “taker” or a wife who tries to ignore her misery only to let it come out in passive-aggressive ways.
These are things that both men and women need to be warned about. My comment in the other thread that was accused of “hyperbole” was meant to show what a traditional marriage tends to feel like for a woman who isn’t attracted to her husband.
You must ASSUME that you will lose attraction for your husband and be totally prepared to do your duty anyway. If you aren’t prepared for that possibility then your likelihood of being part of that 50% divorce rate is nearly assured.
People will always talk about the “egalitarian” alternative but in reality someone is usually dominant in the relationship. If it is the woman then she is very likely to lose her “tingles” and the man will be passive-aggressive and eventually cheat (see: Jon and Kate Gosselin)
Dalrock:
I don’t actually know those details yet. The divorce is new. At the time I spoke with her she seemed very apologetic that she “couldn’t make it work”. I am sure they will arrange a joint custody situation.
God bless those little hamsters…
FWIW- I am not excusing her behavior I am only explaining it.
I think she was selfish to marry someone she felt near disgust for just so she would have a baby-daddy. A man doesn’t deserve that.
I’d be really pissed if I were him.
There is clear subtext running through your linked stories and many of the replies:
1. Women refuse to take responsibility for their bad decisions, regardless of the human wreckage they generate in their wake
2. Society at large seems to forgive (or at least turn a blind eye to) this immaturity and lack of accountability, but instead blames men for their “bad decisions” in choosing a sociopathic mate
3. Men should avoid legal marriage at all costs because of the above two points
@ Paige: “I’d be really pissed if I were him.”
No, you’d be financially and psychologically devastated if you were him.
This woman is going to start playing games as soon as her lawyer gets off the phone.
Given she has proven her absolute contempt for her ex as a human being, why on earth do you think she would enter into a joint custody situation and lose out on that 18 year (up to 21 in MA) tax-free cashflow called child support?
Ka-ching!
Im A 25 year old male, and by Christ, this is all depressing.
I mean, is this all a guy can hope for? To have some gal marry him because she wants ‘things’ and social status symbols, and then divorce his ass?
And is the opposite any better? Just a series of flings and emotionless fucking? I’ve done hook-ups before, and I’m done with the hollowness of them.
So what’s left then?
I mean… fuck.
And that’s why it’s great to have men like AtholK and Dalrock and the Badger around. I have found myself in the leadership role without even really insisting on it, partly circumstance but also because in some ways my wife just hasn’t developed some of the qualities that you need to acquire the skills. Playing this role and keeping up the attraction has been an education for me, almost like going back to college in a way. My game is far from tight but I’m working on it. My health/fitness, definitely coming along fine (last week I benched more than my own body weight for the first time, I want to get my body fat back under 10 percent next). I asked my wife to take some dance lessons with me and she seems amenable. Got my career development going better once again with a new job and raise last year and new high-profile assignment (VPs are being regularly briefed on my progress, so far so good).
I’m lucky that my wife has not seemed to mentally check out and it’s not going to happen if I can help it.
My sister-in-law was brazenly open about “feeling nothing for him” on the day before they married. She walked down the isle on schedule, ……and has remained married 29 years, with 3 cool kids to boot.
I agree there is a gender mismatch in our culture, and that (sadly) for many women , settling would mean settling for a life without a partner. The mismatch is not always due to alpha chasing , promiscuity, nor entitlement, but rather the reality that she can generate a better life of adventure, companionship, career by herself than tethered to a lesser man.
I wonder if the terms are wrong. By “settle”, I would mean a woman needs to get realistic by taking the proverbial chainsaw to the 1000 bullet point checklist. I also don’t mean a woman should “settle” by marrying a man she isn’t in love with.
We need to face reality to be happy. Maybe that reality is she won’t get a 10 to marry her (but she might get a 7 or an 8). Or maybe she won’t get to be an SAHM (but she might get to work only part time). Or maybe the guy she’s with isn’t wealthy, but makes up for it in other ways. The reality is that we don’t live in a perfect world, no one’s spouse is perfect, and no one gets everything they want. The sooner women accept that, the happier they’ll be – and those who want to find spouses they love, will probably be able to find them.
@Jim
I’m also glad to have blogs like Dalrock and Badger online too. I
Theyve been informative, but all of it makes me feel more pensive about marriage (as such information should).
As a young, single guy, I’m not really sure of the best course of action. Most of the men on here are probably in their 30s, married, and have learned greatly from Game.
I don’t want to pump-n-dumps, but my age bracket that seems to be the norm.
What’s a sane guy to do? 🙂
I agree there is a gender mismatch in our culture, and that (sadly) for many women , settling would mean settling for a life without a partner. The mismatch is not always due to alpha chasing , promiscuity, nor entitlement, but rather the reality that she can generate a better life of adventure, companionship, career by herself than tethered to a lesser man.
And this trend is significantly accelerating, I think. It’s amusing to watch, really — kind of like watching a big train wreck in slow motion.
@Brendan:
I think the vast majority of my 45+ year old female friends would strongly disagree about the “gender mismatch” you refer to.
@ MrLettuce:
No, this is not all there is. I believe there are women out there who want a man, who are getting real, who aren’t riding the carousel, and who want good LTRs or marriage. But they are getting harder and harder to find. Read Dalrock’s psots on finding and interviewing a wife. You’ll weed out the flakes, the snowflakes and the attention whores easily. When you find a good one, you’ll have to see if she measures up.
Reframe all this. You are the prize. You make her prove her worth to you. You don’t have to prove your value to her. If there are women you’re interested in and things get going, mentally ask yourself “What do you have to offer me?” She wants you to jump through her hoops and show her what you have? No. She needs to show you what she will offer you in exchange for your time, talents and resources. And then require her to make good on it.
And you’ll have to lay down the law on the things you won’t compromise. For example, my wife used to be a spendthrift and not very smart with money. I have handled the money since we married. I told her point blank when we got married I was handling the money, end of discussion. I also told her she needed to rein in her spending and that if she didn’t do it, we weren’t getting married, end of discussion. Within 6 months of getting married she was bristling at having to answer to me for the money she was spending. She said she did not have to respond. I told her she did have to and that I expected her to respond, we agreed to it, we were not going to have separate accounts, and if this was going to continue to be a problem, the door’s right there. We didn’t have kids. I did not tell her this, but I was ready to walk and I would have walked if she refused to submit on it. Be ready to walk before you marry if there’s a dealbreaker. She’ll appreciate the leadership you show – and happily submit to it. In 15 years of handling the money, bristling has never recurred since we had it out in the apartment that Saturday.
Mr. Lettus: “Im A 25 year old male, and by Christ, this is all depressing.
I mean, is this all a guy can hope for? To have some gal marry him because she wants ‘things’ and social status symbols, and then divorce his ass?
And is the opposite any better? Just a series of flings and emotionless fucking? I’ve done hook-ups before, and I’m done with the hollowness of them.”
Mr Lettus, I don’t know the specifics of your situation, but chew on this:
Women are great at following rules (one reason they do so well in schools, where generally rule following is more important than learning). Our culture is sufficiently feminized where this is enough to have a fairly successful life. Men are great at breaking rules and creating new ones out of chaos. Society tends to discourage this sort of behavior, which is the source of most young men’s frustrations.
You are now recognizing the rules, and they are stacked against you, there is literally no way you can follow them and succede as you deserve. So break them. You can use what you know (and will continue to learn) about the female nature to find and facinate one which suits you. You can become the kind of man you envision yourself to be, just don’t ask anyone for a set of rules to follow, but rather learn all you can through study and your own actions, and (as I stated before) don’t be afraid to break a few of these arbitrary rules society has set upon you. Know that you own your actions, and as long as you are prepared to live with the consequences you can, as a man, do anything you want.
This is why jerks are so appealing to women: they break the rules of polite society. Women know that such rule breakers are more secure in their manliness than rule followers and instinctively are drawn to him. Speak out of turn. Say what’s really on your mind. Don’t be bound by political correctness. In this way, you will learn who you really are and what you can and cannot live with, and what rules you can and cannot follow. Break the chains which are binding you, and realize you can have what you want/
Do the women that settle pretend to love their significant others?
I mean, wouldn’t there be warning signs early on in the relationship that prove a woman is settling?
Whenever I see a divorcée, I think to myself “….he should have realized his ex was a piece of work from the start.”
“Crazy malicious b****” isn’t a disease women spontaneously develop in their late thirties after they get married and have two kids. It’s something that’s been there from the beginning.
I am a kind, genuine individual. It should be pretty easy to differentiate me from a heartless scheming ho. If I didn’t love a man I couldn’t pretend to love him. I know I have guyfriends that crush on me but I try my best to be upfront about not being attracted to them. I’d feel guilty if I led them on for an ego boost or whatever women keep beta orbiters around for. [I’m actually a good matchmaker; if I know a friend is having trouble with girls I try my best to set him up with a decent date. Or if a friend gets ensnared by a whore I’ll tell him to dump her. Or tell her to dump my friend; I’m protective of my beta chums!]
Paige, I very much agree with your comment on the giver/taker dynamic. I also think it is better for the marriage when the woman is the giver. The husband just needs to maintain her attraction to him. This dynamic is most noticeable when it comes to doing household chores. A loving wife who does them makes the marriage much more harmonious.
My husband is not wealthy, but I don’t care for material status or money. And as Dalrock’s case pointed out, wealth does not by itself generate attraction. He is a good, moral and honest man, very masculine, intelligent and dominant. I think I also got lucky because we were both 26. He was not jaded or cynical about women.
@MrLettuce
Im A 25 year old male, and by Christ, this is all depressing.
Actually I would say you should find this comforting. You already knew the risk of divorce was high. Now you know more about how to spot one of the major drivers. The most frightening risk is that which we don’t understand.
@Butterfly Flower
Do the women that settle pretend to love their significant others?
I mean, wouldn’t there be warning signs early on in the relationship that prove a woman is settling?
Yes, they do pretend to love them, but not very well. Men miss these signs for several reasons, the biggest is because most men can’t fathom someone being so conniving. Especially a woman, since our feminist culture conditions men to believe that women are morally superior. The other part of the problem comes down to the nature of the condition of being Beta. It can be noble, or it can be farce, but betas are incredibly loyal. The reality of this is hard for women to believe due to the apex fallacy and the feminist conditioning to believe that men are untrustworthy. Even in the manosphere we still have women convinced that feminism has saved them from men dumping their wives en masse when they hit middle age and marrying a younger women. Some people need learn the difference between reality and Mad Men. But I won’t hold my breath.
Outstanding article and Topic Dalrock. You may need to lick this over to Welmer Price at the spearhead. This is a true eye opener of an article.
[D: Thanks. Will do.]
“…I know I have guyfriends that crush on me but I try my best to be upfront about not being attracted to them.”
You, for example, never let these fellows buy you dinner.., or any gifts of any other form…?
Women don’t need to settle for less than their list. Women need to revise the list.
Women generally don’t understand the difference between the two.
If a woman’s list really is 300 items long and she needs every one for happiness, then she should not take anything less that she doesn’t truly want.
Realising you are not going to find what you are looking for shouldn’t mean that you should take something you are not looking for – it means you should revise what you’re looking for. And that’s the critical difference the ‘Settle!’ crowd is missing.
I think this is part of a larger cultural issue for people to see the best and the most they can get, and then trade in when something better comes along. People today have been taught to evaluate not what is ‘enough’, but what is the most they can possibly try for. People have been taught never to be satisfied with what they have if there is another potentially better option out there. Why should we be surprised that husband-shopping has turned into the same kind of a tick list and optional trade-in? How is a woman who is never satisfied with ‘enough’ in any other area of life be satisfied with just ‘enough’ in a husband?
I think it would be difficult to change the attitudes of marriage as long as the rest of the bigger/better/newer culture remains.
Telling women to settle* is only moral if it is coupled with a very strong anti-divorce message. If you pressure a woman into settling without also pressuring her into remaining married, there will be men who get raped by the legal system over this. If you will not tell a woman to stay married then don’t advise her to get married.
* “Settle” being used in the sense of marrying someone who works on paper but sparks no attraction in reality.
@Dalrock
Hmm… I hadn’t thought of it like that. More knowledge is power. I guess it’s makes me question even more the available women out there, which is good.
But, as a noble, stable man with a bit of Game to him, I am (or rather ‘will be’) a highly desired commodity, albeit in a small market.
The “problem” with many women is very simple, and the “Conservatives” mocked Doomed Harlot for pointing it out. Many American women have a complete lack of empathy for men. That includes Susan Walsh by the way. Susan performs a few tricks, and suddenly people believe she cares what happens to men!
Do you even listen to what she says?
Susan explains her point of view in “Is Feminism Desire’s Kryptonite?”:
Well, that’s interesting. Completely out of line with the “guy-pal” persona she peddles at “Hooking Up Smart”. Completely different person, really.
Susan transparently lies in “It’s a Fight! Grab Popcorn!”:
About 16.5% of college educated women married between 1990 and 1995 divorced in the first ten years according to “The Frayed Knot” at The Economist
Of course, Susan has a kid in college, so her cohort has now been married for a least 20 years. Up that 16.5%. A 50% increase would be quite reasonable.
Worse, Susan’s cohort lives in a big city. Increasing that 16.5% another big amount.
Susan’s cohort is also non-religious, like Susan, and also blue-state. Providing another nice boost to the already super-boosted 16.5%.
Against that, you have the claim that “slightly higher tier people than college-educated” have lower divorce rates. Well, I wonder if removing the house owning middle class from the numbers with “upper tier college educated” will improve the divorce rate as much as removing HUD and trailer park dwellers did when going to “college educated”. I’m thinking no. And it certainly won’t bring the numbers back down to 16.5% given the massive increase the other four factors give.
So, we are left with the incredibly generous 16.5%(actually much higher) divorce rate for Susan’s cohort. Which she openly lies about by claiming
But this is a little lie, you say?
Lying to men about the risks of marriage is perhaps the single most destructive lie you can tell a young man. As this thread, and all of you, just said.
This isn’t a problem for Susan, because she doesn’t care if men get hurt.
Susan, cold-as-ice, in “Found a Great Beta Guy, But He’s Ruining His Own Game!”:
Hope is “out of line” for suggesting that hurting men is perhaps wrong. She is also out of line for suggesting Casey might not be a good girl! The man-animal however, well, the man-animal is of course not living up to expectations. Notice the ZERO sympathy for the man-animal currently not having a job. You know, like the football player with the dead father. The whole thread is like that. Susan doesn’t even limit herself to saying “she doesn’t think Hope is right”. No, no, Hope is OUT OF LINE for suggesting Casey is not a good girl. Or should perhaps restrain herself from leaping fangs-bared when a guy is at a low point in his life. Why? Because Susan is a woman’s women, and most of her friends are women. So really, the fall-out from young Casey behavior, or young Susan behavior for that matter, is nothing Susan has ever had to deal with.
On a more hilarious note, Susan even claims that we have to take a young woman claims of what she wants seriously! She is that determined to defend the sister-hood at all costs.
Take a young girl at her word about her likes in men! Really. That’s so stupid I don’t even think it counts as a lie.
Susan being cruel in Is Feminism Desire’s Kryptonite?
Googled pictures of Jaclyn show she is not attractive. Maybe a five. However, she could go into almost any bar and have a man get her drunk and take her home. The best man? HA! HA! But somebody. Sure. Get a “date” with the promise of sex from a lesser beta? Sure. Jaclyn wouldn’t even have to go into the omega pool for that. The lie is meant to be cruel and is stupid, but then cruelty and stupidity go together, don’t they?
The examples go on, and on, and on. Pages upon pages. To the point where one wonders just how stupid men are. And the answer is simple. VERY STUPID. Susan did have a point in why I was talking about this. If you are so completely blind as to fail to see who she so obviously is, then one wonders what the point of explaining it to your completely blind selves is. If you think you hear contempt in my writing here, you are right.
@MrLettuce
Since you have a bit of game you should be largely immune to this specific threat. Instead you will suffer watching as your beta pals and colleagues marry ex party girls, etc who obviously aren’t into them. Don’t blame yourself when they won’t listen to you.
Too bad this isn’t the only threat. Still, your eyes are open which puts you at a significant advantage.
@ PT Barnum:
Well put. Perhaps the name of this post should be “Why ewe need to stop having men settle”…
@Dalrock
True. I’m just getting used to the notion of not marrying, or not marrying in 20’s, to save my own skin.
I can’t say I’m jaded about dating, but smarter, and a tad ‘done’ with the bullshit of it.
It seems that a lot of folks that I want to date in my age range (21-25, stable, successful, confident), are either married or in a committed relationship.
And I’ve tried dating the older woman – never again. I don’t care what OkCupid says. 🙂
I work at a crisis pregnancy center and truly believe that women just can’t get good advice about choosing men. Everyone around them are downing marriage and the media is portraying happily married as impossible. This is also in the community at large. Often I am the only women these women see who has been married a “long” time. I’ve only been married 13 yrs. A lot of them just have unrealistic expectations of what a husband is supposed to be like. Forget the idea that you start from scratch and build together. They have unrealistic expectations and requirements so any man they marry they rightly feel like they settled. But since feelings aren’t reality they are dead wrong. Try talking about not caring about what money he makes but is he honest, does he treat you with respect, is he sacrificial to take care of others, is he a hard worker, they look at you like you are speaking a foreign language. I tell them to consider marriage not b/c they are settling but b/c this is about the best guy you are going to find. Talk about bursting some bubbles.
Paige
Yes.
Particularly the last paragraph is an unusual insight and belief. I think it’s a vital belief in any woman a red pill swallowed must insure the mother of his soon to be minor kids has.
From what I can tell it’s the rare woman who doesn’t lose the feeling of being adoringly, deeply “in love” with her husband two to four years after first having sex with him. It might take another two to come to terms with this. Now she can and hopefully does still love him, in the sense of caring about him similarly as she does about herself, identifying with him, feeling a permanent team, etc. However these are strongly cultural beliefs and not solely hormonal imperatives. Feminist culture strongly pushes women to not have these cultural beliefs, but to instead focus on me, me, me, and to feel that when rather than if the strongly “in love” infatuation phase passes (if it was there in the first place, as it wasn’t in what Dalrock is here warning against), she’s fully morally and culturally not to mention legally entitled to divorce at whatever cost to her husband, and lets be real, her kids.
@Mr Lettuce
I’m just getting used to the notion of not marrying, or not marrying in 20′s, to save my own skin.
I personally wouldn’t talk you out of marrying in your 20s. I was 24 when I married.
Mister Lettuce–
Even if she’s in a relationship, if you’re attracted and she’ll flirt with you, go for her. They’re not married or living together. Many/most cute and hot girls only leave a committed relationship after they’ve found another guy, unless the relationship becomes horrid. I.e. they usually let another guy seduce them first if they’re merely getting bored.
Mister Lettuce–
I would argue against getting married in your twenties IF you can get sex in relationships not to mention also casually without marriage. If you are on a successful career path and work to remain in shape, your marriage market attractiveness will go up until around 35 anyway. Now it doesn’t work that way for 20 somethings who show potential but don’t realize it.
On the other hand if you get into a relationship with a girl that you dig to death sexually and otherwise and she’s adoringly in love with you, I’d advise putting it off as long as possible, live together first, but if it’s still like that, don’t let her get away once you’re past 25. But require a prenup which mimics living together in the event of a divorce. (Not quite. I’d give a little from that. But almost never alimony (never together with child support) and always only for a short time, and only if you’re “at fault”. Not fifty fifty on property settlement but more according to who earned the property.)
I have one piece of advice for any man truly considering marriage: prenup.
When you strip her of the right to take all your stuff if she reconsiders, you will be left only with the ones who really want to be with you. Given the risk to men, cover your ass and make her put her money where her mouth is.
If she won’t sign, take the hint as to what she really wants from you.
You can also learn game.
Dalrock–
Another way, beyond social intelligence, that a guy can tell if a girl is too much settling for him is requiring that she negotiate and sign a prenup that mimics living together in the event of a divorce. Which women initiate 2.5x as often as men, and are really behind about 90% of the time in the case of college educated women, many divorce attorneys say.
Reinholt–
Great minds think alike.
Oh, and when you’re 32-4 look for and snag a hot 22-25 yo. Date her for 6-12 mo, at first non exclusively. Then let her move in. A year or two later when you want kids, consider marriage with the kind of prenup I recommend. Only. She’ll be used to the living together breakup scenario re: bucks. Accuse her of golddiggerishness if she balks. Cause it will be true. Not more than the average American girl perhaps, but that’s what feminism has enabled in them.
For a man anything below a 10 is ‘settling’.
From what I can tell it’s the rare woman who doesn’t lose the feeling of being adoringly, deeply “in love” with her husband two to four years after first having sex with him. It might take another two to come to terms with this.
Indeed. This is the key problem.
Here’s a simple solution:
1) Identify cultures that a strongly reproduction-oriented. These cultures will almost certainly be patriarchal and will probably forbid divorce. Women from these cultures can breed six offspring each. Important: devise some way to prevent defection from the reproduction culture to any other culture.
2) Identify all other cultures as fun cultures. In a “fun” culture, anything goes except patriarchy. Reproduction rate should be approximately zero.
3) Wait one generation. At this point, all humans that are healthy enough to breed are in a reproduction culture and all humans in a “fun” culture are unable to breed.
Susan from left-wing Boston is clearly lying. She ain’t a girl’s girl. You know why liberal divorce rates are so low? They don’t marry duh! You don’t marry and therefore have lower divorce rates due to lower marriage rates. Just look at Hollywood a bastion of liberalism. Those liberal married couples don’t tend to last more than 5 years and even outside of Hollywood this tends to hold. The married couples that tend to last the longest are the ones that have a combination of having similar hobbies or love for something/something, marrying in mid 20’s and being religiously/spiritually devout (or even the lack of it as long as both of them have the same belief systems) with a bit of attraction. Marrying a person you find repulsive doesn’t tend to work out.
Women really don’t have the capacity to love any thing. Not the way a man does. Men will naturally fall into loyalty and honor when he is in love. Women don’t do that. At one time I hated women for but it is just normal as in the way it is. Women are basically childishly self centered. Look at the premise and term as the subject of the article. “Settle” that is a very condescending term in reference to a man. But it is typical in this feminist world we live.
Now the premise is women are selfish. The only way a woman can stay loyal and honorable in a marriage is if it is in her own selfish interest. Well that has been legislated out of western society. Where do you think liberation comes from? Ever wonder why 60 percent of college students are women? Ever wonder why family law is so biased against men. No matter what a woman chooses to do in her self interest in marriage she has zero chance of losing the kids and the income that comes from said children. That is why marriage is so miserable for many men. It is not in a woman’s interest to see to it her husband is happy. In fact modern feminist culture has made it an oppressive taboo to have a happy husband by a womans action and behavior. So women continue to selfishly persue their own happiness that will never come. Now they destroy a mans life and the childrens life and move on the the next. All the while blaming everything but themselves for there unhappiness. There is no good wife in todays world. For those of you who feel they have good wives,well NAWALT. How about that for a turn of events. True personal joy and happiness comes from the service of others. The devil has informed women that that is oppression. But it is strange how the devil didn’t tell women that a man serving them is oppression also.
“Even if she’s in a relationship, if you’re attracted and she’ll flirt with you, go for her. They’re not married or living together. Many/most cute and hot girls only leave a committed relationship after they’ve found another guy, unless the relationship becomes horrid. I.e. they usually let another guy seduce them first if they’re merely getting bored.”
Anyone (male or female) that you snag out of another relationship is fully capable of leaving you for a similar interest. Do you really want someone like that? If you’re actually looking for something serious?
“Johnycomelately says:
For a man anything below a 10 is ‘settling’.”
For a particularly good catch of a man, yes.
For the average man, not so much. The dating pool requires that there will always be some men at the top and some at the bottom.
SO sadly true for the average, entitled American ‘woman’.
Here is an interesting story from an American woman who ultimately saw the light and wised-up –
Would agreeing to a prenup be sufficient proof that a woman loves her significant other?
“I love you so much I won’t ever consider screwing you over in a messy divorce!”
Wow, Feminism certainly destroyed romance. I mean, if these days the most genuine declaration of love involves faxing documents to your attorney…
OMG!
I love the story of the girl who turned down the “wrong kind of protestant”.
As a Christian myself, my contempt for my “sisters in Christ” runs deeper and more intense than how I despise non-believers.
That story made my day. I wish here a lifetime of beta hell.
Butterfly Flower–
Not sufficient. But a necessary part of the package.
Particularly in a situation such as the one you hope for. A very young for marriage 19 yo girl marrying a much older guy in his 30s who’s an established businessman with assets.
BTW, now that I know more about you, your best bet is to look for entrepreneurial type guys in their early to mid thirties. Owns a restaurant, car dealership or other small business.
@Doug1:
Entrepreneurial small business owner type-of guy?
…you just described my father.
While I don’t want to sound like I have an Electra complex; successful entrepreneurs do to tend to be very pragmatic individuals with a lot of integrity. Those are definitely traits I’d want my future husband to possess.
Anyway, I crush on businessmen because I find the whole concept of working in an big office exotic and exciting. There’s just something incredibly sexy about the pomp and circumstance of getting dressed up in a suit and tie; heading to work with a Prada briefcase full of important papers for a meeting.
And yet despite their high status, high salary careers – middle aged businessmen always look lonely and sad. It’s a subtle sadness that most people don’t pick up on; a weird mixture of exhaustion and melancholy. I want to hug a sad businessman and make him less lonely….
Uh oh, anyone seen this… EPL-type divorce fantasy rides again!
“How Getting Divorced Revived My Sex Life,” by Lorraine Berry, Salon, 26 Apr 2011
http://www.salon.com/life/sex/index.html?story=/mwt/feature/2011/04/26/sex_life_returns_at_38
@ Dalrock
I’m not sure this post quite hits the mark. First, a woman’s hypergamous nature will nearly always tend to lead her in a direction away from her husband, especially if his focus is on beta attributes. Women are by nature heard creatures, and need to know that there is a significant portion of the culture that values and revels in the idea that spouses can and should be friends first. Even if they are friends only, this is the sort of relationship that can really last.
The fact is everyone, men and women, experience this sort of thing…there’s even a saying for it: “grass is always greener on the other side of the fence”. Women whose nature is to pine like this, given enough power, will destroy their marriage every time. Those in bad marriages will look at the ones with good marriages, want that for themselves, and divorce. Those in good marriages will lust for bad boys, leaders, or other high value man and divorce. You don’t build a marriage system around parts where people abuse it. You build a marriage system around fostering love and commitment.
In our culture, men are routinely told to “man up” and there aren’t enough good men to go around. Part of this is a woman’s natural way of trying to educate men in the art of game. Most have no clue about what actually works, which is why we get crap advise out of this, but the point is more that it is a mirror for what men are trying to do by telling women to go ahead and marry a guy they may not be head over heals with. You yourself are a proponent of a type of this. My understanding is that you view Game itself as a set of tools to enhance attraction and deepen the emotional bond for the benefit of marital union. All marriages suffer rough patches or periods of unattraction. No relationship is perfect.
My advice to a woman who’s about to split from her husband would go like this:
–Figure out what you can realistically expect to gain if you divorce
–Focus on what you will loose if you divorce, are you wanting to gives this up?
–Both spouses should learn Game to help spice things up
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–Focus on what you will loose if you divorce, are you wanting to gives this up?
Clearly she would set her husband loose. And she would lose his company.
“Loose” and “lose” are not the same word. It’s one of the current fads on teh net to write “loose” when the word “lose” is intended, and it’s like fingernails down a chalkboard to those who know how to spell.
Nothing personal. Just cut it out.
Now, as to the actual point: the problem is, women often decide to divorce emotionally and then rationalize that decision after the fact. This can be seen in all the “EatBetrayLove” emo-porn that women consume. So rational appeals have little effect, because the original decision was not rational in the first place. It is my opinion that this is part of the reason why divorce can sweep through groups of women like some sort of communicable disease — because emotional states are communicable in some sense between women.
We need to stop telling women to settle. We need to tell them they are damned lucky if men pay any attention to them at all…
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Women are trained to do this from early childhood by older women, and sometimes loving fathers, who come from a generation where a woman’s survival was based on a man’s income. Also, women are taught from childhood to deny their sexuality so not marrying a man she was not physically attracted to would seem shallow at best, or slutty at worst.
So, rather than not telling women to settle, emphasize that they need to minimize the list of requirements. I guess you could say I have a list. It’s intelligence, character, and compatibility. (I realized compatibility is vague. I think it pretty much means that he can be dominant in bed, has compatible life goals, and we have mutual attraction). I don’t turn down a guy unless I feel he’s missing one of those.
With my only LTR boyfriend thus far (sadly we broke up, but it was a very valuable relationship all the same, until we figured out there were some compatibility issues), I wasn’t very impressed at first. I mean, when he asked me out, I accepted, but he wasn’t hot, charismatic, tall, my religion, blah, blah… etc. However, I figured that he didn’t seem bad, and he was kind of cute, so I’d get to know him better. By the end of two weeks, I was wondering how I had gotten so lucky. Sure, he wasn’t appealing to other girls (honestly, all the better), and he was heading more for the ranks of the upper middle class than for the wealthy, but he was very disciplined, had character, and stuck resolutely to his morals. He also (after I explained my turn-ons, like being pushed against a wall while making out) learned how to make me desire him. I ultimately realized that I, who initially thought that I could do better, didn’t deserve him. I was still too selfish and too unstable. (He seemed to wonder a bit at his own fortune though, which seemed to be a good sign). Certainly, he wasn’t perfect, but the areas I initially found lacking turned out to be utterly irrelevant. I still respect and admire him, and I truly hope that he finds a girl who he deserves, and who realizes what a catch he is.
The guys I had previously attempted to date were either lacking in character or complete doormats. None inspired me to improve, or changed my perception of what I needed and wanted in a guy. It wasn’t even about deserving a better guy in those situations. It was that I’d rather be single. But… this guy changed the way I looked at dating. I wanted to improve myself. I realized that character is impossibly valuable. Rather than encouraging a guy cater to my wishes, I found myself wanting to please him. He isn’t the one I will marry, but that relationship will help guide my search.
Anyway, I don’t know if this sort of experience is common, but it definitely opened my eyes.
On the other hand, my parents have a content, but rather loveless marriage. (It’s definitely not sexless though…). They got together because they wanted a family and hadn’t ever been able to find a suitable partner. Or possibly they had found one, but let them go. Regardless, they married to create a family and to have another person’s support in life. They don’t have the ideal marriage, but they are still married, and not particularly interested in divorce. Apparently it’s not worth it when neither of them are interested in another anyway, even if they aren’t compatible. My mother actually described it as the sort of marriage you’d expect parents to arrange in previous eras. It’s very functional. Eh, I hope I don’t end up in that sort of situation, but it doesn’t seem to bother them.
EXCELLENT POST, Dalrock! I, too, vehemently disagree with men who suggest women need to settle. Women settling is the reason why we have so many sexless marriages, a high divorce rate, rampant infidelity, and unstable relationships. Women are pressured to settle by society, and that is the core reason why mainstream dating advice aimed at men is so misleading and deceptive.
BTW, I wrote a small book on the problems in the dating scene today, which is totally free to download and share. Men are being sold a bunch of BS. They think they know why women behave the way they do, but they don’t. The PUA community, men’s groups and conventional reasoning ALL have it wrong. ALL groups are being played for fools, and it’s men realized what is REALLY going on, if they want to find a lasting relationship with a woman who truly LOVES them!
Download ‘Pandora’s Box: The Men’s Sexual Revolution’ here:
[D: Direct link to file removed. Feel free to link to a page with the download.]
@Dalrock: Even if you don’t agree with the premise of the book, I hope you will still find some good points to inspire future blog posts. I really like your blog.
Hi Dalrock,
Here is the Scribd.com link to the book download mentioned above:
Will that work?
[D: I can’t vouch for the link, but yes, that looks better.]]
Stevie Nicks of Fleet Wood Mac said something like love like lightening only strikes once or twice.
To assume guys will always be available to choose from is just insane. What in life besides retail items doesn’t have but a few windows of opportunity?
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