is it true that married men get soft over the years ?

[picard]

is it true that married men get soft over the years ?

They lose their ability to take risk like when they were single. They become more timid. I noticed that in many married men.

 

[KarmaSutra]

They weren't congruent single men before they got married. They're lazy and dependent on the whim of his old lady's opinion to dictate who he is.

Who could be happy with that bullsh!t mentality?

 

[Mr.Positive]

^^ That's right boys. The contract is against us.

Best stay single, never give your sack to the ownership of a woman through state, marriage.

Be free, enjoy life, and be happy.

 

[Strelok]

Even Mandela after all that years in prison became soft,except for the fact that nobody is going to elect you president after your divorce.

 

[squirrels]

No, not ALL married men get "soft". The idea that "that's what happens" has been fostered over time by women who THINK it's going to be to their advantage and men who THINK being soft and lazy is a life of luxury.

Your perspectives are going to change, though, especially if you start a family. Before, you lived for yourself. Now you have to live for others as well...you've gone from a solo mission to a leadership role.

 

[Rollo Tomassi]

They lose their ability to take risk like when they were single.

I don't necessarily think men lose their capacity to take risks, but I do think they become less willing to take risks. Married men are the easy illustration, but I'd also say LTR guys - particularly those with bad ONEitis - become less willing to take risks because they all believe they have something to lose.

There's a saying, Women are Dream-Killers. Women and manginas take offense to this because they think it implies that women are naturally these evil limiting b!tches holding a man down, but the truth is that it's men who do their own limiting. They limit their aspiration in favor of replacing them with what ensures what they think is fairness or balance in their relationships. All of that is really just beta-speak for "keep her happy and get semi-consistent sex", but average men stay average because they live in a woman's frame, not their own.

Aspirations, ambition, dreams, etc., demand risk. Risk of fortune, risk of reputation, risk of loss. Think of all the things becoming an extraordinary individual require; time, dedication, conviction, failure, practice, improvisation, a capacity to learn, the list goes on. Can you do all of this AND maintain a relationship that requires much of the same qualities and resources? Women are Dream-Killers, but it's men who do the killing.

 

[Warrior74]

is it true that married men get soft over the years ?

They lose their ability to take risk like when they were single. They become more timid. I noticed that in many married men.

You insult men like my father with this statement. You are 44 and understand nothing.

 

[5string]

Agree with Warrior and squirrels.

I still take risks and am not timid at all. My marriage does however come first. Have to keep the wife and my marriage in mind when taking risks however. Just because you are married, does not mean you become "soft".

 

[Nkognito]

Rollo is pretty solid in his reply and honestly that ended up being me which is why i left my marriage. The girl I was with I thought was chiseling me down but no, it was me who was going soft.

 

[azanon]

is it true that married men get soft over the years ?

They lose their ability to take risk like when they were single. They become more timid. I noticed that in many married men.

I take more risks now (generally speaking) than I did when I was single. This had nothing to do with marriage though. It was related to accepting around the age of 25 or so that there really isn't some judgmental God out there watching every move that I make, and realizing that there are really no big deals in life.

I've noticed the opposite, but more based on age. The older you get, the less things seem to be a big deal. Take sex for instance. I thought it was a huge deal when I was 17. Now? It doesn't phase me in the slightest.

 

[Nkognito]

Take sex for instance. I thought it was a huge deal when I was 17. Now? It doesn't phase me in the slightest.

IMPOSTER!

Men, we have a female in our midsts. :kick:

Just joking.

 

[azanon]

IMPOSTER!

Men, we have a female in our midsts. :kick:

Just joking.

Maybe someone else will get your joke.

 

[the_great_gaia]

Mr. Positive is right on point!

 

[Rollo Tomassi]

Marriage is the biggest risk any man will ever take.

 

[Fuglydude]

Picard I think you gotta define what exactly you mean by "soft".

I understand what you mean by risk taking... There's stupid risks, and smart risks. Smart risks are examples like business ventures that have the potential to yield great profits, etc. Dumb risks are the kinds of stuff I did when I was single: unprotected sex w/ different girls, lotsa recreational drug use, etc. I'm naturally quite hedonistic; I enjoy sexual variety, various recreational drugs and when I was younger I had rather low impulse control.

Soft to me means becoming complacent, and losing the drive for self-improvement. Soft dudes let themselves go physically, career-wise as well as socially... Although a dude can become soft in an LTR/marriage, there are many instances where it doesn't have to end up that way. I think the key is the kind of girl he's with and the nature of their relationship.

Personally for me, there have been some areas of my life where I have improved a lot since starting my LTR, but other areas where I have become "soft" as per the above definition. My physique was definitely getting softer after I finished by stripping career... its tough to train and stay lean when you have no accountability... My fiance totally called me out on it, and I'm glad she did as it drove me start competing in bodybuilding. I've put on around 20 lbs of lean mass since I started bulking: sitting at 5'8" - 190 lbs and still wear 32" waist pants. We're both competitive physique athletes. This is an instance where I definitely haven't gotten softer. Similarly, since I've stopped smoking pot, doing party drugs, etc, I've really been able to focus more on my career. Again another area where being in a relationship has helped me. I'm not the greatest at disciplining myself, and being in a committed relationship to a good girl helps me stay accountable for my actions.

My social network has atrophied since getting hooked up. Girls that I was friends with before, who wanted action from me, slowly stopped contacting me. Similarly, I wasn't partying as much with my friends who do drugs, etc. I suppose this is an area where I have become softer.

I suppose you could say that I'm "soft" naturally when it comes to disciplining myself unless I have something/someone to be accountable to. The key is to know that this is a weakness and find a solution for it... which I did. I've been in an LTR for 4 years now and couldn't be happier.

I think LTRs/marriages can make you complacent if you let them. It depends on the quality of the girl and the nature of the relationship. However, if you're focused on constantly improving yourself being in a relationship may actually help, provided that the girl is quality and supportive of your efforts. Being in a relationship with a good girl gives you accountability, which is what "bad/soft" guys like me really need. You also don't waste time chasing after poonani, so this is more time you can use for yourself. Ideally, I like to think of a relationship as a complementary mutualistic interaction between two people where both parties benefit and become better people. This is what my relationship is like.

 

[azanon]

Marriage is the biggest risk any man will ever take.

It could be the biggest risk one ever takes, but I don't think it necessarily should be.

I, matter of fact, would not marry today given what I'm worth now short of a pre-nup. And the only way I'd consider a marriage with a pre-nup would be if a lawyer were able to convince me that modern-day pre-nups are rock-solid.

I guess what I'm trying to say, Rollo, is that if one of these guys accessed in their particular situation that they had a lot to lose, then they probably shouldn't risk losing it with a marriage, .... period. When I married my wife, my monetary value was only in potential earnings, not real net worth. Had the marriage gone south a year or two later, then I wouldn't have lost much, monetarily speaking. Now if my marriage failed today, then she is worth half anyway. Why is that true? Because I wouldn't remain married to a woman who wasn't pulling at least half her total weight. I would have divorced her LONG ago. I don't understand at all guys who remain unhappily married, or in marriages where the wife is not pulling her collective weight.

Now sure I also gave up the right to freely date and have sex with multiple women. But I had done that enough times that just the sake of having sex with different women was a trivial endeavor at best. "Strange" is particularly good, but the anguish and s*** involved with getting it mitigates the specialness of it all. In any event, that isn't an element of risk anyway. And on this point, I'll just refrain from linking the various studies that show sex within marriage is more fulfilling than outside of it.

For those considering getting married, or who are recently married, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD please put off kids for several years, just to make sure the marriage is going to work out.

My whole point/thesis is that most of this risk should be mitigated. Sure, not all of it is avoidable, but you can mitigate a hell of a lot of it by being prudent about it. At the very least, if you can't mitigate the risk to the point that it's not your most risky decision in your life, then you simply aren't doing something right meaning you're either 1. Taking too much risk with your marriage decision or 2. You aren't taking enough risk in life with everything else.

 

[Scaramouche]

Dear Azanon,
You make some very good points....Rollo is right about the risks involved in Marriage....A pre-nuptial agreement is an absolute must...They are none of them rock solid though,I used one of the earlier versions about six years ago,it had been written about 15 years before,as a pre-nuptial it was thrown out of Court but was accepted subsequently as a legally binding contract and really saved me a great deal of money...In general,never move in with a Woman,unless you have carefully considered Fatherhood,and never let her mention marriage without correcting her as to your intentions...Often delicate matters are mentioned casually by Women and your mumbled replies,or non replies,taken as acquiescense...always pick them up and correct them,expect their occasional confrontation and have evasive replies ready.....Should you embark on Marriage,the plain facts are that in our modern Society,should you step off the straight and narrow,then every hand will be against you...risk taking is for the young,they have less to lose..starting over again with worn out tools is a fools game.

 

[sodbuster]

The biggest reason I took fewer risks was having kids. When you are only responsible for YOU, it doesn't matter. When you are contemplating your kids sleeping in your car???

 

[azanon]

Dear Azanon,
....Rollo is right about the risks involved in Marriage....A pre-nuptial agreement is an absolute must... AND They are none of them rock solid

Rollo didn't say "there are risks involved in marriage". He said, matter of fact, it will be the riskiest thing a man will do (if he marries). My response, in short, is that IF in one's particular situation it will be the riskiest thing he will ever do, then he shouldn't do it.

One cannot just generalize the risk of all marriages. To give an extreme example to prove this, a broke, ugly man, could marry a chick that looks like Brooklyn Decker who's worth millions, and obviously the risk would be squarely on Brooklyn. In contrast, a successful, wealthy, young, highly attractive man could marry a HB6, who's uneducated, IS in massive debt, has a bad family, etc, and he would be taking INSANE levels of risk. In short, it is what we call in my line of work, a case-by-case analysis, so generalized opinions on this subject should be quickly discarded, IMO.

and #2 - If prenups aren't solid, and if my lawyer agreed with you, then I would, matter of fact, never marry again if I were to become divorced, unless I were to meet a woman who I determined to be more valuable than me, as a collective whole. She would have to be a very attractive and of great financial means woman to even be a candidate. I'm not bragging, rather just saying I've come a long way from the 21 year old that I was when I first married.

Lets just throw a hypothetical financial number out there, just for kicks. Lets say I was worth 500K - Wouldn't I be insane to marry any woman worth only 20-30K? I think I would.

 

[Warrior74]

The biggest reason I took fewer risks was having kids. When you are only responsible for YOU, it doesn't matter. When you are contemplating your kids sleeping in your car???

But would you say you are "soft" or "timid"? No of course not. There is a difference between not putting your family at risk of house and home and being soft and timid. It's an insult to assume that a man who puts the welfare of his family first is soft and timid. Ask any of those men who serve in the military with families if they are soft and timid. Ask any firefighter, or cop, or hell a plumber for that matter. Or a computer programmer. No. Soft and timid men are exactly that regardless of if they are married or not.