Scared Single

[Rollo Tomassi]

I had a good laugh recently when a friend of mine was reading this essay I wrote regarding marriage and it's consequences vs. it's benefits, and he said I ought to do a thread in the Mature Man section here called Scared Single after the old 'Scared Straight' TV series in the 80's that was meant to scare troubled teenagers into staying out of prison by taking them to meet actual penitentiary inmates and listening to their experiences about jail.

Well, it's not that I think marriage necessarily equates to a life in prison, but I've counseled enough men in bad marriages to know what it can be.

That said, I'd encourage married men to post here about what it's like (or 'was' like as the case may be) to be married and what young men can expect if they think they're 'In Love' now. I'd also encourage what women there are on the DJ forum to give their perspectives as well. And young men, post your concerns so the wisened old 'Geezers' can set you straight.


My first challenge would be this -

In my latest essay I postulated that there are far more numerous reasons a woman should seek marriage than for a man. By the end of it I couldn't come up with a single instance where marriage worked in a man's favor by today's standards and expectations.

I'll start this thread by asking why should a man get married at all? Marriage in the 21st century represents only a liability for a man. For all the complaints about infidelity and a man's perceived innability (or 'fear') to commit, what advantage is there at all to committing to a woman in marriage?

 

[Kaine]

The problem is, it's a conditioned expectation. You want to keep this particular women and have children. She expects a band on the finger. I agree it's pretty pointless and has no advantage for the guy. It should be just a token of committment and legal implications should be seperated and performed outside of the "ceremonies".

I recall reading some interesting articles about the whole insidious nature of the marriage scheme.... I can't recall now without reading it up again. To do with Kings and religion.....

 

[Rollo Tomassi]

Wow. 48 views and one reply. Yeah I guess there really isn't much to warrant a man getting married is there? It's hard to come up with an advantage that you can attain after marriage that you couldn't already get before. In fact, in most cases pre-marriage is as good as it gets for a man really. We just don't see it like that at the time until we do and realize it's all responsibility and no pay off or at least not a pay off we couldn't have gotten before marriage.

Pre-marital sex used to be taboo, but really not so much because it was a bad thing in itself or moralistically, but because it defeated a woman's purpose for sex - as reward for committment. Now we see sex as a 'test-drive' to see if we're sexually compatible with our potential mate. Your grand parents didn't see it like that; sex was the prize for a guy having his sh!t together enough to want to get married (at least on paper anyway).

The deal was better then. A wife was a sex partner (regardless of quality) and a partner in life that came with other benefits. Not so today (for the most part), sexuality (or at least the promise of sexual quality) is a dertiminate for marriage now, not a reward. Marriage benefits are soley in the female's favor and in fact represent a liability for a man now. Women come with a destructive potential for a man in marriage today. A man can loose half his earned livelyhood if he chooses a mate unwisely today. It's the male that needs to be selective under these conditions, not the female. What possible reasoning could you make to bet your future financial, family and life's successes on the the potential of you cheating on your spouse? Or her cheating on you?

What benefit is there for a guy to get married?

 

[Walden]

This has gone from a site about seduction to a f***ing old woman's knitting circle.

If you don't wanna get married , don't get married.
No big deal.

If you just feel like vaguely chatting about relationships there's a million places for it.
Just not here.

 

[dietzcoi]

Walden, that was pretty rough

Marriage is mostly a disaster for a man unless he picks the right woman.

Your chances of that are probably 25%.

You are simply giving up $100,000s of your money for a gamble.

Now, if the woman has money or good income, the situation is somewhat changed.

I still don't see it as a good thing, but then I am paying my ex-wife for life....

Kids are also a problem... you become a slave to them for 18 years and they do not give a sh1t about you.

It is all bad... society, religion, parents all lie to you. You are in the matrix when you marry...

Dietzcoi

 

[MRomeo99]

That is one of the benefits of learning from sites like these.

Traditionally men get very little choice in their wives, the woman usually chooses. Because most men have no clue how to attract women, how to get what you want.

But, from the information here, if properly applied you have the opportunity to "sample" many different flavors to find what works for you. Of course that does not guarantee that you will in any way be any more prepared for a "real" relationship.

I disagree that most marriages are disasters for the men involved. They can be just as equally disastrous for the women as well. I have dated plenty of single mothers whose lives were not enriched by their marriage, but instead gave themselves up for the wishes of their husband only to have to struggle to rebuild a live for themselves after the destruction of the marriage. And I have the benefit of coming from a complete home where my parents are just as happily married now as they were 36 years ago. And to the best that I can tell each one of them benefited from the relationship, and if anything my father benefited more.

It's just rather silly to opine that all marriages are disasters. Although we could get philosophical for days over the hows and whys of it all.

Just the way that I see it.

--Romeo

 

[ShortTimer]

Originally posted by Rollo Tomassi
complaints about infidelity and a man's perceived innability (or 'fear') to commit, what advantage is there at all to committing to a woman in marriage?

It's funny to me how people are about this sacred-cow called marriage. If you knew of a monitary investment where you had a better than 50% chance of losing all together and an even higher chance (say 75%?) of being unsatisfied with your investment and trapped in the investment for the rest of your life, would you do it?

Hell no.

I'd love to see an economist do a book about why marriage is bad for today's males and hit da biotches with hard numbers and what not. Hmm... that sounds like a good book idea, wish I were an economist.

 

[Squid]

Originally posted by Walden
This has gone from a site about seduction to a f***ing old woman's knitting circle.

If you don't wanna get married , don't get married.
No big deal.

If you just feel like vaguely chatting about relationships there's a million places for it.
Just not here.

Couldn't disagree with you more. If you don't like the thread, don't read it, but obviously others are interested in discussing the topic.

 

[Desdinova]

Some very interesting points here, and I'd like to touch on some of them...

Your grand parents didn't see it like that; sex was the prize for a guy having his sh!t together enough to want to get married

Pre-marital sex and pregnancy out of wedlock was NOT socially acceptable back then. Because we have quite a few old-timers left in the world today, it's still somewhat socially unacceptable, but it's completely acceptable for the younger generation. This is why the whole common-law marriage laws came into effect. All you have to do is live with a woman for 6 months, and you're considered legally married. We are witnessing an evolution in our society. Marriage will become much more rare as time passes.

But, from the information here, if properly applied you have the opportunity to "sample" many different flavors to find what works for you.

This is EXACTLY what a man should be doing when he's looking for a LTR. He needs to have enough experience with women to know what he does and doesn't like. He simply cannot thrive on the looks of a woman to decide what he wants to spend his life with. Many men go out looking for a trophy wife. When the marriage is over, he's got his trophy, but she's 100% incompatible personality-wise. The two end up miserable because he didn't look at the long-term result of marrying this woman. They have no common goals for the future, nor do they have any common interests. He would have been better off with a blow up doll.

Marriage is really nothing more than a legal contract. My brother calls it "a license to fvck." What a marriage should do is encourage the couple to work to maintain the relationship instead of giving up when things go bad. Unfortunately, many couples will go and get married, and focus on only the wedding. They get showered with attention, all the relatives get together and have a big party, and then there's the honeymoon (if they have one.) Then what?

Also, I really don't see any point in marriage if you don't plan on having any kids. A marriage will give kids a more stable environment to live in, rather than visiting different parents which is stressful on the child.

I also believe it's a stupid idea to get married or even engaged because she's pregnant. That's when you're giving into other people's opinions of you. NEVER get married for the kid's sake.

When I was looking for a mate, I wanted to find someone who would enhance my life and be a great woman to raise children with. However, those weren't the only qualifications I was looking for. I broke down my ideal woman into much smaller parts. I listed what was absolutely necessary in her personality and lifestyle, and what she SHOULDN'T have in her personality and lifestyle. I ended up finding a woman who fit into my ideal woman description.

Something else that became a necessity was common future goals. We were at a Christmas party and we got on the topic of what we wanted to get out of life. We had the exact same ideas on how and what we wanted to achieve in life still. It floored me how I found someone who was this identical to me.

Needless to say, we got married and it's been great so far. Judging from her actions (not just from her looks), I made a pretty damn good choice.

However, what comes after our job of raising kids is done is a complete mystery to me. We'll see how the road of life goes.

 

[NewMan]

The whole marrage area needs to be revamped.

Let's get this right.

The whole deal with marrage in the past - was that the man would take over looking after the female (From the female's father) and in return (in some cultures would receive a monetary gift (this is why the bride's parent pay for the wedding)) the woman wopuld take care of the mans home and provide him with offspring.

The man was thus - obligated to take care of said female forever.

In todays society that needs to change. Equal rights mean exactly that - equlaity. But in the marrage arena, there's no such thing.

 

[ogre]

you're gonna LOVE ths site:

http://www.nomarriage.com/

 

[Rollo Tomassi]

Originally posted by Walden
This has gone from a site about seduction to a f***ing old woman's knitting circle.

If you don't wanna get married , don't get married.
No big deal.

If you just feel like vaguely chatting about relationships there's a million places for it.
Just not here.

This'll sound strange, but I totally agree with you. If you don't want to get married don't; if you have the self-understanding enough to make that statement then don't waste any time swishing around this stuff in your head and get out into the field.

However, the problem I was trying to address is for guys who don't understand why marriage shouldn't be seen as a 'goal state'. I've counseled guys on both sides of marriage and the most consistent problem they have is a lack of understanding just what marriage is. It's easy to see the advantages marriage provides for a woman, but in order to convince a man that marriage should be desirable (especially in the 20th-21st century) there has to be an elaborate scheme of social conditions and expectations he's got to adhere to in order to 'do the right thing'.

As the dictum goes, women's romantic expectations (however they choose to define them) are the standard that men 'should' want to conform to, yet men's standards are only about the superficial (i.e. sex) - unconditional love and security is what is expected inspite of her packing on weight after marriage. Not only that, but he's got to 'behave' himself in marriage and forsake all others regardless of her own conditions. This of course is presented as his duty of love, but in addition the laws of society insure her of this security even if he does break his oath for whatever reason.

I have yet to have a married guy tell me how much more sex he was getting after marriage than before - unless he was strictly religious, and maybe that's still a latent function of marriage for some. I've yet to have a guy tell me how much better the quality of sex has improved after marriage. EVERY married woman I know tells me the opposite, so what does that say?

Well, WTF Tomassi, is that all guys think about or base their relationships on? Not entirely, but it's important. Men's primary drive tends to be sexual motivation, women's primary drive tends to be for security. That's not to say women don't like sex and men don't want security (actually loyalty), but they place different priorities on them. In marriage a man basically bets his future wellbeing on the sexual performance of one woman. When it turns out that she's not what he was sold on prior to marriage it becomes a bait & switch proposition for him.

Married AFCs will quite happily rationalize this dynamic away because they have no prior experience to back it up with, which is exactly why it serves a woman's security need that he remain an AFC. He dont know no bettah. It's like Eddie Murphy used to say, if you're starving and a woman gives you a cracker, it's the best cracker you've ever tasted and can you get another one pleeeeze? But after a few years, a cracker is just a cracker.

 

[DJDamage]

I think the problem also lies when it comes to marriage is how to continue maintaining the attraction. We have the DJ bible for dating and LTR but there is no full DJ bible regarding marriage.

When you live together with someone, it will tend to diminish the attractions from what you had previously when the two of you weren't living together. From being an observent of my parents divorce and my mother remarriage, the same mistakes keep on happening over again.

Part of being a Don juan is to always grow and change for the better. Since your wife moves in with you, she should have the same strong mentality. People in marriage often do not grow and flourish but rather alow themselves to get lazy, neglect their dutys, which causes their growth to halt and actually causes it to rot.

What I mean by rotting? look at the average American family - husband works long hours, comes back home stressful, eats dinner, sits in front of the t.v until he gets tired and goes to have sex with the wife. The wife also hopefully works or sometimes not becomes the Boss of the household, goes out on a shopping sprees to make herself feel better, nag and complain that she is not getting enough attension and not happy about the marriage, she ends up wearing the pants in the relationship.

Both of them don't have time for one another, they end up arguing about things like kids, money, sex etc....they stop going out as much and as result wear the same old cloths over and over again. They spend more time at home getting fat and unattractive and slowly sinking into debts. <--------------------This is the portrayal of the Average American/Canadian family, its like the portrayal of the average AFC, so many things are wrong and should be fixed.

That is why the wife and the husband should always strive for better things for the both of them and be on the same page. The problem lies with some men and women looking at marriage like it some kind of fantasy and live happily ever after sh1t, but if they don't have a plan of how to make the marriage works then it will fail.

 

[Rollo Tomassi]

The 2 most common sources given for marital dischord and divorce - Sex and Money, and in that order. Each is a manifestation of either sex's primary drives (sex & security respectively).

One other thing that plays into a marriage and women's tendency to lose interest in sex is the family dynamic. We're (usually) taught from a very early age not to have sexual desires, feel passion, etc. for members of our own family. When a woman (and sometimes men) becomes a wife or mother in a new family, the desire to have passion for a member of the family sometimes contradicts this feeling. She'll have passion for people outside the family, but not within it.

I'm not say this is the only thing operating, but something to think about.

 

[Bonhomme]

My brother's friend lost a ball

My brother's friend lost one of his balls (about $500,000) to a crack smoking loser of a gal. His advice on getting married: don't.