Why Men Won't Marry You

[SmokeAndMirrors]

And that's the root of all its problems. You don't - and can't - know how your partner is going to feel over the next several decades, and neither does your partner. No matter how sincere you feel today, it doesn't mean you can commit to something for the rest of your life.

Sure it does. At least for people who decide that is what they're going to do, and assuming no one is abusive or otherwise intolerable.

Do you always like your friends? Your family members?

I doubt it. Yet you love them all the same, and just because sometimes it seems like a chore doesn't mean you don't.

People seem to have this idea that partner love is totally unlike any other kind of love. That unlike other kinds of love, which require work and which are not always fun, partner love is actually a magical spirit that simply possesses people for a time, transforming them into an intoxicating drug you can use as you please. When that possession ends, or you simply grow bored of the high, it's time to leave and chase the spirit into whatever body it inhabits next.

That isn't true. Partner love works like every other kind of love. Your feelings may vacillate, but ultimately love is a choice and something which is deeper than simply the tingly feelings in various parts of your body, and it doesn't change unless you allow it to. Just like friends and family.

I think the mistake people make, in actuality, is either expecting their partner to be constantly entertaining, as though they were an amusement park ride, or being overly rigid in their expectation of closeness with their partner -- not allowing things to ebb and flow, as friends and family do.

 

[Gathomas88]

I think what makes this tough is that it so often appears in men -- or people generally -- who aren't really assholes.

My friend is not an idiot. I have a very low tolerance for idiots. And I like her boyfriend -- really. He's a nice human being...

...Who grew up with a 1950's mentality of the importance of a man's desires, versus the importance of a woman's.

He wants to be an egalitarian. He tries to be an egalitarian. I am not convinced he even knows he's doing it when he keeps trying to push more and more of the compromise onto her. It's subtle. It's not as though he simply said to her, "you will do things my way." It's an ongoing slide into an old way of thinking.

It's hard to dump a nice person who just isn't all that great at being with other people.

This is why the gender dynamics conversation needs nuance. It is not a situation of one just being an asshole. And that's usually the case. Although American men tend to straggle when it comes to understanding equal partnership, they are overwhelmingly decent men. In fact, I happen to think that when you find one who is also living in the 21st century, they are some of the best men in the world. It's just that there aren't as many of those as there should be.

This conversation is too often about men who are "pigs" and women who are "bitches." In reality, it is rarely about either of those things.

There's no "pig" or "bitch" in my friend's extremely common situation. Just crappy gender dynamics in a country that is struggling to fully modernize the way it sees the sexes.

There are undoubtedly a few genuine ass clowns out there. However, generally I would agree that most people at least mean well, even if they do not necessarily act it, or their intentions are misguided.

Yes, there are some attitudes and dynamics, on the part of both genders, and on both sides of the sociocultural spectrum, which undoubtedly need to be reevaluated. I suspect we would not fully agree on which particular attitudes and dynamics those happen to be, however. Lol

It is also worth noting though, before we get too deep in the weeds, that there are some people out there - women included - who legitimately enjoy the "Stepford" model. My grandparents on my mother's side are actually among them.

For all the hemming and hawing they've made over my mother's decision to "waste her life" as a stay at home Catholic conservative mother of five, they're actually a Hell of a lot closer to the "sexist" model feminists like to complain about - albeit with more 1970s influenced social and moral values - than my parents ever have been.

He's five years older, college educated, and spent his youth as a proudly promiscuous Southern outdoorsman who still does all of the "manly" chores around the house. She, while she did work, married right out of high school, never went to college, and has always been more than happy to be the "arm candy" woman behind the man obsessed with both her own appearance and the appearance of her home more than anything else.

My father, by way of contrast was a Tolkien reading homebody intellectual and "Gen 1.0" computer geek who has never been with anyone besides my mother. My mother's domestic style has always been what could best be described as being "bohemian" at best.

"Go figure," I suppose. :shrug:

And that's the root of all its problems. You don't - and can't - know how your partner is going to feel over the next several decades, and neither does your partner. No matter how sincere you feel today, it doesn't mean you can commit to something for the rest of your life.

True. Though, unfortunately, most of that goes back to modern culture, and the lack of expectation that couples even really try to stick it out through "thick and thin" in the first place.

As Smoke was saying, a lot of people seem to be sold on the idea that marriage should be "perfect." If it isn't, they want to bail on the whole thing.

All of that can be, if not completely avoided, at least mitigated as a risk, if one takes the time to select their mate carefully, however.

 

[SmokeAndMirrors]

There are undoubtedly a few genuine ass clowns out there. However, generally I would agree that most people at least mean well, even if they do not necessarily act it, or their intentions are misguided.

Yes, there are some attitudes and dynamics, on the part of both genders, and on both sides of the sociocultural spectrum, which undoubtedly need to be reevaluated. I suspect we would not fully agree on which particular attitudes and dynamics those happen to be, however. Lol

It is also worth noting though, before we get too deep in the weeds, that there are some people out there - women included - who legitimately enjoy the "Stepford" model. My grandparents on my mother's side are actually among them.

For all the hemming and hawing they've made over my mother's decision to "waste her life" as a stay at home Catholic conservative mother of five, they're actually a Hell of a lot closer to the "sexist" model feminists like to complain about - albeit with more 1970s influenced social and moral values - than my parents ever have been.

He's five years older, college educated, and spent his youth as a proudly promiscuous Southern outdoorsman who still does all of the "manly" chores around the house. She, while she did work, married right out of high school, never went to college, and has always been more than happy to be the "arm candy" woman behind the man obsessed with both her own appearance and the appearance of her home more than anything else.

My father, by way of contrast was a Tolkien reading homebody intellectual and "Gen 1.0" computer geek who has never been with anyone besides my mother. My mother's domestic style has always been what could best be described as being "bohemian" at best.

"Go figure," I suppose. :shrug:

Well, I think it really depends on how you define "happy."

I am not convinced that people who live in either a sexist or sexist-compensating lifestyle are actually happy. They just don't know how else to be, and they can get kind of defensive about it. Thus, perhaps, why they feel such a need to criticize your mother.

That afflicts a lot of middle aged women (mostly the sexist variety -- compensating for having their value diminished and focused on their body) and younger women too (mostly sexist-compensating -- acting out in a contrary way to assert a superficial concept of empowerment that they don't fully believe). I've had some very interesting conversations with women about these things.

I think the same is probably also true of men, but they are less forthcoming in discussing it. Respectively, hyper-machismo that tends to be damaging to men emotionally, versus vicarious guilt that tends to lead them to be meek and codependent.

 

[Helvidius]

We women?

I came down on the side of commitment, dude. I won't ever have the piece of paper -- I don't consent to the government having that much control over my love life. But I have complete control over whether I wind up with a man who expects me to do everything. I chose not to, so I didn't.

However, it is understandable that many women see this trend and decide to opt out entirely. In America in particular, egalitarian men aren't extremely common quite yet. In some parts of the country, they're practically unicorns. A lot of women have never met one.

Why the hell would they get married to someone who's going to expect them to do everything by themselves? That seems like a damn bum deal.

I would argue that men in their low thirties and younger are actually quite egalitarian. Certainly, more so than the prior generations of men. I honestly don't think that is the answer.

A lot of people currently in their twenties experienced the perils of divorce through their parents, having children out of wedlock is considered much more acceptable than in prior decades, and many people graduate with crushing student debt and low job prospects which makes it difficult to focus on ones love life.

 

[SmokeAndMirrors]

I would argue that men in their low thirties and younger are actually quite egalitarian. Certainly, more so than the prior generations of men. I honestly don't think that is the answer.

A lot of people currently in their twenties experienced the perils of divorce through their parents, having children out of wedlock is considered much more acceptable than in prior decades, and many people graduate with crushing student debt and low job prospects which makes it difficult to focus on ones love life.

Really depends where you are. Unfortunately, you'd be wrong about that in a lot of places in the country. Some of the least egalitarian posters on DP are young men. :shrug:

The birth rate is in decline -- especially for the young. The financial woes, I don't know -- honestly, I don't see much expectation of buying a house, or women expecting men to support them, within my generation. So I don't know. Those increasingly unimportant financial aspects don't change that everyone wants to find connection. A majority of younger people are in serious relationships. For whatever reason, they just aren't marrying. Or having children, for that matter.

Financial reasons? Maybe. But this has been building a long time. Fact is, not everyone wants the life script, and we've been seeing a slow increase in the people who are willing to abandon it for a few generations now.

 

[Fiddytree]

Men have to avoid marriage now? Oh please.

This war of the sexes is absolutely pointless. Find someone that's a good match for you, raise a family or don't--but stay committed and get yourself some help if troubles occur. Don't ditch out on it on a whim, but don't kill your ambitions in the process.

I want a passionate, ambitious woman with a head on her shoulders and a love of family. I neither want her to give up her career, nor do I want to run the life of the childless married couple. I hold absolutely no interest in the left-wing counterculturalist mentality of relationships and I view a marriage as a lifelong journey rather than an uncommitted period of fun that puts no ties together. I would do whatever I can to find a gal that finds marriage important. If that person ends up becoming a flake, then it was a mistake on my part to find someone so fickle, but unless it utterly becomes necessary, I'm not the one who will initiate a separation.

I grew up in a household where both husband and wife made sacrifices and pitched in wherever they could, utilizing each of their strengths and they stuck it out through the incredibly tough times and the good.

 

[RealDeal]

Marriage has been declining for decades in the US and is declining in all Westernized nations world wide. Why? Feminism. Feminism removed the benefits of marriage for men, so fewer and fewer men want to marry. Feminism taught women that homemaking and caring for children was slavery, so fewer women want to marry or have children. What followed was women flooding the job market, making in necessary for both men and women to work to pay the bills. Children are now raised like farm animals. Now, both men and women are wage and tax slaves.

Japan, Singapore, the US, most of the EU, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Iran and soon India are all experiencing tanking marriage and birth rates. Where feminism goes, civilization declines. Japan faces the worst population decline because they're against mass immigration as a solution to replacement rates. Countries using mass immigration as a solution are/will experiencing increasing social upheaval due to culture clashes.

Feminists (and most especially the white knights that vote in feminist legislation - AKA NAIVE MEN) demanded no-fault divorce - and they got it. After four straight reporting periods of a 75% divorce rate following the implementation of no-fault divorce, California actually stopped reporting their divorce stats. They claim this was for budget reasons (LOL). Now, there's an effort underway at the Census Bureau to stop collecting marriage and divorce statistics in the US. Isn't' that convenient? Those that have a vested interest in promoting marriage use faulty statistics, claiming one in three rather than one in two marriage end in divorce. Many here will claim the joys of marriage only to one day find themselves divorced. They'll write things like, "I never thought this could happen to me. I can't believe I'm here writing about MY divorce."

Marriage, for the past several decades, has been a wealth redistribution scam from men to women. The reason women now hold the majority of US wealth is thanks to their dead husbands, fathers and divorce raped X husbands.

There has been zero benefit in marriage for men for many decades. Don't listen to those that say that marriage makes men live longer or make more money. Those statistics were genned up for the same reason the '1 in 5' rape stats were falsified. What's that reason? To push a highly corrupt, anti-male agenda. Over the past 40+ years, in the US alone, tens upon tens of millions of men have been financially destroyed through marriage and divorce. In that time, upon realizing they'd face homelessness as a result of their financial rape, hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of those men have committed suicide (women's suicide rates don't go up following divorce). Those that promote marriage for men are (1) extremely naive or (2) deliberately trying to fool men, for personal gain, into making the biggest mistake of their lives.

I've been single, married and divorced. I've watched many of my friends and colleagues go from single to married to divorced. I've personally experienced the psychological, emotional, legal, financial, physical and spiritual terrorism of the man-hating family courts. As a man, my recommendation to other men is to avoid marriage like the plague.

 

[Gathomas88]

Men have to avoid marriage now? Oh please.

This war of the sexes is absolutely pointless. Find someone that's a good match for you, raise a family or don't--but stay committed and get yourself some help if troubles occur. Don't ditch out on it on a whim, but don't kill your ambitions in the process.

I want a passionate, ambitious woman with a head on her shoulders and a love of family. I neither want her to give up her career, nor do I want to run the life of the childless married couple. I hold absolutely no interest in the left-wing counterculturalist mentality of relationships and I view a marriage as a lifelong journey rather than an uncommitted period of fun that puts no ties together. I would do whatever I can to find a gal that finds marriage important. If that person ends up becoming a flake, then it was a mistake on my part to find someone so fickle, but unless it utterly becomes necessary, I'm not the one who will initiate a separation.

I grew up in a household where both husband and wife made sacrifices and pitched in wherever they could, utilizing each of their strengths and they stuck it out through the incredibly tough times and the good.

I'd more or less agree with this. To the bolded, however, I would say the following...

While it isn't necessarily imperative that any woman my marry not work (after all, if the kids are at school half the day, there's really no reason for her to be home 24/7 anyway), marrying an explicitly "career oriented" woman as a family minded man, let alone a traditionally minded man, would simply strike me as being a recipe for disaster. Unless you plan on being her house husband, or something to that effect (yea... no), you'd simply be at cross purposes, and any potential children you had would wind up suffering for it.

It'd probably be best to simply find a woman who's not terribly interested in going that route in the first place if you want to make family your first, or even a major, priority for married life.

Hell! I wouldn't even say that career is necessarily all that great a priority even in my own life. I simply want to be able to make enough to live well, and be able to provide for a family that is able to also live well.

 

[Gathomas88]

Well, I think it really depends on how you define "happy."

I am not convinced that people who live in either a sexist or sexist-compensating lifestyle are actually happy. They just don't know how else to be, and they can get kind of defensive about it. Thus, perhaps, why they feel such a need to criticize your mother.

That afflicts a lot of middle aged women (mostly the sexist variety -- compensating for having their value diminished and focused on their body) and younger women too (mostly sexist-compensating -- acting out in a contrary way to assert a superficial concept of empowerment that they don't fully believe). I've had some very interesting conversations with women about these things.

I think the same is probably also true of men, but they are less forthcoming in discussing it. Respectively, hyper-machismo that tends to be damaging to men emotionally, versus vicarious guilt that tends to lead them to be meek and codependent.

Some of that might be the case. However, I think it would be a bit of a stretch to say that either of them don't "like" where they happen to be in life.

My grandfather has pretty much spent his entire marriage doting on my grandmother like a princess. She was the proverbial cow from which he couldn't draw free milk, so he resorted to marrying her, and has put her on a pedestal ever since. For her own part, she's always loved the attention.

They're both fussy, materialistic, and largely ego driven people anyway, so they don't really have any problem keeping things "just so" either. They actually tend to enjoy it.

That's fine, I suppose. They've got a decent enough marriage.

As I've mentioned before, however, the methods they used to achieve that marital bliss are more than a bit questionable. They basically chose to live like a "childfree" couple in spite of having children in the house. Both of the children they did raise ultimately wound up suffering for that to a certain extent.

Believe it or not, I also suspect that they are probably not alone in actually finding such supposedly "sexist" arrangements desirable either. It simply requires the proper mix of cultural expectations and personality types.

 

[lizzie]

Why men won't marry you | Fox News



The bottom line is that marriage is a very very bad deal for men. They are being smart to avoid it.

Well, frankly, my old man had it pretty damn good, but then I'm not the average woman.

On a more serious note, there's good and bad points to marriage, whether your a man OR a woman. There is no superiority to men- but imo, there is a difference in the general psychological and emotional makeup, which can make it difficult to have a completely healthy and functional relationship.

As for "Mr. Right", I believe there's plenty of them out there- we just don't often recognize him, and we have unrealistic mental images of what is ideal. My personal observation is that it's more likely to be women who become dissatisfied with a marriage, than for men to, which tells me that women either can't cope with the realities of married life, or they aren't learning and seeing realistic/ healthy models of relationships in their formative years. It isn't a fairy tale.

 

[SmokeAndMirrors]

Some of that might be the case. However, I think it would be a bit of a stretch to say that either of them don't "like" where they happen to be in life.

My grandfather has pretty much spent his entire marriage doting on my grandmother like a princess. She was the proverbial cow from which he couldn't draw free milk, so he resorted to marrying her, and has put her on a pedestal ever since. For her own part, she's always loved the attention.

They're both fussy, materialistic, and largely ego driven people anyway, so they don't really have any problem keeping things "just so" either. They actually tend to enjoy it.

That's fine, I suppose. They've got a decent enough marriage.

As I've mentioned before, however, the methods they used to achieve that marital bliss are more than a bit questionable. They basically chose to live like a "childfree" couple in spite of having children in the house. Both of the children they did raise ultimately wound up suffering for that to a certain extent.

Believe it or not, I also suspect that they are probably not alone in actually finding such supposedly "sexist" arrangements desirable either. It simply requires the proper mix of cultural expectations and personality types.

People are adaptable. They'll do well enough in not-great situations.

Like I said, I've just spent enough time talking to enough of them that I question whether they define "happy" the same way those of us who don't live like that would. It's stressful for your closest relationship to function permanently like a high stakes chess game. Most of them seem to be compensating to me, and some of them will even admit that out-rightly if they feel safe to do so.

If it's all you've ever known, it's hard for you to be displeased that you don't have something you don't know exists. But that also doesn't mean you're entirely well-adjusted inside your own mind. People are better at burying that stuff than I think you realize. I continue to be amazed at what people can hide. Pretty much everyone I've ever been close to has, at some point or another, surprised me with stuff about their internal emotional lives that I didn't know was happening. And I'm more intuitive than most.

I'm not saying they're miserable, per se. But I also doubt they define happiness the way other people do, and the modality of their relationship is one that most people would find stressful. I'm sure there's a comfort of the familiar to it, but I've just seen too many relationships like that which are not what they appear.

 

[SDET]

Even if a man has a child with a woman it makes no sense for him to marry her. Without marriage he only owes child support.

Marriage for men is often a self-abnegating, soul-crushing affair.

Not if you do it right. Marry a women with no interest in working outside the home. Here's what fixation on an equal partnership means: Let's spend 90% of our effort and energy carefully making sure no is at 50.1% nor 49.9%.

 

[distraff]

Why men won't marry you | Fox News



The bottom line is that marriage is a very very bad deal for men. They are being smart to avoid it.

Sorry to ruin the party but 55% of single men want to get married while 50% of women want marriage. So actually men are slightly more likely to want marriage.

What women still want in a husband - Cathy Young - Newsday

 

[kerussll]

"What exactly does marriage offer men today? 'Men know there’s a good chance they’ll lose their friends, their respect, their space, their sex life, their money and — if it all goes wrong — their family,' says Helen Smith, Ph.D"

I had to laugh out loud at this part. Seriously, there's a good chance they'll lose their friends and respect??

 

[Kal'Stang]

I never really hear married men say anything good about marriage. There is a lot that is good about it according to the research. It leads to a longer, happier, more wealthy life and the quality of sex is also reportedly far better. However, the branding of marriage is that it sucks. Maybe marriage needs to get a better PR agent.

Well then let me be among the first. I love being married to my wife. We've been married for 13 years, been together 14 years. And its still going strong. Are there tough times? Sure. But those are far FAR less than good times. I support her when she needs it, and she supports me when I need it. We don't consider marriage a 50/50 deal. We consider it a 60/40 deal. Sometimes I'm the 60 and she's the 40 and sometimes she is the 60 and I'm the 40. IE: Marriage is partly about supporting the other half when they need it and being supported when its needed. It is never solely about one person. It is imo the mentality of 50/50 that ruins so many marriages because then it seems to be inevitable that someone will think that they are not getting their "fair share".

 

[Mustachio]

I know a really weird guy who told me that people get married and have kids because they "gave up on life" and decided that their last chance at maintaining relevance was raising offspring to live vicariously through. That's a strange point of view. Most people that I know see themselves getting married or at the very least consider it to be a strong option. Well, a lot of people that I know are already married. I don't see the problem.

 

[cpwill]

...And women.

What, you think all these women are just standing at the alter all tear-y eyed? They're not in any rush either.

The end of a marriage is usually much worse for a man, but the marriage itself is usually much worse for the woman -- thus why women initiate most divorces.

Both of these things are due to broken gender dynamics and sexism.

During a marriage -- which in this era of wage decline, usually includes two working spouses -- women are expected not just to work, but also to do all the "women's work" (everything in the home, and everything to do with children). In effect, she's working 2 or 3 times harder than he is, and probably being paid less for it. Sometimes this happens even when the man wants to help -- employers are bigoted against women of a certain age, or mothers, in large part because other people's unreliable husbands force them to try to do everything at once, and sometimes that means they have to dodge work.

After a marriage, before a court that still considers men to be essentially wallets for the wilting, delicate little flowers that women are, a man is lucky if he walks away with a place to live, 10 bucks in his account, and anything better than abysmal credit. While either spouse is equally likely to be a psychotic asshole who wants to ruin their ex, women are far more tolerated for doing so in a court system that kind of thinks of them as children, and men as expendable.

So fix our broken gender conversation and maybe people will be less commitment-phobic.

We could start with not pretending for one second that women don't have better things to do too, and both sexes have their reasons for that.

We could also start by doing away with this nonsense that men are feral dogs who just want to **** everything, unless you rope them in with forced commitment. That is BS. Firstly, people have had non-marital sex since the beginning of time, and they still did even in the repressive marriage heyday that so many people seem to pine for. Shotgun weddings, back alley abortions, and quiet affairs were all very big business back in those days. And secondly, men are human beings who desire connection and love as much as anyone else is.

To be honest, in my own generation, it seems men want commitment more than women do. There is some preliminary research that actually supports that observation.

Why is that? Well, I would be shocked if the bad aspects of marriage for women weren't a part of it...

Some good reason here, but again, you are depending on an out-dated perspective, confusing today with 1965.

Despite the fact that men are significantly more likely to work full time and significantly more likely to be the sole breadwinner in a household, they are still covering down on a little more than a third of the house/child work.

So no, not "everything in the home and everything to do with the children" is being dumped on a woman who is equally expected to be pulling down a full-time job. Feminist rhetoric in this instance does not match reality.

Sure, you'll get that in instances, sure, just as you get stay-at-home dads who do cover down on 100% of the house/childwork. But it is just as likely that the easier divorce and post-divorce treatment of the woman is a major factor in why women are more likely to file for divorce. For men, a divorce is (as you point out) generally all loss, while for a woman that loss is sharply mitigated.

As for young men - feral dogs? Meh, inherently, yes, sort of. Children are natural barbarians, not civilized human beings. It is the key challenge for every civilization to tame it's young men, and marriage is a key component of that. That's part of why polygamous societies are less stable - too many unattached young males. It's a major problem for Chinese leadership.

We are, to an unfortunate degree, failing in turning adolescent males into men, which is part of why adolescence is now extending into the mid-20s, with young males facing no greater a coming-of-age ceremony than graduating college after 5 years and maybe beating a series of first-person-shooters on their most difficult setting. I would suspect that of being behind some of a reduced willingness to commit to marriage on the part of females - why would they wish to commit to what is effectively an older teenager? I would additionally suspect that whereas we still teach our boy that marriage is a life-accomplishment, we invest time and effort in teaching our girls the opposite.

 

[gdgyva]

successful marriages are hard

compromise, communication, work.....

it isnt all wine and roses

both people have to be committed to work through the issues....and there will be issues.....LOTS OF THEM

today, too many want the easy road, the easy path......marriage is not either of those

but what you get when you do work through the issues is a partner....someone to share all the ups, downs, successes and failures

someone who isnt going to walk away because this time you failed in your endeavor

your partner picks you up, dusts you off, tells you they love you, and sends you out to meet the word head on again

that ladies and gentlemen is a marriage....at least it is mine

and if you find the right person, i heartily recommend joining our ranks

 

[Goshin]

Single parenthood tends to result in serious economic consequences; lost opportunities, reduced wages. Fact.

Single motherhood is much more common than single fatherhood, though the latter is more common than some people think.


Therefore there is an inherent interest, at least for women who want kids, to marry... and really to stay married at least until the children are mostly grown.

Many don't, of course. Either don't marry in the first place, or don't stay married long. This usually ends up being detrimental to the kids, who are more likely to grow up in poverty or not far from it, and/or growing up with an absentee parent who is working their butt off to makes ends meet.

Not ideal for society, nor for the individuals involved. Not to mention all the studies saying that it is Not So Good for kids to grow up without two actively involved parental figures, and best if they have a role-model on hand for their own gender.


So, marriage is a societal good. Therefore society ought to try to make marriage appealing. So how do we work that?


Well for young women who want children, there's already some reasons stated above, if they have enough sense to think it through (some apparently don't).

Young men though don't have a great deal of incentive to marry these days, unless they are quite religious. They can look forward to spending the bulk of their paycheck on others instead of themselves (despite all the gender egalitarianism of this century, it is still pretty common for Mr to work full time while Mrs works part time), spending almost as much time on household chores as they would if they simply lived with a roommate, and helping take care of the kids on top of that.... and with a 50/50 chance that at some point in the next 20 yrs, Mrs is going to take half of what he's worked hard to build/acquire and leave, and maybe take his children with her and maybe make it as hard for him to be a part of their lives as she can (a regrettably common occurrence after divorce), and likely dun his salary by 20-40% for the next 3-15 years in child support and/or alimony.


Why would anyone be surprised that many young men are seeing this as a bum deal?

 

[lizzie]

successful marriages are hard

compromise, communication, work.....

it isnt all wine and roses

both people have to be committed to work through the issues....and there will be issues.....LOTS OF THEM

today, too many want the easy road, the easy path......marriage is not either of those

but what you get when you do work through the issues is a partner....someone to share all the ups, downs, successes and failures

someone who isnt going to walk away because this time you failed in your endeavor

your partner picks you up, dusts you off, tells you they love you, and sends you out to meet the word head on again

that ladies and gentlemen is a marriage....at least it is mine

and if you find the right person, i heartily recommend joining our ranks

A lot of the girls of my own generation believed the fairy tale BS, and quite frankly, that was what my own role model was. My parents had one of those easy marriages in which conflict was essentially non-existent, and satisfaction and happiness was always apparent. After I left home and saw the realities of relationships, I had no idea how to deal with how most marriages seem to function. It took me literally years to learn how to have a disagreement without it crushing me. It did teach me alot, though, about finding my own voice.

 

[SmokeAndMirrors]

Some good reason here, but again, you are depending on an out-dated perspective, confusing today with 1965.

Despite the fact that men are significantly more likely to work full time and significantly more likely to be the sole breadwinner in a household, they are still covering down on a little more than a third of the house/child work.

So no, not "everything in the home and everything to do with the children" is being dumped on a woman who is equally expected to be pulling down a full-time job. Feminist rhetoric in this instance does not match reality.

Sure, you'll get that in instances, sure, just as you get stay-at-home dads who do cover down on 100% of the house/childwork. But it is just as likely that the easier divorce and post-divorce treatment of the woman is a major factor in why women are more likely to file for divorce. For men, a divorce is (as you point out) generally all loss, while for a woman that loss is sharply mitigated.

As for young men - feral dogs? Meh, inherently, yes, sort of. Children are natural barbarians, not civilized human beings. It is the key challenge for every civilization to tame it's young men, and marriage is a key component of that. That's part of why polygamous societies are less stable - too many unattached young males. It's a major problem for Chinese leadership.

We are, to an unfortunate degree, failing in turning adolescent males into men, which is part of why adolescence is now extending into the mid-20s, with young males facing no greater a coming-of-age ceremony than graduating college after 5 years and maybe beating a series of first-person-shooters on their most difficult setting. I would suspect that of being behind some of a reduced willingness to commit to marriage on the part of females - why would they wish to commit to what is effectively an older teenager? I would additionally suspect that whereas we still teach our boy that marriage is a life-accomplishment, we invest time and effort in teaching our girls the opposite.

All together, yes. So what does that indicate, accounting for the fringes?

Oh yes: that women are both working and doing the vast majority of everything else, too.

I find it depressing you see yourself that way. I know a vast array of men who don't need anyone to whap them on the nose to behave like human beings. Anthropological evidence proves men in even the most basic tribes to be the more doting partners, actually, contrary to your belief that men are rabid animals. Modern evidence shows men to be deeply affected by the feelings of others as well as themselves -- in some respects, much more so than women. But whatever -- your standards for yourself concern no one but you and whoever decides to be around you, really.

It's your "ideal" that made some men that way in the first place. It's your "ideal" that places no onus on them to consider their partners, because their partners aren't as important in your ideal. So if you want to blame this trend of undesirable, unmarriagable men on anyone, take a look in the mirror.

 

[RAMOSS]

Well then let me be among the first. I love being married to my wife. We've been married for 13 years, been together 14 years. And its still going strong. Are there tough times? Sure. But those are far FAR less than good times. I support her when she needs it, and she supports me when I need it. We don't consider marriage a 50/50 deal. We consider it a 60/40 deal. Sometimes I'm the 60 and she's the 40 and sometimes she is the 60 and I'm the 40. IE: Marriage is partly about supporting the other half when they need it and being supported when its needed. It is never solely about one person. It is imo the mentality of 50/50 that ruins so many marriages because then it seems to be inevitable that someone will think that they are not getting their "fair share".

It doesn't look like it is a 50/50 deal or a 60/40 deal at all. It looks like it's a 60/60 deal

 

[Henrin]

I know a really weird guy who told me that people get married and have kids because they "gave up on life" and decided that their last chance at maintaining relevance was raising offspring to live vicariously through. That's a strange point of view. Most people that I know see themselves getting married or at the very least consider it to be a strong option. Well, a lot of people that I know are already married. I don't see the problem.

The big concern is that a growing number of young people don't want to get married and never will. It is estimated that 25% of millennials will never get married with more women than men deciding against it. I don't really see the big deal myself, but I suppose traditions die hard.

 

[Goshin]

All together, yes. So what does that indicate, accounting for the fringes?

Oh yes: that women are both working and doing the vast majority of everything else, too.

I find it depressing you see yourself that way. I know a vast array of men who don't need anyone to whap them on the nose to behave like human beings. Anthropological evidence proves men in even the most basic tribes to be the more doting partners, actually, contrary to your belief that men are rabid animals. Modern evidence shows men to be deeply affected by the feelings of others as well as themselves -- in some respects, much more so than women. But whatever -- your standards for yourself concern no one but you and whoever decides to be around you, really.

It's your "ideal" that made some men that way in the first place. It's your "ideal" that places no onus on them to consider their partners, because their partners aren't as important in your ideal. So if you want to blame this trend of undesirable, unmarriagable men on anyone, take a look in the mirror.

That seems a tad harsh and overly personal, don't you think?

 

[cpwill]

All together, yes. So what does that indicate, accounting for the fringes?

Oh yes: that women are both working and doing the vast majority of everything else, too.

A little less than a third of women are stay at home mothers meaning they are doing zero outside-the-home work. Women who work are twice as likely to work part time as men. Meanwhile, married men have the highest labor force participation rate. So, no. Women are not working outside the home as much as men and expected to do "the vast majority of everything else". Generally, in a marriage, Men work more outside the home and Women work more inside the home - which is a lot more balanced and which, by the way, is what a majority of married women prefer.

Again:

Add up the numbers for both sides for 2011. There's a one hour differential there, out of a total of total of 107 hours of outside and house/child work. So are women being asked to do the vast majority of everything? No. At current they are doing approximately 0.9% more. But folks who grow up in the feminist rhetoric, or come to buy into it, are primed to zoom in on any instance of unfairness (perceived or real) and then over-account for it. Confirmation Bias and Availability Heuristic. :shrug:

I find it depressing you see yourself that way. I know a vast array of men who don't need anyone to whap them on the nose to behave like human beings. Anthropological evidence proves men in even the most basic tribes to be the more doting partners, actually, contrary to your belief that men are rabid animals.

Are men naturally rabid? No. Apathetic, immature, and lazy; probably. They are also more destructive, and a destabilizing element for society - any society. That's why the President et. al. is always going on about young men with no prospects as the feeding problem for combatting Terrorism. If you know a vast array of men who don't need anyone to whap them on the nose to behave like human beings.... then all you know is a vast array of men whose parents at one point whapped them on the nose to force them to learn to act like human beings. We are not naturally civilized.

Modern evidence shows men to be deeply affected by the feelings of others as well as themselves -- in some respects, much more so than women.

Certainly likely. Men seem to be more concerned with Hierarchy, for example.

It's your "ideal" that made some men that way in the first place. It's your "ideal" that places no onus on them to consider their partners, because their partners aren't as important in your ideal. So if you want to blame this trend of undesirable, unmarriagable men on anyone, take a look in the mirror.

On the contrary, this trend is contrary to what I would have most men grow to be. I can't think of a single time I have thought that I would want my sons to consider that they shouldn't consider their partners - that certainly wasn't how my grandfather and father taught me how to be a good man. If you want to take a trend of undesirable unmarriageble men and blame it on someone, I'm going to be quicker to point out that this is a natural failure of trying to raise boys like they were girls.