Key word there: IMPENDING. The best piece of advice in all of that was your signature. Focus: her parents who hate you, her and each other,her retarded little brother who is in jail every time Wheel of Fortune comes on, and her ignorant, clucking friends babbling about things their babies do like it's a fucking achievement that little Hunter or Candy mumbled "Mommy" in between screaming fits are all permanent parts of YOUR life now and consider you part of the family. Oh, and the destruction of the "Girl's Don't Fart" concept. Girls don't fart. Wives fart.
Hi, my name is Samr. Let me introduce you to my fiance. She's not even my wife yet, and she blows ass like a hooker blows coke. I've written about it on here before, and I've gotten rep comments and PMs and heard from a bunch of bitter people all the hundred different reasons why they don't think it will work for me. Whatever, PM me if you want me to go into my background, my reasoning going into this, or anything else. Fact stands: I'm young, and I'm getting married this summer. I am 100 percent confident in this. But if I am wrong, then so what? I'm wrong. I love her more than I love myself, and I would jump over bridges to make her happy, just because I feel like I need to repay her for how she makes me feel on a daily basis. But you know what? If you're stupid, you're going to act stupid. Stupid people get married all the time and it fails, and that's because it was a stupid decision. But sometimes people get married, and for them, it works. I don't want to "play the field." I don't have any desire to bring home randoms and fuck their brains out because they have a color of pubic hair I haven't seen before. I want children one day, and I say that from the perspective of someone who has spent a good majority of his life working with them. I also want that calming presence in the storm of the rest of my life, and for me, my fiance serves that purpose. She puts up with my shit, and balances me out when I need it. But if you want to play the field, if you want different sexual partners, if you don't like commitment, or children, or the occasional disagreement, or the way women look when they age, then those are many reasons for someone not to get married. But that's not me. I want stability, kids, someone who forces me to compromise and evens out my edge. I want to look into my significant other when I'm 30, 40, 55, 70 and honestly say she's as beautiful as the day I said "I do" when I was 21. Marriage is for me, but it's not for everybody. Now, can we make this thread less "don't get married ever because marriage sux lol!!" and more "this is a reason NOT to get married"?
I think the TiB members are treating you the same way they'd treat anyone preaching about something they know nothing about. In this case, relationships. I bet most everyone on this board would admit their relationships in their teens were a far cry from relationships in their 20's or 30's, mainly due to self-realization. You mentioned before you had a near-death experience which changed your outlook on life. I'd consider it more of a bias than an outlook. By the way, I'm happily married going on 5 years and have nothing against marriage.
Marriage is communism. No competition. Let the free market reign, baby. Seriously though, I like Doug Stanhope's take on it, though I'm indifferent. Let people do whatever they want. "Baby this shit we got together it's so good, we gotta get the government in on this shit!"
Man, if every engaged couple DIDN'T have this idealized and hopeful view, I would be really, really sad for humanity. Isn't that what keeps us going, after all? Hope that the future will be better, that our lives will be fuller, that we can really do something to be proud of that we can leave behind? Maybe your great hope is to bank a bunch of cash and drink your way through it. Mine is to love and be loved. Just because our hopes aren't the same doesn't mean mine are invalid. I also challenge you to find a significant number of people who didn't have a good marriage who actually did all the hard work you need to do in order to have a solid relationship (there being, as Crown Royal points out above, no real difference between a good marriage and a good relationship). There will be situations in which people grow apart, but don't you think that the majority of 20something short marriages we talk about a lot on this board end because nobody really sat down and thought, "How are we going to make this work for the next 60 years?" before they said "I do"? I may just be a fiance, but we've known we were heading this way for nearly 4 years now, and putting in the hard work the whole time. It's nothing next to 20 years of marriage, but it's as good a preparation as I can possibly come up with.
Someone in the "The Reason:Irreconcilable Differences" thread(where the intended focus is now properly being discussed here), stated: "I just hope that you realize you are asking for advice from a bunch of cynical assholes who don't know you." Here are the closest we have to "official" statistics of divorces at: <a class="postlink" href="http://www.divorcerate.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.divorcerate.org</a> It also believed (though fuck me I can't remember which online article I read it off of) that the rate of divorce is actually decreasing(compared to that of the 90s) because today's youth are more cautious than before and are marrying later in life. I'm 22 with marriage far from my mind, so I will shy away from giving any advice. But those are the stats.
True Story: I was browsing Facebook this morning when I saw that one of my friends had been tagged in an album of what looked like wedding pictures. I looked at a few of the pictures and noticed that the majority of the wedding party looked very young; I didn't think much of it at first. Then I saw some pictures of the reception. The centerpieces were Star Wars themed. "Hey, that's fine" I thought to myself "Star Wars is a pretty old franchise and even nerds get married. That's no big deal." Then I saw the main part favors, also lightsabers. I was beginning to wonder how old these people were, especially seeing how my friend is only a couple of years out of college himself. The kicker came when I saw the groom's Facebook page. Before I go on I need to explain something, a couple of months ago there was a Facebook fad were a lot of people of a certain age changed their profile pictures to that of their favorite Pokemon. This guy's professionally done wedding photo was sitting, more or less, right next to a picture of a fucking Hypno. I don't wish him ill, but I do believe that people need a bit more time to "put away their childish things" so to speak before they can even think about getting married.
A lot of times when it comes to marriage, I want to ask people "why?" I've D.J.'ed a LOT of weddings, and at one when I was having a smoke I overheard the bride gabbing to one of her friends on how she plans on cheating ON THEIR HONEYMOON. I've seen a beide and groom get into a full-on Who's Afraid Of Virgina Woolf with each other before even entering the the reception hall. Like I said..."why?" This isn't like buying a puppy, where you can just put it into a garbage bag and throw it out your car window only to later be kicked in the balls by Gino Foligno, no. Miserable NOW, more miserable later.
Dude, my Dad cheated on my Mom on the Honeymoon, I'm just glad he stuck with the marriage enough for her to beg to have a kid (me). See? Things can work out alright...
Great. I wrote a fucking essay on my thoughts on why marriages do or don't work, and Silverlight blew up Firefox, causing me to lose it all. (But I will say that CTV is doing an awesome job of live-streaming the Olympics). Oh well, the high-points of what I was going to say: -- life-long marriages are a bad concept as the context of marriage has changed -- people live WAY too fucking long, much, much longer than when "life-long" was introduced (15 yrs vs. 40+) -- marriage takes a LOT of work, from both people, to be successful -- people are (generally) too lazy and expect things to be done for them too much -- you have to put in the work to keep the marriage spontaneous and out of a rut -- you have to keep the sex fun, interesting, and spontaneous or it will become boring and go away -- life is generally easier than it was even 50 years ago, couples don't have to work together as much to survive -- a couple that works as a true partnership will feel a closer bond to each other, strengthening the partnership Most importantly, people change as they get older. (If you don't, you might as well eat a gun now). Sometimes these changes cause people to grow closer together, sometimes they grow further apart. This is through no fault of anyone's, it's just how shit works. The failure to recognize this and accept this, and sticking to a "for life" ideal, is the path to disaster. The bitterness and resentment will fester, with no apparent escape, until the entire situation becomes toxic and a nightmare. Who wins? The lawyers. The best headspace about marriage I've seen is from a friend of mine. Every anniversary they review the past year; the good stuff, the bad, their short and long term goals, their relationship, etc. If it was all good, and looks like it still makes sense, they "renew the option" for another year. If not, it's a handshake, maybe a "it's been fun" fuck, and the dissolve the partnership. It's somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but only somewhat. And TV. Biggest time suck ever, with very little ROI. I got rid of my cable 2 years ago, and it was the best thing I've ever done. Sure, I download torrents, and watch the stuff I want (without commercials), but it's a few hours here and there, not 6 hours a night. Too many couples sit and veg in front of the TV "together", but that is a recipe for disaster, in my opinion. Get out, do shit together, interact with each other, and you'll be better off in the long run. My last relationship died because all she wanted to do was watch TV every night and on the weekend. Again, marriage takes work, right from day one. $0.02
Just to clarify my "TV is bad" statement above, I'm not saying ALL TV. There are some shows that are well worth time time to watch together, etc. As was raised in a rep, shows like Deadwood, BSG, Dexter, etc, are the exception rather than the rule. Enjoying them with the better half is quality time, in my opinion. But how often to people sit down in front of the TV, flip through all the channels, find that there's "nothing good on", and still watch that instead of turning the TV off and doing something else? Like everything else (except chocolate), moderation is the key. Personally, I've learned to set the bar higher on what I watch, and if it's shit, I won't watch it. Of course, there are exceptions, as everyone's entitled to have their guilty pleasures. (Yes, I'm looking at you Jersey Shore). Still, my main point stands... I think there's a correlation between number of hours of TV watched and failed/shitty marriages.
Marriage is easy to pick on. I’ve come to realize that excessive cynicism will drag you down, suck the fun out of every situation and prevent you from enjoying the best years of your life. Hope is a powerful attitude that drives people to accomplish great things. I’d much rather hope that I can have a successful marriage than never find out because I was too “smart” to buy into it. That said, the number one reason not to marry is that, no matter how often your wife goes to the gym, she will most likely age much worse than you. You’ll only become more rich and powerful. When that 30-something from your office with the big titties wants to play with you balls, are you going to turn her down so you can go home to your 50 year old wife? That's the question I will ask myself when deciding to get married.
Well, I am married, and though I tend towards cynicism, a lot of blame gets tossed at people getting married too young, or the wrong person. While no doubt these are contributors, the biggest problem with marriage today is that no one is really sure what marriage is anymore. Back when our parents (for old fucks like me) or grandparents got married, the gender roles, like them or not, were very clear. Everyone knew exactly what they were in for. The feminist movement changed this dramatically. I'm not bashing feminism, it's done some great things, but the price to be paid is that marriages are ill-defined. In the old days, mom stayed home, raised the kids, and dad worked. Now, everything in marriage is negotiable - and I'm not advocating that it shouldn't be, but there are so many things now that are not 'givens' that the likelihood of there being significant disagreement about a major issue has skyrocketed. The other issue is, generally speaking, that men date women for who they are NOW, whereas women date men for who they think they will become. Thus, when your wife is different than you were dating, you're like 'wait a minute, this isn't what I bargained for' and when you don't change quickly enough your wife has the same thought. If someone asked me about getting married, my first question would be 'do you want kids?' If they said 'no,' I'd tell them not to bother, there's no upside and lots of downside. If they want kids, I'd still say that there needs to be a whole lot of hard thought about getting into it. In general, from what I've seen with friends and my own experience, it's usually not worth it.
BS take follows: marriage was about locking down that girl, so nobody else is going to fuck her. That obviously is not the case today. It then became about having that person you love being with you for the rest of your life. Until science found out that "love" wears off after 18-24 months and you have a lot of hard work ahead to keep the thing floating. Then it is also about the kids and family. But you don't need to be married to have that, do you? So I hope the world figures this shit out in about 10 years, so by the time I'm 35 I know what the hell the point of marriage actually is (for a guy at least) Here is my take, and yeah it sounds ridiculous but could this work? Have her house, and your house. And once you have seen each other enough, agree to only spend 3-4 days a week together, the rest you go do what you have to do.
So are there any girls out there who are cool with dating indefinitely? I am cool with having kids, and even a ceremony if you want, I just don't want all that shit that supposedly happens after marriage to come the moment we sign on that line.
I've been told by many friends, family and co-workers that I will forever be a bachelor and I agree. I've never been fond of marriage, perhaps my parents divorce at age 8 has something to do with it, so this list confirms those suspicions even if it is from askmen.com. As far as I'm concerned if you're in love and monogamous why do you need a piece of paper to say it? Most everyone my age has the same philosophy as I about marriage. As the divorce rate increases the younger generations see it as a less viable option. Mostly I see it as a way to give up most or all of your freedom. Even being in a monogamous relationship was too much freedom for me to give up so I can't imagine how much more serious a marriage would be. It also doesn't help that I see so many men essentially give up their independence as a man because they got married. A marriage seems like a job with too little pay or an investment with little to no return. Dying "alone" doesn't bother me one bit as long as I get to live the life I want to live doing all the crazy shit I want to do with it.
Sure there are girls out there that are comfortable with it, just like there are guys that are comfortable with it. And there are also a lot of marriages that don't include all the negative shit that people on here are proclaiming like universal facts. Fact is, the bad stuff that happens in marriage (loss of spontaneity, excitement, spark, et al) doesn't happen because the institution of marriage is somehow corroding these relationships. That shit happens in most relationships, it's just a symptom of being with someone for awhile.