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As if it's part of our duty as a human beings (specially female humans) to be available as some sort of product to buyers in need of said product. It's not my job as a woman to make a man's life better by marrying him (the reverse is also true).
As for your breezy comment, "there's always the option of divorce": I have too many words to say about that other than divorcing isn't as easy as returning a shirt that didn't fit or didn't appear in person as it was shown in the online pics to Amazon.
Yeah, it's got to be for the benefit of both parties. It doesn't sit right with me. I don't like the idea of me being happy in a marriage while my wife is miserable or vice versa. I'd rather stay single.
However, it might not be far from the truth. I think as years go by, it will be close to it.
Quote:
"I have students who have had sex many times drunk but have never held someone's hand," says Occidental University sociologist Lisa Wade.
In her book, American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on Campus, Lisa catalogs the rules of hookup culture.
"One of the saddest realizations for me when I was writing the book was just how powerfully hookup culture has convinced students that they should be embarrassed for having feelings, and feel weak for wanting connection."
And the have-nots, the growing percentage that hasn't had sex, probably would also have some discomfort at the thought of a close, long-term relationship.
I think there's another factor, one that is hard to blame on feminism, the increasing ease of communicating with mom. If mom and daughter are awake, they can communicate from almost anywhere. Why wait to open up to a husband late in the day?
Yeah, it's got to be for the benefit of both parties. It doesn't sit right with me. I don't like the idea of me being happy in a marriage while my wife is miserable or vice versa. I'd rather stay single.
Who disagrees?
People are quick to read things and make negative conclusions, e.g., divorce as not a big deal, women as existing for men's pleasure. There's a lot of distrust of men.
I can respect and get much more from that post than someone trying to bait me with accusations of for example that I'm telling people how they think.
Happily single people have lots of experience with being told how they think.
I'm all for challenging inaccurate information, but not so that the prevailing opinion can be used as justification to browbeat people. Being pro-marriage is fine, as long as that doesn't include harassing people who prefer to be single.
Some people are generally happy whether they are in a relationship or alone. Others are just miserable no matter what. If you aren't happy alone, it isn't reasonable to expect another person is going to make you happy. Seems to me studies on happiness can be manipulated to show about anything a person is trying to prove.
Seems like the the OP is unhappy so he's looking for resources to validate that women must be unhappy as well.
First of all, everyone knows that people are happiest in good relationships - but that doesn't mean much, because many marriages aren't happy.
Some studies say single women are happier (and healthier) than married women - but that deserves more examination. The research focuses on middle-aged women. Health problems often start in middle age, and many studies show happiness for both sexes declines in middle age.
Also, anxious women (who often are less happy) are more likely to marry than less anxious women. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17270393 Anxious women seem to have, or develop, more health problems too. Anxious men probably are less likely to marry than other men - but I don't know if I saw data about that.
Then there's the truism that singles who are trying and failing to enter into relationships are less happy than singles who aren't trying, and middle age is when many single women stop putting much effort into coupling up.
Are you swayed at all by my argument? Do you have any other explanations? This is about small differences in happiness, but it does matter if people decide to stay single based on false information. The million-dollar question that research probably can't answer: how does a mediocre marriage affect happiness?
...there are both sides of the issue. I happen to be divorced and supremely happy being single again. Some might not be. Why does it matter to you?
And the have-nots, the growing percentage that hasn't had sex, probably would also have some discomfort at the thought of a close, long-term relationship.
I think there's another factor, one that is hard to blame on feminism, the increasing ease of communicating with mom. If mom and daughter are awake, they can communicate from almost anywhere. Why wait to open up to a husband late in the day?
The women I know who are immersed in hookup culture would not mind having a good relationship, it's just really hard for them to find. One of them, I'm thinking of, would love to but no one can really handle everything that she is. She's 26, has traveled the world, has an advanced degree, and loves serious adventures. Fast motorcycles, martial arts, cigars and scotch. She isn't down for the guys she is meeting that she just cannot respect, for anything more than a bit of fun...but she gets bored with them fast. I don't blame her! And they get all excited because she's talking to them, because she is gorgeous, but there is no way any of these dudes she tells me about could appeal to her for a real relationship. Even the older ones, wind up being basically submissive to her or intimidated by her in pretty short order.
But she's not miserable as a single woman. She has a good time, lives her life, pursues her goals. I see no reason she should work to fit herself into a mold of something and someone she is not, make herself smaller so that a man can be more comfortable or assertive with her. If he doesn't have the mojo to bring to the table, then he doesn't.
Another is a traveling musician. She never stays in one place for more than a few months. So unless they are on the road with her, doing the Renaissance Faire circuit and so on, then they will be left behind. She wrote a song about it called "Leaver." And her life is such that she won't be impressed with boring guys, either.
But yanno, it's like...case studies, anecdotes, when placed against "statistics" trying to prove something bigger... But everybody's got a story. Their own life story to write as they see fit. I just don't see the merit in telling people that there is a singular right way to live and if they don't conform to it, they are cheating somebody else. Why is a man's happily ever after more valid than the happy lives of these women?
As for being able to talk to Mom, that's hilarious. You know, I have one of those Moms who is the "best friend" type. I have lots of phone conversations with her, and always have. We're not close in all ways, but we're close in that way. And there are things I told her that I would not in a million years have told my ex husband. But there were also damn good reasons I didn't want to open up to him. My boyfriend now, though? I am always looking to share every bit of my day, my thoughts and feelings, everything with him. He's willing to hear me without struggling to make everything about himself in some way, and he won't ever weaponize my words against me like my ex was forever apt to do. A good partner need not worry about their wife going distant with them and instead telling all to her Mom. That is a symptom of issues in the connection between husband and wife, in my opinion.
The real question here is why does the OP need this type of validation? I don't understand why some individuals feel the need to use other people to back up their claims. Relationships are very personal and the only generalities you can make about them is that: Most people partake in them, they all have positives and negatives, etc. And that is where the similarities stop for the most part. Underneath the surface they are WAY more complex than the OP will acknowledge.
Which brings me to another point, as much as he says he doesn't have an agenda, then what was the point of presenting this argument? He seems to be troubled by his belief that everyone thinks one way against marriage, and is trying to sway them to think another way. Which makes no sense because if the problem is too many people are thinking a certain way, why try to sway them all to another type of hivemind? That completely defeats the purpose. Why not encourage variety in thinking and belief systems?
I think the whole concept behind these types of threads, is that the individuals who create them start to worry when they meet a lot of people who don't share their same views. They start to assume that if that particular belief spreads to other people, that individual will be left all alone with no one to support them. To me if you truly believe in something STAND in it, by YOURSELF. Live your truth the way you see it, and leave everyone else out of it. If no one wants to stand with you, you don't need them.
As skeptical as I am about many true singles (not in relationships or altogether celibate) being happy, I haven't browbeaten anyone in this thread.
Agenda? I'd like to counter the false belief that marriage is bad for women and maybe sway a few of the many people who are ambivalent.
Re the false belief, I was right that there has been at least one study that involves health and middle-aged women. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/b...are-healthiest
It's more scientific than I thought, but still it seems to be making a big deal of minor differences and the columnist writing about the research is the same pro-singlehood woman I mentioned earlier.
People are quick to read things and make negative conclusions, e.g., divorce as not a big deal, women as existing for men's pleasure. There's a lot of distrust of men.
Whoa!
Okay,
Not meant as a disagreement with you, I was just commenting on the part of the post that stuck out to me, hence the bolding of it.
Interesting discussion.
And I understand you with the quickness to negative conclusions. There's a lot of that everywhere. It's exhausting.
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