Why do Salaries in SV Suck So Much? (San Jose, Santee: best cities, buy)

[mysticaltyger]

Originally Posted by zombocom

On the flip side, when you're married, if both spouses work, your expenses are shared, and you get more bang for your buck - also, married people usually make more money, live longer, etc... And kids, man, someone's going to have to change your diapers!

The part about married people living longer and earning more has been found to be true. Also, those who get married and stay married not only earn more but also become wealthier, on average.

The trick is to have a frugal mindset and frugal habits and to marry someone of like mind. It's also better to focus more heavily on character traits and social skills than beauty/attraction (not saying attraction doesn't matter, but it tends to blind people to the other more mundane but important stuff).

Here is an extremely practical and no-nonsense blog piece on how to pick a wife if you want kids:

How to pick a wife if you want to have kids | Penelope Trunk Blog

For those who don't want kids, then it would seem to be easier, although I don't know if it works out that way in practice. I think most divorces happen because when they got married people had: 1. Unrealistic expectations (too much emphasis on love/passion and not enough on the boring stuff.) 2. Weak social/negotiation skills. 3. Not being strategic in picking the right person (and maybe not even knowing how to do that), which also overlaps with #1 and #2.

[mysticaltyger]

Originally Posted by roadwarrior101

Communal living is cool when you're in your 20s. When you're in your 40s and 50s, ehh, not so much.

^^This^^^.

Like I said, I held out until I was 35, and I'm one of the outliers.

[mysticaltyger]

Originally Posted by bigdumbgod

It's CA. 40s are the new 20s.

Ok, keep telling yourself you're the exception...but just remember if/when you find out you're not, don't complain that nobody told you.

[bigdumbgod]

Originally Posted by mysticaltyger

Ok, keep telling yourself you're the exception...but just remember if/when you find out you're not, don't complain that nobody told you.

You are what you make yourself out to be. Don't need to repeat the same life that's been lived by so many others. Seems a bit monotonous and uninteresting, no?

[nagleepark]

Originally Posted by mysticaltyger

The part about married people living longer and earning more has been found to be true. Also, those who get married and stay married not only earn more but also become wealthier, on average.

The trick is to have a frugal mindset and frugal habits and to marry someone of like mind. It's also better to focus more heavily on character traits and social skills than beauty/attraction (not saying attraction doesn't matter, but it tends to blind people to the other more mundane but important stuff).

Here is an extremely practical and no-nonsense blog piece on how to pick a wife if you want kids:

How to pick a wife if you want to have kids | Penelope Trunk Blog

For those who don't want kids, then it would seem to be easier, although I don't know if it works out that way in practice. I think most divorces happen because when they got married people had: 1. Unrealistic expectations (too much emphasis on love/passion and not enough on the boring stuff.) 2. Weak social/negotiation skills. 3. Not being strategic in picking the right person (and maybe not even knowing how to do that), which also overlaps with #1 and #2.

IMHO, Penelope Trunk is for entertainment purposes only. It's fun to read but she simply doesn't have the background knowledge to provide valuable advice on any topic except perhaps how to write a fun blog.

If you were to ask me, I'd say that it's mostly innate: some people are just the kind of people who divorce and some people are just the kind of people who stay married.

People who are generally agreeable and pleasant (both in public and in private) tend to stay married because, while they may not be happy, the disagreements and unpleasantries don't escalate into divorce.

I agree with expectations except to say that having low and/or few expectations makes the divorce less likely.

Why people marry in the first place is probably even more interesting than why they divorce. So many people seem to marry whomever was available: a first/only girlfriend/boyfriend is a very, very common. For many men, it isn't the choice of Jane or Jill; it's Jane or nothing. Some people never move on from that first relationship, rightly or wrongly.

[mysticaltyger]

Originally Posted by bigdumbgod

You are what you make yourself out to be. Don't need to repeat the same life that's been lived by so many others. Seems a bit monotonous and uninteresting, no?

Um, no. Just because you follow a traditional path on the surface doesn't mean your life can't be interesting.

[mysticaltyger]

Originally Posted by nagleepark

IMHO, Penelope Trunk is for entertainment purposes only. It's fun to read but she simply doesn't have the background knowledge to provide valuable advice on any topic except perhaps how to write a fun blog.

People always dismiss sources when they don't agree with them.

If you were to ask me, I'd say that it's mostly innate: some people are just the kind of people who divorce and some people are just the kind of people who stay married.[/quote]

Nope. Sorry, not buying that at all. If that were true, the U.S. divorce rate wouldn't have skyrocketed from a few generations ago. It also turns out that higher income folks divorce at a much lower rate than lower income folks. I don't think those things are random or innate at all. It also turns out that people whose parents divorced are also much more likely to divorce themselves. It's not random. It follows a pattern.

Amazon.com: unexpected legacy of divorce

Originally Posted by nagleepark

People who are generally agreeable and pleasant (both in public and in private) tend to stay married because, while they may not be happy, the disagreements and unpleasantries don't escalate into divorce.

I agree with expectations except to say that having low and/or few expectations makes the divorce less likely.

Why people marry in the first place is probably even more interesting than why they divorce. So many people seem to marry whomever was available: a first/only girlfriend/boyfriend is a very, very common. For many men, it isn't the choice of Jane or Jill; it's Jane or nothing. Some people never move on from that first relationship, rightly or wrongly.

I somewhat agree on these points. I think some of our differences are just semantics. What I call "social skills" you call "being pleasant".

I think the bottom line is most people are really bad at picking someone for themselves, especially when they are in their 20s. That's why many cultures have traditionally had arranged marriages....because they recognized it was unrealistic for people in their 20s to pick the right person for themselves the first time. There was a very good interview with author Elizabeth Gilbert on this subject. She researched marriage for one of her books and discovered that the divorce rates begin to rise as soon as a culture of romantic love supplants the culture of arranged marriage/commitment. I think romantic love actually makes people many people like bigdumbgod cynical and afraid of marriage. It sets the expectations way too high, especially when people see their parents getting divorced, etc...then they start to see marriage as a bad thing.

I am not putting myself up on a pedestal here. I have a lot of these same commitment issues, and have worked through some of the fear...but it is a process. But I don't make excuses for my fear of commitment any more. (i.e. my life will be boring if I am in a committed relationship, etc.)

'Eat, Pray, Love' author tackles marriage - CNN.com

[bigdumbgod]

Originally Posted by mysticaltyger

But I don't make excuses for my fear of commitment any more. (i.e. my life will be boring if I am in a committed relationship, etc.)

Not excuses - 'settling down' is done at the expense of spontaneity, which is in itself, excitement. Thus, people want more boring through marriage, especially (back to the OT) when they have virtually no energy left at the end of their endless workday/week to give to a relationship or family, since all they can do is make ends meet. Which is the paradox: If you have nothing left at the end of the day, why get hitched and breed, anyway? Must be the $$$ incentives, keeping up with the Joneses...

Will agree with the general sentiment that younger people don't put a heck of a lot of thought into their pairings. Then again, going the other route and fully replacing romance with pure pragmatism is a study in everlasting soul-sucking misery. Many examples of this exist in SV, in which people are really only trying to please someone other than themselves.

[nagleepark]

Hmm.

[bigdumbgod]

Originally Posted by nagleepark

Hmm.

This is getting deep. Need a beer.