A quick update before I start: The Blowjob Fail blew over (lol) pretty quickly. It was just bad timing on both our parts, and it’s something I’ll have to work on. I have a tendency to be way too hard on myself when I fail at something, particularly if it’s something I feel to be an embarrassing character flaw, or if I feel that I’ve disappointed someone I love. I’m a people pleaser to a fault, particularly towards my Captain lately.

On to the topic at hand…

There’s been some talk around the ‘sphere lately about the state of Marriage and whether or not it’s worth it. I, of course, think marriage is a necessity when it comes to the raising of children, and I think it’s pretty darn awesome to have the same sexual partner that knows the ins and outs of every intimate part of your body and mind, but others have a bleaker view.

Mentu posted a comment over on The University of Man that I’ve had stuck in my head for days. I do agree that the outlook for marriage is rather bleak, and I was nodding my head up to a point, but the below comment smacks of Male Hamster to me. We all know the Female Rationalization Hamster has a bad habit of changing relationship history when it’s not haaaaaappy. “I was never happy with you! I’ve been miserable for years!” Keep that in mind while reading this:

And I say there is a better way for a man to spend his life than as a father and as a husband. That fatherhood role may be beneficial to greater society but it is a perfect waste of a life for a man. I say this as someone that has been married for 17 years and has two kids. That husband/father role was about 10 years of my 57 years. There are some significant memories I had from that time. But there are other memories from before and after that are just as significant to me as those from that father/husband time.

Really? You have children, but there are memories from before and after that compare to that? If you live in a shitty marriage, I can understand writing that off, but the part about the children, really? It’s so hard for me to believe this when I see how ridiculously happy our children make my Captain, and other men I know as well. The only men I know that think the same way as the commenter above are, frankly, shitty fathers. Sorry, it’s just my observation. It’s not the fault of The Matrix. It’s a personality flaw. And you know what, some people just aren’t made to be parents. But they are not representative of the whole. I find it interesting that this guy says something obviously hamstery, and the darker part of the Manosphere latches on to it as an example to be followed by all. It makes me chuckle.

Dalrock’s post “Debasing Marriage” spoke a little more to me. He makes a ton of valid points, and the debasing metaphor is a solid one. I’m very thankful for the internal timer that told me “HEY LADY, GET WITH THE MARRIAGE AND KIDS ALREADY” when I was about 22 years old. I listened to it instead of listening to society, even though I did waste couple thousand on some rather pointlessly expensive college classes. I don’t completely regret taking them, knowledge for the sake of knowledge is a wonderful thing, but I do regret the pricetag. More on that later. But I can see myself in Dalrock’s post, and it makes me so thankful that I didn’t go down that road. If I were so driven by the desire to “make it” in the corporate world, I would have told my future Captain “Sorry, I’d like to get married, but 23 is way too young. I have a life to live!” and where would I be today? Likely miserable. I must remind myself of this when I start lamenting my lack of corporate career. It would have been a snowball down the road to unhappiness for me.

3rd Millenium Men had a wonderful 2 part series titled “The Importance of Marriage (And Why Substitutes Don’t Work!)”. It delves into the lack of stable marriage being harmful to children, how Long Term Relationships (LTRs) aren’t “mini-marriages”, and how cohabitation before marriage is statistically harmful. The Captain and I didn’t live together before we married (hell, we didn’t even live together for a few months AFTER we married, due to the logistics), and I think it was a plus. I feel like when we finally did move in, it felt like more of a commitment. It had a certain finality to it. This is where I belong, this is where I’ll be forever. No hesitation, just jumping in headlong because the Big Commitment had already been made.

I also wonder about the general dark view of women on the Manosphere. It sort of seems like there are some bloggers that constantly lament the lack of good women, but they spend most of their time in bars picking up the type of women who want to be picked up. When your only examples are those that ride the Carousel, you start to feel like that’s all that is there. Granted, there is A LOT of that happening, but there are normal women out there to be found, with slightly tamer hamsters. I wonder how much of this skews notions of modern women. Just a thought rattling around in my brain.