It’s been a busy week and I’ve found myself stressed at the end of the day and not much inclined to writing blog posts. But tonight I’ve been a bit inspired by Dalrock and his commenters. He asks people to share their happy marriage stories. I was going to do it in the thread with everyone else, but I just feel like I have more to say than that.

The first thing that really hit me was in the original post:

Every night I put our son to bed;  no matter what is going on he always makes me laugh.  Actually I make him laugh first by tickling him and he makes me laugh by being so contagious with his wide mouthed grin.

There are an awful lot of men in the manosphere who don’t have children. Some of them are betas or omegas who never had the chance. Some of them are PUAs who refuse to settle down. Some of them are MGTOWs who have consciously chosen to stay away from it. And some of them just haven’t gotten to it yet.

To all of those who have consciously chosen not to do so I just have to say that you’re missing out on one of the most amazing experiences you can possibly have. Yes, it’s cliche to say it. Yes, it’s a hell of a lot of work. Yes, children will “put a crimp on your style” (but nowhere near as much as you might think). Yes, it’ll cost you money (but again, you don’t have to spend anywhere near as much as people will make you think).

But then you have the moments like Dalrock describes, and they more than make up for it. There’s just no way to explain it to somebody who hasn’t felt it. If my marriage went to shit tomorrow and my wife took me to the cleaners I’d be pretty pissed, sure, and more than a little depressed. And I’d still consider it worthwhile every time I looked at the little guy. The conventional wisdom of our age is that pregnancy and/or wanting to have kids is a terrible reason to get married. I disagree. I think having children is the best reason to get married.

I can only imagine how much more excitement the new little one that’s on the way will bring.

I was also struck by this comment that Paige left.

My marriage has had a lot of hills and valleys. The valleys include: extreme poverty, job loss, homelessness, many cross-country moves to find jobs, cancer and chemotherapy, debilitating back injury and subsequent surgeries, frequent unexpected pregnancies, giving birth (twice) with husband overseas, homelessness, war, PTSD, trouble-making family members, drug-addiction (to subscribed pain meds), severe depression, bankruptcy, etc etc etc.

My own marriage hasn’t been perfect. Anybody who’s read this blog for any length of time knows that – if it had been perfect, this blog wouldn’t exist. But here are some things that have happened in the last two years that I haven’t talked about much on this blog:

  • I got laid off.
  • Our house got foreclosed on.
  • I had to sell my sports car to pay the bills.
  • I had to accept money from my parents to pay the bills.
  • Despite all of the above, we’ve had a couple of weeks when I wasn’t sure we had the money for groceries.
  • We moved twice within a 6 month span, both times more because we had to than because we wanted to.
Through all of this, my wife has had to watch all of the other undergrads (including some of her family) collecting nice clothes, nice phones, iPads, video game systems and more that we simply can’t afford right now. It hasn’t been easy for either one of us, but there’s no doubt that all of this has played hell with the typical female hypergamous instincts.
Yet despite all of this we’re generally closer and happier now than we were a year ago. This is not our first bout with adversity. Before we were married we watched her family implode all around her, leaving a wake of destruction that almost destroyed my career along with the wreckage. That, too, only brought us closer.
Now that we’re getting our feet under us again things are continuing to get better. Things are going pretty well at my new job, and as soon as a few contract issues are sorted out (between my company and others), our income will be higher than ever. It’s been a long and rocky road, but we made it together.
The irony is that after learning Game I probably could “trade up” for a younger and hotter wife. I’d even say that I’ve had a couple of opportunities to do so. Well, one at least who was younger and hotter. Another who was younger and significantly less hot. But would they have stayed with me through everything listed above? Or would they have bailed like most modern American women would? I picked a woman who would stay through it, and I’d choose her again. You might say that I do choose her again every day.
I don’t go around trumpeting it to everybody I know, but yes, I have a happy marriage.