“Happy Marriage” The only people I know who are happily married drink alcohol every night. They avoid any type of meaningful conversations and just want to escape. Am I just around the wrong people or is this the only way to sustain a long term relationship?

Namedoesntmatter89 · 2023-03-18T02:45:05+00:00

I have been married before and it wasnt happy. I am now with another woman and we have a daughter together. I think we are happy.

First marriage:

Her family was rich, i was not. Lol. Her and i werent a good match. I dont think i was really viewed as an equal. I worked a job i hated and started moving towards a career better suited for me ( and she didnt support this) We didnt last...

2nd marriage

Poor family. Good match. And our values match up well. We share our $ freely.
We dont compete with each other. We work as a team for shared goals. Working a job i like, making less $, but i was happier and more in control and had firmer goals. As a result im flourishing in my career and able to handle it well. We see eye to eye and she wants me to be in control. And yes, we both are happy, have our own hobbies, but share with each other.

I guess all i can say is, stay the fuck away from women whose values make you feel unsure.

If someone youre with doesnt want to resolve issues, or doesnt genuinely seem to care about your well-being much (over the long term) resolve them by 1. Believing that those signals are real and 2. Making sure you slowly move towards leaving the relationship.

You cant fix one sided. There are better women out there.

Unnecessary_Timeline · 2023-03-18T02:50:02+00:00

The only happily married people I know are retired people who diligently funded their retirement accounts and now don’t have to work. They’re by no means rich but they know exactly what’ll come in every month and it’s enough that they don’t have to work.

Finding a way out of being a mandatory piece in the economic machine seems to do wonders for every social relationship a person has. Romantic, familial, friends.

Too bad most of us born after 1975ish will never get to retire.

goodmod · 2023-03-18T00:43:35+00:00

You're around the wrong people. I know many couples who have been married for 30 years or more.

phoenician_anarchist · 2023-03-18T04:35:12+00:00

If they have to turn to substance abuse, I would be hesitant to refer to them as "happy".

jjj2576 · 2023-03-18T01:07:41+00:00

It sounds like you hang out with a lot of heavy drinkers, which I can’t really say is an actual Men’s Rights Issue.

TriRC · 2023-03-18T06:43:46+00:00

My wife and I have been married since 1995. 3 kids since then, youngest is now 18 and out of the house leaving just the two of us at home now. We occasionally socially drink but it is way more the exception than the rule. We talk and have good discussions often. Personally I think one of the keys to our marriage having been so good for so long is we both understand and feed the core needs of the other in the reality that is vs the reality some wish existed. She has always kept herself up well physically speaking, including well enough to have completed in NPC bikini well into her 40’s and she treats me respectfully. Basically meeting my visual needs and the need to be respected. On my end I’ve never demanded she work allowing her to follow her passions no matter if that be focused on our kids when they were young, or some new hobby she takes an interest in. I’ve also tried hard to make her feel safe by taking care of myself physically and doing what I can to ensure we stay financially stable along with making sure she knows she is loved. I am turning 50 this year and she is right on my heels at 49.

We have definitely had our struggles here and there but they are always short lived and I attribute that to overall consistency in the things I mentioned above. If I was asked for the single most important piece of advice I could give to another married man if I could only give one to him, I’d say if you want your marriage to last don’t live in fear of your wife or how she could financially ruin you if she leaves you. When you live that way the natural order of things gets out of whack and no one ends up having their core needs met and it’s just a matter of time until it falls apart. I have seen it many times in marriages of friends and family and I bet if you think about it you have too.

stellfox-x · 2023-03-18T08:47:43+00:00

Its so easy to slip into it, you work every day, mind kids, exhausted then 8pm kids in bed time to sit on the sofa and watch tv with a glass (bottle) of wine.

What people never mention is the tv, the on demand watch anything anytime has completeley normalised sitting on your arse 3hrs every evening. You might as well get drunk.

Been there, especially easy to do in a long northern hemisphere winter. You have to find something better to do.

BlockBadger · 2023-03-18T10:20:49+00:00

I know a bunch of people who are in long term relationships, some are very happy, others just making it through. Most don’t brake single units of alcohol a month, if they even drink.

I don’t know a single single person who is happy though, they all feel left behind.

I don’t know a single alcoholic who is happy. But then I keep away from such people as a general rule.

Scarce12 · 2023-03-18T06:03:39+00:00

The Gottman Institute has done a lot of research into it.

Warran Farrell has kept an interest on this too.

Feminism took a big split away from the relationship counselling movement during second wave feminism, due to radical feminism's involvement, and that split remains.

They are still silently at odds with each other today.

There are some things they agree on, like re-distribution of domestic work.

Then there are some things they fundamentally disagree upon, like the role of sex in society.

Maxi-Spade · 2023-03-18T06:42:41+00:00

This is a happy couple 💑 They made a lot of happy moments together, and they are still together. Most people want that.

https://youtube.com/shorts/xnPg8mtdAEs?feature=share

pinkpixiepickle · 2023-03-18T11:48:39+00:00

I think with marriage, over time people lose the physical affection that they had in the first 5 years of their relationship and that definetly has an impact.

It doesn't have to be sex, but I think it's important to always kiss and gice your partner cuddles before you sleep. (obviously changing to fit the relationship, but keeping the physical affection is important)

and dates! don't stop dates just because you've been togetehr for decades, a date every fortnite is enough, doesn't even ahev to cost anything. Going to a park, having a picnic or even watching a movie at home.

Frongly · 2023-03-18T03:38:56+00:00

This is a really depressing way to look at the world not going to lie.

Hornydaddy696 · 2023-03-18T06:48:40+00:00

Wow that's just not something to ask out loud like that

Long term relationships are built on a few things that not many people are aware of-

Common understanding Understand what you both want
Iterations as you move forward Don't make it very formal but when things change, make room for new adjustments
Red flags I know you'll not know everything about your partner (people are good at hiding things until the end), but group things into tolerable and intolerable.

Intolerable would be a red flag if and only if you're not being superficial.

For ex: Ending things because of sexual history - sure, there's strong sense of identity involved. By all means.

But, ending things because someone grew a mole on their chin? Not fair.

And there's so much more.

The idea is strong foundation that evolves over time. Sometimes people grow apart because one partner evolves more than the other or they both evolve in different directions. To that I'll instead adopt Andrew Tate analogy. Imagine that you two are one and the external environment is a matrix. Information you're bombarded with is the matrix trying to split you into two. If you grow together, the matrix can't affect you.

And for the record, it's not one matrix. It's multiple matrices, that's why no one ever figured it out.

Be yourself when trying to pursue someone for long term relationship.

Things do change in relationship after marriage. I'm still learning and I would really appreciate those that are trying to make me understand all this now but I still think you can succeed in a long term relationship. I can be wrong in this one. I will have to give it to people with experience.

Stand_kicker · 2023-03-18T09:53:15+00:00

Around wrong people

Extra-Strike2276 · 2023-03-18T10:33:17+00:00

My wife and I don't drink and are happy after 20 years. I think the last time was a few years ago, and it's been nearly 18 since we did any drugs like weed. Granted we weren't always as good as it we are now, but like most long term relationships you grow into them or out after a few years.

pearl_harbour1941 · 2023-03-18T18:47:10+00:00

Like others have pointed out, nature has a "honeymoon" period of around 7 years, after which time the happy hormones wear off.

Talking to older couples, you find that there ARE secrets to a long marriage, and some of them include not trying to correct your partner's mistakes. One man in his 80s was asked the secret to his happy marriage, only to tell the reporter that it wasn't all happy, they had had difficult patches, one of which was 10 years long that they hated each other.

Can you even imagine that being possible now? Living with a person you hate for 10 years, sleeping in the same bed, etc.? No. The man is going to end up in jail.

I was in an abusive marriage. I changed, she didn't, I got out. Ain't no way I was going to put up with enhanced shit from her for another 10 years.

Ferbuggity · 2023-03-18T23:32:29+00:00

Am I just around the wrong people

I dunno about "wrong" but certainly you're around people who don't know how to have a happy relationship. It doesn't just happen by magic or nature. it takes work and compromise. It's a skill to be learned.

I was in a happy relationship for over a decade, he was my best friend as well as bf, eventually husband. We shared a lot of interests, music, art, books... so never ran out of things to discuss or places to go but also had our own stuff we liked... and didn't feel we had to agree on everything, so had some pretty heated debates as well.

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