How Do You Explain Successful Marriages?

manzone22 · 2015-11-06T06:10:33+00:00

If we're talking about couples that have been married for a long time, we're also talking about different generations with different viewpoints and values. If you look at those those couples, I'd bet they'd tend to be more conservative, with the women viewing divorce as something to be avoided, a sign of failure, rather than a shot at cash and prizes.

PM_ME_YOUR_GAY_DICKS · 2015-11-06T08:48:26+00:00

The woman breaks the man until he believes he's happy.

RecQuery · 2015-11-06T08:09:50+00:00

Every man I know in a long term marriage seems like a shadow of what he should be. He's caved and compromised until there's nothing left.

There's also things like social pressure and societal expectations to consider.

squidracer · 2015-11-06T05:39:04+00:00

My parents have been married 38 years. Both came from two parent conservative households.. They are also active in the church and spend their time with like minded couples

q2x · 2015-11-06T06:09:39+00:00

I can only speculate, but my guess would be that the cost:benefit analysis of remaining married outweighed the cost:benefit analysis of divorce for both parties, throughout the duration of their relationship.

Barbarossa has a video you might enjoy, Traditional Relationships...nothing but business and a bottom line. [30 minutes]

thrownaway_MGTOW · 2015-11-06T07:04:05+00:00

Even so, it's also not that hard to find long-time married couples, many of which seem happy.

Key word there in many of those "many" cases is that they "seem" to be "happy" -- that is based on a fairly fleeing observation of superficial characteristics.

How do you guys explain this?

How many of those long-time married couples that you are citing are actually people who grew up and got married in a totally different era?

The divorce rates are significantly different for the different generations: the "silent generation" types got divorced at fairly low rates, the first half of the "baby boom" got divorced at a somewhat higher rate, and the second half of the baby boom (sometimes called "generation jones") got divorced at an even higher rate) -- though it's noteworthy that (at least in recent decades, during & well into the "no fault divorce" era) the divorce rates in all three groups go down as they get older.

Data on Generation X and Millennials is a bit fuzzier, since far fewer of them actually get married to begin with -- but I can tell you that anecdotally (from GenX classmates & friends & relatives I know), I would not be at all surprised to find that the overall divorce rate for GenX, while apparently lower (at least in terms of formal divorce per 1,000 people) will in the end eventually be far higher than for the Baby Boom... especially if cohabit-breakups are included as "quasi-divorces".

And most likely Millennials will be even more so.

The thing is that with younger generations, well it's still too early to tell -- I have friends who I (and everyone else) thought were "happily married" and long term (as in they'd weathered several life-storms together, hit their 20th wedding anniversary, been together even longer, etc.) -- only to a few years later have it all fall apart, and moreover revealing that it already had been an artificial/superficial "facade" they had maintained (for one reason or another) for the last decade or more of the marriage (IOW about half their "happily married life" was a fraud, a sham, a "show").

And the thing is that there will ALWAYS be a few exceptions -- exceptional people who find (and perhaps more correctly, in a different era found) exceptional partners who then worked very hard at building & maintaining a solid life together.

But that doesn't alter the reality of the way the system is (currently) inherently biased towards, even incentivizes, instability -- and the experiences of those born in the past is simply not applicable to those who are forming relationships in the present.

AmlanceJockey · 2015-11-06T16:25:47+00:00

I can tell you what people who have been married a long time have told me.

Married 57 years: he said he compromised on everything.

Married 10 years: we put on a good face. (Meaning that behind the scenes it doesn't work)

Married 19 years & 20 years: in every relationship one person is going to pull 80% of the load or more. Also: a wife must be chrished. Also: duty, honor and commitment. (He's miserable)

LongtimeRPLurker · 2015-11-06T09:32:39+00:00

I believe in r/K theory, which means there are K-selected people who prefer monogamy and raising their children in a healthy way. I think marriage between two K-selected people is healthy and a good thing. However, I do not believe there are many K-selected people around anymore. We live in an r-selected society. It's all about sex and imediate gradification.

scubar · 2015-11-06T14:53:01+00:00

The same way you explain a misfire while playing russian roulette.

2015-11-06T07:39:55+00:00

some people actually have integrity and they actively work towards having a successful relationship / marriage

they see it as a goal, rather than a reward

Volentimeh · 2015-11-06T13:41:24+00:00

Women, or at least, some percentage of women, can be taught/reared/socially pressured into some kind of functional marriage. You're still seeing holdouts from back when there was teaching/social pressure, my parents who have been married over 50 years are an example.

I doubt we shall see may similar examples in the future.

HerbivoreUSA · 2015-11-06T15:06:28+00:00

Your question is a perfect example of the conflict of visions between us, the constrained MGTOW/TRP, and the mainstream unconstrained BP view. That is, the mainstream would turn your question on its head and ask instead "How do you explain unsuccessful marriages?". They (mistakenly) believe that a successful marriage is the natural state of things and thus require no explanation.

From a MGTOW/TRP perspective, the failings and shortcomings of man and woman in a marriage can be overcome with a barrage of constraints from evolved traditions (ex: church, societal norms, sexual mores, family values). Thus, a successful marriage is not really a product of any one particular individual's actions, but of societal incentives and constraints on relationships inside and outside marriages.

mgtow4ever · 2015-11-06T06:06:08+00:00

Don't have to.

Smitty6 · 2015-11-06T12:04:51+00:00

Different values than the people today. Back then you were shamed if you left your partner or got divorced. I still think some of them can make it today but it requires a lot. Requires a deep appreciation for the couple between each other. Gratitude that they are together.

itgscv1 · 2015-11-06T13:56:37+00:00

How common are they? There will always be outliers or a minority, that in no way takes away from the general idea. If we are looking at long time married couples, then we are looking at a generation that got married in very different circumstances.

FieldsofBlue · 2015-11-06T17:51:47+00:00

The only people my age who are married have only been married for a few years, so I really don't know how to evaluate that question.

YoChing · 2015-11-06T18:39:27+00:00

i have a friend really happily married, loves his kids, picked a solid wife. it happens. it's about as common as finding people who love their job and really succeed doing what they love. that happens too, but it's rare. marriage isn't for everybody, but that doesn't mean it's wrong or right. just one way of doing reality. for some its the right way. I respect them and their choice. But I don't want it or envy it.

Teflon0819 · 2015-11-07T01:45:12+00:00

There are a lot of men out there who will compromise every single principal of self-respect that they have to keep a marriage together.

Bill Burr had some good insight regarding how this works:

https://youtu.be/PfCo2aIaO4E?t=63

jesterace · 2015-11-06T12:30:16+00:00

"Cheaper to keep her."

Paul Proteus explains the concept of 'buy-in/buy-out'

Morranaii · 2015-11-06T12:07:00+00:00

they don't exist.

MrJugsMcBulge · 2015-11-07T02:01:53+00:00

A 'successful' marriage is like a 'successful' socialist government: Just because it hasn't failed or gone bad yet doesn't change the fact that it inevitably will.

Title	How Do You Explain Successful Marriages?
Author	OldRoad
Upvotes	7
Comments	31
Date	November 6, 2015 5:03 AM UTC (10 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MGTOW
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MGTOW/comments/3rq6w4/how_do_you_explain_successful_marriages/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MGTOW/how-do-you-explain-successful-marriages.640434 https://theredarchive.com/post/640434

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