So Yours Truly has a birthday coming up which is another reminder that I’m one more year closer to my ultimate demise. It’s also yet another reminder that I’m getting older while remaining single. Inevitably someone always has to ask, “Yo CvM, when are you going to take the plunge?” to which I reply, “When I can find a credible counterparty.” Unlike most single females in my age range, I don’t have a fear of becoming a spinster or old maid.
This post is aimed at those married family men of the forum. Is marriage all it’s cracked up to be? Does it really lead to greater happiness in your life? Spill the beans. (Not cynical at all, I am honestly interested)
Maybe I’ll have to enroll in some online dating gig to find more credible chicks. However, I’m a bit short on this idea. Match says 1 out of 5 relationships now start online (http://cp.match.com/cppp/media/CMB_Study.pdf). Whooptie doo, that means 4 out of 5 relationships start OFFLINE. In the past I took my chances while out and about having a good time. But many I’ve met in that realm are shallow without deep density.
Anyways, some deeps thoughts from the AF brotha. Let’s hear some straight troof!
And Iter, I don’t want to hear the typical, “Perfect 10 who has a big rack and trust fund, father at GS, mother at MS, Top 2 MBA and went 3/3 on the CFA exams who is now M’n’A’in on the Buyside at Blackstone or withdraw the hacksaw and get to work.”
I’ve been married for a while now. I dig it. I know other guys my age where it hasn’t worked out so well. Just depends. If you find the right woman, it can be pretty awesome.
I had two former colleagues (just turned 30 and thinking it was time to settle down) and they decided to use match.com. I think they both went on numerous dates and both are now engaged (both within 2 years). I have a feeling the women you meet on said sites truly are looking to settle down and may misrepresent their true personality. Then again, the same came occur in “real” life too so good luck.
I should also add that my goal in life is to maximize my happiness. So far I feel I’m doing well at that. I’m interested if the societal pressure for marriage=happiness is true.
And to the young pups reading my drivel, SS ER in NYC making ~$100k a year is not happiness. Do the work that facinates you and the money will arrive.
Here’s the deal MBAvCFA. Your questions is overly simplistic. You really think for a second you can get any worthwhile feedback on something as individualistic and deeply personal as the worthiness of marriage? I mean, you really think you can take the completely diverse range of experiences and circumstances and just apply an average and extrapolate that onto yourself with any forecast accuracy or meaningful interpretation? That’s poor analytics.
If you really have to ask the question, save everyone the trouble and don’t get married. Doesn’t seem like you’re in the right mindset. And getting married for the sole purpose of getting married without consideration to the individual isn’t really the way to go about it. Anyhow, if you’re still trying to maximize your happiness, you will fail miserably at marriage and it is definitely not the counterparty that’s the problem. Any successfull, happy marriage is based on thinking of someone else first.
Well, I have been married for about 3 years now, so maybe this makes me a “veteran” in this topic.
There are definitely pros and cons. The biggest downside for me has been sacrifice of professional ambitions. For instance, it would be quite complicated for me to go to business school, or to get a job in a different city, as this would require my spouse to also find a new job. To be fair, things are going ok for me career wise. However, professional choices would probably have been a bit different if I single.
The second thing is that marriage makes you locked in to a single partner for a very long time. Having knowledge of statistics, I don’t believe in such fallacies as “true love”. What really happens is you meet and get married to someone in the 99.5% percentile of compatability. But then… what happens after you are married and meet someone in the 99.9% percentile? Too bad - your life choice has been locked in.
As for benefits - the most obvious one is that you get a life companion who is always around. Supposedly, they will take care of you when you are unemployed, sick or otherwise impaired. In general, this is good for your emotional health. Married people in general live longer and have healthier lives than single people. You also save a lot of money. In addition to sharing costs like housing, being married tend to put you in “wealth accumulation mode”. You spend less money on status things like sports cars, which are meant in some way or another to attract a mate of the same species.
How did I know that my man BS would throw a darted response. I’m just asking for my own personal curiosity. Your assumption that I’m going to input said replies in my multiple regression predictive model to extrapolate a yes or no answer is wrong.
Facts
Divorce Rate is High
The marriage sensation is jammed down our throats daily.
Even gay people are arguing marriage will make them happy.
A recent study found couples have more spouses than kids these days.
and so forth.
Rather than submit my question to the bimbo non top 2 MBA and 3/3 CFA columnist at Cosmo, I’d rather hear experiences from rational prudent professionals found on AF. That’s all.
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In any case, how are things with your kayak girl? I see your Penguins are not doing so hot but they can redeem themselves tonight. I was going nuts watching my Blackhawks win last week. Redwings can eat squid, word.
^I toned down my response apparently as you were quoting it. Decided I came back with a bit of Monday visciousness. I’ve since switched targets with regards to the kayak girl with another (better) option. That situation seems to have worked out peacefully. Penguins got killed, will be hoping for better. Would like to see Chicago / Pens final.
I thought we had an excellent discussion on marriage in one of our long previous threads. I think it was around the time we debated diamonds, maybe even the same thread actually.
CvM, it seems like you caught the “don’t want to die alone” symptom.
I also think getting married for the sole purpose of getting married is disastrous. It must be about the other person and the fact that you want them around for 50+ years, it must never be about just wanting the physical act of marriage or not dying alone.
Lets say you marry to not die alone, what happens when one day you run across someone you really find to have an intense connection with? If you exit, you’ll be ruining this other person’s life, not to mention giving away 50% of all your assets. Or if you cheated and get caught, you get 0%.
Also, be prepared for kids (Must be discussed). Once kids enter, your life is now totally revolved around them. It no longer revolves around you / your mate. can you accept that?
You know CVM, I am also nearing another anniversary of my birth and it always makes me wonder where I want to be personally and professionally. Truthfully my track record of slaying young-HCBs leaves a lot to be desired, so setting down with a lady until divorce isn’t something I want anytime soon.
First off, here’s my bona fides - been married 22 years to the same woman, had three kids (lost one to cancer), and plan on burying each other (sometimes we think that’ll happen next week, IYKWIM).
You don;t get married “in general”. You get married to an individual. I think marriage in general wouldn’t suit me - a lot of restrictions, and the need to make a lot of compromises. But marriage to my girl makes perfect sense. For her, I’m willing to make the sacrifices and the compromises.
But regardless of who you marry, keeping it together is a lot of work. My take is that most divorces take place because of selfishness (broadly defined) on the part of one party or the other. When I talk to the folks who’ve been together for 2-3x as long as we have, they concur.
If you want kids, marriage is a good institution to help provide the environment. People love their kids and it helps provide meaning to life, but kids also stress them out. Having hung out with my GF’s 8 year old relative this weekend, who spent most of the 48 hours talking about her dolls from American Girl and what she wanted to buy there next, I can say that sometimes kids need to be yours in order to be charming.
Women do seem to be happier if they are married. Not sure why, but most surveys show that women derive extra points on a happiness scale from simply being married, whereas men don’t seem to change either way. However, when your woman is happy, she is better able and usually more willing to make you happy too, so it’s not an irrelevant point for men. My guess is that women derive extra satisfaction from being married because it is an external validation of her worthiness of committment in a way that is traditional. We men aren’t quite so concerned about whether we are loveable (although we generally enjoy being loved), so the dopamine juice isn’t quite as much for us (we men are more driven by how much we are respected, rather than how much we are loved).
It does suggest that if you don’t want kids, then maybe being married is not a huge benefit, and it doesn’t make that much sense. However, if you really like the woman and imagine staying with her for a long time, she will be happier (assuming the feeling is mutual), if you get married, and you get some indirect benefits from that (one of them being that she won’t start looking around for someone who *will* marry her).
Getting married is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. It’s fun to experience things with a companion, and it has certainly been an accretive acquisition (merger?) for me.
As others have said, it certainly requires some individual sacrifice in terms of coordinating careers, work travel, etc. And if your spouse doesn’t work, that can bring another set of challenges in terms of money decisions.
The key is finding someone who you think is worth making some individual sacrifices. Sorry to be so cliche about it, but it seems like you “just know” when you find that person. Marriage isn’t for everyone, and I think you are taking a reasonable approach to the subject!
One thing is about the robustness of the relationship, and how you resolve problems, because things like kids, health crises, etc., force major changes on the relationship, and so maybe you had been getting along great, but now the stakes have changed, and you have to believe that your partner is still there for you (which may or may not be true, and you may or may not feel secure that they are there, completely independently of whether it is or isn’t true).
The durability of marriage is affected by whether these changes push you in similar directions or different ones, which is one reason why having similar religious/educationa/cultural backgrounds tend to help a lot. In the beginning, sexual attraction is one thing that forces you to reconcile when you have differences. Once that has worn off a bit, you have to ask if both of you respect each other enough to reconcile and keep going it even if you think there are more physically attractive options elsewhere. If you find that you continue to respect your partner after the physical attraction has diminished a bit, chances are you have found someone good for the long term.
CvM, don’t listen to all these armchair therapists. it’s simple: marriage is agnostic, it’s not a thing that creates happiness in itself. recognize that being happily married means being selfish and not sacrificing (the opposite of what some of these jamokes are advising).
as far as who to marry: when you find someone who you have to continually earn (i.e. someone who has self esteem) and who recognizes that she (maybe he, not that there’s anything wrong with that) will need to do the same for you, then you’ve found someone who you can stand to be around for the rest of your life. basically it boils down to finding someone at your “reach” and at the same time you are at her “reach”. that way you continually push eachother to build a happier life together.
…despite what the guy who’s never been married says (b-friendly-ass-chad), when you find this type of person, the attraction never wears off, it actually intensifies over time.