In my experience, those with negative comments tend to be the most vocal.
My roomate in college had a kid with a girl he described as just friends with benefits about a month before it happened. He dropped out and took up a job as a waiter while they lived in her parents basement. They’ve been married 10 years now with 3 kids, started an extremely successful online business that has outgrown its offices 3 times and would likely make them the most wealthy people on this forum.
Kim Kardashian has been married 3 times and is just now having her first kid, has great income, and doesn’t appear to have changed (or matured) a bit in the process. She checks all the great boxes for a great spouse on paper but is just an aweful person.
I’ll take a relationship with a good person (at the core) in less than optimal circumstances over a relationship in ideal circumstances with a shitty person any day.
My roommate in college got a girl pregnant. She led him into addiction to heroin. It was really bad, like only long sleeve shirts bad. We had an intervention and he is alive today but ten years later is still functioning at about 10% of is previous self. He was a brilliant guy, very charismatic. Now the best way to describe him is as a burn out. If only he hadn’t dated that girl.
In my experience, anecdotes are basically useless other than as entertainment.
Editing my response, I was on a call and could only be brief.
I don’t think all anecdotes are useless. I think they can very clearly serve as roadmaps. My friend and his spouse were too people with great character I can vouch for. If anyone could make it they could. He was a man (as opposed to boy) and she was a woman (as opposed to girl) and they did what a man and woman do. They took the adversity and got shit done. Your friend sounds like he was not with a high character individual and that he lacked the integrity himself. The results were telling. This only further reinforces my first point contrasting KK and my friend. Stats on paper are worthless. Look at core traits. Two matured, strong, and good people will get it done 100% of the time. The opposite will yield the opposite results. I look at her and see someone with the integrity and kindess to be confident in the future.
I was *technically* married before. We were both young (I was 21, she was 19). We were only married for two years. We didn’t have kids or property, so our divorce was really more like a breakup with paperwork involved.
I’m happy for anyone who finds lasting happiness. I don’t think I gave you any advice or asked any rude questions. My last commented was in general and more of a lamentation than a judgment on yours. Not sure why I deserved a call out by you when I have wished you well on multiple occasions.
Our brains are very good at reconciling cognitive dissonance in order to soothe the host. Not forgetting the dissonance is the key to good decision making and not becoming a statistic.
That’s the plan. I’ve throttled back on carousing the various establishments in town and focused a lot more on wholesome activities. I had a big scare about a month ago where I was stopped on suspician of DUI. I had a few drinks and felt fine, my buddy had a lot of drinks, and I was driving the two of us home. The officer asked me out of the car, I did the sobriety tests (my buddy watched and said the performance was spectacular, it also helped that I know the game from my detective friend so I knew how to best compose myself during the tests), then blew into the roadside breathalyzer. Mind you, this entire time I thought I’d be at a .04 or .05 tops. The cop started laughing, said, “Look at this.” and showed my the LCD output at 0.079; a sip under the legal limit. My jaw almost hit the ground and I said, “I’m simply shocked. I would have never thought I was at that level.” The officer was a decent man and said, “Tell ya what, pull into that parking lot and either hang out for an hour to sober up or call a cab.” So we pulled into the lot and got a cab before the officer could change his mind. Needless to say I know my luck is running out. Furthermore, for every epic night out on the town, there is a multiple of shtty nights where I blow my money, have a bad time, then just kick myself.
I’m doing more with my church, helping the pastor with service projects, and simply focusing on being more mature. We all know that true love seldom begins in a nightclub. It’s time for me to start mingling in value added activities where wholesome individuals participate. And I’m having a good time doing so. Two weekends ago I was helping out a group bring a low income individual’s home up to building code. I never thought of myself as a handyman, but I really enjoyed getting out and getting my hands dirty with a light construction project.
Swan, congratulations. All the doubters fears/cynicisms are reasonable. Marriage is a tough gig for most people AT SOME POINT. But the main reason it is is that we’re all born selfish bastards (at least, that’s how it’s viewed in my religious tradition). And yet, some couples remain married for decades (I know one at my church that just celebrated their 60th).
How do they do it? By a lot of hard work. And by trying as much as possible to put the other person first.
The BusWife and I are now in our 24th year. It hasn’t been easy - she’s been as stay at home mom and has put up with me through 5 interstate moves, several jobs, losing a child, and the general mess that I see in the mirror each day. And she has her faults too (other than just terrible choice in men). And we’ve had times when we considered packing it in. But we just didn’t. ’
Most of life is pretty simple. Not easy, but simple. Marriage is too - simple, but hard (at some point, at least). But the benefits are phenomenal - having someone to share your life is the best.
As for the kid, I remember when our first was born. The doc turned to us with him and said, “Congratulations. You’re now grownups.” Welcome to impending GrownupHood.
I am recently divorced. I wanted kids, she did not. People change - my ex-wife changed immensely in the time we were together (10 years). When we first got married she wanted kids, after a few years she did not. Go figure. Think carefully about getting married, divorce is horrible and I had a pretty amicable divorce.
It sounds like you have a hard working, mature, good girl BS. I wish you the best.
This is definitely true. I had what was probably the easiest divorce in the world, and we were still able to find a bunch of stupid shit to fight about.
Actually the person who needs the clue is you. when I said honeymoon, that’s slang dude. That wasn’t in reference to a real post-marriage ceremony honeymoon
ROFLMAO!!! man, you are like those kids in the Career section that don’t want to hear that transitioning from operations/IT to Investment Banking don’t come with good odds.
And dude, if you want to direct something to Greenman, there’s something called private messaging. Posting for the whole world to see and read it, what did you think was going to happen?
I tell it like it is. I don’t ki$$ a$$. Some people like to hear what they want to hear.
And what haterade did I spew exactly? I stand by my 2 statements that men usually have better options between the ages of 35 and 40 and that women most likely change a lot between their early 20s and mid/late 20s. To my 1st statement, I should have added if you have your $hit together (great job, great social skills, in shape, etc). Just things I’ve realized with time through my experiences and others I’ve met.
And for the record I will post in whatever thread I want to and will tell it like it is every single time. Don’t agree with me? We have a message board to discuss without reverting to personal attacks.