What REALLY Happens Today When Marriage “Works”
Elise, I don’t want either of us to die first. I want both of us to grow old together, and die at the exact same time. I want both of us to be really old someday, sit on the porch, hold each other’s hand, and say to each other, “Okay. One, two, three, die!”
~The Dad from Family Ties
Caleb, years ago I retired as a commercial pilot and got, what was then, a very good retirement package. One of the best you could possibly get, in fact. Just one problem. That was 25 years ago… and I’m still alive.
~One of my business clients
There’s an old lady I know whom I’ll call Mildred. She is one of the few “success stories” (notice the quotes) I can relate to you about what happens when modern-day, long-term, traditional marriage/monogamy actually “succeeds” and/or “works.” She was married to her husband, never got divorced, and to my knowledge, neither of them ever cheated. Sounds like a success story!
But was it?
As I described here, the condition of traditional marriage “success” is rarely what people think it is. I’m going to give you yet another example of how “successful” traditional marriage actually works today, in the modern era of the 21st century.
Like pretty much all the women of her generation, Mildred married her sweetheart back in the late 1930s, while in her late teens. Her new husband was a good, honest, god-fearing, hardworking man I’ll call Joe. Joe went to work, Mildred starting having kids. Joe was lucky enough to avoid serving in both World War II and the Korean War (though I’m not sure how; possibly because he had too many children). He continued to work very hard for many decades, supporting his wife and kids.
Since they both grew up during the Great Depression, Joe and Mildred were fiscally conservative. They pinched pennies in order to raise their kids, and always made sure to save and invest money every month in order to take care of themselves during retirement.
They never even considered getting divorced. Their beliefs, culture, and strong Christian religion all forbade it. In their time, marriage was forever, for better or for worse. (Today we forget that “for worse” part. Do you really want to stay married for decades if your marriage sucks?)
They stayed married, raised children, and as far as I know, never cheated on each other (though one never knows for sure). They had, by all societal standards, a 100% successful, traditional marriage.
Everything was great… until Joe grew old and died.
Per the statistics, men die much sooner than women, and Joe and Mildred were no different. In his 60s, Joe passed away due to cancer. Joe was a good man, and everyone was sad.
Fortunately, Joe had put away enough money that Mildred was financially set for life, so at least she didn’t have to worry about money. Yet.
Mildred, having been married since her high school years, was now alone and single, literally for the first time in her entire life. She had no idea what to do. Living a life on her own was completely alien to her. Joe was her rock, her backbone, her support, her life. Now he was gone.
Mildred grieved for Joe for years. Eventually, she picked herself back up and “got back out there.”
First, she tried square dancing. She did this for about two or three years, got bored, and stopped.
Then, she became a secretary, just to fill her time and have something to do. She did this for about two or three years, got bored, and quit.
Then, she became a real estate agent. She got her license, sold a few houses, got bored, and quit a few years later.
For years and years she aimlessly wandered from activity to activity, never really knowing what to do with her life. When she was married to Joe, it was all so simple; she never had to worry about anything. Now that he was gone, her direction was gone as well.
She never really dated. No man could ever compare to Joe. She stayed alone, not quite unhappy, but not happy either.
She had absolutely no personal finance skills, and why would she? Joe always took care of that. As a result, without Joe there to keep the finances organized, she didn’t control her spending. For a few years she was fine, living on the interest of her investments. However, soon she started digging into the principal. Every year, her investment amount became lower and lower.
Eventually, she got so lonely that she couldn’t stand it, and she started dating again. She dated an auto mechanic for a while, but then decided she didn’t like him. She later dated a retired teacher, but decided she didn’t like him either. Still later, she dated a nice old man named Dan. She wanted to marry him. He said no, because, now almost in his 70s, he felt he was too old for that.
For Mildred, it was marriage or nothing! After all, marriage was all she knew. So she dumped him and started dating a new guy she met via a very expensive dating service, paid for by once again by digging into her investment principal. (This was before internet dating).
Dan, like most men over age 60, was a low-testosterone beta male, and was distraught when Mildred broke up with him. Full of oneitis, he went to her, hat in hand, tears in his eyes, and proposed. Mildred of course said yes, dropped her current guy like a hot potato, and a few months later, Dan and Mildred were married.
They were moderately happy. Mildred finally felt a little more “normal” again. However, they bickered often and had a decent amount of drama as soon as they moved in with each other. In her quiet moments with her close friends or family, she would mention that she still missed Joe, and still wanted to be with Joe. Dan seemed like a placeholder (and probably was).
Very soon, Dan and Mildred ran out of money. Dan never had much to begin with, living mostly on his meager social security. Mildred, not knowing how to handle money, had finally spent every dime that Joe had diligently saved for her throughout his life, money that would have lasted Mildred the rest of her life had she just spent the interest (or if she had died sooner like Joe, since neither Joe nor Mildred ever thought she would live this long).
They had serious financial problems. Just imagine having serious financial problems while in your 80s. It was very hard for both of them.
Around this time, luckily, and I mean that; due to pure luck, one of Mildred’s sons struck it rich in the engineering business. He had enough money to support Mildred and Dan, and did so. Now both of them being 100% financially reliant on her son, Mildred was relieved, and went back to her aimless, misdirected life.
As time went by, Mildred and Dan’s marriage grew worse and worse. Ever getting older, their health also deteriorated. Soon, their grown children separated them, and placed them each in separate elder care facilities.
Today, Mildred is in her late 90s. It’s been over 30 years since Joe died. She lives in an old folk’s home, alone, and has lost most of her memory. She doesn’t even remember Dan. But she still remembers Joe, still talks about him, still misses him, and still remembers with tears in her eyes how wonderful her life was… 30 years ago.
People forget, or don’t realize, that marriage was invented when most human beings died between age 30 and 55. For most of human history, all the way into the 19th century, average life expectancy was age 30. To be fair, in many cases, this number is artificially low due to high infant mortality, but people still didn’t live very long. As just one example, in 1880 only 3% of the population of the US was over age 65. Today that number is 13% and growing fast.
Lifetime marriage makes perfect sense for people who die much sooner.
But today…
Well, today things are very different. The average lifespan now is 79 years, which means 50% of us live longer than 79 years. Moreover, this number gets higher and higher every year; average lifespan will reach far beyond 100 in our lifetimes. And we still haven’t updated our behaviors or expectations regarding “lifetime” marriage or pair-bonding to reflect it. People in their 40s, 30s, and even 20s still get traditionally and monogamously married under the expectation that it will be “the rest of their life,” and plan on this legally, financially, logistically and emotionally.
We will all keep paying the price until society updates the concept of marriage to a new model that reflects new realities.
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Actually life expectancy in the US has declined this year
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/us-life-expectancy-declines-for-the-first-time-since-1993/2016/12/07/7dcdc7b4-bc93-11e6-91ee-1adddfe36cbe_story.html
“The average lifespan now is 79 years, which means 50% of us live longer than 79 years.” – that would be median, not average 🙂
I think often about the “average lifespan will reach far beyond 100 in our lifetimes”, but we would likely need some technological/engineering breakthrough, just eating healthy/exercising won’t do that IMO. Do you know of any promising developments in that area?
The majority of people are sadly still operating on old firmware. I strongly believe that holding on to this outdated system and fairytale delusions has been one of the biggest contributors to pain and unhappiness in many people’s life.
There is no reason, physiologically speaking, that we can’t live to be 120-130. Some very few persons do.
However, nature is such that once we have got to about 30, the human body begins to be less able to continually self repair.
All the years in between those extremes are therefore a bit of a lottery and myriad factors come into play.
The younger the reader here, the more this will affect you, as lifespan will likely increase.
So…PLAN……..EVERYTHING. Most of all, provide for your old age. If you must get married or co-habit or whatever, make sure that your partner has their own provision.
As my Dad always said, “You can never have too much money.” 🙂
That number comes from high infant mortality rates (death before reaching the age of 5). If you made it through your childhood years your life expectancy was way higher than just 30.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Variation_over_time
But too much time. Haha! Poor Mildred.
Hey Caleb, she needs a mission! Well, now it’s too late of course. But what are your thoughts on having a mission as a woman? The typical traditional MGTOW writers with their irrational angry worldview want women to have motherhood as a their life mission.
That’s obviously not going to happen and not even desirable. We don’t want to go back to the 1950s. And also it doesn’t change the fact that women after menopause can’t have children anymore and when their children are grown up and move out their lives become empty under the MGTOW model. Just like Mildred.
You’re the only rational manosphere blogger, so I’m really interested in your opinion on that.
This is something that I’ve reflected on a lot. From the other post about marrying a non-western woman, you could tell that most guys pretty much had one criteria for a succesful marriage: Staying together until the death of a spouse without cheating (at least her).
What I think that many (not all, of course) guys forget is everything besides that, as a (monogamously) married couple, you’ll get drama and oneitis. You might be Alpha, sure, but you’ll still only have one person to fulfill your emotional / sexual needs (unless you are cheating, in which case you are not monogamously married). You will have all the same problems despite your wife being a Sweet Little Angel™ who is Has Good Morals™ and Would Never Cheat on You™.
In this case, we see a lady who was so co-dependent (which people do become) that she forgot how to live her life, and thus became unhappy (indifferent at best) for 30 years post-marriage. This is what losing your independence does to you. (Serial Monogamists have the same traits – they simply can’t live without a significant other).
Sure, when I’m way older and my sex-drive has gone to shit, might I end up marrying someone? Well, say I’ve had an MLTR / OLTR during my lifetime that simply proved to be a match above everything else, this could happen. But it’s paramount that you already know for sure that this lady is someone who truly understands your lifestyle, who’s proven undramatic (post menopause if relevant!) throughout your relationship, because otherwise you will end up with the exact same problems that everyone gets past the 3-year mark (extended by marriage / moving in / whatever).
Don’t let the Disney idea of a “happy” marriage consume you – It’s the extremely rare exception to the rule.
This blog has great topics and articles most of the time. Thats great. But this article is not one of them.
We all know, or should at the very least, have a general idea about the fact that *** OLD AGE SUCKS ASS *** and there is very little to nothing we can do about it.
Mildred did everything right in my humble opinion. She married young, had several children and was happy into her 60s. Thats about the best we can expect.
After that she got derailed by the death of her better half, the love of her life. Doh. Yes this sucks. Big time. But there is very little one can do about it. People die.
She could perhaps have moved in with her children and taken care of her grand-children, walton-style.
Maybe this would have been possible. Maybe not. She did try several new things, this too could have worked out. It may not have, but so what? When you are over 60, there is only so much you can do. This too, will hit both you (TRT or not) and me in due time, even if we denie it today. We wont escape. We might be able to delay it but sooner or later, we will get there. Face it.
The well known fact, that women are terribly unhappy if they are forced to live alone is nothing new eighter. Living with her kid(s) and grand-kids as mentioned above might have solved this but overall if you are in your 90s most of the people you knew will be dead. Sex will be the least of your concerns and even the most happy person on this earth will find it difficult to stay on a level of constant happiness while he can hardly move his ass to the bathroom without help. Nope this aint pretty. Beeing rich sure does help. A little bit. A TINY bit. Make it 10% less horrible. On a good day. And good days will be rare.
There is no cure for old age but children (and grand children) are the best companions an aging woman can hope for. Mildred did well in my books.
Someone beat me to the punch, but yeah, that’s not quite accurate that the average person (or median, I should say) lived until age 30.
It was die as an infant, or live to your 50s-70s or so. There are plenty of famous old people throughout history.
That said, from an evolutionary perspective, once you have kids (probably typically in the teens, 20s, and 30s through history) – you’ve done your part, and can go die, as far as how evolutionary pressures worked to shape us.
There was no evolutionary advantage or need for extreme longevity – that or it was just difficult to extend beyond X years from a genetic chance perspective, and if such a being existed, it would really only benefit males (if they continued dropping loads in women past age 90) – and even then – a man can technically have 300 kids in one year really – longevity is really not part of the equation. Especially if he’s sucking up tribal resources.
This story really showed me how aimless women can be without a man to lead them.
I should have known. Regarding infant mortality, I’ve added this sentence to the above post for the nitpickers:
(In many cases, this number was artificially low due to high infant mortality, however people still didn’t live very long. As just one example, in 1880 only 3% of the population of the US was over age 65. Today that number is 13% and growing fast.)
Yes, infant mortality was much higher historically speaking, but that doesn’t mean normal people lived a long time prior to the 19th century. They didn’t.
Dude, I’m not talking about royalty, which was only tiny percentage of the population. I’m talking about normal, everyday people. They died way sooner than 60. They didn’t even get close.
This is my last comment here regarding historical life expectancy. Please nitpickers, for the love of god, stop it. I know it’s hard not to nitpick whenever you see numbers, but at least try.
Correct. 79 is life expectancy now, but if you’re 25, life expectancy will be far higher than this by the time you get to 79.
I think it’s important, but,
A. It’s not as important for a woman is it is for a man.
and
B. The vast majority of women aren’t interested in having anything like a Mission. Just think about it. How often do you meet women, even older women, with clear, specific long-term goals?
Having motherhood as a goal is fine. Having motherhood as a life mission is a terrible idea, since as you may see all the time (at least I do), women who do this almost always fall into a horrible depression once their kids grow up and leave the home, and it takes years of pain for these women to find direction again (just like Mildred).
Your view of life is very dark, and I’m glad I don’t share it.
I have said many, many times, on here and in my books, that being happy when you’re young then being miserable when you’re old is a a fucking failure of massive proportions. If you think being miserable from age 60 to age 90 is “the best we can expect,” then not only are you dead wrong, but your view of the world is skewed in the extreme.
I second what others have said about life expectancy: the 30-year figure is the result of a distorson by high infant mortality rates. Whoever makes it to 18 now has a much, much higher chance of living past 50.
I have no idea whether we’re wired for lifelong pair bonding with the expectation that one of the partners dies young, but I’m very skeptical. It’s very frustrating that we can’t just time travel and scan the whole period from -250000 to -15000 when the bulk of our innate tendencies were put in place.
By the way BD, speaking of longevity, Peter Diamandis presented a center called Health Nucleus at La Jolla. For a $25000 eight-hour visit (which you don’t have to repeat until years later), they read your genome and catalog all the stuff that is most likely to kill you early, in chronological order, and councel you on the measures to delay each threat. The slogan goal being “to make 100 the new 60”. Type Health Nucleus Diamandis on youtube and you’ll get a video (and play it at higher speed because the fuckers speak too slowly). If I were older and had your income, I’d definitely go there.
For those who asked about what else is in store in this area, the drugs metformin and rapamycin are entering trials, and they should add several years in life expectancy. Then there’s stem cell replenishment, which has been demonstrated to rejuvenate both brain and muscle tissue in culture and in mice. After that, several decades might have to pass before we get more robust therapies like those Aubrey De Grey is trying to put in place. I personally donated small sums to SENS Foundation, which is working on this.
To get back to lifelong pair bonding, I’ve been wondering lately if it isn’t possible to bond for life while openly expecting the relationship to become platonic over time. What if *that* is what we’re wired for, and why we keep pursuing “forever after”: you find someone as compatible with you as possible, you fuck like rabbits, the attraction wears off “but you still love them”, so now you both are fucking people on the side and fucking each other much less frequently, but the platonic bond remains good (in the “successful” scenario). The rational version of this arrangement being when “cheating” isn’t just tolerated but agreed upon in advance, and thus isn’t cheating.
Even if it isn’t what people manage to achieve, it may the implicit ideal they’re striving for without fully knowing it.
Edit: my problem with the 30-year figure isn’t just that “not everyone dies at 30”, it’s that humans definitely show a range of adaptations put in place to make them cope with being 50, 60, 80. That means there was already a lot of natural selection on older people even in prehistory: we have a body that still has evolutionary cards up its sleeve for when it is much older than 30 (such as new methods of brain wiring and skill acquisition in middle-age, etc). In short, no, your body doesn’t expect you to become useless post 30 or even post 50. This is not a nuance, biology *really* doesn’t expect you to die at 30.
Dont listen to the haters. This is a great article and illustrates a larger message. The haters are the type that will nitpick throwing out a whole article for one typo. I love your blog, it has changed the way I view the world, and thus opened doors for me that I would have never opened myself. Keep fighting the good fight Caleb!
@BD I have a question. 🙂 if having a mission is not as important for a woman and at the time same time motherhood also shouldn’t be the end all. What reasonably can modern women aspire to?
It seems that thought process leaves few options for fullfillment of a woman as an individual.
Lol. I don’t speak for the others, but the main reason I bother to write this kind of comment is that I like the blog and approve of the rest of the article. If that’s not welcome BD can delete the comments, and that too is fine.
Do explain how non-traditional marriage ,or any other relationship configurations, would enable one to be more financially literate at old age.
@Maldek,
I think part of the message here is that this woman was extremely co-dependent on her life with Joe and once he was gone, she was aimless for decades. Having children did not stem the tide of loneliness for her since kids aren’t meant to be your companions for life. They may not even live in the same state once older and have their own lives to deal with.
Tying your life and happiness to a significant other can be detrimental long term if one dies long before the other. Yes we all get old but living a more non-traditional 2.0 lifestyle can help ensure you have many connections through your life that can be there for you as you age.
Hey Blackdragon. One of the best articles of all-time anywhere. It demonstrates how problematic the traditional plan for our lives is in the modern era.
I was locked into this plan early on, marrying my high school sweetheart at 21, raising 2 kids, and finally divorcing a few years ago because of the co-dependent life and habits she was showing in her 30’s and into her 40’s. By the time the kids were fairly independent in their mid to late teens, she was unable to find any purpose for her life, nor contribute to our future retirement and financial success. Like Mildred, she only tried this job or that activity, growing bored easily, and quickly returning to days at home watching downloaded TV shows and putting on significant weight. She was an 70 year old Mildred at 40.
Fortunately, I saw the signs and identified the dead-end of marriage. Not only had she become an anchor to my life early on, but there was no way I’d carry that kind of needy co-dependent relationship into my 50’s, 60’s and beyond. I saw a future of indentured servitude to providing for my wife and serving her every need and want — the ideas drilled into my soft skull by every institution in my life up to that point. Fortunately, I called the bullshit on those institution as well and found the courage to tell go my own way despite the backlash from family, friends, neighbors, work, church, etc that I was abandoning the traditional plan and not living up to being a man by following tradition. I can only say, “Fuck ’em.”
Now, as for kids and the idea that having them is the key to not being lonely in the future — that idea is a dated as the whole traditional marriage myth. Having had and raised kids, I can tell you there is no guarantee that your kids will want to have a relationship with their parents.
Just because they kids are the product of your seed doesn’t mean they’re genetically programmed to love and respect their parents, much less spend time with them. Again in the modern age, kids don’t need their parents nor rely on them into adulthood like in generations past. Kids can go their own way much with the financial support of the state then they could when they had to rely on mom and dad. Kids can get money in the form of students loans, scholarships, and consumer debt to live independently without having to work. It’s a plan for disaster, but this last decade we’ve seen the fallout of unbridled student loan debt and the giving of credit cards to kids without their own income. Many college age kids now expect to live away from home. In fact the culture romanticizes how great it is to leave the nest and sever ties with their overbearing parents.
On the flip side modern young adults don’t feel the need to take care of their aging parents as they state as stepped in with a plethora of social programs to take care of the old and sick, of course in return for their votes. I look at the situation of my own mother where I’ve made sacrifices to take care of her in her 80’s. My sisters on the other hand don’t even make time to visit her, despite her pleas to even get her phone calls returned. Now, perhaps men are more programmed to provide genuine care and concern to their parents, as well as have the means and motivation to do so, but pity the old man or woman who relies on their daughters to care for them.
So, before I get to writing a book on this subject, I’ll bail out here and just say, “well done!” Keep these posts coming. I’m sure it will help men to realize the absurdity of old ideas and plans for living in a new world that no one has successfully navigated from cradle to grave yet. Since we have no life-long template for living in the 21st century, we can at least learn from the past and work to avoid making the same mistakes our forefathers made.
Uh, yeah. It’s called open marriage, and has less bad odds of long-term unhappiness for both parties, as I’ve been saying for years.
Well, technically they’re not haters, they’re nitpickers. I define the difference between the two here. There’s a certain nerdy personality type that has in irresistible urge to point out nitpick side-points or exceptions to the rule every time they see a numerical statistic stated, even if they strongly agree with the overall messaging.
It’s irritating, but putting up with it is part of being a blogger. (Other bloggers have the same problem.)
I didn’t say having a Mission wasn’t important for a woman, I said it wasn’t as important. I think women should have Missions and will be happier long-term if they have them. So yes, by all means, have a Mission!
The problem is that strategic, specific, long-term planning is a very masculine thought process, and has been scientifically proven, since the vast majority of people who have specific, long-term goals in their personal life (i.e., outside of work) are men, not women. So your female biology isn’t going to be very excited about setting Missions or long-term goals, generally speaking (there are always exceptions, particularly for more masculine women).
Yes. I’ve said it many times; it’s not really possible for a woman to be long-term happy unless she’s an exception to the rule. Long-term, consistent happiness is not what a woman truly wants. That would be “boring” to a woman. Instead, she wants a constant flow of a range of emotions, including some of the bad ones.
The goal for a woman should be to minimize the frequency of unhappy feelings; it’s just that this is much easier to do if you’re a man.
Any configuration that encourages the woman learn and practice long-term financial literacy and stability herself, instead of making her rely on a man who will, statistically speaking, divorce her or die well before she dies.
Here’s two examples right here and here, but there are many more.
Having a woman 100% rely financially on a man to take care of her forever made perfect sense when people weren’t living 79 years and when the divorce rate was 7%. It doesn’t make sense today though.
He doesn’t care. Maldek is a pro-monogamy Alpha 1.0. He wants women completely dependent on men, and if that makes women suffer later in life, that’s not a big deal to him.
That describes a lot of middle age women I know, yes.
Thank you, but as I’ve stated before, 70-90% of men reading this are going to blow it off with either a “that won’t happen to me” or “traditional marriage is best for society,” then shut off their critical thinking and will proceed as normal.
Which is okay with me; I’m not here to change anything, just to help that 10% who want to be long-term happy.
I just worded it out badly. I meant, what if we’re wired for that; the difference being that in the state of nature men and women would sort of mindlessly converge towards that model of “tolerated cheating” (through a series of painful experiences, trail and error, etc. That’s what is called an evolutionarily stable strategy: the state in which the system eventually settles after a lot of turmoil), while your method is to verbally agree in advance on such a model, which is a bit different and of course more conducive to long term happiness.
On a related subject, I thought you might find this interesting BD since you’re seem into the scientific end of human evolutionary biology. I think your statement is true as it stands, but this is an interesting aside: there’s been some noise the last couple years regarding the lifespan of early hunter gathers. Namely that, after he initial spike of infant mortality, they were actually pretty long lived.
http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/faculty/gurven/papers/GurvenKaplan2007pdr.pdf
Assuming the a person reached early middle age, they actually had a pretty decent chance of hitting 60, while still being at least healthy enough to be productive. That’s actually pretty amazing for a life style that’s commonly viewed as brutal and unforgiving.
There is a lot of traction now for the idea that human civilization and agriculture actually lowered the overall life quality and expectancy of any given individual, while allowing the species at large to flourish.
My understanding is that prior to the agricultural revolution the relationship dynamics were much more fluid and communal. Actually fairly in line with many of your open relationship dictums. Maybe because it works and nature has very few moral hangups. Who knows.
Do NOT get married Black dragon , not even a alpha 2.0 wedding , since prenup agreements don’t stick. There are many ways to go back on a prenup contract and outright break it. The system is designed to screw men up the you – know – what and the prenup provides at best a partial protection and at worst nothing. Divorce court is the biggest F*cking white knight that ever lived.
It would be sad to see a true alpha example go down.
Rest is on you man.
Actually I agreed on the whole post except the end paragraphy saying behaviors haven’t been updated. I reject this. Behaviors haven’t been updated for parents’ generation. Behaviors have been updated for kids’ generation.
What 20s 30s actually thinks marriage is permanent? None because of media divorces are celebrated. What about hooking up? There are apps and websites allowing guys and girls to msg tons of other guys and girls to flirt with. And everyone knows no one using those sites or apps msg only 1 or 2, they msg many, many people of the opposite sex. Church values have been hurt by abuse, scandal, pedo magnified over the net.
It’s a fact those today who are at retired age believe in one partner for life, aren’t tech savvy, and aren’t a scientific valueless moral-less atheist. And this is not a bad thing.
While it’s true that many younger people expect divorce at some point in their life. I think there is also a large mental disconnect with the majority of people between reality and what will happen to them. Most people, inspite of having at least some awareness and statistics think that all those people are just quitters or something. With a great many individuals expecting then that they will find their one true love in the sea of mediocrity and everything being awesome in perpetuity.
The decline of traditional moral values just means that people think they can have both sides of the sexual coin. Perfect marriage will float into their lap when they’re all fun-ed out.
When you look up “preaching to the choir” in the dictionary, it’s a screenshot of your comment.
Incorrect. Everyone is still getting married. The only change is that men are waiting until their 30s instead of doing it in their early 20s. If you look at just people in their 20s, it looks like “men aren’t getting married anymore,” but if you look at census data that covers all ages, the number of unmarried men when they hit their 30s suddenly drops like a stone.
So other than that one little change, no, people in greater society have not modified their long-term pair-bonding models.
All the ones who are getting legally married with no prenups and combining all of their finances while promising and expecting long-term sexual monogamy, which as I just said, is the vast majority of them over the age 30. (At least the men anyway. Women tend to be a little less delusional about this.)
For every celebrity divorce the media covers, there are three or four celebrity engagements, weddings, or babies they celebrate with a sycophantic, Disney glee.
It’s a myth. Young people don’t hook up like you’re implying. The Millennial generation is having less sex than any other generation before them. Read this and this. Again, you’ve got to evaluate these things based on the facts and the stats rather than just your right-wing feelings.
It’s also a fact that one partner for life makes no sense in a world where people live 79+ years and real divorce rates are north of 60-70%.
I don’t like it either, but you have to acknowledge the facts.
Great post. I’ve just seen this happen with my own Mum. She met my Dad at 17. They were together for 55+ years and married for 52. He just died and now she is trying to work out what the heck she is going to do with her life. First time she has ever been alone in her life. She will probably live at least another 15 years I reckon.
She is quite dynamic as a person and will probably work out a way to have a happy life. But its a big shift for her to have to face and she didn’t really plan for it.
Funny thing is, she is very familiar with my lifestyle and we have had lots of conversations about modern relationships etc. But she still has the programming to say to me “Aren’t you afraid of being alone in your old age.” Classic lonely old man stereotype thinking. The irony of what she is saying is still lost on her though even though she is right in the middle of it.
Plus they can grow jealous, and get as the first mission of their life to
a) (Do everything to) prevent the son from evolving into a mature independent man, with a job even far from his birth place.
b) Do everything to break every relationship with a woman the son may have.
People who haven’t been there can, of course, not imagine to what this may get — if the woman’s offspring is male, and a single son especially.
But I have.
Specially when their marriage is a complete failure, these women (unconsciously) use their son as a new lover.
But now they divorce as soon as they feel like it… 😀 That’s a change. Less lives go destroyed because of marriage, which in traditional societies was a cage where not rarely the weaker ended up crushed. (I think smart alt-righters — many of them are very smart — know the other side of the coin about marriage, but they are married to a view of politics that puts society above the individual: sacrificice the latter to improve the former. After all, all traditional societies go easy on the man fucking on the side. Only women were tormented with sexual restrictions and prevented from living (and battered by their husbands with the same regularity as divorce courts have battered the husbands for the last more or less 30 years) Why should our mighty alt-righters mind that? lol).
That’s exactly what happened to Neil Strauss. He writes about it in his last book (The Truth). It’s creepy stuff. His dad was secretly attracted to crippled people, divorced his mom, and since Neil was a child, his mom treated him like her surrogate lover (ew) by being jealous when he dated other girls, etc, even though she let his brother do whatever he wanted. He had become his mother’s lover. He didn’t realize it until he was in therapy as an adult.
Weird and gross, but interesting psychology.
True, because the model they keep choosing doesn’t work anymore. Divorce represents a failure of the model, not an intentional part of the model.
Now, if society got together, publicly admitted that “lifetime” monogamous traditional marriage doesn’t work any more, and then pronounced that planned divorce was part of the new model, and that newlyweds now planned on getting divorced in 5, 10, 15 years or whatever, that would be a very different conversation and I might agree with a lot of it. But this repeated bashing-your-own-head-against-the-wall stuff is just… idiotic. There’s no other word for it.
That describes both the right and the left. As Ayn Rand said, the left (socialism, communism, etc) and the right (authoritarian nationalism, theocracy, etc) are two sides of the same pincer, crushing slowly you in-between.
“miserable when you’re old is a a fucking failure of massive proportions. If you think being miserable from age 60 to age 90 is “the best we can expect,”
I hope you are right. If there ever was a topic where i hoped my data and expectations are dead wrong than it is this. Maybe we can do better than the generations before us.
“He doesn’t care. Maldek is a pro-monogamy Alpha 1.0. He wants women completely dependent on men, and if that makes women suffer later in life, that’s not a big deal to him.”
You know me well.
Except the pro-monogamy part. Living with a woman and having children is good. Forced monogamy is a bad idea and for the male it is against nature even. Living a lifestyle way closer to 2.0 here than doing an al-bundy-style. Your 2.0 book is good and i do recommend it often for a reason.
Reading this, I’m reminded of an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, in which the gang encounters a race that has an interesting approach to dealing with aging. In their society, all people voluntarily choose euthanasia at sixty years of age to prevent the elderly from becoming a burden to the younger generations and to spare themselves the indignities that eventually come with advanced age. They have a big f-in party for the soon-to-be-deceased, and then the guest of honor drinks a special cocktail and ends his/her life.
It’s easier said than done, for sure, but I still think this fictional approach is better than the realities of surviving to an extremely aged state, where you’re constantly in some sort of pain or discomfort and need assistance for everything from eating to wiping your own ass. There’s a point past which you’re not really living anymore. Surviving, perhaps, but not living. In our society, I think sixty would be a little young. Perhaps sixty-five is more appropriate. It seems like a large share of people go sharply downhill or contract a progressive and/or terminal affliction sometime between their late sixties and early-mid seventies. Of course there are exceptions. My great-grandfather, for example, was generally self-sufficient until his mid-late nineties. But I’m not naive enough to think that’s normal. His son was an example of a more typical case. Lived to be 88, but spent the last several years of his life mostly blind, mostly deaf, crapping his pants and not knowing who anyone was or what the hell was going around him.
I may be in the minority here, but I don’t think humans were meant to live nearly as long as many of us do.
Foor for thought, if nothing else.
@Franklin
Totally agree. Our bodies are biological machines and start to break down after awhile no matter how many times we try to fix them. I’ve seen too many relatives live to be very old and their quality of life suffer greatly. Many had dementia, immobility, bad pains, etc… As you said, that’s just surviving at that point, not living. I never want to keep living if I’m a huge burden on anyone and can’t be independent anymore.
65 seems too young though-I’d say 80. In my experience, it’s after 80 when things start going to hell. Any elderly person I hear dying 80+ is not a surprise and I respond with “they had a great run”.
The world is kind of obsessed with longevity but until we can figure out how to stop or reverse aging, what’s the point?
The only issue I have with this is that “all” people “voluntarily” choose, uhm… Otherwise, I’ve been a huge proponent of a similar approach for years. I, for one, don’t want to live till I’m dependent on others and would happily welcome an opportunity to end my life with dignity and minimum pain possible when I decide to end it. Would just allow it as a possibility – an accomplishment of civilisation – for people who really don’t want to live anymore and would prefer not shooting/drowning themselves or whatever. It just shouldn’t become an expectation in the eyes’ of the heirs… And no, I don’t care that I can or cannot know whether I might have changed my mind later… once it’s done, it’s done, why should I care??
I would wait until at least 75 before I start basically looking for painless methods to kill myself. I agree that the last months/years of a natural lifespan are just not worth it, too much pain and ugliness; but on the other hand, you never know when anti-aging technology is gonna take off. It can suddenly skyrocket say twenty years from now (in which case all or most of us will get to just choose whatever lifespan they want and only pull out of the game when they’re bored), or plateau (in which case I’m back to the suicide option), or just keep chugging along in such a way that your increasing life expectancy remains forever ahead of you, so here too you just leave the game whenever you want instead of being coerced into it by the so-called “natural” death.
But this concept of “being afraid to die alone” is alien to me. Maybe it’s just because I’m 25, but for starters, I’m not “borable”. Second, I don’t see how the people you need around you in the end somehow *must* be romantic partners. They can just be friends and relatives, while you would still be having FBs, MLTRs and/or an OLTR till the end. “Don’t die alone” seems like just more nonsensical SP.
This is very…disturbing. A bunch of dictators would go for it (oh wait, they did…and worse!).
I’m sure this point of view will change in a few years when YOU guys are on that side of the coin. You definitely need to spend more time with healthy past 80 people (like yesterday). I can’t read more of this grim dark stuff.
Getting old, very old, is not only ok but a fucking blessing. It’s not a desease for fucks sake. It’s our job (very simple one) to save enough and take good care of ourselves to be fine when we reach it.
Please change that mindset ASAP.
I don’t disagree with old-man suicide, provided three things:
1. YOU make that VOLUNTARY choice to end your life. It’s not forced upon you by your government, nor pressured upon you by your culture or family.
2. You’re actually suffering serious pain and/or serious reduction in quality of life, to which several independent and unconnected doctors have told you there is no cure and no treatment.
3. It has nothing whatsoever to do with your numerical age, only your pain and quality of life. Saying “There’s no point past living age X” is really stupid. How the hell can you assign a number to every individual case, including yourself? I personally plan on living to be 120+ years, and I can’t wait to do it.
But yes, I follow Natural Law, which means you own 100% of your body and no one else does. If you want to kill yourself, go right ahead, you have every right to. But NO ONE ELSE has the right to force this on you or even encourage you to do it.
People’s personalities don’t change that much. I am really not that different than I was at 17 (just wiser and more knowledgeable), and I expect I will be pretty much the same at 77, if I live that long. So if you’re a basically happy person when you’re young, you probably will be when you’re old too. Same goes if you’re a basically unhappy person.
My two grandmas both lived at least 20 years past their husbands. My one grandma was always affluent and privileged and had a very nice husband. She was also always an uptight, bitchy, anxious, fearful, unhappy person — her whole life. My other grandma was working class, never had much money, and her husband was an alcoholic asshole who came home every night and screamed and hit everyone. That grandma spent her whole life smiling and laughing and being happy because that was just her personality.
“Cold” grandma slept in separate bedrooms from her husband for almost their whole marriage. “Warm” grandma seemed romantic with her husband but he was a scary man and also probably cheated on her. After their husbands died they both claimed to miss them terribly and look forward to rejoining them in heaven and I doubt that was true in either of their cases — they were just putting a nostalgic spin on the “good old days”. Things probably weren’t so great with Mildred and Joe either…and if not for him she probably would’ve run through her money and been broke her whole life instead of just the last third. So it probably doesn’t much matter whether you marry and divorce, or marry and your spouse dies, or never marry, except that you’re likely to be financially better off in the second scenario. So maybe the moral of the story here is that the best possible marriage is to someone very rich who is going to die very soon. ;D But then your spouse’s kids might put out a hit on you.
There is no reason to be unhappy in old age unless you fall into one of these categories:
1. You’re a generally unhappy person.
2. You don’t plan enough to financially to avoid being truly poor.
3. Your sense of self and happiness is seriously bound up with your physical body and being sexy/strong/impressing others physically.
4. Your sense of self and happiness is seriously bound up in your job and being important at work.
5. Your sense of self and happiness is seriously bound up in being a parent who is actively involved with your kids’ lives.
6. You’re don’t have a sense of humor and don’t know how to make friends.
7. You marry someone you’re “in love” (read: lust) with but don’t actually LIKE and aren’t compatible with beyond sex, but refuse to divorce, so that after the sexual attraction wears off you spend the rest of your lives fighting and growing to hate each more and more.
As long as you don’t fall into one of those seven categories, you will be fine. Hell I look forward to it! I would make a great retired person. 🙂 I hate working, I don’t have major financial needs to be happy, and I can make friends with almost anyone, though I also am totally happy being alone most of the time. So I’m set if I can make it that long. Just move to a retirement community like Florida or Arizona so you can be around other retired old people and it seems fine.
@BD
Why do you think it is so difficult for the majority of men to accept the reality of the mis-education of marriage and long-term monogamy?
I have studied evolutionary and female psychology as a religion the past 3 years and have an understanding that 99% of the men do not have. Yet, I sit here observing my ex leaving me only a few months ago and getting into a relationship with a 25yr old paramedic (she is 31), and thinking they will live “happily ever after.” Everything I have come to understand clearly dictates this will not last long-term based on his occupation demands, beta behavior, her relationship past (6 boyfriends in 10yrs), female psychology and everything you’ve exposed about men and women.
Could you shed some light on why there is a small part that still thinks it “might” work? I would love to know your perspective on why I can fully understand and accept the nature of what you write and still have an idea “they” could work…
I don’t know about the others; I know I can be “happy” in old age, but I think the problem isn’t exactly about that. Aging is decay – of everything. It’s not that I will be unhappy, it’s that a process of deterioration on all levels will be happening to me, against my will (that I can only slow down through lifestyle, not prevent), and because there are fifty billion precedents I’m supposed to be fine with it (think of the thought experiment of being hit on the head with a bat every day and eventually concluding that it gives meaning to life and that it would be terrible to stop being hit, because that’s against destiny). If you die at 85, what happens to you between 83 and 85 is immensely worse than what happens to you between 33 and 35, even though it is essentially the same process. I just refuse it. If one day I sense that I am beginning to have dementia and it so happens that by then technology hasn’t progressed fast enough to make this curable; or that old age has degraded my muscles to the point where I can’t do anything beyond slowly walking around, I will want to call it quits. Call it narcissism, but I freakin’ love my mind (and body) and I never want it to grow senile. That’s what I mean by old age (in the biological sense, not necessarily by calendar) being undesirable and that’s why I disagree that one has to be “in great incurable pain” for suicide to be legitimate: in my opinion, the threshold is lower than that.
On a less serious note, I strongly suspect that the old me will be a version of Rick in the Rick and Morty series, minus the drunkenness. Old player making fun of his monogamously married daughter and son-in-law and dragging his grandson into crazy stuff.
Marriage is undoubtedly fraught with difficulty and risk. But the alternative, fornication, is much, much worse on both counts. I have yet to encounter anyone in middle age / old age who is glad they played the whore / whoremonger when they were young.
I think you’ve got the wrong blog, sweetheart. ChristianGarbage.com is nowhere near here.
@BD:
Then you are not a free speech absolutist.
As a free speech absolutist and libertarian, I believe you have every right to encourage anyone you wish to encourage to commit suicide, and even go to great lengths to shame them via social stigma if they don’t. That’s a completely protected point of view that you have EVERY RIGHT to express.
I myself have encouraged (a couple times, even strongly and explicitly) two specific social justice warriors (age 19 and 22) to kill themselves for the sincere betterment of humankind. I can’t be certain about this, but it is possible that the 19 year old one even took me up on that strong suggestion (though I could be wrong, as the details there are vague – her death, for all I know, could have been a legitimate accident – don’t ask). I celebrated either way.
In any case, free speech means free speech, not something less. You encouraging certain people to kill themselves (even under the pain of social stigma if they don’t) involves no force or coercion based on any type of physical, financial, or other concrete leverage of any kind.
If certain people are so fucking weak that their will to live isn’t strong enough to withstand emotional pressure, then they don’t deserve to live. If their belief in the value of their own life is strong enough to resist social pressure to die, then the act of resisting that psychological pressure will make their will to live even stronger. Either way, justice has been served.
Further, as a libertarian, I also believe in the legalization of assisted suicide, euthanasia, and even consensual murder – which would force people to actually read the fine print of a contract or website before they click “ok.” It’s how you sort out the winners from the losers. The only thing that should be criminal are free will violations (non-consensual murder, etc…).
Come on, BD, bring out your inner pro-free speech libertarianism!
I wonder if you’re aware that the word lapochka means exactly that : )
Also judging by another comment here (quite eloquent BTW) signed with that name, this is a man.
BD, excellent piece. I agree wholeheartedly. Can you give us an example of success? Is there an anti-Mildred, someone who did it right?
That fortification isn’t the only alternative. You’re falling into the very stupid, overly simplistic narrative that there are only two choices in life for older men: marriage or banging chicks forever. This is utterly incorrect, as I have shown here numerous times. There are at least nine options for men as they age, not two. I STRONGLY suggest you read this article here. (And if your response is that you’ve already read it, then that shows where your irrational mindset is, and that you have some serious false SP to clean out of your brain.)
You will never understand it, because it’s fundamentally irrational. It’s a combination of false Societal Programming, outdated Societal Programming, obsolete biology, exuberant optimism, and temporary endorphins. These things combined utterly destroy logic every time. Every time. Logic and objectivity don’t even have a chance.
Good point. I retract what I said on that point. Others encouraging you to kill yourself is bad but acceptable.
Not someone who is no in her 90s, no. We’ll have to wait a few more decades before we can see some real anti-Mildreds. I have met a few women in their early 60s who have pulled this off though. Not many, but a few.
*That fortification isn’t the only alternative. You’re falling into the very stupid, overly simplistic narrative that there are only two choices in life for older men: marriage or banging chicks forever. This is utterly incorrect, as I have shown here numerous times. There are at least nine options for men as they age, not two. I STRONGLY suggest you read this article here. (And if your response is that you’ve already read it, then that shows where your irrational mindset is, and that you have some serious false SP to clean out of your brain.)*
Yes there are many different 1st steps. Heck we could throw in the Hollywood method where you marry someone for four, maybe fives divorce then marry another new someone and keeping repeating the cycle. But is this doable for us common folks? Who knows, not me. Or take the husband who changes to focus on his career neglecting his home life, maybe his new office hire is a major flirt with him or the home wife who discovers select parts of religion becoming repulsed by any sex fantasy desire let alone the very basic act of it, she could also spend extended time at the gym exercising, eating with wonderful fit looking guys who try to pick her up there. Yes there are many different 1st steps but it becomes overly complicated for the amount of effort in years to the reward ratio. Years of effort:reward (some gradually aging puzzy) ratio. It’s worth it to career relationship advisors. Though the guys who read a couple books on seduction wanting to navigate easily are in for a surprise. Things are really more complex than they could imagine.
Those nine options I referred him to are not first steps. They are long-term end results. And yes, all of them except for perhaps one or two are accessible to the normal, everyday man.
BD, Great article. I am a middle age woman, (45) and I agree 100% that women should have a mission throughout their lives. Being a wife and/or mother is only a part of who were are as a person and should not totally define us. We can not expect those roles to totally fulfill us as a woman. I have 5 children that are now in their twenties and teens. Around six years ago, when they got independent enough that they did not need me around as much, I started to fulfill my mission. I am really glad I did. I see too many women my age whose children are growing up and they don’t know what to do with themselves. Prepped’s description of his ex wife is a good description of what I see too often. I am glad I took a different path. My children need to see (hopefully through my example) that women can be so much more than those roles and we can accomplish anything we put our mind to, and be a great asset to society. I am happy to say my mission is coming along nicely. Within six years I have served on many government and non profit boards, started hosting a radio show, started writing articles for newspaper and website, served public office, continuely involved in politics, and started studying Krav Maga for fun. At 45, I feel like I am just getting started and the future is wide open for me. I am working on my mission, while I work and prepare for my future with a empty nest. I try to encourage women to have a mission and plan for themselves and work on being self sufficient both financially and personally and not be co dependent. On a side note, I agree that middle age women need to be more focused on their health and weight. When we hit middle age, our metabolism does slow and we do have hormonal issues with menopause. However, it is not an excuse to let ourselves go, not take care of ourselves and/or gain weight. You can stay in shape at mid age, it is just harder and takes more work. (Because of the previous two reasons mentioned) You just have to be determined, disciplined, and make it a priority. As a fitness instructor, I have these discussions with women all the time. When they complain to me that they had children, they work, etc, (add many different excuses here) and can’t lose weight and/or get healthy, I just look at them and say, “Really? You don’t feel you can do it? Nonsense, any one can. I’m 45, had 5 children, and am the same size as I was in high school. It can be done, it just takes work.” They get the point and hopefully get started being healthy.
But if you have a really high number of FBs…
This piece about marriage…
And related to this.
I have a story for you guys.
My cousin lives in a third world country with surprisingly high divorce rates. He recently proposed to someone. He intentionally chose a simple, good country girl from a religious family because he thinks city girls are gold diggers.
The girl’s father passed away so the uncle comes in for the negotiations. He had strong religious beliefs (seemingly alpha). My cousin’s father is a beta and his mother is…well…a woman. So they were forced to legalize the whole thing. If my cousin wants to call it off, he has to cough up 500 gold coins (Gold gets increasingly more expensive in the country’s economy). Non-legalized Mingling is a sin. Islamic logic, don’t question it.
He is 19 years old. We all know it’s cruel to let young love fade away (Mother’s reasoning, she even told me a fake outdated fairy tale story to convince me. She watches a lot of tragic drama shows. Beta dad is so beta, I never heard his opinion). Upon further questioning in search of a more logical answer, I got a few broken statements that I put together with some guesswork and intuition.
Expectations for male suitors go up as they age and knowing that cuz probably won’t get a good job, he settled early. He’s also a beta so no seduction skills. I think he’s very desperate. (I’d rate the girl a generous 5)
I talked a lot with him about this. Despite the massive “accomplishments” that he made, he is surprisingly objective and logical about it. He was convinced/agreed that monogamy doesn’t work in the modern era. He acknowledged that alimony and the islamic version of it is bullshit. The only way to remove the divorce penalty is only if the girl agrees to.
In a very calm and friendly tone I asked him: “You know you’re fucked, right?”
He smiled reassuringly and replied in a very confident tone: “Don’t worry, if I work on her mind, there’s good chance I can convince her to call off the alimony.”
Now guys, I’m an amoral psychopath and no one knows how fucked up I can be. But at least I’m a nice guy. It was very hard to keep a straight face but I did it.
People, no matter how smart or logical can turn a blind eye to many facts right in front of them because they are afraid. They are afraid to take risks, to travel in uncharted territory and step out of the shadow of society. They are trained to be sheep and manipulated to the point that they would never hop the fence.
Here’s an example of mass manipulation. Martyrdom. The same third world country I told you about once had a long war a neighboring country. They drafted everyone and finally won, but the rate of casualties was so high once they gained all the land they lost, they had to immediately ceasefire. Through heavy religious manipulation, they turned the embarrassing number of casualties into a symbol of honor. Everyone celebrated.
That’s awesome. I’m glad you did it. I wish more women did.
That is so badass. I love hearing about stuff like this. Well done!
High divorce rates are no longer surprising. Anywhere.
Religious beliefs are (usually) Alpha 1.0, not 2.0, as I talked about here. Alpha 1.0 usually means marriage and monogamy (and cheating and divorce).
Do you ever feel entirely trapped by this blog? I come here every so often and always pretty much the same sh*t, different day. There’s no greater challenge, no overarching goal or achievable mission, just a steady spewing of “content” that is admittedly for not much purpose other than the Benjamans (though I imagine the blog money in this niche is more along the line of Washington and Lincoln.)
I mean. . alpha 2.0 and all. . but you basically have put yourself into a position where in order to make money you’re forced to go on and on and on and on about the same stuff over and over and over and over, in a conflictory and somewhat negative fashion, with no end goal in sight.
Surely this is as much of a non-alpha 2.0 trap as anything else? And cannot possibly lead to maximal happiness, having to maintain a blog on these types of emotional topics, always tuned into lowest common denominator male/female issues and politics (for which you claim there is no hope. . . so why bother?)
I can go a year of my life, and not pay much attention to politics, alt-this or that, or relationship conflicts. . . and nothing is different in the world and I’m a lot more at peace. Is this very blog not at conflict against the lifestyle that it preaches?
No, I feel pretty good about it. Thanks for caring though.
If that were true, this blog would be losing readership instead of gaining thousands of regular readers a month, even when I don’t promote it in any way. So…
Um, an achievable Mission is exactly what I talk about for men. Have you ever actually read a blog post here?
Correct. That is the purpose of this blog as I’ve stated many times; to vacuum as much money out of your wallet and put it into my wallet. I’m here to make money. Now give it to me.
You seriously think I would take this much time out of my week to write and comment on this blog if all I was making from it was Washingtons and Lincolns?
You don’t know me very well, do you?
Making six figures, doing work I enjoy that’s completely location independent, while getting all the sex I want? Yes, very non-Alpha 2.0.
You’re making some great points!
This entire blog is about how a man can be more long-term happy and avoid that which makes men unhappy. Again, have you actually read blog posts here?
There is no hope for society, but there’s tons of opportunity and hope for you.
Again, have you actually read blog posts here?
That’s great. then why is your comment so negative if you’re so much “at peace?”
How?
And by the way, did you have any actual arguments to make for or against the topic this article? Or are jealousy-ridden personal attacks all you have because you know I’m stating undeniable facts here?
This one is really a disappointment. I´m not even going to nitpick over the age argument: it doesn´t matter whether your numbers are correct (they are at best a very crude oversimplification) because they are irrelevant. If monogamy were “designed” for people who will live about 30 years, it would mean they should be good for about 10 to 15 years (marry at 15-20, die at 30).
However, you keep stressing how it goes sour after about three. So the difference between 30 and 80 doesn´t matter: it´s not the long marriage that seems difficult, it´s rather marriage as such.
So it´s one or the other: it´s either that monogamy sucks even if you live 30 or monogamy today sucks because we live longer than 30.
But more to the point – how would the woman´s life at 80+ be any better if she had not chosen to have a husband in the first place? Because if you claim that living 50 years with one man and than have a number of children who don´t hate you and even are willing to bail you out, you should have a preferable alternative.
As I read your story, in this woman´s case, having had a husband who took care of her for so long and with whom she had children able to take care of her after him was a great succes, probably the best thing she could have ever done.(now, you might say the son just made it just by luck, but they had many children which increased the chances of something like this happening).
She doesn´t seem to ever have been able to take care of herself, but that´s nor the man´s nor the marriage´s fault. Some people are just not made for independent living.
And of course you´re all screwed up by the time you are 90. Of course you don´t understand the world, because it changed faster than you could ever keep up with it and of course your health is shaky. You´re an old person by that time and the body is going to the dogs. But that´s got nothing to do with monogamy.
I´m not saying you are wrong to say what you say, I´m saying that this time you picked an example that doesn´t actually support your case.
You’re mixing your topics up. You’re talking about monogamy. This article is talking about traditional marriage (the system society encourages for long-term pair-bonding), not monogamy. Two different topics.
1. She could have chosen to have her own goals and her own Mission to motivate her, supported herself financially and not have been reliant on a man (while pair-bonding with a man as needed).
or
2. She could have married a man, but still kept long-term financial responsibly for herself instead of depending on him, while having her own goals/Mission outside of him and her marriage to him.
Those are just two examples; there are more. Once again I will refer commenters who ask this question to here and here for more possibilities.
I’m not saying I have all the answers. I’m saying that to say that a woman has only two choices in life: be reliant on a system with a 87% failure rate, or be totally alone and completely fucked, is just silly.
Then why was she so aimless, depressed, and full of problems from age 60-90s?
(Unless you’re like some of the posters above and you think as soon as you turn 60 you’re miserable no matter what and should just kill yourself; but if that’s your view then we’ll have to agree to disagree.)
Then why do these people depend on a system (traditional marriage) with a 87% failure rate? Shouldn’t there be less-bad systems for these people? (And if there aren’t, shouldn’t society focus on establishing some, instead of defending the 87% failure system?)
As I very clearly stated more than once, her problems started at 60, not 90. Learn to read, and/or not make strawman arguments against things I never said.
Really? So Mildred was happy from age 60-90? Um…
As someone who has never been married, and is never going to get married; I agree with this post that (especially from say the year 2000 ATI, After The Internet, with the Internet becoming widely available after around 1994 to the present 2017 and beyond, where people have the information available to them by reading posts like this) that traditional marriage is not the best lifestyle choice. However, most people are irrational and the majority of people will continue to get married at least during our lifetimes and probably much longer into the future.
What happens to the “marriages that do work” is they have less sex until it gets to zero, the guy as he gets older masturbates in decreasing frequency and he watches a lot sports on tv, house maintenance and what’s for dinner are the main subjects, and everything else is about the kids and grandchildren (some of whom probably don’t get along).
I didn’t know until recently that my grandparents who got married in 1951 (the era that most Religious idolize), eventually after a few years of marriage spent most of their days for over the next 50 years in separate rooms during the day and night, argued often, and stayed together as an obligation (similar to them going to church separately where even them as old folks didn’t agree with all that the church preaches against) just to create the image of a family for their kids/grandkids on the holidays. Then after my grandmother passed away someone stole the wedding ring that now would be worth over $30,000, and now the last year or two of my grandfather’s life is spent upset about that. I had already decided two years ago to never get married, and recently my grandfather told me to not get married.
Especially “religious people” do not understand (using an estimate that “modern humans” have been around for about 200,000 years) that for over 190,000 years humans had sex/had children/and were NOT married, and most people if they survived childhood (Infant Mortality Rates were high even until the 1970’s) died by their 20’s or 30’s (average Human Life Expectancy charts show an exponential increase after around the 1880’s due to toilets, sanitation systems/water treatment plants, electricity, and after the 1940’s antibiotics). The history of over the last 5,000 is many wars, and probably many people are unknowingly descendants of women “taken” after battles. Marriage was not invented by Jewish or Christian religions. It appears marriage began around 5,000 years ago during the Agricultural Revolution in Mesopotamia (Sumeria) for social order and for tasks (woman do cooking/kids)/(man do agriculture), prostitution was legal and accepted, wives could be bought, there was divorce, marriage was NOT for religion, and most were arranged and with writing beginning about 3400 BC it involved a Legal Contract. In ancient Greece and ancient Rome women were married off by around age 12 (puberty), and the men who did not die in military battles (ie. movie “300”) that survived into their mid 20’s were married, and almost all marriages were arranged and considered for the good of the State. In the Roman Empire even a man could not choose who he wanted to marry as his father decided who he would marry (many marriages were for political alliances) and then as with arranged marriages had to pay a dowry to the girls father. Judaism allowed polygamy with a wife and concubines. The Roman Empire (Dictatorship, then a Nicene Christianity Theocracy) made marriage monogamy, and that continued to Europe and America. It wasn’t until after the Enlightenment in the 1700’s that the concept of marrying for “love” began and also “individual property rights” began.
I had a very religious beta friend (who doesn’t even know the name “Jesus” in Greek was “Iesous” due to there not being the letter “J” in English until the 1600’s). When I said to him the lifestyle I want to live is to travel to meet women to have fun, he went crazy on a religious tirade, and that was the last day I chose to be friends with him as I avoid all drama/anger/negativity. Plus, this was while he had often complained for years how miserable he is in his “sacrament of holy matrimony.” Even though he’s extremely religious a few months ago he got a divorce, it’s a mess with two kids/joint bank account/joint cell phones/joint cars/she got the house he bought while he’s additionally having to rent a cheap basement apartment/he’s paying off her debts/he’s now in gambling debt due to trying to escape the stress of the divorce/half of his teacher salary goes to her and the kids/so due to marriage he basically will have nothing much and then die someday.
Prenups aren’t holding up in court anymore. Eventually not even advanced Offshore Accounts/Offshore LLC’s will be safe from divorces with FACTA and governments going after Offshore Accounts. Many PUA/Manosphere types feel superior attacking women, instead of the big fish such as religions/the system created by other beta guys, divorce lawyers who profit from the demise of other guys/etc. The Media almost every week has brainwashing articles/shows such as about “Marriage Is Great For Your Health,” etc etc, and I used to get annoyed with the amount of this manipulative religion/marriage propaganda but now I just look at it like a joke and laugh about it. Society/Religion/Others don’t really care if someone else is genuinely happy or not. A person in church if they said something against the religion should watch how fast they would be attacked by the other people in the religion, if they want to see how much religion/society “really cares” about them. I was in religion for many years and never once was asked my views or if I was happy in the religion (I was NOT). I now just focus on living my own life the way I want to for my own happiness.
For the guys that still want traditional Long Term Marriage they should strive to end “No Fault Divorce,” but even though “men” still control the religion/government/legal system this has not happened (maybe because they want a disincentive for divorce and also so they can punish the guys who get divorced to get the dough to buy expensive cars). Society will not change because like religion, marriage has become a superstition as they believe it creates social order. The majority of people don’t want freedom, they want security/stability, and getting married gives them this sense of security until it doesn’t work and becomes chaos destroying their lives. But, to each their own, if that’s how they want to live their life.
Maybe there will then after the divorces be some men like me around to give the former wives some comfort.
Correct. These marriages were extremely common back then. They still are with lots of very old people.
https://alphamale20.com/blackdragonblog/2015/11/16/what-life-long-marriage-really-looks-like/
Just because you don’t get divorced doesn’t mean your marriage was successful.
“People forget, or don’t realize, that marriage was invented when most human beings died at age 30.”
Why does this myth persist?
NEVER in history was a 30 year old considered an “old man”
People living to their 60s and beyond is NORMAL in all of human recorded history.
The “most people died at age 30” is stupid trope. (Probably invented by drug company propaganda).
But because fools repeat it so much…it becomes “truth”.
Just like the “1 dog year = 7 humans years” nonsense.
You’ve largely missed my point, so cut right to the chase.
This blog is at conflict against the lifestyle it preaches, because putting yourself into a position where you’re forced to constantly spew the same content over and over and over to “vacuum money” isn’t freedom. Freedom means “I don’t want to even think about marriage for two years” and then you can do that. You yourself cannot. You’re trapped into a life of steady and ongoing emotional political and relationship conversation, that you cannot stop even if you want, or your benjamins go dry. This setup for yourself does not offer much more freedom than a 9-5, in fact compared to many silicon valley (new generation) type 9-5s, this blog is a worse option. Not really Alpha 2.0 at all. You can’t stop what you’re doing for more than a short period of time, EVER. You MUST spew content, “Here’s black dragon today with “Why marriage sucks part 100.”” So tedious. You’re as trapped as any other fool.
I’m very familiar with alpha 2.0, you’ve been going on about it for years. My point was that this doesn’t seem like a life you yourself are leading, as you’re buried under the weight of having to constantly spew samey content for years on end. I guess location dependence is the singular positive offering of being a steady samey content provider. That’s not a whole lot of “freedom” though. . just freedom to set your own hours and create your own commute. You’re still trapped into writing versions of the same old shit every day.
No people love the same shit over and over and over and over and over (sports, songs, comic book movies, Beauty and the Beast version 10, the Bible and church), and that’s what you’re providing them. Which is rather mission-less in your case, in that there’s no end goal or objective. Your mission is a steady stream of repackaged same ol’ same ol’, its 9-5ish. With sports there’s seasonal missions and legacy missions, with movie reboots there’s a singular mission with beginning, middle, end, and payoff. With this. . its just on and on and on and on. . into zzzzzz. . into tedium. . a true rat in a cage.
– You must have not read my book, which I strongly suggest you get, because I want your money. Per the Alpha 2.0 business structure, I have diversified income sources. I have two other businesses that have nothing to do with dating or relationships that provide me income. I could literally stop writing this blog tomorrow and suffer no noticeable change in my lifestyle. I’m not forced to do anything. That’s the entire point of Alpha 2.0.
– I write on this blog because I enjoy it. Writing these blog posts are one of the highlights of my week (with very rare exception). Again, I’m not forced to do anything. My life is about freedom and choice. Yours should be too. (From the tone of your comments it clearly isn’t at the moment.)
– A quick glance at my archive clearly shows that I talk about literally scores of other topics other than “marriage sucks.” In all seriousness, you sound like a longtime hater who occasionally glances at the home page here, scans down and looks only for anti-marriage stuff (since that’s your hot button issue), then reading just those (if they’re there that day, and usually the aren’t) and getting upset.
– As I’ve explained before, of course some topics are going to be repeated and repackaged occasionally, since this blog gets thousands of new visitors on a regular and they need to be informed as well. This is blogging 101, and all bloggers with large audiences do the exact same thing.
I don’t expect any of the above facts to change your mind though. You seem quite content to be angry about this. Cool dude!
– Monogamy and marriage as two different topics.
I thought that a system (marriage) based on monogamy would be failing because monogamy as such fails after approx. 3 years. Apparently I misunderstood one of the main ideas of the blog. My bad.
– Then why was she so aimless, depressed, and full of problems from age 60-90s?
I would suspect because she was not really able to have anything like financial independence and real hobbies and all the other great things you keep insinuating she chose not to have.
My whole point (strawman arguments and all) is that many of the people who are in trouble are in trouble because they jsut are not good and/or lucky enough not to be in trouble.
More importantly, I don´t believe Mildred chose not to have an independent living, she wasn´t able (and likely not even interested) to have one and it seems it all worked fine until the man died. A person unable to care for herself living happy until sixty is not a bad outcome. It´s a fragile arrangement but she could have done much worse.
On the other hand, there are women who live till 60, the man dies, they mourn for a while, start living anew and do great at it, start a charity, start a business, help their kids with grandchildren, travel around the world and still remember the man of their life as a good/the best man (one thing, they never knew any other and another thing, when they were with him, they were young and youth goes a long way, especially in memories). I know one just like this and her name is not Mildred. Does the existence of such women prove that marriage is a good thing? I don´t think so.
– So Mildred was happy from age 60-90?
No she wasn´t. But she quite probably didn´t have capacity to have been.
– Shouldn’t there be less-bad systems for these people? (And if there aren’t, shouldn’t society focus on establishing some…)
I once read that all that happens to you is your fault…
Correct, your bad. Traditional marriage doesn’t work for all kinds of reasons; monogamy is only one of many. Hell, traditional marriage “worked” for many, many years, even though married men were cheating like dogs. Marriage and monogamy are two different things.
If your argument is that Mildred is/was an absolutely hopeless loser from day one and was completely fucked no matter what unless someone took care of her during her entire life, then I don’t think we can continue (since I would probably disagree, but I can’t disprove what you’re saying, nor can you prove what you’re saying).
I wouldn´t call her a loser since she was able to take care of a family (and I would stress that: she was never being a useless leech, they just split responsibilities with Joe), a quite large one it seems and she probably did it very well since her son was thankful enough to sustain her and her new husband(sic!). That is no loser´s feat. I would rather say her talent didn´t lay in taking care of money.
Neither do I say she is/was ever fucked (that´s probably the main difference between us). She just had her highs (marriage with Joe) and lows (life without Joe). In my books Mildred is not a dredful example, just a reasonable mix of happiness and unhappiness (quite tightly tied to good and bad luck). I suspect our main difference of opinions lies in definition of succes and happiness.
“Hell, traditional marriage “worked” for many, many years, even though married men were cheating like dogs.”
And it still sometimes does, and sometimes exactly because they cheat like dogs.
But you are right that it´s not at all what it used to be. In fact, I agree with you on the death of traditional marriage.
Ok that’s cool. I swung by and saw the same ol’ same ol’ and had the thought that having to do this sucks as bad as anything else, that its not all that different from the typical 9-5 as far as ongoing constant obligation and responsibility (the opposite of freedom). Personal preference though, if you enjoy what you do you’re free in a way.
My life “should” be whatever the fuck I want it to be though, you’re jumping to conclusion like Office Space here (in that I personally have much more freedom in life than most, having put excruciating hours and effort into a set of massive accomplishments that will pay off for life, having no kids, having a string of beautiful and postivie girlfriends and relationships, and never having married and being burned by a vicious woman, in my 40s).
This type of “should” crap I really don’t like, be it from an actual priest or a dude like you wanting to act the priest. Don’t prosthelytize to me about “shoulds” like a missionary, those that soapbox the hardest about “should” are the weakest men typically, if you observe who chooses to do what with their lives.
@Foxrocks: given that you’re the visitor on this blog, I’m calling this projection. The contents of BD’s blog are some of the most take-it-or-leave-it I’ve encountered anywhere, almost the perfect opposite of proselytism. You’re like believers who perceive nonbelievers as an attack on their religion, when they’re actually the ones proselytizing and acting butthurt that someone said their way wasn’t the good one. Claiming that a certain way of life objectively tends to create less consistent happiness than another – and that therefore, *if* you want consistent happiness then yes, you should choose this one and not that one – is not proselytism, it’s having a fucking opinion. You’re not pissed that he’s proselytizing, you’re pissed that he’s saying it at all and that he might be right.
You know, this is one of the rare cases where I agree with a feminist argument: that men tend to feel that there are “too many women” in a movie/show or even that there are more women than men, as soon as the percentage of women climbs above 17% or so, and experience it like an encroachment. Any dominant ideology is gonna be butthurt if a new one, far from even approcahing 50%, crosses a certain threshold, and it’ll perceive it as a proselytizing rival no matter how undogmatic it is.
1. Men should be long-term happy. There’s your SHOULD. Everything else is debatable.
2. The Alpha 2.0 lifestyle makes most men more long-term happy of all the other options available today. Note I said most men, not all (but most!).
3. Things like traditional marriage today do NOT make men long-term happy. Short-term or medium-term happy, maybe. Long-term happy, no. This is not debatable (outside of the very rare exceptions to the rule).
4. I am an individualism absolutist. I think you should do literally whatever you want with your life as long as you don’t physically violate other people’s body or property. If you want to live a life of ups and downs instead of happiness, that’s perfectly fine with me, go for it; I’ll be over here being happy. But if you live a life ups and downs, and I live a life of long-term happiness, you’re going to have a lot of trouble arguing that your life choices are better than mine.
Welp, I guess Chile, India and some other similar countries don’t exist then. Not that I care, even as a child the idea of monogamy seemed boring to me.
Correct but studies have shown that if people take a magnifying glass and closely examine my last comment, they might find all the little shits that I don’t give about what kind of Alpha he was.
Lol Point is, he was the overbearing ‘my way or the highway’ type of man and Cuz’s parents were delusional SP-ridden pushovers who were too afraid to walk away from a bad deal.
And the bigger point was that people are too dependent on societal validation to act on what they think is right (the most important differing trait of Betas versus Alphas IMO).
But I’m gonna be nice and pretend like you got the point. 😉