“Sometimes
it’s better to travel in hope than to arrive.”
I came across the above phrase a few years
ago when a former work colleague (Clive) was not wearing a wedding ring. He had
made previous references to a woman called Janet that dated as far back as
thirty years ago. So I always assumed
Clive and Janet were married, and I made a light hearted comment about his
motive to never wear a wedding ring being down to emphasizing his availability
to other women. When he told me he had
never been married, my immediate thought was that he was joking, but after a
few seconds it was clear he was telling the truth. When I asked him how a man in his early
fifties had managed to get away with this task, his only words were “sometimes
it’s better to travel in hope than to arrive”.
As someone who has never been married, it
would be easy for someone else, especially a married person, to accuse me of
naturally being from the negative and cynical mindset towards marriage. All I can say against this argument is that I
am not. Whilst I acknowledge as every
day passes by I am less likely to being the one to experience that special day,
I never say never in life, and still I still harbour thoughts of looking into the
eyes of the one I love and repeating the vows of marriage. Although you never know how truly happy or
unhappy a married couple are, I have seen friends appear in love when I thought
it wouldn’t work, and those people who have split up when it seemed a match
made in heaven. Like most aspects of
attraction, there is no real logic to it all, but when I’ve had women heavily
flirting with me only weeks after they placed the ring on their finger, you
can’t help but wonder what the true motivations are for two people to become
one surname.
Genuine Love
Alongside the birth of children, marriage
should be the biggest celebration in a lifetime, therefore it is only
appropriate to start with the most positive, romantic and obvious reason to why
a man and woman get married.
Whether it is childhood sweethearts or two
people who have finally collided after years of unhappy endings in past
relationships, when marriage is formed through genuine love as the primary
source, then as an outsider looking in these couples were destined to be
together for the remainder of time. Not
only do they have the physical chemistry from the early days, but they also see
each other as best friends. They share
everything, they have a combined and mutual goal, neither is jealous of the
other, trust is absolute, and they only have eyes for one another. Whilst this may seem like a devised love
story in the modern age, it can still happen.
The most probable types of couples that exist in this scenario are when
they are of a similar physical attractiveness, social background and
intelligence. They have had their days
of going out regularly with friends, and a night in together is now worth a
hundred of those nights out with their peers.
Together and always, love conquers all.
Family/Peer pressure
Sometimes pressure from those outside of our
own bubble can influence us to make decisions we are not comfortable with. This can happen in all walks of life. It is important to remember that our parents,
or people as old or older, often have a mentality for aspects of life like marriage
that dates back to when they were in their early twenties. There is nothing wrong with this, but those
who do not understand how different people are today in terms of trust,
attraction, temptations and options, are living in another world. A parent’s view of marriage can sometimes be
one of having a daughter become an honest woman. Not always will they look beyond this day, or
seek evidence below the surface to why it may not last.
The last one still
standing
I have seen this situation first hand, and
whilst it is more apparent with women, men are not immune from this fear as
well.
Take someone in their late twenties or early thirties, and all of
their close friends are now married.
Although it is in light humour, every time they meet up with their
friends there is the usual ridicule of being “left on the shelf”. For every time they hear this, they become a
little more frustrated with their single life.
So instead of relaxing, enjoying the positive parts of being single and
believing the right person will come along one day in a natural sense, they
panic, start to lower their standards and attain involvement with people from
the opposite sex they have indifferent feelings with. Before you know it they have both convinced
each other that they should get married, have children, and place two fingers
up to those who once inflicted those negative comments towards singletons. Such is their common need for marriage and
fear of being alone, it could possibly work.
My concern is always one of not actually deeply knowing the person
before they are your spouse.
The day of attention
I’m afraid women are usually the guilty
party in this case. It’s isn’t so much
that they are not happy, or even not in love, but it’s more a case here that
this couple aren’t quite ready for marriage.
Maybe they haven’t known each other long enough, or maybe deep down
there are doubts they are right for each other.
But they sail the sea in the blind faith they are destined for this big
day.
Women love attention, as do some men. Attention is fine for the more mundane
aspects of life, like acquiring the most glances from the eyes of the opposite
sex or the occasional one night stand in hope of impressing others for external
validation. But these parameters surely
cannot border over to marriage, can they?
So her shining moment is in front of all her friends, and she knows
nothing on this wedding day can take the centre of attention away from
her. It’s not dissimilar to how a young
girl thinks when she becomes pregnant. She believes all her friends will be round her
like a rash once the baby arrives, and for a few weeks this may be the case,
but once the novelty wears off and life continues with the self-regulating
format of one’s own importance, they will be gone and concentrating on their
own agendas. The young woman is then
left on her own holding the baby. In the
case of marriage, it is the woman left with a wedding ring on her finger with
only memories to maintain her ego.
When people get married in this manner, as
subconscious as it may be, they are simply analyzing the enjoyment of a wedding
day more than the marriage itself. “A
dog is for life, not for Christmas” is a statement that comes to mind.
Her
ultimatum
Usually this occurs when the man is your
typical beta male, and he is with a woman more physically attractive than
him. She has the power, he has fewer
options, she knows he cannot do any better than her, and he is frightened to
lose her. She desires to have her big
day, and whilst she may have doubts he is the right one for her in the long
term, people in this position rarely look beyond the wedding day itself. They simply believe everything else falls
into place once married. It’s as if the
rings placed on their finger charges a power from above, and all deficiencies
in their relationships vanish, papering over the cracks of vulnerabilities they
see in one another.
Although I do think women have a right to marriage
after a certain time of being together, ultimatums, especially in the short
term, are unfair ways to base a future on a relationship. No matter how unattractive a man may look,
and no matter how beautiful she is, if a man cannot see through this then he
deserves, to an extent, all the inevitable repercussions that will come his
way. To put it another way, if she isn’t
happy with being his girlfriend, she will be no happier in being his wife. Many men will go through the thought process
of believing his girlfriend will leave him if he refuses to marry her. Unfortunately, when a woman loses her love,
emotion, attraction and connection with a man, a ring on her finger or a
marriage certificate will not act as a guarantee for her to try harder to make
it work. Further to this, men do not
lose women through not marrying them – they lose them for not being challenging
enough for them.
Financial Security
Without trying to emphasize the phrase of
“gold digger”, a motivation to a woman to become a wife can often be formed
through her knowledge that no matter what, she will from then on be more
financially secure. If the marriage
works, she has money as a wife. If it
doesn’t work out, she has more money as a divorcee than before she met him. Again, this has the physically attractive
woman meets average looking man scenario written all over it. Pre-nuptials are available of course, but
this type of man wouldn’t dare even mention the words in fear of her walking
out the door.
It always makes me wonder how men in this
situation actually think. If I was to
say they are thinking with their illogical penis, then I may have more than
likely answered my own question. He must
see this as a possible outcome, but I guess he just lives for the moment. At the end of the day it won’t be the
financial ruin that cripples his confidence, outlook on life or optimism for
the future. It will be his broken heart
pondering how to start all over again as a single man, as his ex-wife is
venturing on without a genuine tear in her eye.
Mutual
arrangement
This is almost like an honest version of the
above point. In the financial security
position it is unlikely the couple will ever talk about possible eventualities
of marriage or divorce. It is also even
more unlikely they will ever mention anything about the differing motivators as
to why they are together.
A mutual arrangement is when the couple put
their cards on the table pre-marriage.
When you see an English man in his seventies walking down the street
with a Thai orientated women less than half his age, then this is a mutual
arrangement. He has a younger trophy to
show off, and she has a better life in financial terms than before. I respect couples of this kind, as whilst it
isn’t seen as an organic way of people forming to be man and wife, at least
they are living in the real world – to an extent.
Whilst some of these reasons may be projected
as cynical views, the only reason I’m in a position to offer advice based on a
wide range of experiences is due to a consequence of life. As a man who has been in different
relationships because of the fact of never settling down, this manifests in
producing a person who can demonstrate trends from opinions formed by nothing
more than honest and objective history.
There isn’t a day that passes by when I don’t think about how different,
and possibly how more fulfilling, my life could have been had I settled
down. Again, I reiterate that this is a
consequence as opposed to a conscious choice of the past. Maybe it can be called destiny, but the
motivation behind this book was fundamentally, and primarily, to help out all
those great men in the world. As a knock
on effect, this also brings long term happiness for the women within these
relationships. People’s gut instincts
are to disagree, but after a deep breath, a good night’s sleep, and an open
mind from honest recollections, most people will agree with the reality that
life and emotions bring.
Marriage should be a wonderful part of
anyone’s life. Most of my closest
friends are married and I’m genuinely happy for them. It may not be for everyone, but when it works
it must seem magical. It must feel like
life is all the worth living for. My
issue with marriage has always been when it is done for the wrong reasons. Of course, nobody with two brain cells enters
a marriage believing it will not work.
It’s just that many people fall into it without genuine love being the
priority and fundamental reason.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteSeriously(really serious, not joking), you should setup a paypal donation button on your page and let people reading this donate you money.
You articles are all gold.
Rayson
Appreciate it mate, but this blog was never about making money. It was always fundamentally and primarily about men using the advice for a steer in the right direction, in learning from their past mistakes, and mine.
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