Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do think we have unrealistic expectations for modern marriage. We want a driven career person with a high salary, a great lover, our best friend, our confidante who stimulates us intellectually and maintains sexiness and attractiveness forever.

They also need to he good at cleaning, cooking, caregiving, childcare, etc etc

Anonymous wrote:As long as women are chasing money, height and looks, they'll keep compromising on traits like kindness, compatibility, ethical standards etc

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not the OP, and I don't necessarily think it's a troll post. I guess it depends on if you think OP's question about whether we have unrealistic expectations of marriage is meant to suggest that the old ways are acceptable, or just that women today aren't pragmatic about how different men's expectations are based on our patriarchal society and the deep seated misogyny that still exists.

As a child growing up I saw firsthand disrespect and infidelity in my parents' marriage and in my teens my mother basically used me as a therapist so I heard all the dirty details, as well as stories from the marriages of other family members which she shared with me. Obviously it's inappropriate to parentify a child in that way, but overall I'm grateful for having the rose tinted lenses removed at an early age because it kept me very skeptical of marriage and ultimately I chose not to go that path and don't really have any regrets about it.

I'm in later middle age now and I don't see very many happy or contented marriages around me - lots of friends and acquaintances who post the obligatory happy family pictures on the Facebook and gush about the decades of marriage to their spouses, but in person IRL it's endless bitter complaints about everything they've endured and how unhappy or discontented they are, but they stay for the finances or so as not to disrupt their children's lives or because they have been in the rut for so long they can't imagine the alternative even though the relationship is permanently damaged from years or disrespect, indifference, infidelity, coping with substance use or other behavioral disorder, etc.

My advice to young women today would be to take a very long time to get to know a young man before considering committing one's life to him. How men behave on the hunt is very much more often than not very different from how they behave once the prey is caught and trapped. People here are always criticizing women for not seeing red flags during the courtship phase, but there often aren't red flags - just pale pink ones which only make sense in retrospect.

In any case we are living through a time of great resurgence in misogyny coming from the top down among public figures - not just the president - and an entire media landscape built on teaching young men to revile women and consider them objects to serve their needs. So to the degree that women expect to be respected and have egalitarian relationships where the burdens of a life are shared equally, I think many women do have unrealistic expectations of marriage.

That's your perspective. My perspective is I feel sad for you. 45 yr marriage here. A happy marriage with children and grandchildren. You will never ever ever get to feel the pride and joy of having a marriage of unconditional love for spouse/children/grandkids. You spew the same poison that young people do on social media so I guess you've done the men of the world a favor by not marrying.

Anonymous wrote:Not the OP, and I don't necessarily think it's a troll post. I guess it depends on if you think OP's question about whether we have unrealistic expectations of marriage is meant to suggest that the old ways are acceptable, or just that women today aren't pragmatic about how different men's expectations are based on our patriarchal society and the deep seated misogyny that still exists.

As a child growing up I saw firsthand disrespect and infidelity in my parents' marriage and in my teens my mother basically used me as a therapist so I heard all the dirty details, as well as stories from the marriages of other family members which she shared with me. Obviously it's inappropriate to parentify a child in that way, but overall I'm grateful for having the rose tinted lenses removed at an early age because it kept me very skeptical of marriage and ultimately I chose not to go that path and don't really have any regrets about it.

I'm in later middle age now and I don't see very many happy or contented marriages around me - lots of friends and acquaintances who post the obligatory happy family pictures on the Facebook and gush about the decades of marriage to their spouses, but in person IRL it's endless bitter complaints about everything they've endured and how unhappy or discontented they are, but they stay for the finances or so as not to disrupt their children's lives or because they have been in the rut for so long they can't imagine the alternative even though the relationship is permanently damaged from years or disrespect, indifference, infidelity, coping with substance use or other behavioral disorder, etc.

My advice to young women today would be to take a very long time to get to know a young man before considering committing one's life to him. How men behave on the hunt is very much more often than not very different from how they behave once the prey is caught and trapped. People here are always criticizing women for not seeing red flags during the courtship phase, but there often aren't red flags - just pale pink ones which only make sense in retrospect.

In any case we are living through a time of great resurgence in misogyny coming from the top down among public figures - not just the president - and an entire media landscape built on teaching young men to revile women and consider them objects to serve their needs. So to the degree that women expect to be respected and have egalitarian relationships where the burdens of a life are shared equally, I think many women do have unrealistic expectations of marriage.

Anonymous wrote:I think the expectations and roles in a marriage have changed dramatically.

We have higher expectations of what our partner should offer; I agree with the poster that said we want a best friend, lover, equal partner, etc etc etc. It’s too much to ask of one person over decades.

Our lives are more intertwined and include more shared roles (both spouses work, watch kids, clean, cook). Good, esp for women, but difficult to navigate in practice as there are not defined roles and it’s challenging to distribute labor equally when working together on everything for years on end.

We are increasingly disconnected from our local community and overconnected to the outside world. This leads to this pressure cooker situation where we spend a ton of time with just our spouse vs friends & neighbors in the community and are exposed to so much information online about what your marriage should be and to “better” couples performing idealized versions of marriage.

Anonymous wrote:I was talking to my grandmother about her marriage to my grandpa. She was very honest with me and told me about my grandpa having a mistress when she was in her 20s with 3 kids including a new baby.

I was shocked. I never thought my grandpa would do something like that. I have fond memories of my childhood with the both of them.

It made me wonder do we currently have unrealistic expectations of marriage? If someone posted my grandma’s story here for advice, everyone here would say divorce.