Marriage Article. Am I missing something?

Water Cooler
#1

Apparently there’s an article making waves: ‘Marriage Isn’t For You’

Parts of it:

The nearer Kim and I approached the decision to marry, the more I was filled with a paralyzing fear. Was I ready?

My dad…response to my concerns was such a moment for me. With a knowing smile he said, “Seth, you’re being totally selfish… marriage isn’t for you. You don’t marry to make yourself happy, you marry to make someone else happy. More than that, your marriage isn’t for yourself, you’re marrying for a family. Not just for the in-laws and all of that nonsense, but for your future children. Who do you want to help you raise them? Who do you want to influence them? Marriage isn’t for you. It’s not about you. Marriage is about the person you married.”

No, a true marriage (and true love) is never about you. It’s about the person you love—their wants, their needs, their hopes, and their dreams. Selfishness demands, “What’s in it for me?”, while Love asks, “What can I give?”

the more you truly love that person, the more love you receive. And not just from your significant other, but from their friends and their family and thousands of others you never would have met had your love remained self-centered.

Truly, love and marriage isn’t for you. It’s for others.

http://sethadamsmith.com/2013/11/02/marriage-isnt-for-you/

Now, I don’t consider myself a greedy cold-hearted person, but this screams out wrong to me in many ways. I think a person’s life belongs to himself or herself, and ultimately, that person needs to find the best path in their own life that makes it a good one. He literally says marriage is all about the happiness of the other person.

Also, a big problem I noticed is that he also automatically assumes the more you give, the more you will definitely receive. I’ve seen that break down many times before. And that children business? we marry for the future children that may or may not appear?

It sounds like a man’s life is basically over and he may as well turn it over to servitude to the wifey, in-laws and prospective kids.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had a girl that was really great and all I wanted was to make them happy, but my life is still my life. If things go awry, and the other starts to get too comfortable or take things for granted etc, I would move on. And I did. Even if I had kids one day, I would still take the view that ultimately it’s their own lives. I’ll do my best to guide them to what is right, but the path they choose is ultimately their own.

Married folks want to chime in? and not be biased about it.

#2

The only people that want to get married these days are homosexuals.

I believe we should be consistent and ban marriages for everyone.

#3

Marriage is not just about spending time with your spouse - you could do that without being married. Instead, marriage has more to do with establishing a family unit, which results in various societal benefits. For instance, being married tends to result in stability, which is important for raising kids or setting roots in a community. Parents also like it when their kids get married, as this is a way of ensuring the family’s continuity. While it is true that you and your spouse should derive satisfaction from the marriage, this has to do with mutual commitment to a new familial relationship, not just Hollywood style romantic themes.

The concept of individualism with respect to marriage is a Western convention. Consider other societies, such as in Asia or India, where marriages are still often pre arranged, sometimes to foster economic or political relationships between families. Marriage based family units are a convenient way of providing structure and organization to a society, and I suspect that this is why many things, including public policy are designed to encourage the formation of these family units.

#4

It comes down to this quote " the best way to have friends is to be a friend.’

In the end relationships are about reciprocation and giving, you can’t be a selfish or self centred person with strong expectations of others and expect to have a healthy relationship.

#5

This is verbal diarrhea at its worst. I feel bad for anyone who chooses to believe this and actually tries to live it. My guess is you’ll end up swallowing a .45 befor age 50.

#6

I think the point he was trying to make was that marriage from your perspective is about the other person. The key is finding that special someone who feels the same way, and THEIR perspective of marriage is about you… so together you have a cooperative relationship where both of you are aware of each others hopes, dreams, and needs and work toward fulfilling them all together.

But this breaks down the microsecond one of the people in the relationship doesn’t feel that way and the next thing you know she’s sleepting with your brother.

Agree with Turd Furgeson. I consider all Gen-Xers and later (this includes myself) part of the “ME Generation”… growing up with your parent’s camcorder in your face, recording every second and stupid meaningliess accomplishment breeds a sence of selfishness, entitlement, and false self-worth that makes a true cooperative/sharing selfless relationship next to impossible.

#7

I don’t read anything written by non Top 2 MBAers.

#8

What if they have Top 2 Hood street cred?

#9

uhhh…that’s not what i was going for. a selfless relationship is what would make any rational human being of any objective worth want to commit suicide.

#10

I didn’t see anything wrong with the article. This kind of goes along with loving the person in sickness and inhealth, for rich or for poor, etc. It’s solidifying the fact that you’re commited to them regardless of your wants or current station and they are the same for you. Marriage is about defining your relationship to your significant other as much as to everyone else. I thought this was a nice article actually, but I watched a Wes Anderson film about young love last night so I’m feeling more romantic than usual this morning.

#11

Sorry TF, to clarify I was agreeing it was verbal diarrhea. Should have started new paragraph.

#12

Completely selfless relationships don’t exist. But some people have this martyr mentality, which I think is way worse than being (reasonably) selfish.

#13

To me, marriage is about creating a social structure that provides a more stable environment for raising children. It’s almost certainly less needed or necessary today, but it still offers some benefits in that department.

Historically, it was probably useful for marking off property rights to people so that it would reduce the number of conflicts over mates (both among men and among women). Historically, children were also pretty important to one’s own survival, in the event of survival to old age, so getting married to produce children was definitely in most people’s mutual self-interest.

Now that women have more options for sources of income and human beings in general have longer life expectancies with better health later in life, it’s harder to see why marriage has to be a lifelong commitment and not simply a term commitment. A lot has to do with tradition vs. change in society, but maybe people should plan on having term marriages with the possibility of renewal if things work out.

I think many women (and some men) feel that marriage conveys a sense of “social approval” that they want and feel that they need: that being unmarried later in life somehow indicates that they are “undesired.” I think that’s changing these days, but I have still met many women who are “on the hunt” for a husband and very worked up about whether they can catch one. It’s odd to me, because they are not necessarily all that worked up about having children and a family (at least not openly), but they are worked up about needing to get married. It seems silly to me: getting married because “you’re supposed to.”

In my mind, if you’re planning to raise children with someone, get married. If you’re old or ill and you want to facilitate property transfers to your loyal companion in the event of death, get married. If you’re deeply in love and you want to show your commitment to your partner - maybe get married, but make sure your love is the enduring kind first, because those particular kinds of decisions generally arent fully rational.

Anyway, that’s my take.

#14

People sign contracts to lock down their top notch draft picks. The need becomes less as you start messing with lower tier players. If they’re a 10th round pick and you intiated the negotiations from a ‘why not’ perspective maybe you want to try them out longer, maybe you’ll cut them, maybe they’ll be practice squad or maybe you’ll resign them later. Who cares right? If you got yourself the top pick of that class with great intaglibles then you’d want to franchise them. Note, if you’re the bottom in your league’s standings that late round pick is looking good because you plug them in right away and improve your situation. The bottom line is you want to create the best team you can and people will do what it takes to make sure they are optimizing their line up.

#15

^ Great analogy!

#16

Exactly. This is how society makes you feel, and it takes a lot of strength to stand against it.

Interestingly, once a woman been married once and is divorced for whatever reason, it’s much more socially acceptable for her to never want to remarry again.As if she had proved her desirability and now free to do whatever she wants to without any judgement. So strange.

#17

If this logic is true, I feel really bad for those women

#18

A lot of guys think that if they don’t have a lot of money by a certain age, they aren’t successful.

#19

IMO, i would guess that more than half of the people getting married these days do it for the wrong reasons, namely that they are lonely and needy, so they rationalize that they love whomever gives them an opportunity (cuz they suck at socializing and meeting new people), and they marry her/him to try to make it stick. But in the long term… EMH holds, so they get divorced.

#20

ITT: single people bitching about society’s stigmatization of being single and saying most married people are insincere about their commitment.

What if I told you that nobody gives a damn if you’re single and the reason for high divorce rates is that people change? I know for a fact I date a different type of person now than I did when I was 23. This is a function of changes in both my personality and the things I find valuable in a woman. Hopefully my personality is bit more static now, we’ll see.

In terms of the initial article, dad’s advice is pretty dumb. You absolutely have to do things for your wife/husband, but you should enjoy doing that stuff for them. It’s not selfless. If you don’t enjoy helping and supporting somebody who you love, then you may need to reevaluate your definition of love.