Marry Him: The case for settling for Mr. Good Enough
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
But during the 20 years of marriage, the way we met didn't matter. Marriage is something else than about that initial burst of lust, or gushing romance or whatever. When you get woken up at 4 in the morning by your soulmate because the dog needs to go outside to pee and she certainly isn't about to leave the warm bed, believe me, romantic love is not what makes you jump out of bed.
I think we have unrealistic expectations about romance. Living together is freaking hard; giving up one's independence and having to be ready to compromise about every damned last thing in life (except maybe what you do in the potty) is hard. And once you compromise, if you're smart and want to stay happy, you have to be enthusiastic about the compromise, or you get bitter. Be happy, even when you didn't get what you want.
Still, despite all the compromises, all the things we had to work out, here I am 20 years later, and the love I had for her on that first day we met seems like a pale imitation to what I feel today. You have to work at it, and you end up with something a lot more. I don't know about settling, but instant love connection or not, making the marriage work is the hard part, and the real love in life comes from that work.
> and the love I had for her on that first day we met seems like a pale imitation to what I feel today
It's only people who realize that compromise, distance, and honesty are some of the ingredients required to bring two people together (happily) for life.
I have done four startups now, and have been fortunate enough to have become independent (that was the goal, not to become rich). Each startup has been made immeasurably easier because I have a wife that has helped me, and she too has had to undoubtedly compromise. I have seen what my single co-founders or near founders have experience, and no way would I have gone through my experiences with as much fun as I have had without my wife's support. She has her own indie business now--and nicely profitable it is too--and I take some measure of pride in having helped her with it every day. Helping her has meant putting off or not doing something that I wanted to do.
And finally, the LGPL was a compromise.
But you are compromising: your compromise is that you can't experience marriage.
See? Not all bad.
On the flip side, girls it have really really easy on their early 20s. That might create an "suply is infinite" kind of thinking in girls, and maybe perhaps even a degree of narcisism sets in (I am demanded, I deserver x, and y, and of course z qualities on a bf/ideal partner). Some girls just fail to realise that past 26 (maybe 28 for asian girls), looks tend to fade. (fertility peak is 22).
So, absent a family presure, it is easy to get comfortable thinking this attention they get is normal, and will last for a long time.
Hence, they hit their late 20s/early 30s with extremely high expectations, yet their perceived value has diminished with time (at least looks wise).
Many girls realize this, and end up being in "settling mode", which honestly, if you are a guy sucks. She will not love you for what you really are.
To be honest if I had a daughter, my advice would be find a good one between 25-28. That's where your should be wise enough to know what you want, but still have time to change your mind if you feel it is not the right thing.
I am 28 myself and when dating I am not trying to evaluate whether she already passed her prime time or if she still has a couple of good years cause she is Asian. Unless you are a teenager or in the early twenties, we are all going downhill. Shouldn't we try to find a partner who we like and share interests with, regardless of age (obviously, there are some boundaries).
It seems you don't want a girl to 'settle' with you, but there's a ton of reasons to do so independently of her age. Maybe she wants you only for your money, or your looks...
You're right though that there are plenty of other reasons a woman could be interested in you, but I think you might be underestimating just how loud that biological clock is ticking in a woman's brain when she hits 30.
So. . . I daresay that the comment does sound pretty awful. Awful is probably the wrong word. Delusional, megalomaniac, may be better words. Anybody who doesn't have a bell curve around the ages of people they're willing to date (yes, with his/her own age in the middle) is probably missing a few logic gates.
Given the gendercide and such, it's pretty certain that the world will never have shortage of creepy old men.
I think that's a bit judgemental. It's okay for people to have preferences regarding who they date. If one of these preferences is for younger women, well, that's up to them. There are girls out there with preferences for richer men or taller men and we don't go around accusing them of "missing a few logic gates".
As an example, suppose you're an older guy (~45 yo) looking to get married and have kids. Your preferences are obviously going to tend towards younger women because you'll have a better chance of conceiving and healthier kids. This doesn't imply that you're crazy, or creepy. It simply implies that you have particular life plans and have a preference for getting together with someone who is compatible with these.
Alternatively, he may be open to the prospect of marriage but not be sufficiently dedicated to it to be marrying someone who feels that they're just settling for him.
The deconstruction is hilarious. Thanks for posting it. I read all of it.
The civil contract idea is intriguing and creepy at the same time. Part of me thinks, "...or just don't get married in the first place?" That the government is involved with what is, effectively, a religious sacrament, boggles me a little. But that's a whole 'nother discussion.
After 11.5 years (and yes, that .5 is important), I'm starting to feel like a veteran on marriage. Like Gottlieb, my perspective on what 'Mr Right' is has changed significantly. To wit, if I had advice to give to young women, it wouldn't be to "settle," but to find someone young, intelligent and not too hard to look at and train him.* By way of example, tptacek is currently in the kitchen making a chicken caesar salad.
* What this really means: grow together. It's difficult, but better than turning 40 and "settling."
However as a married atheist I have to point out that marriage is a legal and social construct and not strictly a religious one. I have no trouble pointing to past societies where it was very religious, and ones where it was not religious at all. In short marriage has meaning, and it has meaning for non-religious people as well.
In fact, the divorce rate among atheists is lower than the general public. So one could make a case that marriage matters more to atheists than to the general public!
A more simple way of putting it would be, "if you believe marriage has meaning, then it has meaning." True for anything, right? Now if we could only agree on what is meaningful, and what is not...
Yes, some men are trainable. But you had better verify that he's sufficiently trainable for your needs before marrying him.
I found this analysis of the author much more interesting than the original article: http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2010/02/dont_settle_for_the_m...
I'd like to read someone who can actually find a counter-argument to her thesis and convince me that the best thing women can do is to hold on to their ideal all the way to the end.
That said, I think Lori is totally misguided. She feels she hasn't found a guy because her standards were too high, and that now she needs to lower them and "settle". Maybe she hasn't found a guy because she was too busy measuring guys by some predefined standards, and missed out on having fun. At the end of the day, standards and faults don't really matter if you enjoy being with the other person.
Indeed: it's only a fallacy if you try to use it as proof of a claim.
As a probability indicator, it's fantastically useful: if person A is right 80% of the time when they make a claim, and person B is right only 20% of the time (assuming all else is equal), then you'd be a damn fool not to incorporate that information into your estimate as to whether something is true: person A is four times as likely to be right, so in a disagreement between the two you should always side with A.
I'm getting a little tired of people shouting "ad hominem" every time the credibility of the author is challenged. The fact that someone doesn't believe in evolution absolutely should make me take their thoughts on global warming less seriously; similarly, if someone has displayed an extremely immature, counterproductive, or selfish approach to relationships, you should probably take any relationship advice they give with a serious grain of salt.
Second, she soundly observes that marriage is basically a business partnership, except she considers it nonprofit (I do not). Assuming you aren't somehow committed to the single life, you should evaluate marriage opportunity based on your appetite for risk and a frank assessment of the opportunity at hand. Just as you shouldn't base decisions on sunk costs, you should ignore illusory opportunity costs. Physical capital decays, if you want a return on it you'll have to take a risk before it loses all of its production capacity. Of course, the older you get without taking a plunge, the easier it becomes to see the illusory nature of the opportunity cost you might have been using.
This all assumes you have a marriage opportunity that you can see having a profitable return (profit measured in happiness here). I would go so far as to say that it's impossible to judge marriage as an institution to be inherently profitable for you personally; it will always depend on the particulars. You might think marriage sounds like the place you want to be, but if you don't find a good partner for yourself in particular, marriage isn't for you.
As long as you don't have kids and both spouses have careers, getting out of the marriage is relatively easy. On the other hand, you only get one life, don't waste it avoiding risks whose most catastrophic downsides are not that bad.
I have assumed you aren't marrying a black widow or having kids with an affinity for patricide/matricide. But worrying about the latter is like worrying about being hit by lightning while not batting an eyelash over driving a car regularly. Avoiding the former is a matter of due diligence.
I know someone will very earnestly explain to me how this is on topic but really, it isn't.
With my career:
I get bored after 1 year, and have never stayed at a company for more than 18 months. Once I understand a company/team, it's hard to picture settling for this position and the realistic growth prospects forever. I'm always networking to find the next job/startup that is more promising than what I have now.
You can fill in the parallels with women, except these feelings creep in even faster.
The confusing bit is, doing this with a job is rewarded. My salary and reputation is much higher for moving around than staying one place.
It's not dissimilar with women. I've been dating more and more attractive women, and I have an easier time bagging them, then dumping them quickly or converting to a relationship depending on how I feel.
I'm a pretty humble person, but on good days I think I will continue to churn through new opportunities for 10 more years, and becoming a rich startup founder with a cool, hot wife isn't out of the question.
At least with respect to his career, how many HN readers don't think this way?
But more and more days now I feel weary. I don't want to work on tons side projects in case they take off, I don't want to hit on strangers at the bar. I want to work reasonable hours, and come home to a woman that is happy to see me.
But still that voice tells me not to settle... When will it, if ever?
I don't trust my boss/girlfriend enough to talk to him/her about what makes me uneasy, and/or do anything to improve things. So I just cut it off.
I am lucky enough right now to have a woman that I trust 99%. I'm still unsure about moving in and marriage, but you made me realize how important she is in my life. She is a friend and a teammate that I can bounce anything off of. I don't always love what she tells me but it feels better than keeping secrets.
I'm going to do my best to get that to 100%, and make sure she feels the same way about me.
the getting from 99% to 100% part is good. Perhaps you won't be able to get beyond 99% because of something in your past that makes you reluctant to do 100%. 99% is pretty fucking good if you ask me.
On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups.
So if this story has upvotes, I presume some "good hackers" here have found it interesting.
I think "Marry Him!" matches those criteria (since I submitted it): few if any sources covering mating markets and their incentives in as much depth; the stories match some of the data, as developed in books like Tim Harford's The Logic of Life; I hadn't realized the extent to which sexual politics change as one ages. Consequently, "Marry Him!" seems like it would be interesting to the HN crowd. So does the article on Haskell first impression, with its discussion of monads. To me, both belong.
A "demographic"—think TV viewers—isn't composed of what people like in general, but only why they're interacting with your community in particular. The original primary demographic of HN was "Hackers who are here to talk about Startups." That demographic is very small, so it was replaced by its own secondary demographic, "Hackers who are here to talk about Whatever Hackers Like Talking About."
Now, the secondary demographic is "non-hackers who like talking about some of the same stuff hackers talk about," and the tertiary demographic is "non-hackers who only care about the stuff that the other non-hackers talk about, and don't care about anything that hackers care about."
Since > 50% of marriages seem to break anyway (if I remember correctly), maybe it would be better to approach things in a more relaxed way to begin with. Maybe then men also wouldn't be so afraid to settle - for a while.
I think we should have five and ten year civil contracts, with options to renew. What you do religiously is your own business.
Divorce statistics are very much a case of lies, damn lies and statistics and are of no use in assessing the likelihood of a successful marriage.
For the record, the 'love' concept of marriage is very much a modern day invention. For most of human history it's been a partly arranged affair to provide a solid foundation with which to bring up children. It's still mostly that (about bringing up children) though the wedding industry likes to convince you it's all about finding the right person and having a romantic time.
That's the kind of statement to rigorously fact-check before believing it. Most estimates of divorce rates (in terms of percentages of all marriages that will end in divorce) are overestimates.
Unless your solution comes with alimony / child support, I don't see how it would work. And if it did, what's so different about it than getting a divorce?
Ten years is not enough time for children to be conceived and raised to maturity in a two-parent home (a situation that significantly improves probable education and life outcomes for a child). Ten-year term contracts are too short to secure the primary purpose of marriage--forming families to raise children--and too long to make a large dent on the divorce rate.
Make a concious decision to try and settle down with one of the first 6 girls you date. Here's the rules:
1) don't settle for the first one you date.
2) the next one you date that is better than the first one you dated is the one you settle for.
Why? Do the math. Let's label them 123456.
If you date 1 first, you have 1 in 5 chance of ending up with any of the others (1 in 30 for each)
If you date 2 first, you end up with 1 (1 in 6)
If you date 3 first, you can end up with 1 or 2 (1 in 12 each)
If you date 4 first, you can end up with 1, 2 or 3 (1 in 18 each)
If you date 5 first, you end up with 1, 2, 3 or 4 (1 in 24 each)
If you date 6 first, you end up with 1,2 .. 5 (1 in 30 each).
Add that up, and the odds of you settling for each woman are:
1 - 38.1%, 2 - 24.7%, 3 - 16.4%, 4 - 10.1%, 5 - 6.7%, 6 - 3.3%
So, 79.2% of the time you "settle" for someone above average. And, for the other 20.8%? You can always split up before it's too late :)
In the case of a woman is different. Assuming her prime is between 20-33; her strategy should be to date until 24 and then marry the best man that exceeds it. right? edit: grammar
Don't ever settle, because doing that is always a certain path to endless misery and longing for what you could have had. Yes, life is short, but that's all the more reason to stick to your ideals, and make sure that you choose your ideals carefully (so that you're successful!)
Just think about how settling would ruin your honesty. Imagine what it would be like if you were to see your spouse and think, "I thought I could do better than you, but I gave up trying to find someone decent. You're okay, I guess." Settling requires you to take these thoughts and "set them aside" - evade them - constantly. Doing this does not result in love, or a happy life for anyone (including the children of divorced parents).
I will posit that there exist women who don't base their self-worth and happiness entirely on the approval and acceptance of a man. I will further posit that there are women who aren't married by 30 because they haven't met someone they want to marry yet and are totally OK with that.
Later first marriages are more likely to last anyway.
(And do men really want to be settled for? Like "sure I'll marry you; you're not totally horrible"?)
Now that you mention it, though, when did marriage and children become either nefarious or ulterior reasons for dating?
I generally flinch in the presence of feminist rhetoric (not saying that you were engaging in rhetoric, demonstrating my leaning), but that is crass and offensive. Why can't people just do what works for them?
Yeeeesh.
It seems to become more difficult with age, though. Easy for you to be annoyed, if you are still in your twenties. What if you are 40? A lot of things will look different by then, I think so much is safe to assume.
Women on the other hand appear to have all manner of weird neuroses about what constitutes "Mr Right.", so vast is the span of options it is not possible to really outline them all, they even conflict in many cases "Works hard, financially secure, can take the kids to soccer practice and let me focus on my career".
At any rate, I don't understand why from a man's perspective marrying a woman from abroad isn't the obvious option. They tend not to have the lifestyle that contributes to what is fundamentally the definition of "average human appearance" being skewed wildly with weight or the long term effects of cosmetics on skin quality etc etc etc.
For what it's worth for me personally, I think all you humans are crazy and I'm perfectly happy to not be codependent, but whatever blows your hair back.
However, I enjoyed The Last Psychiatrist's deconstruction of it more: http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2010/02/dont_settle_for_the_m...
I've heard so many people in real jobs moan about how they would do a startup if only they had the right idea. Or that they didn't think they and their potential partners could learn enough about business to make it. They're waiting for the perfect opportunity and circumstances, as if such things fall out of the sky magically, instead of being built and molded by hard work.
http://jezebel.com/5467630/email-interview-with-lori-gottlie...
Marriage contains a bit of wonder surrounded by pitfalls aplenty. It is best engaged in by the simplistic and rigid.