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What Romance Really Means After 10 Years of Marriage

173 points by DiabloD3 10y ago

Fuzzwah 10y ago
5th year of marriage coming up. Two kids; eldest turns 3 next week, the younger one just started crawling. This article has my current feelings about my wife and my life spot on.
apatters 10y ago
It sounds positively abominable. Why anyone would enjoy such a life continues to elude me.
- spiderfarmer 10y ago
  I'm in my tenth year of marriage with 3 kids and I can honestly say I'm much happier then when I was in my luxury appartment, living the happy single high life. It doesn't happen overnight you know.
  - exclusiv 10y ago
    You're missing the parent's point. It's not about whether you are married with kids vs a bachelor; it's about having a healthy relationship as husband and wife (with or without kids). The author does not have a healthy husband/wife relationship to me. Based on what she wrote - it's all about her and her husband is along for the ride. > But my husband doesn’t yell WHAT THE HELL? at me like he should.... He acts like he doesn’t even notice that I should be locked away forever and ever in some bad, drafty place that serves only American cheese. She knows she's not doing a lot of things she should as a wife, but then she writes about how she appreciates how he falls in line. It sounds like he's a way better husband than she is a wife. That's not healthy and might not be sustainable. > You and your spouse are slogging through the slop of survival together. And it’s romantic. Mark my words. That's a fairy tale rationalization.
    - jacobolus 10y ago
      Wait, what? You can determine that this woman is a bad wife on the basis that she spends a few minutes talking to her dogs when she first gets home? Give me a fucking break. * * * Edit: Calling herself mentally unstable and suggesting that her partner should chastise her and that she deserves to be locked in American cheese hell for being a dog lover is obviously a joke. As for running sick to the bathroom, passing out, cracking her ribs on the bathtub on the way down, and spewing bloody diarrhea all over the floor... that doesn’t make her a bad spouse, only a sick one. I’m sure her husband was far more concerned about her health and safety than he was about cleaning up shit, and I’m sure she would do the same for him.
      - exclusiv 10y ago
        I didn't say she was a bad wife; just that he sounds like he is a better partner. > That’s when I notice my husband. He missed Mommy, too. But my husband doesn’t yell WHAT THE HELL? at me like he should. He doesn’t smirk. He doesn’t roll his eyes. I am clearly unstable, but he makes no sounds to this effect. Instead, he hugs me and smiles and says, “How was your day, baby?” He acts like he doesn’t even notice that I should be locked away forever and ever in some bad, drafty place that serves only American cheese. > My husband was not happy about this scene. But he handled it without complaint. Did you read the article?
        rosser 10y ago
        The husband is the "better partner" because he indulges his wife's idiosyncratic way of greeting the dogs? And why shouldn't he be unhappy about finding his wife passed out, with cracked ribs? Should he be complaining at her for having been sick and fallen? Because, as far as I can tell, you seem to think she did that just to inconvenience her poor, long-suffering, hen-pecked husband. It's life, dude. Shit — sometimes literally — happens. Keeping score over that kind of thing is a pretty much guaranteed ticket to misery, IMO.
        exclusiv 10y ago
- abakker 10y ago
  That's good, though. Other people enjoy it, you don't. There's nobody forcing you and yet you still try to understand it. Maybe one day you will. Personally, it's not all the way it's cut out in this article, but the article hits on some of the key points. If you play your cards right, there's still romance of the traditional kind too, but it takes planning, surprises, and commitment to pull it off.
  - manmal 10y ago
    The article's author does sound resignated though. It seems she does not expect any (whatsoever) disruptive things to happen until death. I could not live with that feeling. I do have 2 kids and will marry soon (living together for >10 years now), so I can believe that one could dissolve herself completely in family life and what she calls romance. I just could not bear the thought of "this is all". For me, family is where I thrive and relax and love, but it can't be the answer to all questions, can't be the self-serving means to an end.
- solipsism 10y ago
  consulting and development services for WordPress ~shudders~ Good thing we can each do our own thing.
  - oceanofsolaris 10y ago
    While you may or may not agree with his opinion or the way he worded it, a personal attack on him is really unwarranted (besides, I don't even get what's that bad about his job description?!). I think we can all agree that it is nicer to have an atmosphere where you can share your opinion without your work being attacked by strangers.
    - rosser 10y ago
      The top comment in this thread made as much a dismissal and attack of the lifestyle described in the fine article, as your comment's parent was on the platform the top comment's author makes a living supporting. That is, it is equally legitimate — or illegitimate — for someone to call another person's lifestyle "positively abominable" as it is for a third person to be all, "Eww, WordPress," at the first. In fact, I'm pretty sure highlighting that fact was the point of that comment.
      - RodericDay 10y ago
        It's very interesting how people apply very different standards for the in-group and the out-group. A Hackernewser making fun of a blog writer is fine, but a hackernewser making fun of another hackernewser is extremely impolite. I fully agree that that was the point of that comment.
- apatters 10y ago
  Interesting! It only took an hour for this criticism of a column which happened to be written by a woman to produce an accusation of misogyny as well as another ad hominem. I didn't think there was much of a gender component here, and there certainly isn't anything related to platform or framework zealotry, so IMO those comments say more about their authors than they do about me or the article. If a man had written this article it would have been no more or less awful. Had this been a same sex couple, still awful. It amounts to a defense of spousal neglect and how, apparently, the fact that your spouse puts up with your negligence is what makes marriage so great. We of course don't get to hear from the spouse about their take on this. Every couple is entitled to carry out their marriage however they like. I'm simply expressing my opinion that the "I've thrown in the towel on romance, sex, and treating my partner well" approach isn't for me.
  - skrebbel 10y ago
    > It only took an hour for this criticism of a column which happened to be written by a woman to produce an accusation of misogyny as well as another ad hominem. Please reply to the comment you write about. You're climbing on a moral high horse that is invisible to the rest of us. In fact, I read through the entire subthread and can't find anyone accusing you of misogyny.
guard-of-terra 10y ago
> Holy Christ, I really am going to melt right into this other person (who is a relative stranger)! It really IS physically intoxicating and perfect! And it seems like we feel the exact same way about each other! That's not romance. That's illusions. She's welcoming trouble with that attitude. UPD: Apparently not anymore if she left that minefield and lives in healthy marriage.
known 10y ago
Listen to her; Acknowledge her; Appreciate her; And she'll give you 80% marks;
dclowd9901 10y ago
I'm so sick of the trope of the happy sexless marriage. It's unhealthy and it's the cause of a lot of unhappy marriages and delusions out there. This article doesn't address the trope and instead reinforces it.
- skrebbel 10y ago
  Sexless? How is that implied in any way by the article?
  - gayprogrammer 10y ago
    She describes sex as only happening in infatuation romance. She redefines sexy to something non-sexual. She details laying in bed together and being alone together in a way that most people would call boring (playing a phone game).
    - ZenoArrow 10y ago
      Intimacy is more than just fucking.
      - pluma 10y ago
        For a good take on this, here's the Sexplanations video on "foreplay": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TGOSu9YuFc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TGOSu9YuFc TL;DW: Just like sex doesn't have to be about penetration, foreplay isn't just about touching or dirty talk.
        ZenoArrow 10y ago
        It goes beyond foreplay (I've seen that Sexplanations video before, I like the video and I'm subscribed to the channel, it's just not what I'm talking about). Intimacy is about sensuality and closeness. Those don't have to be anything to do with sex. For example, it's possible to experience intimacy in a completely non-sexual setting, such as a honest conversation about death. Intimacy is about the feeling of closeness to someone, not about what that closeness results in.
known 10y ago
"By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher." --Socrates
- lern_too_spel 10y ago
  Don't you mean --Abraham Lincoln? That quote is from an unknown source.
general_ai 10y ago
As someone in late 30's, I look at this thread and shake my head. Folks, you can't apply your own stereotypes to everyone's situation. What's a "healthy" relationship to some is completely unsustainable for others. What's "romance" to some is neglect to others. People's needs differ, and not only you don't have to conform to stereotypical norms in your private life, you simply can't do it: it'd require too much willpower. So, TL;DR: don't tell me what's "healthy" and "normal". And coincidentally, I greet my cat first when I get home, and my wife doesn't mind.
- izacus 10y ago
  And yet, the original article attempts to do the same kind of generalized painting as well :/
- jamesrcole 10y ago
  > As someone in late 30's, I look at this thread and shake my head. That comes across a bit smug and also a bit presumptuous about the other people in the thread.
- cvvcvv 10y ago
  Call me crazy but I would never marry a woman who prefers cats to dogs.
  - odiroot 10y ago
    I would agree 100% but it still sound a little bit silly. I cannot even say why do I care so much about this.
  - pluma 10y ago
    Call me crazy but I probably wouldn't be nearly as happy if my wife weren't a cat person.
  - Ixiaus 10y ago
    Then, my partner and I are both crazy. Life's going to surprise you when you discover how failure prone generalizations are :)
Scottn1 10y ago
Been with my wife 26 years. One kid. We are High school sweethearts. Just had "date night" again last night where we had dinner/wine and watched the magical movie La La Land after. Just about a perfect night. I chose that despite having three good friends texting me all day to go out for drinks. Two of them are divorced and newly single. The third has been a bonafied "will never marry" womanizer his whole life who I sometimes would envy a once in a while in our 20/30's when he'd get an 8 or 9, but now it is really getting old and sort of pathetic in our mid 40's. One thing that sticks out to me from something the womanizer friend of mine told me like 7 years ago. I tried to boost him up one night after breaking up with one of his 2 month fling (a pretty hot waitress) by saying he gets hot girls all the time so cheer up. He told me something along the lines of "yeah hot girl here, next month I'll have another but you get to crawl into a warm bed tonight with someone who loves you and you the same. I'll never have that".
- phkahler 10y ago
  I was hanging around work a bit late one time. My phone beeped and I said "Oh crap, she's gonna be pissed that I'm still here". One of the other guys - a really great guy and engineer - looked at me and said "At least you have someone that gives a shit that you're late." He was single and nobody was going to complain that he was late that day. That helped put things in perspective for me.
- ikeyany 10y ago
  It sounds like he doesn't truly want it. Or at least not enough to make fundamental, hard changes. You did want it, and you had the courage/balls to invest in someone you felt was worth it.
Red_Tarsius 10y ago
'Will I really feel loved and desired and truly adored at last?' I laughed at this sentence because no married man I know feels this way. Many of them are just belittled and controlled and disrespected. Most of the romance I see around is pleasing the wife at the expense of the husband. An old friend of mine – a math Phd – was persuaded by wife's family to give up all his dreams and an ambitious career so that she could keep teaching in the local middle/high schools. He's going to be a work drone in dilbert hell for the rest of his life. He's mostly treated like a butler. It's just sad and depressing.
- jacobolus 10y ago
  Sounds like your collection of friends generally made poor life decisions in their choice of partners and/or have their own emotional hang-ups related to career–life balance, frustrated ambitions, housework, .. I recommend against projecting this depressing anecdotal evidence on the whole world though. As a counter-anecdote, most of my long-married friends seem to respect and get along pretty well with their spouses.
- PaulRobinson 10y ago
  You need to find better role models for healthy relationships. Reading this is like reading the comments of somebody in their mid-20s who has known nothing but abusive relationships and been rejected multiple times who has decided all relationships are disgusting. If that is the case for you, I hope you can open your mind enough to being loved by somebody who can show you the truth. I don't know any couple who belittle or control each other, and certainly don't disrespect each other. If I did, I'd recommend they get the hell away from each other as quickly as possible. Romance is not about pleasing one person at the expense of the other, it's about two people who love each other exploring the mystery of that love. I've been with my partner for over 7 years. She's my best friend. We respect each other, and if one of us thinks the other one is not taking our own needs into account we talk about it and compromise. The fact that your friend has chosen to prioritise his wife's feelings over his career is his choice. If he hasn't made it gladly and freely, then he needs to get out.
- phkahler 10y ago
  >> Many of them are just belittled and controlled and disrespected. Those guys are pathetic. They probably get courtesy sex every month or two right? A proper man takes charge of his own life first, which provides a sense of security to his wife, which is what she wants and respects. If he can't pass her shit-tests, how's he going to get by in the real world?
k__ 10y ago
Also you can just accept that marriage and monogamy is just one way to live and it doesn't have to fit you.
- pluma 10y ago
  The article is literally about relationships in the context of a long-term marriage. Your comment is a complete non-sequitur. Heck, the article doesn't even require the presumption of a monogamous marriage for the points to be applicable. It applies equally well to any committed long-term relationship, no matter how many people are involved and regardless of your tax status.
  - k__ 10y ago
    That's exaclty the point. The article doesn't explicitly talk about monogamous relationships. It simply sees them as given and talks about solution 'inside' of this given assumption. I'm just saying, you don't have to follow these parts.
    - pluma 10y ago
      That's like pointing out the existence of veganism in an article on pulled pork recipes, or the existence of other religious faiths in an article about the meaning of Ramadan in Islam. The article is written as a response to a question about romance in long-term monogamous marriages, so of course it sees monogamous marriages as a given. Did you expect her to add a paragraph like "Hey, maybe if you can't find romance in a monogamous marriage you're just not made to be monogamous or married and that's fine too"? Do you expect articles on programming best practices to contain similar paragraphs ("Hey, maybe if you don't like fizzbuzz you're not really into programming and should try hardware instead.")?
      - k__ 10y ago
        No, it's different. The article is about a specific problem and tries to tell people 'everything is okay, you just need to accept that things change' while this may not the solution many long term relationships need.
swsieber 10y ago
I think there are some important points alluded to, but maybe not explicitly pointed out: When the sparks leave a relationship, you have two choices: put in effort to it happy and fulfilling, or leave it. Those who have a happy marriage put effort in (note that putting effort in can still leave you with an unhappy marriage, because it takes two to tango). Additionally, love is not blind. A good marriage is probably made up of two people who are painfully aware of their partners shortcomings. I would venture a guess that the husband in the article is very aware of his wife's foibles, but has chosen to be happy in that marriage, because there's a lot in there to him happy. Ditto for the wife. Lastly, though I don't think it was explicitly mentioned in the article, I think lots of physical affection, including but not limited to sex, is an important component of a happy marriage.
kchoudhu 10y ago
"When you crawl into bed at 10PM" Amateurs. A good night's sleep begins at 9PM for my wife and I.
- 91bananas 10y ago
  Pro-status is truly achieved when you fall asleep on the couch right after you put the kids to bed then wake up at 2am like what did we do?!
  - kchoudhu 10y ago
    Oh good, my wife and I are not the only people this happens to. Seriously, someone needs to start a support group for new parents so that normal behavior can be...normalized?
    - thatwebdude 10y ago
      Does new parent status still happen five years in...?
ryanmarsh 10y ago
Last night my wife took me out to dinner and a raunchy hilarious burlesque show for my birthday. We've been married 14 years. The evening was wonderful. We decided to stay out a little longer and had a disagreement over something I really don't know how it got this big but turned into an argument in the parking lot that could have ended with a short ride home and make up sex but since the car wouldn't start it turned into a really bad argument while we waited over an hour for roadside assistance to get there and jump start the car. This morning she rolled over and told me to fuck her and we had passionate intimate sex and it's like nothing happened but we're still both a little hurt but won't say anything about it until the argument boils over again and I still haven't hung the new light fixture in the half-bath and I have to pack for a business trip Tuesday and I dread packing so I'll drag her into it and she'll tolerate me, barely, and I don't know what this is or if it's how it should be but it's us and we love each other more than we hate each other and it's not that we're great for each other it's just that there's some kind of intersectionality in our individual dysfunctions and so here we are. I don't know shit about marriage and I'm glad the author is happy but I swear to fucking God that dog shit would drive me up the fucking wall so we have our thing and you have yours so let's just not judge each other or label each other's marriage.
laughfactory 10y ago
Brilliant article. And I think the author is pretty spot on. I think a lot of the divorce rate is caused mostly by a lack of understanding that the infatuation of the first year or two doesn't last. That at some point the romance is in being deeply known, surviving life together, and being able to depend on each other. This is not to say that there won't be dates, dinners, flowers, etc. But just that those things become footnotes. I suspect that our culture (in the US particularly) has so tightly bound romance with lust and infatuation, that that's what people who get divorce after divorce are constantly in search of. How sad I am when I hear "we're great friends, but we both just want something more..." Like what? Because you can totally try someone new on like a pair of socks, and in all probability, in ten years, if everything's gone well, be right back to where you started: best friends, but something deeper because you've survived together. True romance and the fruits of it are only achieved after decades.
- ShahofVista 10y ago
  There is research on this, there are two distinct kinds of love, passionate and companionate. Passionate is in the beginning and generally lasts a year or two, while it fades, companionate evolves. Though companionate declines over time, some level of passionate is needed to keep the relationship lasting. http://www.apa.org/monitor/feb07/eternal.aspx http://www.apa.org/monitor/feb07/eternal.aspx
Fnoord 10y ago
> After a decade of marriage, if things go well, you don’t need any more proof. What you have instead — and what I would argue is the most deeply romantic thing of all — is this palpable, reassuring sense that it’s okay to be a human being. Because until you feel absolutely sure that you won’t eventually be abandoned, it’s maybe not 100 percent clear that any other human mortal can tolerate another human mortal. The smells. The sounds. The repetitive fixations on the same dumb shit, over and over. Even as you develop a kind of a resigned glaze of oh, this again in, say, marital years one through five, you also feel faintly unnerved by your own terrible mortal humanness. Marriage, yawn. No. Marriage is not the factor. The factor is the moment you consider each other 'together'. In 2017, the decision of wether you are together or not is not anymore 'marriage'. That hegemony, as dictated by [Christian] religion, is gone. Also, what is being described doesn't necessarily take 10 years of marriage. From what I gathered you're (madly) in love for max 2 years, and then (right before those 2 years are passed) the hormones produced and amounts of them change in amount and it becomes a different kind of love. A caring kind of love. With sometimes references, filled with nostalgia, to those first 2 years. I would describe it as 2 years of wild fun, and then that forms the basis of getting the thing to work between the two of you. Also, the following specific statement: > Because until you feel absolutely sure that you won’t eventually be abandoned Is interesting because people are going to die eventually. There are 4 possibilities here: 1) Your significant other dies first 2) You die before your significant other does 3) You die together 4) You split up (called divorce in case of marriage) before one of you or the both of you die. Of note here to #1 and #2 is that women on average live longer. Of note of #3 is that this is highly unlikely, but it does happen, usually in the form of accidents. Why is this relevant? Because apart of option #3 (which is very rare) there's going to be a time where you are alone once more. You don't know the details about this beforehand. For example, you don't know who is going to live alone. You don't know when this is going to happen. You don't know how you are going to die, or how your partner is going to die. Because of this its not concrete, and hence ignored. It does however mean that you can never feel absolutely sure that you won’t eventually be abandoned which contradicts the quoted sentence. I'm aware of a different theory. A relationship (and a friendship) is a balance of plus and minus. There are things you like about each other, and there are things you don't like about each other. The good is a long list. The bad are things you can handle. If something happens which you want to put on the bad list, you need to make it up with things on the good list. From what I read, it has to be 10:1. For some people the fuel is gone, and they part ways while for others they feel so sure the balance is good they realise they're not going to part by force of incompatibility. Meanwhile, you get those references of nostalgia which retrigger the hormones from the first two years.
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173 points by DiabloD3 10y ago

5th year of marriage coming up. Two kids; eldest turns 3 next week, the younger one just started crawling. This article has my current feelings about my wife and my life spot on.

apatters 10y ago

It sounds positively abominable. Why anyone would enjoy such a life continues to elude me.

spiderfarmer 10y ago
I'm in my tenth year of marriage with 3 kids and I can honestly say I'm much happier then when I was in my luxury appartment, living the happy single high life. It doesn't happen overnight you know.
- exclusiv 10y ago
  You're missing the parent's point. It's not about whether you are married with kids vs a bachelor; it's about having a healthy relationship as husband and wife (with or without kids). The author does not have a healthy husband/wife relationship to me. Based on what she wrote - it's all about her and her husband is along for the ride. > But my husband doesn’t yell WHAT THE HELL? at me like he should.... He acts like he doesn’t even notice that I should be locked away forever and ever in some bad, drafty place that serves only American cheese. She knows she's not doing a lot of things she should as a wife, but then she writes about how she appreciates how he falls in line. It sounds like he's a way better husband than she is a wife. That's not healthy and might not be sustainable. > You and your spouse are slogging through the slop of survival together. And it’s romantic. Mark my words. That's a fairy tale rationalization.
  - jacobolus 10y ago
    Wait, what? You can determine that this woman is a bad wife on the basis that she spends a few minutes talking to her dogs when she first gets home? Give me a fucking break. * * * Edit: Calling herself mentally unstable and suggesting that her partner should chastise her and that she deserves to be locked in American cheese hell for being a dog lover is obviously a joke. As for running sick to the bathroom, passing out, cracking her ribs on the bathtub on the way down, and spewing bloody diarrhea all over the floor... that doesn’t make her a bad spouse, only a sick one. I’m sure her husband was far more concerned about her health and safety than he was about cleaning up shit, and I’m sure she would do the same for him.
    - exclusiv 10y ago
      I didn't say she was a bad wife; just that he sounds like he is a better partner. > That’s when I notice my husband. He missed Mommy, too. But my husband doesn’t yell WHAT THE HELL? at me like he should. He doesn’t smirk. He doesn’t roll his eyes. I am clearly unstable, but he makes no sounds to this effect. Instead, he hugs me and smiles and says, “How was your day, baby?” He acts like he doesn’t even notice that I should be locked away forever and ever in some bad, drafty place that serves only American cheese. > My husband was not happy about this scene. But he handled it without complaint. Did you read the article?
      - rosser 10y ago
        The husband is the "better partner" because he indulges his wife's idiosyncratic way of greeting the dogs? And why shouldn't he be unhappy about finding his wife passed out, with cracked ribs? Should he be complaining at her for having been sick and fallen? Because, as far as I can tell, you seem to think she did that just to inconvenience her poor, long-suffering, hen-pecked husband. It's life, dude. Shit — sometimes literally — happens. Keeping score over that kind of thing is a pretty much guaranteed ticket to misery, IMO.
        exclusiv 10y ago
abakker 10y ago
That's good, though. Other people enjoy it, you don't. There's nobody forcing you and yet you still try to understand it. Maybe one day you will. Personally, it's not all the way it's cut out in this article, but the article hits on some of the key points. If you play your cards right, there's still romance of the traditional kind too, but it takes planning, surprises, and commitment to pull it off.
- manmal 10y ago
  The article's author does sound resignated though. It seems she does not expect any (whatsoever) disruptive things to happen until death. I could not live with that feeling. I do have 2 kids and will marry soon (living together for >10 years now), so I can believe that one could dissolve herself completely in family life and what she calls romance. I just could not bear the thought of "this is all". For me, family is where I thrive and relax and love, but it can't be the answer to all questions, can't be the self-serving means to an end.
solipsism 10y ago
consulting and development services for WordPress ~shudders~ Good thing we can each do our own thing.
- oceanofsolaris 10y ago
  While you may or may not agree with his opinion or the way he worded it, a personal attack on him is really unwarranted (besides, I don't even get what's that bad about his job description?!). I think we can all agree that it is nicer to have an atmosphere where you can share your opinion without your work being attacked by strangers.
  - rosser 10y ago
    The top comment in this thread made as much a dismissal and attack of the lifestyle described in the fine article, as your comment's parent was on the platform the top comment's author makes a living supporting. That is, it is equally legitimate — or illegitimate — for someone to call another person's lifestyle "positively abominable" as it is for a third person to be all, "Eww, WordPress," at the first. In fact, I'm pretty sure highlighting that fact was the point of that comment.
    - RodericDay 10y ago
      It's very interesting how people apply very different standards for the in-group and the out-group. A Hackernewser making fun of a blog writer is fine, but a hackernewser making fun of another hackernewser is extremely impolite. I fully agree that that was the point of that comment.
apatters 10y ago
Interesting! It only took an hour for this criticism of a column which happened to be written by a woman to produce an accusation of misogyny as well as another ad hominem. I didn't think there was much of a gender component here, and there certainly isn't anything related to platform or framework zealotry, so IMO those comments say more about their authors than they do about me or the article. If a man had written this article it would have been no more or less awful. Had this been a same sex couple, still awful. It amounts to a defense of spousal neglect and how, apparently, the fact that your spouse puts up with your negligence is what makes marriage so great. We of course don't get to hear from the spouse about their take on this. Every couple is entitled to carry out their marriage however they like. I'm simply expressing my opinion that the "I've thrown in the towel on romance, sex, and treating my partner well" approach isn't for me.
- skrebbel 10y ago
  > It only took an hour for this criticism of a column which happened to be written by a woman to produce an accusation of misogyny as well as another ad hominem. Please reply to the comment you write about. You're climbing on a moral high horse that is invisible to the rest of us. In fact, I read through the entire subthread and can't find anyone accusing you of misogyny.

guard-of-terra 10y ago

> Holy Christ, I really am going to melt right into this other person (who is a relative stranger)! It really IS physically intoxicating and perfect! And it seems like we feel the exact same way about each other! That's not romance. That's illusions. She's welcoming trouble with that attitude. UPD: Apparently not anymore if she left that minefield and lives in healthy marriage.

known 10y ago

Listen to her; Acknowledge her; Appreciate her; And she'll give you 80% marks;

dclowd9901 10y ago

I'm so sick of the trope of the happy sexless marriage. It's unhealthy and it's the cause of a lot of unhappy marriages and delusions out there. This article doesn't address the trope and instead reinforces it.

skrebbel 10y ago
Sexless? How is that implied in any way by the article?
- gayprogrammer 10y ago
  She describes sex as only happening in infatuation romance. She redefines sexy to something non-sexual. She details laying in bed together and being alone together in a way that most people would call boring (playing a phone game).
  - ZenoArrow 10y ago
    Intimacy is more than just fucking.
    - pluma 10y ago
      For a good take on this, here's the Sexplanations video on "foreplay": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TGOSu9YuFc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TGOSu9YuFc TL;DW: Just like sex doesn't have to be about penetration, foreplay isn't just about touching or dirty talk.
      - ZenoArrow 10y ago
        It goes beyond foreplay (I've seen that Sexplanations video before, I like the video and I'm subscribed to the channel, it's just not what I'm talking about). Intimacy is about sensuality and closeness. Those don't have to be anything to do with sex. For example, it's possible to experience intimacy in a completely non-sexual setting, such as a honest conversation about death. Intimacy is about the feeling of closeness to someone, not about what that closeness results in.

known 10y ago

"By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher." --Socrates

lern_too_spel 10y ago
Don't you mean --Abraham Lincoln? That quote is from an unknown source.

general_ai 10y ago

As someone in late 30's, I look at this thread and shake my head. Folks, you can't apply your own stereotypes to everyone's situation. What's a "healthy" relationship to some is completely unsustainable for others. What's "romance" to some is neglect to others. People's needs differ, and not only you don't have to conform to stereotypical norms in your private life, you simply can't do it: it'd require too much willpower. So, TL;DR: don't tell me what's "healthy" and "normal". And coincidentally, I greet my cat first when I get home, and my wife doesn't mind.

izacus 10y ago
And yet, the original article attempts to do the same kind of generalized painting as well :/
jamesrcole 10y ago
> As someone in late 30's, I look at this thread and shake my head. That comes across a bit smug and also a bit presumptuous about the other people in the thread.
cvvcvv 10y ago
Call me crazy but I would never marry a woman who prefers cats to dogs.
- odiroot 10y ago
  I would agree 100% but it still sound a little bit silly. I cannot even say why do I care so much about this.
- pluma 10y ago
  Call me crazy but I probably wouldn't be nearly as happy if my wife weren't a cat person.
- Ixiaus 10y ago
  Then, my partner and I are both crazy. Life's going to surprise you when you discover how failure prone generalizations are :)

Scottn1 10y ago

Been with my wife 26 years. One kid. We are High school sweethearts. Just had "date night" again last night where we had dinner/wine and watched the magical movie La La Land after. Just about a perfect night. I chose that despite having three good friends texting me all day to go out for drinks. Two of them are divorced and newly single. The third has been a bonafied "will never marry" womanizer his whole life who I sometimes would envy a once in a while in our 20/30's when he'd get an 8 or 9, but now it is really getting old and sort of pathetic in our mid 40's. One thing that sticks out to me from something the womanizer friend of mine told me like 7 years ago. I tried to boost him up one night after breaking up with one of his 2 month fling (a pretty hot waitress) by saying he gets hot girls all the time so cheer up. He told me something along the lines of "yeah hot girl here, next month I'll have another but you get to crawl into a warm bed tonight with someone who loves you and you the same. I'll never have that".

phkahler 10y ago
I was hanging around work a bit late one time. My phone beeped and I said "Oh crap, she's gonna be pissed that I'm still here". One of the other guys - a really great guy and engineer - looked at me and said "At least you have someone that gives a shit that you're late." He was single and nobody was going to complain that he was late that day. That helped put things in perspective for me.
ikeyany 10y ago
It sounds like he doesn't truly want it. Or at least not enough to make fundamental, hard changes. You did want it, and you had the courage/balls to invest in someone you felt was worth it.

Red_Tarsius 10y ago

'Will I really feel loved and desired and truly adored at last?' I laughed at this sentence because no married man I know feels this way. Many of them are just belittled and controlled and disrespected. Most of the romance I see around is pleasing the wife at the expense of the husband. An old friend of mine – a math Phd – was persuaded by wife's family to give up all his dreams and an ambitious career so that she could keep teaching in the local middle/high schools. He's going to be a work drone in dilbert hell for the rest of his life. He's mostly treated like a butler. It's just sad and depressing.

jacobolus 10y ago
Sounds like your collection of friends generally made poor life decisions in their choice of partners and/or have their own emotional hang-ups related to career–life balance, frustrated ambitions, housework, .. I recommend against projecting this depressing anecdotal evidence on the whole world though. As a counter-anecdote, most of my long-married friends seem to respect and get along pretty well with their spouses.
PaulRobinson 10y ago
You need to find better role models for healthy relationships. Reading this is like reading the comments of somebody in their mid-20s who has known nothing but abusive relationships and been rejected multiple times who has decided all relationships are disgusting. If that is the case for you, I hope you can open your mind enough to being loved by somebody who can show you the truth. I don't know any couple who belittle or control each other, and certainly don't disrespect each other. If I did, I'd recommend they get the hell away from each other as quickly as possible. Romance is not about pleasing one person at the expense of the other, it's about two people who love each other exploring the mystery of that love. I've been with my partner for over 7 years. She's my best friend. We respect each other, and if one of us thinks the other one is not taking our own needs into account we talk about it and compromise. The fact that your friend has chosen to prioritise his wife's feelings over his career is his choice. If he hasn't made it gladly and freely, then he needs to get out.
phkahler 10y ago
>> Many of them are just belittled and controlled and disrespected. Those guys are pathetic. They probably get courtesy sex every month or two right? A proper man takes charge of his own life first, which provides a sense of security to his wife, which is what she wants and respects. If he can't pass her shit-tests, how's he going to get by in the real world?

k__ 10y ago

Also you can just accept that marriage and monogamy is just one way to live and it doesn't have to fit you.

pluma 10y ago
The article is literally about relationships in the context of a long-term marriage. Your comment is a complete non-sequitur. Heck, the article doesn't even require the presumption of a monogamous marriage for the points to be applicable. It applies equally well to any committed long-term relationship, no matter how many people are involved and regardless of your tax status.
- k__ 10y ago
  That's exaclty the point. The article doesn't explicitly talk about monogamous relationships. It simply sees them as given and talks about solution 'inside' of this given assumption. I'm just saying, you don't have to follow these parts.
  - pluma 10y ago
    That's like pointing out the existence of veganism in an article on pulled pork recipes, or the existence of other religious faiths in an article about the meaning of Ramadan in Islam. The article is written as a response to a question about romance in long-term monogamous marriages, so of course it sees monogamous marriages as a given. Did you expect her to add a paragraph like "Hey, maybe if you can't find romance in a monogamous marriage you're just not made to be monogamous or married and that's fine too"? Do you expect articles on programming best practices to contain similar paragraphs ("Hey, maybe if you don't like fizzbuzz you're not really into programming and should try hardware instead.")?
    - k__ 10y ago
      No, it's different. The article is about a specific problem and tries to tell people 'everything is okay, you just need to accept that things change' while this may not the solution many long term relationships need.

swsieber 10y ago

I think there are some important points alluded to, but maybe not explicitly pointed out: When the sparks leave a relationship, you have two choices: put in effort to it happy and fulfilling, or leave it. Those who have a happy marriage put effort in (note that putting effort in can still leave you with an unhappy marriage, because it takes two to tango). Additionally, love is not blind. A good marriage is probably made up of two people who are painfully aware of their partners shortcomings. I would venture a guess that the husband in the article is very aware of his wife's foibles, but has chosen to be happy in that marriage, because there's a lot in there to him happy. Ditto for the wife. Lastly, though I don't think it was explicitly mentioned in the article, I think lots of physical affection, including but not limited to sex, is an important component of a happy marriage.

kchoudhu 10y ago

"When you crawl into bed at 10PM" Amateurs. A good night's sleep begins at 9PM for my wife and I.

91bananas 10y ago
Pro-status is truly achieved when you fall asleep on the couch right after you put the kids to bed then wake up at 2am like what did we do?!
- kchoudhu 10y ago
  Oh good, my wife and I are not the only people this happens to. Seriously, someone needs to start a support group for new parents so that normal behavior can be...normalized?
  - thatwebdude 10y ago
    Does new parent status still happen five years in...?

ryanmarsh 10y ago

Last night my wife took me out to dinner and a raunchy hilarious burlesque show for my birthday. We've been married 14 years. The evening was wonderful. We decided to stay out a little longer and had a disagreement over something I really don't know how it got this big but turned into an argument in the parking lot that could have ended with a short ride home and make up sex but since the car wouldn't start it turned into a really bad argument while we waited over an hour for roadside assistance to get there and jump start the car. This morning she rolled over and told me to fuck her and we had passionate intimate sex and it's like nothing happened but we're still both a little hurt but won't say anything about it until the argument boils over again and I still haven't hung the new light fixture in the half-bath and I have to pack for a business trip Tuesday and I dread packing so I'll drag her into it and she'll tolerate me, barely, and I don't know what this is or if it's how it should be but it's us and we love each other more than we hate each other and it's not that we're great for each other it's just that there's some kind of intersectionality in our individual dysfunctions and so here we are. I don't know shit about marriage and I'm glad the author is happy but I swear to fucking God that dog shit would drive me up the fucking wall so we have our thing and you have yours so let's just not judge each other or label each other's marriage.

laughfactory 10y ago

Brilliant article. And I think the author is pretty spot on. I think a lot of the divorce rate is caused mostly by a lack of understanding that the infatuation of the first year or two doesn't last. That at some point the romance is in being deeply known, surviving life together, and being able to depend on each other. This is not to say that there won't be dates, dinners, flowers, etc. But just that those things become footnotes. I suspect that our culture (in the US particularly) has so tightly bound romance with lust and infatuation, that that's what people who get divorce after divorce are constantly in search of. How sad I am when I hear "we're great friends, but we both just want something more..." Like what? Because you can totally try someone new on like a pair of socks, and in all probability, in ten years, if everything's gone well, be right back to where you started: best friends, but something deeper because you've survived together. True romance and the fruits of it are only achieved after decades.

ShahofVista 10y ago
There is research on this, there are two distinct kinds of love, passionate and companionate. Passionate is in the beginning and generally lasts a year or two, while it fades, companionate evolves. Though companionate declines over time, some level of passionate is needed to keep the relationship lasting. http://www.apa.org/monitor/feb07/eternal.aspx http://www.apa.org/monitor/feb07/eternal.aspx

Fnoord 10y ago

> After a decade of marriage, if things go well, you don’t need any more proof. What you have instead — and what I would argue is the most deeply romantic thing of all — is this palpable, reassuring sense that it’s okay to be a human being. Because until you feel absolutely sure that you won’t eventually be abandoned, it’s maybe not 100 percent clear that any other human mortal can tolerate another human mortal. The smells. The sounds. The repetitive fixations on the same dumb shit, over and over. Even as you develop a kind of a resigned glaze of oh, this again in, say, marital years one through five, you also feel faintly unnerved by your own terrible mortal humanness. Marriage, yawn. No. Marriage is not the factor. The factor is the moment you consider each other 'together'. In 2017, the decision of wether you are together or not is not anymore 'marriage'. That hegemony, as dictated by [Christian] religion, is gone. Also, what is being described doesn't necessarily take 10 years of marriage. From what I gathered you're (madly) in love for max 2 years, and then (right before those 2 years are passed) the hormones produced and amounts of them change in amount and it becomes a different kind of love. A caring kind of love. With sometimes references, filled with nostalgia, to those first 2 years. I would describe it as 2 years of wild fun, and then that forms the basis of getting the thing to work between the two of you. Also, the following specific statement: > Because until you feel absolutely sure that you won’t eventually be abandoned Is interesting because people are going to die eventually. There are 4 possibilities here: 1) Your significant other dies first 2) You die before your significant other does 3) You die together 4) You split up (called divorce in case of marriage) before one of you or the both of you die. Of note here to #1 and #2 is that women on average live longer. Of note of #3 is that this is highly unlikely, but it does happen, usually in the form of accidents. Why is this relevant? Because apart of option #3 (which is very rare) there's going to be a time where you are alone once more. You don't know the details about this beforehand. For example, you don't know who is going to live alone. You don't know when this is going to happen. You don't know how you are going to die, or how your partner is going to die. Because of this its not concrete, and hence ignored. It does however mean that you can never feel absolutely sure that you won’t eventually be abandoned which contradicts the quoted sentence. I'm aware of a different theory. A relationship (and a friendship) is a balance of plus and minus. There are things you like about each other, and there are things you don't like about each other. The good is a long list. The bad are things you can handle. If something happens which you want to put on the bad list, you need to make it up with things on the good list. From what I read, it has to be 10:1. For some people the fuel is gone, and they part ways while for others they feel so sure the balance is good they realise they're not going to part by force of incompatibility. Meanwhile, you get those references of nostalgia which retrigger the hormones from the first two years.

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