Are some guys misguided in the way they choose marriage partners?

I am looking at some of the divorces happening amongst my peers and what I notice is that men have the ambition to marry an extremely successful woman. However, I wonder if this kind of creates a dynamic that ends up damaging the husband's self-esteem. For example, I know a guy who was working in finance, he's very ambitious, an opportunist and is attracted to people with loads of money. He decided to marry this girl who works in property. She's very successful and earns a lot of money with good bonuses. Unfortunately, their relationship was imbalanced and she's extremely bossy. Their marriage has ended in a divorce that she initiated. I feel sorry for the guy, but in all honesty, I think he had his priorities wrong from the outset.

SImilarly, you observe lawyers marrying lawyers, doctors marrying doctors, bankers marrying bankers. Yet, some of the happiest and successful marriages don't have that sort of equal leveling. Gone are the days when a doctor would marry a nurse, or a lawyer marry a secretary and yet some of these marriages are the most successful.

A woman who has the ability to become top of the league in a legal profession, banking, property, e.t.c. is most likely to have some kind of prowess about her will most likely also be the one wearing the trousers in the relationship and the man who marries her has to be extremely humble and be of strong character to accept they won't be leader of the household.

(edited 6 years ago)

Reply 1

Fruli

OP

21

I guess my question is irrelevant for those who don't believe in marriage.

I believe in marriage. Unfortunately these days people marry for shallow reasons.

Reply 2

Nader5

5

Fragile male ego 🙄 so a girl can't be more successful than her male partner because he will feel less of a breadwinner.

I can see where you are coming from though...

Reply 3

Fruli

OP

21

Original post by Nader5

Fragile male ego 🙄 so a girl can't be more successful than her male partner because he will feel less of a breadwinner.

I can see where you are coming from though...

Haha, I'm giving my perspective as a female.

Yes, the whole process damaging to sense of worth because being married to a stronger female partner, one develops a sense of inadequacy.

I personally would avoid such a guy whose agenda is to look for an equally successful partner. I dated a guy like that a few years back and I learnt my lesson then. When you are on an equal level playing field the guy is happy. When there's an inbalance then issues start to emerge, namely: If you are too successful for the guy then his insecurities emerge, particularly if you're a bossy woman. Conversely, if he's more successful than his partner, he may also turn into an idiot, as was my case with my ex.

Ultimately, it's more important to be humble. I think we can learn a lesson or two from our young Princes. I mean yes, the Middletons are successful by today's world standards, but there's no getting away from the fact that they are an upstart family. Prince William was able to look past that. Prince Harry has also looked past Meghan Markle's background.

Reply 4

username3150658

15

I guess so, but so do a majority of people in general.

(edited 6 years ago)

Reply 5

Drewski

19

Original post by Fruli

He decided to marry this girl who works in property.

No, they decided to marry each other.

You're making the whole thing sound very one-sided, not very representative of marriage.

I think the increase in divorces has far more to do with the disposable culture we're now in, where you don't fix something that's not working, you just get rid of it. This is more relevant as it then affects all marriages, including the ones between people who aren't the bossy/demanding/ambitious types.

Reply 6

username1921011

14

Original post by Fruli

I am looking at some of the divorces happening amongst my peers and what I notice is that men have the ambition to marry an extremely successful woman. However, I wonder if this kind of creates a dynamic that ends up damaging the husband's self-esteem. For example, I know a guy who was working in finance, he's very ambitious, an opportunist and is attracted to people with loads of money. He decided to marry this girl who works in property. She's very successful and earns a lot of money with good bonuses. Unfortunately, their relationship was imbalanced and she's extremely bossy. Their marriage has ended in a divorce that she initiated. I feel sorry for the guy, but in all honesty, I think he had his priorities wrong from the outset.

SImilarly, you observe lawyers marrying lawyers, doctors marrying doctors, bankers marrying bankers. Yet, some of the happiest and successful marriages don't have that sort of equal leveling. Gone are the days when a doctor would marry a nurse, or a lawyer marry a secretary and yet some of these marriages are the most successful.

A woman who has the ability to become top of the league in a legal profession, banking, property, e.t.c. is most likely to have some kind of prowess about her will most likely also be the one wearing the trousers in the relationship and the man who marries her has to be extremely humble and be of strong character to accept they won't be leader of the household.

I haven't noticed that. Not denying it's existence of course, but it tends to be women who are more into hypergamy than men - it's in the genetic hard wiring as much as people love to say it's not so because they don't want science to be 'offensive'. https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=women+hypergamy&btnG= The summary of these articles is its becoming less common as women get more successful but equally this means they can't find a partner to marry which becomes a problem - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1snaPvB1Hys (skip to 13.30) - women are refusing to 'marry down'. Men don't care about that, I've never even thought about what job my girlfriends have had and this is generally common (the whole pre 1950s model was the man as the only breadwinner so self evidently they weren't marrying up).

The problem you're describing is he couldn't take someone constantly on his case, man or woman, if you keep bossing someone around without letting them be themselves they're going to get fed up with you. I think there is some validity though, men tend to like to take care of their girlfriends/wives so if they're not making the money to look after them or are being dominated by a bossy women it does damage their sense of self. I don't think the intelligence or the relative earnings matter, but rather this idea of the bloke to need to look after their woman. My girlfriend makes more than I do, and she offers to pay regularly but I feel much better when I pay, it feels nice to treat her and because I can I don't feel bad when she pays. If she was always paying, if she bought our house, our car, our everything I'd feel sh!t.

There is a biological conditioning for men to need to care for women, so if you remove that from them obviously their esteem suffers. Not that women didn't deserve equality but since the explosion of equality advocacy in the 1980s male suicide has skyrocketed, society has become more feminised and the traditional role of men outmoded (for example they ban play fighting and put any 'disruptive' ie not good little clones on ritalin but they are quite happy to let girls gossip and make daisy chains and all that) which leaves them feeling rubbish in the same way there are now hundreds of women in their 40s who cry themselves to sleep paying thousands for IVF because they didn't have kids whilst they could to progress in their careers instead.

I don't think its true that the man HAS to become the less dominant but if you marry someone who is that motivated and that headstrong chances are that's their natural personality. It seems like a case of picking incompatibility - in that men who don't like very strong women are picking very strong women because there are far more about particularly in the circles in which they travel as a much greater percentage of women now have high flying jobs or are very educated. Having said that it can be about personal tastes too, my gf has an incredibly strong personality and one hell of a temper and I find it quite attractive so horses for courses.

It's also partly to do with the culture. Nobody works at anything any more - if it doesn't work immediately they just chuck it.

Original post by Nader5

Fragile male ego 🙄 so a girl can't be more successful than her male partner because he will feel less of a breadwinner.

I can see where you are coming from though...

Sigh. This whole males are fragile nonsense is tiring - everyone parrots it like its meant to mean something. Ego is entirely individual.

(edited 6 years ago)

Reply 7

Nader5

5

Original post by GonvilleBromhead

Sigh. This whole males are fragile nonsense is tiring - everyone parrots it like its meant to mean something. Ego is entirely individual.

Did not say all men had fragile ego's. I said men in that context fall under that.

Reply 8

username1921011

14

Original post by Nader5

Did not say all men had fragile ego's. I said men in that context fall under that.

Fair enough, misread it. I've seen too much all males are x all females are y on this site to give people credit any more.

If you meant in that specific context I disagree, I'd cite biological imperatives (previous response, cba to repeat) but it's sort of accurate in a roundabout way in so far as men are feeling crap because of it which is technically an ego issue.

Reply 9

mojojojo101

17

Seems to me that it is not the partners employment that is the problem but material desire and ambition creating an expectation of reality that cannot be achieved by any reasonable means.

Reply 10

username2971108

13

Well as someone who plans on being very successful in life, I probably shouldn't bother marrying at all then.

Reply 11

Nebuchadnezzaṛ

12

Original post by 27FT

Well as someone who plans on being very successful in life

No one plans to be unsuccessful.

Reply 12

Fruli

OP

21

Original post by mojojojo101

Seems to me that it is not the partners employment that is the problem but material desire and ambition creating an expectation of reality that cannot be achieved by any reasonable means.