OK, So What Are the Pros/Benefits of Marriage?

When I think of what I went through, 4 engagements, weeding out all the psycho pirate hooker whores, getting to know them well enough to see all the red flags, meeting their degenerate family members, sleeping with them at least 100 times to see if the spark remains and on and on and on...

I know how lucky I am to have found my wife!

 

The benefits... Well, to start, nearly every night I have a sleep-over with my best friend, though sometimes I have a fling with my mistress and everyday life is easier because I share it with my partner. Best part about bieng married though is the fact that all three of these women are the same gal!

Shiny Side Up!
Bill

 

You are lucky.

When I dated my 'friend' for almost 4 years, we had a fun 'sleepover' almost every night of the month - and several during the day as well.

Then we got married, it went IMMEDIATELY from about 25 times a month to a very small fraction of that.

 

owned. kidding, congrats.

but my reply:
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

So the question becomes; what changed? Note well that I am not talking just about sex. My wife and I have spent more than a few nights simply chatting and laughing at stupid stuff.

Pretty much all marriage problems stem from one root cause; selfishness.

Selfishness on the part of the husband: If I want to go out with the guys, I will!

Or on the part of the wife: If he loved me, he would know...!

It has to be a 100/100 relationship, and you have to look at it without expecting anything in return. As soon as it becomes a tit for tat, that's your's this is mine kind of existance, you might as well pack off to the divorce lawyer's office.

In our house, everything is OURS. It's our house, our money, our cat, our cars, our bedroom; Our life! If I want to spend a bunch of money on something, I ask Kristy, and if she wants to spend a bunch of money on something, she asks me. When she feels I am not paying enough attention to her, she says so. If I am in need of a little... whatever, I say so.

Yesterday evening, I had to finish setting a store for my company. As I was going to be rather late, she came along and helped. We laughed and had a bunch of fun.

Since she can't do a lot of bending due to the MS, I nearly always go grocery shopping with her. We laugh and have a lot of fun.

When we go to church on Sundays, if the weather is nice, we put the top down for a nice cruise in the country afterwards. We didn't make a "deal" that the trip to church would have the top up, and the trip afterwards would have the top down, I simply said I wanted to put the top down on nice days. She said, "great idea" then I added, but we'll leave it up on the way, because you like your hair to look nice at church."

Like I said, it's a 100/100 deal. Want some good advice on marriage? Pick up any book by John Gottman, good stuff. Another, though it has a religious bent, is the book "Love and Respect."

Want to help your marriage out? Just start doing those things you know she wants you to do. Pick up around the house without being asked, and don't point it out. Make the bed. Do the dishes, laundry, or some other household chore, and don't call attention to it. Compliment the way she looks, EVERY DAY! I don't care if she's gained 100lbs since you got married, find SOMETHING to compliment. Sooner or later she will want to loose the weight, because she wants you to like everything about her. Tell her how much you appreciate her, the things she does, the way she looks, how smart she is, how hard she works, etc, every day!

Anyway, that's my story. I know that, in a way, I got lucky. Kristy wants to work on our marriage to make it better and better. We have been complimented many times by friends who ask for advice. The best man at our wedding, and his wife took us out to dinner once to ask advice because they felt that Krist and I "had really got it right."

Hopefully some of this will help. I wish everyone who gets married could like it as much as we do! We still hve our share of arguements and selfish moments, but they are brief and we nearly always learn from them.

Shiny Side Up!
Bill

 

Nice analysis. As the years go by you enter the zone of comfort and smiles. You begin to share the same dreams. You see things in the same way. You do more than share. Your dreams are fulfilled by fulfilling her's and your pleasure derives from her's. Her's derive from yours. My 575. Her black opal she wouln't buy for herself. The finish of our recent landscaping project. The trip we planned together. These are a few of my favorite things.

 

this says it all

http://www.nomarriage.com/

 

Don't forget how lucky you are that Hawaii allowed lesbians to get married!

 

If you need to ask, then marriage ain't for you.

 

+1 for ZINGARA 250GTL and Protouring442.

Marriage is a partnership, and both partners need to work together towards common goals. Once you get married, you become a family. That needs to become your priority. Priority over work, hobbies, etc. Family comes first. We are both working together to help our family prosper, raise kids, etc. My wife doesn't work at the time, because we decided that her time would be better spent with the kids. Sure, it would be nice to have the dual income, but we both felt that a sacrifice in income was worth it for the benefit of the kids.

Note: This doesn't mean that your spouse needs to be a stay at home mom, or even that you have to have kids- what is important is that you two have goals together, and you work together to acheive those goals, whatever they may be.

Yes, we do occasionally go out by ourselves- she sometimes goes out with her girlfriends, I'll go out to a car activity. But, most of the time, we are doing things together, because we enjoy each others company.

As for benefits, let see- Well, I don't have to stand in line for sex anymore

But seriously, I have a partner, a friend. I can't count how many times we've been to a boring party or reception, but it's OK, because I have someone there to talk to, laugh with etc. I've read that married men tend to be healthier, more successful than single guys. Everyday I come home from work, and someone is there to talk to, tell about my day.

It's hard to put into writing. Maybe bernardo66 is right, if you need to ask, it's not your thing.

I've married for 13+ years now. Sure, we've had our ups and downs, but it's been worth it.

Dom

 

Sure, 'tis well said me boy. If ya don't unnerstand da prolem, ye need not fear. If ya have na' fear, ya don unnerstand da problem. If ya hav' a wify me sur, ya hav' a nuff to occapy ya. If ya hav' dat, ya hav morn nuff to occapy ya. If ya canna see it, check ya drawers. Mite be empty. An da lard luv ya!

 

Nice ASSUMPTIONS from someone that has NO CLUE about anything in our lives aside from what I said above.

You need to get a bigger picture aside from what I said before preaching to me about a book or counseling to anyone, and I'm not giving you that picture because you wouldn't understand it.

 

The problem here is that I kinda went on to give a few generalities about marital problems, and seemingly you think I was diagnosing your marriage. For this, let me apologize that you felt all of my comment were AIMED at you; they weren't. In fact, pretty much everything in the paragraph that starts with "Want to help your marriage..." was intended for everyone's consumption, as these things can be VERY helpful to pretty much any marriage.

For example, I recommended Dr. Gottman's books. Dr. Gottman has been studying relationships for something like 20 years, and with only a short interview can predict with 90% accuracy weather or not the couple will still be married in 5 years without some sort of intervention. Seems to me that things garnered from his books are good ideas, and I have tried to pass along what I have learned.

The Love & Respect book was offered as a "good book to read" because it explains much about how men and women look at communication differently, without all of that weird mars and venus stuff.

While I'll stand by my generalities, and I'll even say that if you look carefully, you'll probably find that these generalities fit into your marriage somewhere, I won't try to claim that I have unlocked some sort of secret insight into your marriage per se.

"Pretty much all marriage problems stem from one root cause; selfishness."

I'll stand by this. I wasn't saying you or your wife were selfish, but I'll find it hard to believe that you both aren't, at least some of the time. Further, I'll also stand by the idea that herein lies much of your problems. Why can I say this so confidently? Simple, EVERYBODY is selfish. You, your wife, ME, MY WIFE, my mom, my dad... you get the idea. We all get selfish, quite a bit of the time. I'm not talking about total, nasty, keep everything to yourself and you can't touch it selfishness, but little things we do everyday. Those little things can cause big troubles.

I'll give a GENERAL example, sex. When we have sex for ourselves, we are reasonable satisfied. Our partners are usually satisfied... sometimes. You know, your horny, you come on to your wife, girlfriend, (or husband/boyfriend if your a woman), you have sex... it's done.

But, when you start off, from the beginning, looking to please your partner, quite frequently the sex is incredible. Rather than just come-on to her, you do everything to please her. Music, candles, back rub, etc, etc (hey it's a family site =-) and things are incredible. Better yet, she will start looking to please you during love-making, thus making it even better! See what I mean?

Again, as it looks to me that you thought I was trying to make it look like I had some special insight into YOUR marriage problems, I will apologize. Fact is I don't have any "special insights" into anyone's marriage!

What I did want to convey was an answer to the original question posted about the pros/benefits of marriage while using your complaint as a launching point.


Shiny Side Up!
Bill

 

+1...........the ONLY benefit of marriage is a kid or two.

 

What about the nice feeling you get when you give someone a house...?

 

Now that's funny!

I don't remember who it was, but they said "Next time I decide I want to get married, I'm just going to find a woman I don't like, and give her a house," or something to that effect.

Shiny Side Up!
Bill

 

Wise words from Brother Theodore concerning marriage and his ideal partner.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpmJNWRrNE0

 

In 10 years, that will seem like a ton of sleepover fun.

 

You really should read the book "Love and Respect" as suggested. My wife is reading it and has gained tons of insight along with other books we've read together to help our marriage be more successfull.

We went through tons of premarritial counciling and read many books, and I hear the first year is supposed to be the hardest, but we actually get along better now than before we were married.

I think lots of couples have a great time before they're married due to the fact that the man is typically trying his best to treat her special and take her out and do lots of fun things together.....then they get married and what changes?? all that "doing fun stuff together" and the man not really trying to impress her anymore like he used too since he's already "conquered" the game....but the games not over for her and she still needs to be impressed by daily hugs and holding hands often and going to the mall, and getting flowers and looking into her eyes and compliments and all that sweet stuff we MEN don't feel we HAVE to do anymore.

I have to agree with Protouring, and for a great successful relationship to work the man is going to have to step up and be a servent leader with his wife being his co-equal partner. Pick up, clean up, do the chores without being asked.....after all don't most of us guys tell others to "lead by example?"

Men need a place and women need a reason, so give her more reasons that she can handle and things will change.....but it will start with you for sure.

The best way a man can show his wife that she is valued by him is to simply listen to her and not try to fix her problems. Just by listening and not actually doing anything you will fix it and she will feel loved by you this way more then any other way. (this is something I'm still learning and working on, not easy for me)

 

Rod Stewart - the serial blonde-a-holic! Great line!

I love being married for all the reasons you state - PLUS two truly beautiful children (not that I'm in any way biased)

 

15+ years, two amazing kids, and going strong.

We have a great business I wouldn't of done myself, we have a house and a bunch of stuff/experiences like a 348 I wouldn't of done on my one. For me, the overall quality of life is magnitudes better, and I'm in better shape than I've ever been in. It's certainly not easy - and a wife isn't going to make you happy, if you're not "happy" already.

Don't do it to be really cool! egads. Do it because you found someone to compliment you, to make you stronger, and because you can't imagine life without them.

keep learning from the psycho pirate hooker whores what it is you don't want - eventually you'll figure out what you need vs want in life.

 

For 20 years from age 18 to 38 I swore marriage was not for me.

But after 20 great years of dating, I woke-up at 38 and just had enough. The party lasted 20 years, and one day I just didn't want to be the party guy anymore.

So spent a few years looking for a quality girl ( based on what I had learned over all those years of dating babes) and got married.

I've been married 2 years, after dating her for 2 years.

We have more fun everyday... and the thought of going on a 1st date ever again just doesn't appeal to me anymore.

 

I wish I could use that phrase for something public.

 

Wouldn't trade my wife for anything, but it's not easy to find a good one, or to know that she's not a good one before you take the plunge. As the saying goes:

A woman marries a man hoping he'll change. A man marries a woman hoping she won't. Invariably, both are disappointed.

And while I'm not saying they're all bad, trying to find a good woman in America is a search for a needle in a haystack. The whole culture teaches women to hate men and see them as the enemy, and nothing but a source of income via a child, after which the man can be disposed of because the check will arrive in the mail. In my experience, European women actually like men and want a partner to go through life with.