Hate Your Husband? (or Your Wife?) You probably expect too much.

[Serva_Ancillae]

Unless you're about six months off graduating and stepping into a job that can support a wife and child, you shouldn't be courting anyway. So it's probably best.

[JoeVoxxPop]

Unless you're about six months off graduating and stepping into a job that can support a wife and child, you shouldn't be courting anyway. So it's probably best.

I agree

[Crusading Philologist]

second:  ultimately, you do have to rely on yourself to be happy.  Lincoln said, that the people who are happy are generally the ones who make themselves out to be so.  We cannot rely on others for our happiness.  I fall into this idea sometimes myself, thinking my life would be much happier with a wife, but then I remind myself that I can't go around expecting someone else to make me happy, and what decent women would want to marry a man who has no ambition or self-esteem and relys on her for everything anyway? 

Man is a political animal, he cannot be happy alone.

I never said man should remain alone.  What I meant is that he shouldn't have all his happiness depend finding a woman.  Of course, you could just become a mog- half-man/half-dog, that way you can be your own best friend.

This is true. I just meant that one does have to rely on others for happiness to some extent. Aristotle thought that a person could not be happy if he did not have friends and family since a man in this situation would have limited opportunities to develop virtue, though of course Christianity is commonly seen as reducing this dependence on "moral luck" to some extent.

[DrBombay]

What about hermits?

[Crusading Philologist]

Well, hermits are giving up earthly happiness to focus solely on God. One might also say that hermits have a particular gift or calling, but as St. Paul emphasized, all gifts come from God and they are still members of the Body of Christ.

[ggreg]

Good article.  This is why you should marry an Eastern European girl who has parents who are still together and both on their first marriages.  Many ladies from Ukraine, Slovakia, Lithuania, Belarus and Russia, still have old fashioned ideas about marriage.  Most of their peers are married to abusive, lazy, alcoholics and good-for-nothings.  They look after themselves and stay slim, they have had interesting upbringings and educations that are different to yours, which is always interesting, your children will be bi-lingual.  Almost none of them grew up watching TV or movies.  Most of the best were reading books when I was watching Sesame Street or Star Trek.

As the article suggest it is about expectations.  Your wife will be on Skype and Facebook to her peers back home who will have husbands and boyfriends cheating on them, getting drunk, unwilling to work to support their family properly (admittedly it is much harder there).

If you just hold down a job, change the diapers and keep the car maintained and do the stuff a real man does, you are going to look like the catch of the century to your wife.  My wife's friends all think that the sun shines out of my arse and constantly tell her so, which is a good reminder she has done well in marrying me.  They are always trying to get her to fix them up with a "man like him".  And for women in their 30s they are very attractive.

The one warning is to find a genuine Church goer who is ready to have more than 2 children with you.  For most of them, even some of the Church goers, large families were not possible for the last 90 years and they have no experience of what makes them work or why they are superior.  Nearly all ex-Soviet families have 2 children, 3 is rare, 4 is almost unheard of.  Many of them think that having more than 2 children will ruin their health.  In western Ukraine and Slovakia they are Greek Catholic, Poland and Lithunania mostly Roman Catholic.

I am a good husband, but I'm a smelly, hairy, slightly fat, bald bloke of 43.  All I have going for me is an exciting confident personality and a decent income from my own business, (both of those are pretty important to women).   I was no oil painting when I was in my mid-late 20s.  My wife is stunning even at 38. I definitely married the right woman.  I've never met any woman in England or America who comes close.  Not one who would have looked twice at me at least.  They all seemed to want a Traditionalist, Richard Gere, tall dark and handsome type.  They never asked themselves why such a rare man would want to marry them.

If I had my 20s over again I would get a nice car and a job on the internet where I was earning pounds or dollars and move to Poland, Lithuania or Slovakia and start dating girls.  They are very approachable and there are no mind games or "let's just be friends" bullshit.  As a Brit or an American you're exotic out there provided you avoid the capital cities of those countries and move to the secondary cities.  Attend a few different Churches and church functions, learn as much of the lingo as possible and you will have NO PROBLEM finding interested females.

[Revixit]

And the more I think about it, college is a really terrible place to look for a potential wife anyway.  Most of those girls are fickle, don't know what a decent husband is (they want someone who is funand excting.  I'm a humorous person, but the type of man they'll wish they had when they're 30 with kids and their fun husband is an irresponsible ape).  And besides, are they really going to college to get maried right after and have kids.  No.  So i'm not even bothering looking for a girl now anyway.  ANd yes, I'm ranting a bit.

Going to college primarily to find a spouse is a bad idea but many people do marry someone they met at college and many of those marriages last, too.  You're making negative assumptions about girls at your college that can't possibly apply to all of them.  If you really are "one of the more studious, mature, and religious students at my college" why would you want "girls scrambling for a date with me"?  That's not ladylike behavior.  Ladies wait to be asked out.


Neither of us went to college to find a spouse but we met, fell in love, and got married while still in college.  We went into our marriage with the promise and premise that it would work, that we were marrying for life.

We celebrated our 45th wedding anniversary last week.

[ggreg]

Be fair, things have changed a bit in 45 years.

Even 20 years ago the dating game was different.

[Walty]

I have thought that the deliberate and willful search for a mate many times trips up Gods plans for us. Especially men. If a man would simply live his life and grow in grace and honest hard industry...that man will find brought into his life a woman who is right for him. All most women want is security. And if your a man of stability. Maturity and christian character... God will reveal a spouse.

Well said, Voxx.  I believe very much in this.  I have a number of single friends who just can't understand why they aren't able to find a woman to marry.  What I continually try to tell them (though they don't seem to understand it) is that they need to live their lives.  Work, go to Mass, get some hobbies.  The more people try to force relationships into being the more desperate they seem and the more likely they are to start dating the wrong person.

[Walty]

I don't know, I admit that I have seen where someone can't stand their spouse and seeks divorce even when the spouse is doing nothing wrong.  That "I just don't love you anymore" BS excuse.  But It seems to me that it's much more common that divorce is caused by one or both parties doing something grossly detrimental to the marriage, such as infidelity, abuse, or general irresponsibility.

I think you're both right.  It seems like people's idea of love is wrapped up entirely in the chemical, "puppy love" aspect of relationships.  When that fades, they think that they aren't in love anymore.  This makes them devalue their current relationship and they then seek out things which they otherwise wouldn't, often a new relationship to replace the one that they erroneously think they've lost.