Last week I received the attached picture from a male friend of mine. He asked me my opinion of the post and said that he agreed with it. I called BS on the post.
The thing is that there are benefits to marriage and the benefits are more for men than women. Think about the fact that the divorce rate is over 50% and over 80% of those divorces are filed by women. So, one could assume that women are no longer accepting the status quo and choosing happiness in single hood over a marriage of convenience.
But, this meme pretty much makes it seem like women are mules and we bring no value to a marriage. How is that possible? Everyone has some value.
Women bring more than a smile to a relationship and definitely to a marriage. We fall and love and we realize that we may have settled for personality traits that don’t sit well with our spirit, tired of not being able to communicate effectively with our partner, tired of infidelity, financial discord or anything else that we may have endured and we just leave. Do you know how much it takes for a woman to walk away? If we do walk away how many of us are really getting rich off these men.
I’m an advocate for a pre-nuptial agreement at any age, but definitely if you’re over 35 or have wealth that you’ve acquired that you want to protect. I would think that a man in this situation stating he’s losing “respect” would be more forward thinking and not marry without one. But, obviously this man is a wuss with a lot of money and the woman he chose is no more than a piece of property with a plan to milk him out of his money, family and self-respect. Do you see how we can spin it?
Money rules everything around you. In a good way or a bad way, we can’t live on hopes and promises. People should find partners that they can build with. Not in their 40’s. I’m not taking on a “build a man” project. Would you want your mother dating Mr. John working at McDonald’s at the age of 72 all day and laying up under your mother for free because he didn’t work enough quarters to qualify for Social Security? No, then why should I settle?
Marriage is a good thing. Never settle. If you respect each other, tell me how you lose your own respect when a relationship ends? Your respect is like your self-esteem. You control it.
We all have choices in choosing our partners and I don’t think anyone should settle. If you want marriage and he doesn’t, move on to the next one. No use in settling. I believe we should all find partners that have an optimistic outlook on life and are not a social drag trying to defunct marriage at every turn and in essence trying to kill our dreams of a life of holy matrimony.
That’s my two cents. What do you think? Do you think there are benefits for men to marry?
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A Thomas Point of View 
This is such a sad and disillusioned thing to say. I agree 100% with you! yes one should protect themselves financially, that is what being clever means. Becoming suspicious of relationships and love is defo not!
At the same time, I think in the US there is a certain type of culture which allows everybody to take anyone to court and fight over things that in Europe, we would solve with a mediator. So there might be a cultural element in there as well.
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It absolutely could be. It’s depressing that you would believe that, but I believe those folks should never get married.
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I’ve been married for a good long time and I like marriage and my husband. The institution of marriage is mutually beneficial when its built on an honest foundation. The expectations of one man/woman are not the same as another. In the traditional sense, a man provides a house that a woman turns into a home. He definitely endures the weight of forging security out of cold world, but she triples her responsibilities to create a safe place for him to land. The men that are focused on losing money are void of introspection to understand what their heart and soul needs to build a quality of life that’s priceless.
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I’m not married + never have been, but I feel like this is the perfect response.
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Love this response
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As a married woman, I also call BS on this. Like you said, it’s mostly women filing for divorce, because we let society trick us into thinking it’s for us, when it’s not. Marriage only benefits us when we leave. 😂 Women, make sure you really, really love that man before you marry him because for the rest of your life he will come before you, if not by his own doing, then to appease his ego in front of his parents and his friends.
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Great advice
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some people don’t even understand the meaning of marriage. If anyone thinks like this then they shouldn’t be married.
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Agreed
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This is tough subject for men and women. Women believe they add more value, and men see the millions of divorce cases where the woman is awarded so much of that man’s assets. The house, the car, the kids, alimony… etc. I’ve seen so many men broken by the women that divorced them. No one should receive half of anything, plus their own salary while the man is left with half of his earning. “he should’ve been loyal.” OK, but that still doesn’t justify the way divorce is handled in this country. [this is how a lot of men think, like it or not]. And it isn’t always because he chose the wrong one. Sometimes you go in with the best of intentions, and it just doesn’t work out.
For the men who watch the imbalance in divorce proceedings, love just isn’t enough to get them over the broom anymore. So many men are “over it.” They’d rather just shack up, or have a lifetime partner, vs getting married. So while we don’t like these men’s truth… it’s their truth.
The first part of that meme was ridiculous. Losing your sex life, friends, and whatever else it said aren’t good reasons to avoid marriage. However, entering into a binding contract with someone who would take their home, car, kids, and half their salary? Yeah, I could see someone being shy about marriage. I mean… since you even said it, 80% of divorce’s are initiated by women. If the system was set up to favor men, meaning a woman would lose so much, you wouldn’t see as many divorces initiated by women. Trust me on this. This system is flawed, and prenuptial agreements are not ironclad (and a lot of women won’t sign them anyway).
The old system was like that. Way way back before many of us were born and men could do whatever they wanted. That system was also bs. Just like this one. So I empathize to a certain extent with my fellow man. While I do advocate for marriage or lifetime companionship, I can totally understand why a man would shy away from marriage. You spend 20+ years looking for a wife, meeting “The one” and it doesn’t work out, but she wants half. Not a good look for a man. However, it still shouldn’t be the reason for not marrying someone you love. Again, I understand the angst, but marriage is a risk, just like most things in life. It’s probably the biggest risk of all. And women stand to lose as well in divorce, the meme omitted that part.
Finally, all of things you mentioned are facts… those are great benefits a woman brings to marriage. However, from the perspective of some men, that’s not enough when weigh it against the thought of losing everything. There are a lot of men who think this, not just the person quoted, and the vast majority of them think as he does from the financial aspect. I believe the landscape and reasons why a lot of people get married, are what implants these levels of fear into the minds of some men (and women). Social media, divorce rates, the 80% you quoted, and said women being awarded everything. It’s not as simple as one would think to just walk down that aisle. So I understand, I do not advocate.
This man is getting married (one day)
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a very balanced and thoughtful answer!
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Agree! Love your response. No woman should settle, especially for “struggle love”.
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