EPTBut, it's okay. The world needs diversity. It wouldn't be anywhere as fun without the self-righteous masochists.
Need opinions on an important issue with my fiance - Page 7
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SongByungWewt
China593 Posts
But, it's okay. The world needs diversity. It wouldn't be anywhere as fun without the self-righteous masochists. | ||
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HULKAMANIA
United States1219 Posts
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HULKAMANIA
United States1219 Posts
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packrat386
United States5077 Posts
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HULKAMANIA
United States1219 Posts
On January 14 2014 09:33 packrat386 wrote: Well it seems a bit incongrous to say on one hand that marriage is a sacred bond that can't be broken, but on the other hand you shouldn't try to be certain as to whether you want to marry someone. You're basically saying to jump in without first checking the depth, and a lot of people get hurt that way. You're correct that advising someone to jump into marriage without serious prior consideration would be stupid. Agreed. But that wouldn't be my advice. I think my posts in this thread should be understood in the context of the OP, where the couple is already engaged and presumably that serious prior consideration has already been made. He's wondering if holding out for cohabitation despite the wishes of his would-be wife's family is a necessary or helpful thing to do. I'm saying that no, it's definitely not. My premise there is pretty simple and it's that the mindset behind "cohabitation before marriage" is magical thinking at worst and at best adversarial to the cultivation of the sort of committed, duty-oriented, mature mindset that creates successful marriages in the long term. But that isn't to say that you ought to pledge your undying commitment to just any female off the street. I haven't offered much general advice on how young men ought to go about evaluating potential wives, but I would agree with you emphatically that a young man ought to reach a point of genuine conviction before he goes through with marriage. I have plenty to say, as you might imagine, on the subject of picking out a suitable wife, but I was only giving an answer to the question that was asked, not an all-purpose guide on how to approach marriage. | ||
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packrat386
United States5077 Posts
Also not all marriages are between young men and young women, but I'm guessing you're opposed to that too. | ||
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HULKAMANIA
United States1219 Posts
On January 14 2014 10:12 packrat386 wrote: I don't see why it's adversarial to a committed mature relationship to read the fine print first. You're about to commit to something for the rest of your life, cohabiting beforehand allows you a sneak peak at what you're actually committing to. Luke many people have said, living with someone is a huge change, why pass up an opportunity for a trial run? I don't want to retread a lot of the things that I've elaborated previously, but the long and the short of it is that cohabitation doesn't provide you with any real clue as to what married life will be two, five, ten, twenty years down the road and so what fine print you read during that time is subject to radical alteration. Banking on that reading to guide an irrevocable choice is short-term thinking. It also is predicated on the notion, like I pointed out, that contemporary notions of compatibility are crucial considerations in the first place and thus wildly exaggerates the importance thereof to the detriment of other more germane considerations. It also betrays a fear that you're going to have regrets or that your feelings will change during the course of the relationship. You will and they will so any arrangement that encourages you to proceed only in the absence of regret or misery actually primes you to flinch from doing the hard work that a llifelong marriage requires from time to time. It's wrongheaded on any number of levels. Also not all marriages are between young men and young women, but I'm guessing you're opposed to that too. I'm not categorically opposed to people waiting until later in life to get married. But I do think that ideally a man ought to marry in his early twenties and to a girl a few years his junior. | ||
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SongByungWewt
China593 Posts
On January 14 2014 08:41 HULKAMANIA wrote: That's the gist of this thread, in fact. A lot of people viscerally unsettled by the thought of marriage offering advice to travis on how to enter into one in the most timid, gradual, risk-averse way possible. Yes, it's insane to be cautious about forming a lifelong bond with someone before figuring out whether or not they're suitable. It's far more rational to dive head-first and just grit your teeth and suffer whatever slings and arrows of fortune come your way. You know why? Because that's what marriage requires! A good tough Christian manly man! Compatibility, common interests, shared goals, all of that shit is meaningless. People always change, so you end up with someone you didn't want after a few years anyway. It really doesn't matter who you marry. The important thing is to just take whatever comes your way and learn to accept/tolerate it because you made a promise under God and you will keep that promise no matter how awful it makes your life. The entire problem with your position is it lacks any nuance. You come down with these heavy-handed absolutes that reflect terribly on your credibility. Learn to take a step back and understand there is more than one solution or way to go about life and marriage. Your way of thinking is what leads to so many divorces, not the mentality of wanting better compatibility. Who the hell wants to view marriage as some kind of prison where you're locked in forever because at some moment in time you thought it was a good idea to put a ring on it? In what other area of life is anyone so ridiculously irrational? The only other aspect of life I can think of where people will grit their teeth and bear it like that is when it comes to their children. Oh, and religion. | ||
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HULKAMANIA
United States1219 Posts
On January 14 2014 10:42 SongByungWewt wrote: Yes, it's insane to be cautious about forming a lifelong bond with someone before figuring out whether or not they're suitable. It's far more rational to dive head-first and just grit your teeth and suffer whatever slings and arrows of fortune come your way. You know why? Because that's what marriage requires! A good tough Christian manly man! Compatibility, common interests, shared goals, all of that shit is meaningless. People always change, so you end up with someone you didn't want after a few years anyway. It really doesn't matter who you marry. The important thing is to just take whatever comes your way and learn to accept/tolerate it because you made a promise under God and you will keep that promise no matter how awful it makes your life. The entire problem with your position is it lacks any nuance. You come down with these heavy-handed absolutes that reflect terribly on your credibility. Learn to take a step back and understand there is more than one solution or way to go about life and marriage. Your way of thinking is what leads to so many divorces, not the mentality of wanting better compatibility. Who the hell wants to view marriage as some kind of prison where you're locked in forever because at some moment in time you thought it was a good idea to put a ring on it? In what other area of life is anyone so ridiculously irrational? The only other aspect of life I can think of where people will grit their teeth and bear it like that is when it comes to their children. Oh, and religion. The question in the OP doesn't require much nuance. If travis wants to know, "Should we cohabit?" the answer is "No." That un-nuanced answer serves every time someone raises the "Should we cohabit?" question. In the same way that it serves every time someone asks "Does a triangle have four sides?" It would be useful, though, I think to compare our two approaches to marriage more generally. And I furthermore think that, your fulminations to the contrary aside, mine is actually the more sophisticated, more practical, more worldly approach. You seem to argue that, by dint of intelligent planning, you can meaningfully avoid misery in a marriage. I say that's so much wishful thinking. I say that periods of misery are inherent in even the best and most stable marriages and so one ought to chasten one's expectations accordingly and prepare one's self to endure such times by cultivating at the very least the sort of pragmatic stoicism one needs to get through tough patches. You attempt to avoid pain, which is patently futile. I attempt to prepare for it and make use of it. I'll leave it as an exercise to the audience to decide, in their quiet moments, whose mentality is most divorced (hah!) from reality. You'll never undertake any endeavor worth undertaking that doesn't require you at several different points to grit your teeth and bear it. Get your head out of the clouds. | ||
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sumsaR
Sweden1812 Posts
On January 14 2014 10:34 HULKAMANIA wrote: I'm not categorically opposed to people waiting until later in life to get married. But I do think that ideally a man ought to marry in his early twenties and to a girl a few years his junior. I'm fairly certain he was refering to same-sex marriages, but I guess you understood that and chose to ignore it. | ||
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SongByungWewt
China593 Posts
Here is an idea for you: monogamous, lifelong marriage is not the absolute goal for all relationships nor is it the only way to have a fulfilling personal life. If that premise is true, then your entire argument goes out the window. Are you prepared to argue against that premise? If not, then you should stop talking down to others. Also, yours is one of the crudest, least practical, and most provincial of approaches. Your argument is once again so horribly bad because you lack in nuance. There is a huge difference between hoping to avoid any and all misery because you think you can find the right partner with which to have a 100% perfect, flawless marriage and trying to find a decently compatible/tolerable spouse that you think you'll have a good shot at going the distance with. Everyone in this thread who advocates for cohabitation is doing so on the premise of trying to find a partner who you can reasonably get along with. Whereas you are here babbling your head off with nonsensical crap about how cohabitation is a terrible idea because your wife is going to be a miserable troll anyway, so you might as well learn to grin and bear it. | ||
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HULKAMANIA
United States1219 Posts
This thread is in response to travis's question about whether or not he should make an issue of pre-marital cohabitation even though it will upset his future in-laws. The answer to that is certainly a negative, and I went so far as to argue that anyone who takes the idea of marriage seriously should avoid cohabitation as well, for reasons that I've already spelled out a few times. But that's it. That's the parameters of my argument. I've said this already: if the idea of a lifelong marriage doesn't appeal to you, that's fine. Do what suits you. No one's got a gun to your head. But if the idea of lifelong marriage does appeal to you, you'd do well to heed my advice. As I explained to packrat, I haven't really gone into the steps that a young man should take to find a woman who he has "a good shot of going the distance with," and, again, that's because travis has already found such a woman. It's outside the bounds of our conversation. However, if you would like to hear my thoughts about how to choose an appropriate wife, start a blog thread. I'll be glad to help you out. And one more thing. The argument has never been that your wife is going to be a miserable troll no matter what you do. Nuance, buddy, nuance! The argument has been that there will—inevitably—be trying times where you feel like she is. Does that worry you? | ||
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HULKAMANIA
United States1219 Posts
On January 14 2014 11:40 sumsaR wrote: I'm fairly certain he was refering to same-sex marriages, but I guess you understood that and chose to ignore it. Are you asking if I'm opposed to same-sex marriage? In a word? Highly. | ||
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SongByungWewt
China593 Posts
On January 14 2014 12:07 HULKAMANIA wrote: For a guy who's beating the nuance drum so energetically, you don't seem to have all that subtle an understanding of what this thread is about. Who's arguing whether or not "monogamous, lifelong marriage" is the "absolute goal for all relationships"? No one. That's going on in your angry little head. This thread is in response to travis's question about whether or not he should make an issue of pre-marital cohabitation even though it will upset his future in-laws. The answer to that is certainly a negative, and I went so far as to argue that anyone who takes the idea of marriage seriously should avoid cohabitation as well, for reasons that I've already spelled out a few times. But that's it. That's the parameters of my argument. I've said this already: if the idea of a lifelong marriage doesn't appeal to you, that's fine. Do what suits you. No one's got a gun to your head. But if the idea of lifelong marriage does appeal to you, you'd do well to heed my advice. As I explained to packrat, I haven't really gone into the steps that a young man should take to find a woman who he has "a good shot of going the distance with," and, again, that's because travis has already found such a woman. It's outside the bounds of our conversation. However, if you would like to hear my thoughts about how to choose an appropriate wife, start a blog thread. I'll be glad to help you out. And one more thing. The argument has never been that your wife is going to be a miserable troll no matter what you do. Nuance, buddy, nuance! The argument has been that there will—inevitably—be trying times where you feel like she is. Does that worry you? Your first post: "On top of all that, cohabitation is a piss poor idea for anyone anywhere who takes the idea of marriage seriously." Analysis: Zero justifications given. Just a flat out statement, followed by some idiotic endorsement about not wanting to bs a 20K poster. Your second post: "If you want a reliable marriage, you ought to find someone who treats it as a sober, irrevocable vow made before family and God and you ought to do likewise. Cohabitation beforehand has nothing to do with that and in fact tips your hand that you're weighing your romance options like a tween rather than directing your life like an adult. If you want a precious little relationship that you're allowed to opt out of as soon as you start to get sad feelings, then marriage isn't for you anyway." Analysis: Your reasoning is "only marry people who think marriage is a lifelong contract that can never be broken. If you cohabit before marriage and find some flaws, it won't make any difference. Because you shouldn't let flaws deter you from marriage." Rebuttal: First off, travis didn't ask how to have a reliable marriage. He asked about how to get the girl to agree to cohabiting and whether or not it was a reasonable position to pressure her about it. So you are way more off topic than anyone with your blathering about lifelong marriage, God, etc. Secondly, your point about opting out as soon as you start to get sad feelings is completely irrational. And this is the point we began to debate over these last few posts, which you are now backing out of because you can't defend it. So, no, the argument has not been "there will be trying times when you feel like she is." Your argument has been "You made a vow to God, so you have to stick with her no matter what." That's what a "man" would do. And then you elaborated upon it with a bunch of really lousy religious/moralistic rhetoric along with a heavy dose of obnoxious condescension calling other people "boys" and "little buddy" and gasping dramatically. Which, btw, did a great job of showing your maturity level. My advice, you should really start to use your brain more and rely less on tired old paradigms like the "good Christian man." | ||
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packrat386
United States5077 Posts
On January 14 2014 12:16 HULKAMANIA wrote: Are you asking if I'm opposed to same-sex marriage? In a word? Highly. thanks for letting me know not to waste my time. | ||
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HULKAMANIA
United States1219 Posts
On January 14 2014 13:19 SongByungWewt wrote: Your first post: "On top of all that, cohabitation is a piss poor idea for anyone anywhere who takes the idea of marriage seriously." Analysis: Zero justifications given. Just a flat out statement, followed by some idiotic endorsement about not wanting to bs a 20K poster. Your second post: "If you want a reliable marriage, you ought to find someone who treats it as a sober, irrevocable vow made before family and God and you ought to do likewise. Cohabitation beforehand has nothing to do with that and in fact tips your hand that you're weighing your romance options like a tween rather than directing your life like an adult. If you want a precious little relationship that you're allowed to opt out of as soon as you start to get sad feelings, then marriage isn't for you anyway." Analysis: Your reasoning is "only marry people who think marriage is a lifelong contract that can never be broken. If you cohabit before marriage and find some flaws, it won't make any difference. Because you shouldn't let flaws deter you from marriage." Rebuttal: First off, travis didn't ask how to have a reliable marriage. He asked about how to get the girl to agree to cohabiting and whether or not it was a reasonable position to pressure her about it. So you are way more off topic than anyone with your blathering about lifelong marriage, God, etc. Secondly, your point about opting out as soon as you start to get sad feelings is completely irrational. And this is the point we began to debate over these last few posts, which you are now backing out of because you can't defend it. So, no, the argument has not been "there will be trying times when you feel like she is." Your argument has been "You made a vow to God, so you have to stick with her no matter what." That's what a "man" would do. And then you elaborated upon it with a bunch of really lousy religious/moralistic rhetoric along with a heavy dose of obnoxious condescension calling other people "boys" and "little buddy" and gasping dramatically. Which, btw, did a great job of showing your maturity level. My advice, you should really start to use your brain more and rely less on tired old paradigms like the "good Christian man." I don't see how your summary and "analysis" of my argument thus far corresponds at all with what I've been saying in this thread. It looks like you rely a little bit on quotation, a little bit on assertion contrary to fact, and a fair bit more on fabrication from scratch, culminating in a puzzling (but clearly labelled, at least) rebuttal that demonstrably mischaracterizes the nature of the OP. That being said, I'm just going to reiterate what I've been saying all along. The thread starter would do well to respect the wishes of his wife's family because by all available evidence theirs is a functional, Christian family and that bodes well for the ability of the daughter to do her part to maintain a healthy marriage with travis over the long-term. By all available evidence, she's a catch, and so, no, he should not press this issue and disturb his and her relationship with her family simply because he thinks that cohabitation before marriage is a prudent and necessary move. I went on to say that it's not. And, in fact, cohabitation before marriage is a poor way to go about determining whether a girl is marriage material in the first place and ought not be a priority for a serious man who wants a successful marriage. There are far more important concerns than "Can we tolerate living together for a while before marriage?" such as "Do I have the character of a man who is able to honor his wedding vows?" and "Does my wife have the character of a woman who will honor hers?" which are better assessed by looking at the totality of her behavior, attitudes, relationship toward her family, religious beliefs, aspirations in life, etc. than by moving in with her and seeing whether or not the two of you can establish a modus vivendi in a couple of weeks, months, or years living under one roof. Basic domestic tranquility is easy to achieve between a mature, committed husband and wife anyway. The whole "will my marriage be periodically miserable" tangent was just that, a tangent. But what I said there is true as well. It's true that every marriage goes through periods of abject misery and that no amount of cohabitation beforehand will obviate such periods. It's also true that the same type of people who advocate "test drives" and "sneak peeks" for determining "compatibility" are the same type of people who tend to panic when all their careful calculations and weighing of odds fail them nevertheless and they hit one of these patches of difficulty, they begin to wonder where their plans went wrong rather than accepting pragmatically that no tribulation has overtaken them but such as is common to man and powering through accordingly. Upon review, I would say that my posts in this thread so far have been uniformly well-written, on-point, and insightful. But I do now have reason to doubt your ability or your inclination to summarize them fairly. Somewhere Carl R. Rogers is weeping. | ||
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LockeTazeline
2390 Posts
There's a lot of contention between you two that's completely unnecessary and, honestly, detracts from otherwise sound arguments. While making a witty retort may indeed make you look cool, it adds nothing of value to the discussion while diverting attention from the idea to the person. We ought to be able to relate ideas without coming down on the people who bear them. (even if we think their position is ridiculous) ^^ That said, let me pose a question. In the context of "trial running a marriage", what, precisely, do you expect to learn about someone from cohabitation (that you could not learn otherwise) that would make you change your mind about marrying them or that would be something that you couldn't work out in a marriage? | ||
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sumsaR
Sweden1812 Posts
On January 14 2014 15:28 LockeTazeline wrote: That said, let me pose a question. In the context of "trial running a marriage", what, precisely, do you expect to learn about someone from cohabitation (that you could not learn otherwise) that would make you change your mind about marrying them or that would be something that you couldn't work out in a marriage? At the most basic of levels the big one is probably "Do we like living together and would we be able to do so for a long time?". | ||
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