What I've learned about men and marriage
 

As long as I put out without complaining, everything will be alright. (Even though I said no at first.)

That is an extraordinarily cynical statement.

Looking for a divorce attorney, are you?

Ah, words to live by.

*shrug*

I'd not see it like that.

I'm pretty sure Dr. Laura just wrote a book that makes that same statement.

I don't really agree. There are all sorts of potential marriage problems that can't be resolved by having sex. Little things start to annoy you after a while, and you have to learn to agree on things and make compromises when you have conflicting goals.

I agree. Marriage is about growing together and compromising when you disagree. It's about thinking in the "we" instead of in the "I," and putting the family first on your list of priorities. I think that if you have respect, you develop trust, which leads to love, which leads to faithfulness, which leads to stability, which leads to dependability, and those are the things healthy relationships are built on. Everything else comes from them.

But that's just me. *shrugs* I could be wrong.

Sidhe

Re: What I've learned about men and marriage
 

You've got a lot to learn.:rolleyes:

what I've learned about men and marriage
 

I agree, you may have missed out on some pretty important aspects to men and to marriage.
He can and ultimately should be your friend as well as your partner. The ability to laugh at oneself and ones partner is irreplaceable in marriage. How in the hell are you going to get through the tense moments or the boring nights or how bout the times when the kid is sick and won't stop screaming or your in-laws drop in unannounced for perhaps the twelfth time that week? My husband is my closest friend and ally. I haven't and won't disrespect him or ever make him feel he is less than all I want or need. He in return never hurts me either. This is not to say those feelings don't exist. We are normal people, we just don't lash out at each other.
I am glad I am not the man. I don't want to have a penis (whale or otherwise) I may not always want a penis inside me either but I think staying positive about it is the key. If you start to resent him and his penis then you may start having fantasies of killing him while you are having sex with him. (not killing him while you are having sex, but fantasizing about killing him instead of enjoying the sex.) I have been with my husband for 9 years. Three kids. Through the death of my mother. Through the discovery and reunion with my birth sibling. Through indiscretion. It has definitey been worth it. If I lost him I doubt I would marry again (although I would send out a search party) I figure I could not find this kind of joy and comaraderie with another. OK. Now those of you who are crying either from boredom or the overly sweet sentiment may get a kleenex.

Looks like FAF has departed the Cellar.

She must be too busy to log in

Well I hope the cats are ok...

May she never return...what a fucking spazz.

C'mon Syc, don't expect everyone to come to the Cellar with the right answers. Some can come to study at your feet and drink the wisdom of your cup.

Yeah, they can drink from my cup, all right.

I always try to hold out hope for folks, but I dunno...some aren't fixable or worth fixing.

"She want my pimp juice...oooooooooo!"

Oddly enough, a ex-girlfriend of mine is having some marital difficulties, and she deals with it by doing exactly the opposite. She doesn't do damn thing that he wants an dsimply doesn't worry about what he's doing. Oddly enough, they are living together more amicably.

Re: what I've learned about men and marriage
 

You two seem to have it together. Good for you. So many people forget the catharsis that shared laughter can bring. You're lucky. Not everyone can learn to see it that way.

Marrage is a simple equation 1+1=1
Meening One indivigual plus One indivigual = Marrage
It is give and take , you BOTH have to do both .
My wife or I will come up with an idea , we will discuss it rationaly ( and if we are to pissed off to speak rationaly the other partner has the power to say "lets disscuss this when you arn't so pissed off ") , each of us have veto powers over the other. It has worked for 15 years come march 24 :D :D

What I've learned about men and marriage
 

Congratulations Zippy,
15 years is something to crow about for sure. Marriage isn't for the weak-hearted.

That's a good run, congrats.
I once told a girlfriend "we should talk about this when you're not emotional"
And she said " You think this is emotional, huh? YOU THINK THIS IS EMOTIONAL ?"
Well, you can guess the rest.
I wonder how she's doing.

relationships.
 

Novice,
You are very wise. Congratulations on chewing your leg off and getting out of that trap. Maybe you could look her up on the "Bipolar poster girls 2004 calendar" website.

How about 40 years? And we still laugh together. But argue too. The problem is each person gets set in his ways whether you're married or not.

One for 7 and one for 22. Wonder how long the next ex will last?:)

Too bad more people don't seem to think that way. I see, everyday, examples of people who are married thinking "me" "I" and "mine" instead of "we" "us" and "ours." They don't believe in give and take, only take. Your track record is admirable.

I once told a girlfriend "we should talk about this when you're not emotional"
~~~~~~~~~~~
We're seldom not emotional. That's what makes us feminine. Ta da....... :eek: :eek:

It has been my observation and experience that most women want men to express our emotions, share our feelings, and tell them exactly what we are thinking...right up to the point when we say something that they don't want to hear. Then, we are undiplomatic, insensitive and rude. For their part, women tend to remain silent about a lot of the things that are going on in their heads, but that's okay - because if we truly cared, we men would know what they're thinking "without having to be told".

Most women would prefer to talk about a problem for six hours than solve it in five minutes. Nothing will piss off a woman faster than offering a possible solution to a problem that she has presented to you before she is ready to hear it.

Most women tend to be very understanding and forgiving when it comes to the more negative traits and tendencies most commonly seen in women (like the two mentioned above), but very unforgiving when it comes to the general tendencies - even the fairly benign ones - of men. Many women would seem to prefer that a man be simply a woman who happens to have a penis.

Where as you would prefer that a woman be simply a man who happens to have a vagina?

If everyone would accept the opposite sex is just that, opposite, we’d all be much happier.
He says, why can’t you be less emotional and more rational?
She says, why can’t you be less impatient and more sensitive?
I say, why can’t you accept your partner’s differences and not try to change them.
:3eye:

Right on, Bruce. Men and women are vastly different.... it's a good thing. Of course, that's not even accounting for the fact that even among the same sex their are vast differences...

Sounds like, "Can't we all just get along?!"

Seriously, the post by jinx, in pseudo-response to mine, was really pretty dumb, and didn't seriously address my post in anything like a thoughtful way - it was just sort of the rhetorical equivilent of "Oh, yeah?".

In the brief time that I've been reading and posting here, I guess I've gotten spoiled in that most participants seem to have sufficient respect for, and confidence in, their own intellects to keep things on a slightly higher level - but I guess there's at least one in every crowd, so to speak.

I believe that I do, for the most part, recognize and respect - even if it is, on occasion, in something of a resigned manner - the differences in temperment and psychology between, for example, my wife and me, and they really don't make me angry or precipitate a fight between us...they're just a fact of life. I can recognize our differences without their becoming a point of too much contention, in other words, and I suspect that she's pretty much the same way...most of the time.

Without trying to generalize from my own experience too radically, however, I will say that when we do fight, it's usually as the result of some conflict arising out of traditional (some might say stereotypical) gender differences, such as the ones I mentioned earlier. She gets fed up because I "won't share", or am not sufficiently sensitive to her need to vent endlessly about the slightest thing...or I have the temerity to actually make a suggestion as to how to fix a problem, rather than to merely listen and express understanding and empathy.

My wife is one of the most intelligent and articulate people I've ever known; however, on those occasions when we have a really huge fight (thankfully only a couple of times a year, if that) it seems that they always begin with - and are fueled by - her anger at some 'guy' behavior that I'm exhibiting, and not the other way around.

Undoubtedly the experience of others has been different, to some extent. I'm just saying that, among the other men with whom I've discussed this, it's pretty common to just laugh about the differences a little and get on with life - it's the women in our lives who (at least in our view) tend to take those kinds of things too seriously.

I heard someone on the radio a while back, reading a list of "Things Guys Say" and "What They Really Mean"; the one that stuck in my head was "What's wrong?", which translated as "What unnecessary, self-inflicted psychological trauma are you experiencing now?" You see, fair or not, generally true or not, men do tend to think that women take things too seriously much of the time...and that would include our differences.

I thought you always said "Have a good divorce attorney on retainer."

There's no such animal. I didn't start any procedings.:cool:

You're a man right? You posted a 3 paragraph bitch about the things women do all wrong in our unmanlikeness. I, a woman, didn't address your thoughts seriously enough for you, apparently offending you. You were then given a solution which you paraphrased (mocked?) "Can't we all just get along?"..... but still needed to vent for 6 or 7 more paragraphs.

I call shenanigans!

I'm not going to waste either my time or that of anyone else on this board with some kind of a personal pissing contest with you or anybody else, jinx, so if you need to have the last word, go ahead - it will be. If you want to engage in a discussion, rather than simply attack other people for having opinions you don't like to hear, have at it.

It seems to me that in your previous posts, you might be proving one or two of my points.

If I write, in any given post, too much for your taste, it's probably because I wanted to make myself clear, and leave as little room as possible for misunderstanding - not because I "needed to vent".

The "Can't we all just get along" line was just a joke - the fact that the next line started out "Seriously..." probably tipped most people off to that.

I'm reminded of a cartoon I read once that featured a large, angry woman, standing behind a counter and shouting down at a man half her size, "This is a feminist bookstore...there IS no humor section!"

...which leads me to ask: what kind of man would take a job in a feminist bookstore?

I apologize godwulf, I didn't realize you'd take a little ribbing as a pissing contest. God knows I wouldn't want to get involved in one of those, with you having that "ability to stand" advantage and all...

yet, your previous post contained this:
it seemed to me that she questioned a point in your first post, and YOU made an assumption ( a wrong one btw) that jinx is the " dummy of the bunch". YOU personally attacked HER. Just because you didn't understand her question doesn't make HER stupid.

lumberjim:
Her "question" was this:
I made what I still believe to be a true statement about how some women seem to want men to be simply women with dicks - I didn't say "jinx wants this" or "lumberjim is one" or otherwise personalize it in any fashion.

Her response in no logical way followed what I had written, and it appeared to be saying that I must somehow be no different from those whom I was criticizing BECAUSE I was daring to criticize them. The old "I know you are, but what am I?" school of rational debate.

Now she's apologized, and I hereby do the same (Sorry, jinx!) because I appear to have been mistaken that she was serious; so maybe it's ME who doesn't have a humor section, ey? My only half-assed excuse is that I've spent so much time lately in another forum, where "I know you are, but what am I?" is considered an intellectual coup-de-grace, that I may be just a tad over-sensitive to that sort of thing. I promise that I'll try to keep my head a little better in the future.

Well, welcome to the cellar. How many t-shirts would you like?

did you get your free whale penis yet?



actually, i agree with you (to a point) about what you say about women wanting men to behave more like they do, but i know at the same time, as I'm sure you do too, if you're married, that if we WERE like women, they'd leave us for the "bad boy" type forthwith. The scene from white men can't jump where the girl tells woody that she's thirsty, and then gets mad at him cuz he goes and gets her a glass of water illustrates your point. In my estimation ( i say estimation because unless you are a woman yourself, you really can;t know what they're REALLY thinking) A woman does not wont you to BE like them, but simply to understand what it is LIKE to be like them. It's about empathy.

Originally posted by lumberjim True. But when will women learn that when a they tell a guy about their problem that 99% of men want to put on their Superman costume and leap into problem solving mode.

Men don't empathise - they fix stuff. If women want their tire changed, call a man. If they want to talk about how bummed they are that they have a flat, call another woman. Pretty simple, actually. Zebras have stripes. Leopards have spots. What's so hard about keeping that straight?

lumberjim wrote:
But what if we were, like, really bad women?

But seriously...

There's probably some linkage (god, did I really use that word?) between the whole 'women like bad boys' thing and the 'women want men to be more like they are' thing, but it's confusing and I'm not really sure what it is. Maybe we're talking about two distinct groups of women here, because it's difficult to reconcile the two - at least in my head.

I know that it was thoroughly trashed by the critics and has a bad reputation, but I have always been very fond of the Ellen Degeneres movie "Mr. Wrong". Bill Pulliam plays a guy who is not only devoted to the Ellen character to the point of obssession and willing to do anything she wants him to (except to go away), he is also the original bad boy from Hell and a complete psychotic nutcase. He's like both the very empathetic ideal and the 'bad boy' ideal, blended together and carried to the farthest extreme possible, but in a funny way.

Beestie wrote:
Eloquently stated and 100% true.

"Oh," she said, "but I want my husband to also be my best friend and confidante." Yeah, and I want my lawnmower to play music and dispense hard lemonade...what's your point?

THEY MAKE THOSE!!????
I WANT 2 OF THEM!

But when will women learn that when a they tell a guy about their problem that 99% of men want to put on their Superman costume and leap into problem solving mode.

Probably around the same time that men learn that when a woman tells him about her problems that 99% of the women don't want him to put on the spandex just yet.

I believe this was the point that jinx was originally making, that simply asking "when will women learn" is a tad hypocritical since it assumes women are on the inherently "wrong" side, that they must be the only ones to change.

For the record, I tend to be a more masculine woman in this regard, and often don't get along with certain women for that exact reason godwulf was complaining about, that they tend to whine about problems that could easily be solved if they'd just get up and do it. But, I also don't get along with certain men because they tend to over-exuberantly butt into situations that are not their problem, and in addition to the unwelcome intrusion, they often do not in fact solve the problem but rather make it much worse.

Both sides are wrong, and both sides should get used to always being wrong--and then they're ready for marriage. :)

i'm just really really good at apologizing. and i also assume that I am always wrong.

I'm not being hypocritical because I'm not saying either side is better than the other. Hypocrisy involves saying one thing and doing another. If I am wrong, I am wrong in both word and deed and not one or the other. Perhaps you mean inconsistent in which case, I respectfully disagree.

When women talk to men and expect empathy, I think it's a problem of misplaced expectations. I don't ask my wife to watch SportsCenter and get pumped about the NCAA because I know she doesn't give a flip. But, and I love my wife dearly, she will repeatedly involve me in a decision about which purse to return. It took me about two years but I finally figured out that she doesn't really want my opinion (god forbid I should actually choose one to take back) as much as to share the difficulty of the decision. I think many men would agree - we've adapted and don't expect our women to be "one of the guys" whereas our beloved have been slow to realize (or, at the very least, slow to accept) our emotional limitations.

As anecdotal support, I offer two scenarios: A woman talking to a gay man about designer shoes and a man talking to a lesbian about chain saws. Just visualize those two conversations to see the point I am making.

Beestie wrote:
Okay, I'm visualizing, but I need some help. Um...what is the lesbian wearing?

I don't know that this is even true, because most women realize that men suck at empathy. Often, when women talk to men they just want the man to talk back.... they want to hear the mans thoughts. I've been asking this of jim for 14 years now, and he's never had much to say. Ironic isn't it?

Be thankful. You probably don't want the real answer to the question "what are you thinking about?"

No, I really do. But I reserve the right to throw a hissy fit if I don't like the answer :D

I'm not being hypocritical because I'm not saying either side is better than the other. Hypocrisy involves saying one thing and doing another. If I am wrong, I am wrong in both word and deed and not one or the other. Perhaps you mean inconsistent in which case, I respectfully disagree.

I meant hypocritical--the saying one thing and doing another would be A.) saying women shouldn't have these expectations of men to act like women, while B.) having the exact same expectations of women to act like men.

You say you don't have such expectations of women, and I believe you. But plenty of men do. Either way, I didn't mean you personally were hypocritical, more that the position at large often is.

that's only because I'm not really thinking that much. :)

lumberjim wrote:
Exactly! Sometimes I'll just be absolutely vegging out, staring into space, after a day at work of thinking too long and hard about too much stuff, and my wife will ask, "What are you thinking about?" and I swear to god it's like when they show the interior of Homer Simpson's brain and you see a little bobbing-bird toy or a cartoon cow...there is zero actual thinking going on in there.

Women, when you ask us what we're thinking and we say "Nothing" - believe it!

i usually have some song rolling around in there, or i'm worrying about bills, or something irrelevant. Then, when i get that question ( and for the record, shelby is not the whining annoying " what are you thinking" type....usually) I assume she means "what are you thinking about what i've been thinking about", or "what do you think about what I was just saying when you really weren't paying attention, although you kept agreeing with me, and saying uh-huh, right, oh really?..."

....and because I don;t know what sh'es been thinking about, i say " nuthin'"

I usually steer clear of these kinds of discussions, because A. they turn nasty very quickly and B. in my experience, I don't find many of these generalizations to be true. At least not in my circumstances.

When there is a problem, we try and work together to come up with a solution. Not rehash it over and over just for the sake of it. I like being involved in perth's hobbies, even if I never participated in them before. I think it is part of appreciating another person, least of all my spouse. And he is involved in the things I enjoy, like painting. We include each other to narrow the gap between us. Part of why I liked him in the first place was that we had similar interests. If he was really into watching sports on TV, I might not have ever dated him, simply because it is something I have never been interested in. But then again, if I liked sports I might have found that an attractive quality in someone else.

I think it is great to be married to my best friend. Not because I want to whine at him and expect him to empathize, but because its more fun to spend my life with my best friend than some guy that has only a little bit of interest in hanging out with me outside the bedroom. We have fun hanging out together.

And yes, we do have our independence, too. I go out with friends and so does he. He does stuff by himself sometimes, and I do the same. But I never feel that his hobbies are all for him, or that he would be uncomfortable getting involved in mine.

I guess it is hard for me to understand the complaints men and women have about each other. I appreciate that perth is a man (it is actually an advantage), and whether his differences with me are due to his gender or not is irrellevant. I like the person/man/being that he is. His being male only adds to the whole thing. ;)

Does this mean you're gonna play Halo with me?

Thank you Case, you just described perfectly how HP and I feel about each other. You are so right on with everything you said. :thumb:

Neat! It's the only way to do it, I say. :)

Women want to know what everyone's thinking. It's our thing. With other women, we don't usually even have to ask. They say what they're thinking readily. I've asked my husband that same question, to which he didn't even understand what I was asking. It is nice to have some differences. :eek: