A question about marriage for PB

[Bub]

In previous threads you have offered great advise about relationships, especially marriage. I understand from my readings on the BOB that you are a long haul driver. My question for you, and others who may care to respond, is marriage like driving across the country from (1) east to west or (2) west to east.
If you drive from east to west I imagine the excitement of the big cities followed by the dull boring plains, the turmoil of the mountains and then the beauty and sunshine of the west coast.
If you drive from west to east I see the beauty of the oceans, the turmoil of the unavoidable mountains, the quiet of the plains and then we come to the excitement of places like NYC.
I guess it depends on where you end up.
I live in the Midwest, but love the oceans and the mountains.
Never the less, I also love my wife.
Bub

 

[Puff Daddy]

Some see the cities as a chaotic hellhole and the plains as serene and beautiful, not dull and boring. God's country! At least when you're just passing through, maybe not if you have to live there :lol:

 

[Puff Daddy]

Come to think of it, marriage is more like driving up Lombard street in San Francisco. Uphill all the way, precarious, and winding back and forth endlessly.

 

[tin man]

I think it's more like at day at Disneyland. It's kind of expensive and there's not really enough time to see it all in one day. There are a lot of lines to wait in and it winds around all over the place. Sometimes you will argue over petty things when you get tired, but a quick pick me up and you're back up and running again. In between all of that you experience little moments of magic that make it all worth while.

All in all, not a bad way to spend the day.

 

[Puff Daddy]

Yeah, but is it more like Magic Mountain or the Haunted House? :shock: :lol:

 

[Slow Puffs]

I'll have to ask my wife what I should say

.

 

[tin man]

Dead men tell no tales.

 

[LL]

Marriage is a legal construct created for financial reasons (primarily to allow for the tracking and passing of property from generation to generation). It has nothing to do "love" or "passion" in the Western sense. Many cultures---Japan is a good example---look at our attempts to combine business with pleasure as laughable.

The reason the Western version rarely lasts (and when it does the parties are more often than not staying together for convenience & lack of other options), is because h. Sapiens is hard wired otherwise. As an evolutionary survival/reproduction strategy monogamy sucks, and our DNA never stops trying to tell us that.

 

[puros_bran]

I've had to think about this one.

There are literally tens of thousands of people around that claim to be marriage experts and truthfully are far better qualified than me.

Contrary to what LL said, Monogomy can be satisfying and there are other species on this planet that function well under the model. Whether mankind is wired for monogomy is a discussion not really worth worrying about to me, its pretty obvious to me that I am. I've never found short term relations (what we mistakenly call 'Single' ) satisfying, and often felt quite empty during the times in my life I pursued that model.

As for defining marriage using trucker terms.. Its doesn't work other than to say the trip I'm dispatched on will have little in common with the trip your dispatched on, other than to say we are both going down the road. On some of lifes roads that I breeze through, you may struggle. On roads you thrive on, I may be totally miserable. Contrary to 'real roads' the same roads in life can lead people to very different places.

If you really want marriage advice I can tell you what I plan to tell my kids..

Don't do anything away from your spouse you wouldn't do with them near.

Don't fall into the belief that you own your spouse, in todays world they can be gone in a matter of minutes.

Don't fight over things that don't matter, always ask yourself. 'Will this matter in a year? Two? Five? Ten? '
Some things are worth fighting for, but they usually prove your with the wrong person, not that you are 'right'.

Enjoy your spouse, allow them to enjoy you, Marriage can be fun if you disallow 'cultural' bs to tell you otherwise, it aint the Simpsons or Family Guy and it for sure aint 'Ghost' or Jerry McGuire... Nobody can make you happy but you, your spouse can compliment your happiness, multiply your happiness, but they can not provide it.

Its not a Zero Sum game.



Don't know if that helps but other than that I can't help ya Bub..

 

[LL]

I agree with everything PB said regarding the approach to take if you have hopes of making a marriage work for an extended period. It can definitely be done. It's just that the deck is stacked against success for reasons beyond our control, and the odds against it are high.

Hardly news, of course---the empirical evidence is overwhelming---but essential knowledge for anyone headed down the "lifelong partner" path. Forewarned is forearmed, and all that.

 

[Centurian 803]

PB. I perceive you are a philosopher and wiser than you let on. Very good advice.

 

[Puff Daddy]

Marriage is a legal construct created for financial reasons ...It has nothing to do "love" or "passion"...our attempts to combine business with pleasure as laughable.

I have to take a rare opposing position with you LL, on this one I think you're all wrong. I feel that the legal construct is a bi product of the culture we live in and not necessarily a result of union or even human DNA. If people didn't 1) get married when they had no business getting married or 2) act so selfishly within that marriage and put themselves first, there wouldn't be a need for the business or legal end. Marriage is not about 2 individuals, it's about a union and family and dedicated ties that are not to be undone. But, I guess it's a matter of how you look at marriage going into it. If it's a matter of convenience and of not wanting to be alone - with the basest, most underlying motivators being self importance and personal satisfaction, then you'd better put an attorney on retainer when you buy that ring because your mindset and approach is guaranteeing an eventual end to your union. Too many people get married in the first place, people who are not honestly intending to commit and to dedicate and to put the others in their family first. The ridiculously high divorce rate and number of children living without both parents to nurture and raise them is an indicator of a society that lacks concern for others, a show of a self centered apathetic community. A society like ours that seems to demand dedication and honesty and integrity from the superficial aspects of society - like our elected officials and social leaders - yet takes the most important personal commitment so lightly that we have a 50% divorce rate is a society of self centered indulgent fools and it's no wonder we are tumbling down the path we are on. We are socially oriented to make sure we are happy as individuals, if not, quit. Don't wait it out, don't try to give more of yourself to make the thing stronger and more productive in the end, get out cuz it's not working for me right now.

I believe it was Plato who inferred that the only difference between us and the animals was our ability to rationalize our existence and rise above it, that we were both animal being and rational being and our purpose was to let the rational lead the animal. If we can rise above our basest animal instincts then we can, period. Whether we feel justified in relenting to them or rising above them is a matter of social acceptance and motivation, not a matter of DNA. The drive is in the grey matter. We're not talking about chromosomes, we're talking about a psychological manifestation of introverted selfishness and apathy towards those we proclaimed we would love and nurture and dedicate our lives to, or not. We choose to do one or the other, it doesn't choose us. Marriage isn't a disaster, it's just too easy and socially acceptable to jump in and out of and ignore the root purposes of marriage. Half of the people going into it are either too self concerned or simply liars.

Love and passion are the drivers of marriage, and I think these are too often confused with lust. Lust won't drive you any farther than the drug store for some more penicillin, but those same base desires focused towards a single individual and rationalized into a life long union produce the bedrock for a sound, emotionally stable society with psychologically sound foundations pulling the moral compass to true north. When passion allies with love (which is learned over time) it creates the bond that makes marriage work. But, you have to defer to it, you have to set aside certain things within yourself that are centered on you as an individual and let that love and passion be the true north of your compass, let it guide your motivation rather than following a self serving bearing. It has everything to do with love and passion, and if it doesn't, the individual has no reason entering into marriage. A domestic partnership, a contract, maybe, but not marriage. Marriage is about a union, about family, not a temporary mutually beneficial partnership.

But, you are right about the last part, combining marriage with business as a principle for a union is laughable. Laughable because of the underlying tear it makes in the basic fabric of marriage. In marriage there is only ours and there is no concern over "Mine" or "My assets" or "My future security". Those concerns are the foundation for your impending divorce. There is only "ours, til death..."

My advice? If what I've said here doesn't ring true 100% with both of you, do not get married, period.

 

[LL]

Big Jim,

You misread me entirely, I think.

My comments about marriage as a civil entity are based on historical fact. Only since the Renaissance has the concept existed (in the West) in something resembling its present form. Before that, there's 2-3 million years unaccounted for.

Virtually all older cultures---China, Persia, Japan, etc.---make a distinction between a wife-as-mother to continue the man's line, and partner-for-passion. Both are accepted and recognized independently, and n'er the twain shall meet. It is considered the only pragmatic solution for the duality present in Man: the species survival/reproductive imperatives that are part of his DNA, and the spiritual/enlightened piece that is Man's desire to become more than an animal.

Me? I'm probably the most old fashioned romantic you've ever met. A lifetime/life-partner bond and shared existence is pretty much the only thing on the entire planet that I find truly worth striving for. All else is incidental.

 

[Puff Daddy]

My comments weren't meant to be condemning, just a reply to the textbook-like manner in which marriage seems to have been demeaned down to the level of temporary fiscal partnership of convenience. After re reading my above post I realized that it sounds like a condemnation. Rather, I intended it to be more along the lines of food for thought before entering into. Of course it can't be the end all, as glaringly obvious is one's inability to control what the other person does. You could go into it with the most noble of intentions and get burned.

The bitch could be flat out crazy!! :shock: :lol:

A thought as a response though, LL. If we can continually rise above to greater heights, then why the decline here? We make great strides in thought, science and rationalization, yet trash this sacred emotional and spiritual entity that is such a huge part of us. You can bring out evidence of past civilizations lack of monogamy, but as you said, man has risen above that since renaissance times, and with the collective moral direction of the modern Christian church as a support base. The logical progression would seem to be one of greater self and communal awareness, and restraint for the better good, yet we tumble into an emotional and psychological mess as a group with what we should be holding in the highest regard. Don't make no sense. To me, statistics of things past that we know we have and can continue to rise above are not an excuse or rationalization for present or future transgressions. True, it is in Man's nature to fall, but as a whole it's more in our nature to excel and grow. Otherwise, we'd have died off by now.

 

[tin man]

I don't think fact and logic are the driving force of the man who maintains a successful marriage.

Nobody can make you happy but you, your spouse can compliment your happiness, multiply your happiness, but they can not provide it.

:cheers: :cheers: :cheers: :cheers: :cheers:

 

[Puff Daddy]

I don't think fact and logic are the driving force of the man who maintains a successful marriage.

Nope. It's pure dumb luck in getting a woman who will put up with the unending stream of our silly crap

 

[mark]

As time goes by, everybody changes, there's no way of knowing in advance if your partner and you will grow closer or drift apart,,,try as you may to bend to the others drift, all this does is create unhappiness in yourself,,,,luck is a great part of it, that and maturity.

 

[ftrplt]

Two "truisms" for those contemplating marriage. A woman gets married thinking the man will change with time and her "guidance" into what she wants him to be. Won't happen! The man, on the other hand, is happy with the way things are. He thinks the woman he marries will always be the same. Won't happen. Women change/adapt/grow into another being as time passes. Man does not particularly like this!!

Question...What food changes the way a bride thinks? Answer....Wedding cake!

Question...Why is the bride always smiling as she walks back down the aisle? Answer....She knows she's given her last bl^%#b!

Question...What is the one most important response a man must use when talking with his wife? Answer..."Yes, dear!" Or, to quote Charleton Heston, "Yes dear, I was wrong!"

When people ask me what caused my first marriage to breakup, I always reply "a lot of serious illness put a strain on our marriage. I was sick of her and she was sick of me!!"

Enough already!!! FTRPLT

 

[Anonymous]

My question for you, and others who may care to respond, is marriage like driving across the country from (1) east to west or (2) west to east.

I propose two more choices: (3) north to south or (4) south to north.

My answer is (4) south to north

Starts out hot and sweaty, ends up frozen. :joker:

 

[Puff Daddy]

She knows she's given her last bl^%#b!

Clearly, you don't know how to pick em :lol: