# "wife" vs that other human person and what that other human person feels, values



## NobodySpecial (Nov 22, 2013)

*"wife" vs that other human person and what that other human person feels, values*

Whatever the case may be about the phenomenon of sexlessness or less enthusiasm or frequency that is desired, we get far more men here with this issue. The thing that resonates with me is how little they say about the person that their wife is. It is so frequently cast as what a "wife" should do. Should a "wife" do this FOR you? Give that TO you? They ask women WHY?

I often wonder what they hell these guys actually know about the person who wears the label "wife".


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## Chris Taylor (Jul 22, 2010)

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I guess every situation is different, but for me I think I have a good understanding what my "wife" is. We've been together through some pretty rough times, some pretty great times. She has my back and I have hers.

But I also understand what she isn't and what I'm not. My wife has a very high IQ and can figure out problems and people way faster than I can. She can also remember minute details years after they happen. I struggle with my memory and have to plod through problems like they are a phone book. She never wanted to be the breadwinner and I accept that, but I didn't have the benefit of more time with my kids and she understood that.

I also realize that she will never have a libido like mine. I think she realizes I will never have one like hers.


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## joannacroc (Dec 17, 2014)

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That's a really interesting question. So you think part of the bigger picture problem is that some of the men having issues in their marriage don't see their wife as a person with thoughts, feelings and a personality of their own? 

Just to play devil's advocate, we do see a lot of men AND women on here who feel their spouse doesn't listen or care about them, or doesn't show an interest in their hobbies or career. That makes me think maybe a lot of people who are unhappy in their marriages have lost a sense of connection with their spouse; that sometimes seems to manifest itself with a lot of preconceived ideas or assumptions about what they thought their spouse would be, or how they would act when they first married, vs. reality (the "should a wife do this for you" portion of your post. 

When things get bad, we seem to only see crushed hopes about how we THOUGHT our relationship would be, instead of seeing how it IS, and working with the reality to try and better it. Do you think that could be because it's easier to love our fantasy of a person, instead of how that person truly is? 

I wonder if it's that we have an idea of how marriage will be, how a husband acts, how a wife acts, but in the end, we didn't write the story, we don't control how people act, think etc. We can only control how we react to their behavior and how we communicate our feelings and reactions. Does that make sense? I feel like I just rambled a lot...a common problem for me ;/


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## MEM2020 (Aug 23, 2009)

*Re: "wife" vs that other human person and what that other human person feels, values*

Difference between doing stuff TO your partner vs WITH your partner is massive. 




NobodySpecial said:


> Whatever the case may be about the phenomenon of sexlessness or less enthusiasm or frequency that is desired, we get far more men here with this issue. The thing that resonates with me is how little they say about the person that their wife is. It is so frequently cast as what a "wife" should do. Should a "wife" do this FOR you? Give that TO you? They ask women WHY?
> 
> I often wonder what they hell these guys actually know about the person who wears the label "wife".


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## NobodySpecial (Nov 22, 2013)

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MEM2020 said:


> Difference between doing stuff TO your partner vs WITH your partner is massive.


Winner, winner, chicken dinner.


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## NobodySpecial (Nov 22, 2013)

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joannacroc said:


> That's a really interesting question. So you think part of the bigger picture problem is that some of the men having issues in their marriage don't see their wife as a person with thoughts, feelings and a personality of their own?


No just that sex belongs in a separate box that is unrelated to that other rest of one's life.



> Just to play devil's advocate, we do see a lot of men AND women on here who feel their spouse doesn't listen or care about them, or doesn't show an interest in their hobbies or career. That makes me think maybe a lot of people who are unhappy in their marriages have lost a sense of connection with their spouse; that sometimes seems to manifest itself with a lot of *preconceived ideas *or assumptions about what they thought their *spouse *would be, or how they would act when they first married, vs. reality (the "should a wife do this for you" portion of your post.


I would agree but change slightly. Not what THEIR spouse would be but what ANY / A spouse would be. The reason that this resonates with me is that I was guilty as hell of this in the early years. Once he achieved the "husband" label, he was supposed to behave differently around recreation, affection, sex...



> When things get bad, we seem to only see crushed hopes about how we THOUGHT our relationship would be, instead of seeing how it IS, and working with the reality to try and better it. Do you think that could be because it's easier to love our fantasy of a person, instead of how that person truly is?
> 
> I wonder if it's that we have an idea of how marriage will be, how a husband acts, how a wife acts, but in the end, we didn't write the story, we don't control how people act, think etc. We can only control how we react to their behavior and how we communicate our feelings and reactions. Does that make sense? I feel like I just rambled a lot...a common problem for me ;/


I think it is because we look to hard at how a "husband" or a "wife" is supposed to be and less at how to build with THAT PERSON. Or at least that is the way it was for us.Thank you usenet clue-by-four complements of Doug Anderson.


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## Blondilocks (Jul 4, 2013)

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Both men and women have preconceived notions of what a wife or a husband is and what they should do or not do, want or not want. Even with evidence staring them in the face, they can still be convinced that the marriage vows will automatically grant them the spouse they envisioned.

When they pose a question about a problem in the marriage, they are asking about the role the spouse is playing. They want to know if what they want is out of line for the role of husband or wife. Since they already know their spouse isn't living up to their expectations, they want to know if the spouse should be. lol And, if they get a lot of 'hell, yeahs', someone is in for a figurative trip to the woodshed. 

They might know their spouse inside and out but still want what they are not getting. And, they want permission to want it.


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## NobodySpecial (Nov 22, 2013)

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Blondilocks said:


> Both men and women have preconceived notions of what a wife or a husband is and what they should do or not do, want or not want. Even with evidence staring them in the face, they can still be convinced that the marriage vows will automatically grant them the spouse they envisioned.


Absolutely. By happenstance, it screams out to me in this subforum in particular. I DO think there is a vestige of the old days where men thought that getting married and making a living guaranteed ample sex. Just as there is a vestige of women who think that getting married entitles them to their husband's income.



> When they pose a question about a problem in the marriage, they are asking about the role the spouse is playing. They want to know if what they want is out of line for the role of husband or wife. Since they already know their spouse isn't living up to their expectations, they want to know if the spouse should be. lol And, if they get a lot of 'hell, yeahs', someone is in for a figurative trip to the woodshed.
> 
> They might know their spouse inside and out but still want what they are not getting. And, they want permission to want it.


Have I ever mentioned how much I hate the word "role" as it relates to interpersonal relationships?


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## Holdingontoit (Mar 7, 2012)

*Re: "wife" vs that other human person and what that other human person feels, values*

@NobodySpecial: I agree and disagree with your underlying point. Many guys would have better success if they framed the issue as trying to have sex with "Suzie" rather than as trying to have sex with the woman who currently occupies the role of "my wife".

On the other hand, once you say "drop the expectation that getting married means we will be having regular sex", how many of those guys would have gotten married in the first place? On the other other hand, how reasonable is it to think that regular sex will continue after marriage if you don't know your wife well enough to know what will keep her interested?


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## NobodySpecial (Nov 22, 2013)

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Holdingontoit said:


> @NobodySpecial: I agree and disagree with your underlying point. Many guys would have better success if they framed the issue as trying to have sex with "Suzie" rather than as trying to have sex with the woman who currently occupies the role of "my wife".


Ha! Busted. Susie does not go in quotes. You don't get it.  

I am just joking. I know you are using two different kinds of quotes.



> On the other hand, once you say "drop the expectation that getting married means we will be having regular sex", how many of those guys would have gotten married in the first place? On the other other hand, how reasonable is it to think that regular sex will continue after marriage if you don't know your wife well enough to know what will keep her interested?


Well I think it is fair to say that a sex life, and a good one, is incredibly necessary for a great marriage. I have known many men who got married ONLY to have a regular sex life... and a good one defined nebulously by being able to stick it in on a regular basis. It strikes me as unlikely that none of those are represented here. Many of the present company excepted.

On the topic of how reasonable it is to think that regular (yuck by the way) will continue if you don't know your spouse well enough... Well reasonable? Ineffective. Not likely.


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## uhtred (Jun 22, 2016)

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Just one data point, but I think I know a lot about my wife. I know here interests, causal and technical. I know about her job, the people at her work and the type of work she does. I know some things about her that I'm pretty sure she isn't aware of herself. 

I'm not always right about her. i was surprised how well she took the deaths of her parents, it showed more inner strength that I had expected. OTOH I have recently become aware of how important status is to her, though she would never admit it. 

Some things remain mysterious, chief among them her attitudes toward sex (finds it amusing in concept, very rarely wants sex, enjoys it when it happens), and romance (seems confused by the concept).

I know a lot of what she thinks about me, some if it right, some of it wrong. 

(I'm not giving specifics on any of this for privacy reasons, but I could describe the above in considerable detail.


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## Blondilocks (Jul 4, 2013)

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uhtred said:


> Just one data point, but I think I know a lot about my wife. I know here interests, causal and technical. I know about her job, the people at her work and the type of work she does. I know some things about her that I'm pretty sure she isn't aware of herself.
> 
> I'm not always right about her. i was surprised how well she took the deaths of her parents, it showed more inner strength that I had expected. OTOH I have recently become aware of how important status is to her, though she would never admit it.
> 
> ...


This reminds me of a quote attributed to Philip Stanhope, the 4th Earl of Chesterfield - "The pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, and the expense damnable".


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## notmyrealname4 (Apr 9, 2014)

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Blondilocks said:


> This reminds me of a quote attributed to Philip Stanhope, the 4th Earl of Chesterfield - "The pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, and the expense damnable".


" . . . . .and I can't get enough of it"


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## Blondilocks (Jul 4, 2013)

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Yeah, he probably squandered the family fortune.


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## kag123 (Feb 6, 2012)

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NobodySpecial said:


> Whatever the case may be about the phenomenon of sexlessness or less enthusiasm or frequency that is desired, we get far more men here with this issue. The thing that resonates with me is how little they say about the person that their wife is. It is so frequently cast as what a "wife" should do. Should a "wife" do this FOR you? Give that TO you? They ask women WHY?
> 
> I often wonder what they hell these guys actually know about the person who wears the label "wife".


This is a good point. 

But I think most people are blind to this when it comes to their own marriage. 

I'm pretty sure my husband would say he knows everything about me after being with me for almost 12 years. 

I would argue that I think there is actually very little that he truly knows about me. 

So, how do you solve that?


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## jld (Dec 1, 2013)

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kag123 said:


> This is a good point.
> 
> But I think most people are blind to this when it comes to their own marriage.
> 
> ...


You could start by telling him the bolded.


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## kag123 (Feb 6, 2012)

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jld said:


> You could start by telling him the bolded.


You can "tell" but the other person also needs to listen and absorb. Kwim? 

Goes both ways. 

I think we all over estimate our listening and communication skills, as well as how much we know about our spouse.


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## jld (Dec 1, 2013)

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kag123 said:


> You can "tell" but the other person also needs to listen and absorb. Kwim?
> 
> Goes both ways.
> 
> I think we all over estimate our listening and communication skills, as well as how much we know about our spouse.


Maybe ask him how well he thinks you know him?


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## 225985 (Dec 29, 2015)

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jld said:


> Maybe ask him how well he thinks you know him?




Or maybe he know her too well, and that is the problem.


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## uhtred (Jun 22, 2016)

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If you tell him about you, does he listen?



kag123 said:


> This is a good point.
> 
> But I think most people are blind to this when it comes to their own marriage.
> 
> ...


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## Holdingontoit (Mar 7, 2012)

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I think the whole institution on marriage needs to be rethought. Leaving aside the religious aspect, what does marriage mean and why get married at all?

One side of marriage is what you expect of your spouse. Most married people expect their spouse will not have sex with anyone else. Many married people expect that if they reduce their career focus and focus more on the children, their spouse will help support them financially and if the spouse leaves, the government will force the spouse to continue supporting the family-focused ex-spouse. These expectations of marriage are other focused. They focus on what you expect to get from your partner from marriage.

Another part of marriage is inner focused. What do I expect from myself when I get married? Will I remain faithful? Will I support my spouse? Physically? Emotionally? Sexually? Will I offer willingly to do whatever I can to please my spouse? Or will I demand that my spouse earn my support on an ongoing basis?

No right or wrong answers. Just what marriage means to each person. But in the current environment in the USA, notions of what marriage entails are in flux. So it is foolish to assume that you and your partner are on the same page as to these issues unless you explicitly discuss them. Unstated expectations are killers.


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## NobodySpecial (Nov 22, 2013)

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Holdingontoit said:


> I think the whole institution on marriage needs to be rethought. Leaving aside the religious aspect, what does marriage mean and why get married at all?
> 
> One side of marriage is what you expect of your spouse. Most married people expect their spouse will not have sex with anyone else. Many married people expect that if they reduce their career focus and focus more on the children, their spouse will help support them financially and if the spouse leaves, the government will force the spouse to continue supporting the family-focused ex-spouse. These expectations of marriage are other focused. They focus on what you expect to get from your partner from marriage.


I think this is the OPPOSITE of what a good marriage looks like. I think a good marriage does not focus on what you "expect" from a "spouse" but what you can build WITH THAT PERSON.


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## Holdingontoit (Mar 7, 2012)

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NobodySpecial said:


> I think this is the OPPOSITE of what a good marriage looks like. I think a good marriage does not focus on what you "expect" from a "spouse" but what you can build WITH THAT PERSON.


I agree. My thoughts while posting this were along the lines of "if that is what my spouse is looking to get from marriage, I want no part of that marriage."

But I think far too many people today view marriage as a set of entitlements and not as a set of obligations willingly undertaken or, as you say, an opportunity to work together to build something.


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## Daisy12 (Jul 10, 2016)

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I think too many people go into marriage with a selfish attitude of what can I get out of this marriage instead of saying what can I put into this marriage. Did you marry to have regular sex, someone to take care of you, pay your bills, clean your house..etc etc I had some of these thoughts myself when I first married, but now have come to realize that a good marriage starts with me and only me. I believe that how well you can met the needs of your partner will help you have a happy marriage. If you are meeting your spouses needs then they will make an effort to meet your. Of course this is not always the case as some people are just damaged goods and incapable of having a healthy relationship. That's when you need to cut your loses..

So yes I think it is very important that you know how your spouse thinks and feels, what their Hobbes are, fears..etc. This is what I call intimacy in a marriage and it helps you meet your spouses needs and connect with them on a level you will not connect with anyone else.


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## As'laDain (Nov 27, 2011)

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I don't know my wife. Not really. I have accepted the fact that I cannot really KNOW what goes through her head. I know that I can take on any persona, and people believe it to be me. If I can do that, then why would I think my wife cannot? 

So, I can't say that I really know her. I gave up that line of thinking a long time ago. Instead, I decided that if I am going to love her at all, then I am going to love her regardless of what she feels or what she thinks. And since I can never truly know what her motivations are for her actions, I will love her regardless of how she acts. 

I have met very few people who can even comprehend this way of seeing things. Regardless, i have seen amazing results. 

My wife used to deny sex for months at a time. Nowadays, she often wakes me up at night with a blow job so that we can go on another hour long romp. She knows that I will never leave her, and that I do not judge her for anything that she feels or thinks. 

She does not really know me. I do not really know her. But we choose to love each other anyway. 

Learning to love each other this way has proven, so far, to be an incredibly exciting journey.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## kag123 (Feb 6, 2012)

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As'laDain said:


> I don't know my wife. Not really. I have accepted the fact that I cannot really KNOW what goes through her head. I know that I can take on any persona, and people believe it to be me. If I can do that, then why would I think my wife cannot?
> 
> So, I can't say that I really know her. I gave up that line of thinking a long time ago. Instead, I decided that if I am going to love her at all, then I am going to love her regardless of what she feels or what she thinks. And since I can never truly know what her motivations are for her actions, I will love her regardless of how she acts.
> 
> ...


This compounds on what I was trying to get across. I wasn't as eloquent about it. 

It hasn't been until just recently, maybe the last 6 months, that I've come to see what you mean and have been trying to implement it in my own marriage. 

Love each other anyway, free of judgment. 

My goal is to have our marriage be a safe space for each of us.


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## 2020hindsight (Nov 3, 2015)

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kag123 said:


> This compounds on what I was trying to get across. I wasn't as eloquent about it.
> 
> It hasn't been until just recently, maybe the last 6 months, that I've come to see what you mean and have been trying to implement it in my own marriage.
> 
> ...


The NYT published a fantastic essay along these lines by Alain de Botton about how to live more happily within the institution of marriage. Alain urged couples to be kinder toward and more tolerant of one another, and to be more realistic about the real human beings we are married to, vs. the illusionary beings we want to be married to, who would meet all our needs. The essay is called "Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person." I've read it several times since then; every word rings true to my experience of marriage.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/29/opinion/sunday/why-you-will-marry-the-wrong-person.html

IT’S one of the things we are most afraid might happen to us. We go to great lengths to avoid it. And yet we do it all the same: We marry the wrong person.

Partly, it’s because we have a bewildering array of problems that emerge when we try to get close to others. We seem normal only to those who don’t know us very well. In a wiser, more self-aware society than our own, a standard question on any early dinner date would be: “And how are you crazy?”

Perhaps we have a latent tendency to get furious when someone disagrees with us or can relax only when we are working; perhaps we’re tricky about intimacy after sex or clam up in response to humiliation. Nobody’s perfect. The problem is that before marriage, we rarely delve into our complexities. Whenever casual relationships threaten to reveal our flaws, we blame our partners and call it a day. As for our friends, they don’t care enough to do the hard work of enlightening us. One of the privileges of being on our own is therefore the sincere impression that we are really quite easy to live with.

Our partners are no more self-aware. Naturally, we make a stab at trying to understand them. We visit their families. We look at their photos, we meet their college friends. All this contributes to a sense that we’ve done our homework. We haven’t. Marriage ends up as a hopeful, generous, infinitely kind gamble taken by two people who don’t know yet who they are or who the other might be, binding themselves to a future they cannot conceive of and have carefully avoided investigating.

For most of recorded history, people married for logical sorts of reasons: because her parcel of land adjoined yours, his family had a flourishing business, her father was the magistrate in town, there was a castle to keep up, or both sets of parents subscribed to the same interpretation of a holy text. And from such reasonable marriages, there flowed loneliness, infidelity, abuse, hardness of heart and screams heard through the nursery doors. The marriage of reason was not, in hindsight, reasonable at all; it was often expedient, narrow-minded, snobbish and exploitative. That is why what has replaced it — the marriage of feeling — has largely been spared the need to account for itself.

What matters in the marriage of feeling is that two people are drawn to each other by an overwhelming instinct and know in their hearts that it is right. Indeed, the more imprudent a marriage appears (perhaps it’s been only six months since they met; one of them has no job or both are barely out of their teens), the safer it can feel. Recklessness is taken as a counterweight to all the errors of reason, that catalyst of misery, that accountant’s demand. The prestige of instinct is the traumatized reaction against too many centuries of unreasonable reason.

But though we believe ourselves to be seeking happiness in marriage, it isn’t that simple. What we really seek is familiarity — which may well complicate any plans we might have had for happiness. We are looking to recreate, within our adult relationships, the feelings we knew so well in childhood. The love most of us will have tasted early on was often confused with other, more destructive dynamics: feelings of wanting to help an adult who was out of control, of being deprived of a parent’s warmth or scared of his anger, of not feeling secure enough to communicate our wishes. How logical, then, that we should as grown-ups find ourselves rejecting certain candidates for marriage not because they are wrong but because they are too right — too balanced, mature, understanding and reliable — given that in our hearts, such rightness feels foreign. We marry the wrong people because we don’t associate being loved with feeling happy.

We make mistakes, too, because we are so lonely. No one can be in an optimal frame of mind to choose a partner when remaining single feels unbearable. We have to be wholly at peace with the prospect of many years of solitude in order to be appropriately picky; otherwise, we risk loving no longer being single rather more than we love the partner who spared us that fate.

Finally, we marry to make a nice feeling permanent. We imagine that marriage will help us to bottle the joy we felt when the thought of proposing first came to us: Perhaps we were in Venice, on the lagoon, in a motorboat, with the evening sun throwing glitter across the sea, chatting about aspects of our souls no one ever seemed to have grasped before, with the prospect of dinner in a risotto place a little later. We married to make such sensations permanent but failed to see that there was no solid connection between these feelings and the institution of marriage.

Indeed, marriage tends decisively to move us onto another, very different and more administrative plane, which perhaps unfolds in a suburban house, with a long commute and maddening children who kill the passion from which they emerged. The only ingredient in common is the partner. And that might have been the wrong ingredient to bottle.

The good news is that it doesn’t matter if we find we have married the wrong person.

We mustn’t abandon him or her, only the founding Romantic idea upon which the Western understanding of marriage has been based the last 250 years: that a perfect being exists who can meet all our needs and satisfy our every yearning.

We need to swap the Romantic view for a tragic (and at points comedic) awareness that every human will frustrate, anger, annoy, madden and disappoint us — and we will (without any malice) do the same to them. There can be no end to our sense of emptiness and incompleteness. But none of this is unusual or grounds for divorce. Choosing whom to commit ourselves to is merely a case of identifying which particular variety of suffering we would most like to sacrifice ourselves for.

This philosophy of pessimism offers a solution to a lot of distress and agitation around marriage. It might sound odd, but pessimism relieves the excessive imaginative pressure that our romantic culture places upon marriage. The failure of one particular partner to save us from our grief and melancholy is not an argument against that person and no sign that a union deserves to fail or be upgraded.

The person who is best suited to us is not the person who shares our every taste (he or she doesn’t exist), but the person who can negotiate differences in taste intelligently — the person who is good at disagreement. Rather than some notional idea of perfect complementarity, it is the capacity to tolerate differences with generosity that is the true marker of the “not overly wrong” person. Compatibility is an achievement of love; it must not be its precondition.

Romanticism has been unhelpful to us; it is a harsh philosophy. It has made a lot of what we go through in marriage seem exceptional and appalling. We end up lonely and convinced that our union, with its imperfections, is not “normal.” We should learn to accommodate ourselves to “wrongness,” striving always to adopt a more forgiving, humorous and kindly perspective on its multiple examples in ourselves and in our partners.


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## norajane (Feb 7, 2012)

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NobodySpecial said:


> I think this is the OPPOSITE of what a good marriage looks like. I think a good marriage does not focus on what you "expect" from a "spouse" but what you can build WITH THAT PERSON.


I completely agree. The expectations shouldn't be there; there should be goals you both work toward to build the relationship and life you both want with each other. 

If couples can't manage to discuss those goals thoroughly and find that you are in agreement and work through the areas where you have to agree to disagree, DON'T GET MARRIED.


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## jorgegene (May 26, 2012)

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nice treatise 

there seems a few flaws though.

one i think is that for many of us, there IS a right person. I married that right person. We should not minimize that, nor avoid seeking that in a partner.
acquiescence and existentialism will only carry us so far.

i think your essential point though has validity. faux romanticism and too much expectations from others is a recipe for disaster.

for those caught in troubled marriages, great food for thought.


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## 2020hindsight (Nov 3, 2015)

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jorgegene said:


> nice treatise
> 
> there seems a few flaws though.
> 
> ...


I married (I thought) the right person, too. Things went really well for a couple of decades, until suddenly they didn't. I don't believe in such a thing as the "right person" anymore. We are, most of us, flawed human beings who are doing the best we can.


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## jld (Dec 1, 2013)

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2020hindsight said:


> I married (I thought) the right person, too. Things went really well for a couple of decades, until suddenly they didn't. I don't believe in such a thing as the "right person" anymore. We are, most of us, flawed human beings who are doing the best we can.


I think some people offer more to work with than others.


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## Spotthedeaddog (Sep 27, 2015)

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NobodySpecial said:


> Whatever the case may be about the phenomenon of sexlessness or less enthusiasm or frequency that is desired, we get far more men here with this issue. The thing that resonates with me is how little they say about the person that their wife is. It is so frequently cast as what a "wife" should do. Should a "wife" do this FOR you? Give that TO you? They ask women WHY?
> 
> I often wonder what they hell these guys actually know about the person who wears the label "wife".


(1) They know that she won't appreciate them having a PA
(2) They know that she is the one that is the controlling power in respect to withholding enjoyment
(3) they know it's no longer controlled by the contract of marriage and church that she is contractually obligated to supply in order to keep a monopoly on that sexual activity.

What many don't realise that if they ask her, they will get completely the wrong information, based on what she currently wants (no sex), rather than what they want (sex).


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## NobodySpecial (Nov 22, 2013)

*Re: "wife" vs that other human person and what that other human person feels, values*



spotthedeaddog said:


> (1) They know that she won't appreciate them having a PA
> (2) They know that she is the one that is the controlling power in respect to withholding enjoyment
> (3) they know it's no longer controlled by the contract of marriage and church that she is contractually obligated to supply in order to keep a monopoly on that sexual activity.
> 
> What many don't realise that if they ask her, they will get completely the wrong information, based on what she currently wants (no sex), rather than what they want (sex).


This is actually what I am talking about, viewing marriage as a contract rather than a relationship. Pretty depressing. And we see how well it works in terms of happiness over and over again.


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## Spotthedeaddog (Sep 27, 2015)

*Re: "wife" vs that other human person and what that other human person feels, values*



NobodySpecial said:


> This is actually what I am talking about, viewing marriage as a contract rather than a relationship. Pretty depressing. And we see how well it works in terms of happiness over and over again.


You think it's not a contract?
So he's free to go get sex from whereever else without retributive reaction?


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## Spotthedeaddog (Sep 27, 2015)

*Re: "wife" vs that other human person and what that other human person feels, values*



Holdingontoit said:


> I think the whole institution on marriage needs to be rethought. Leaving aside the religious aspect, what does marriage mean and why get married at all?


I did that with my (ex-)wife.
She nodded agreed, smiled, made loves, went places with me. Things like polyamorous wasn't a problem, the cultural differences from pretty much being brought up in a dojo. 
No problems... because she just ignored everything I said, and did what she wanted; to find a healthy man, with a decent job, and good family, and who was willing to spend money and time on her. Everything else went completely in one ear and straight out the other...mind you I can't have been much better as I ignored all the warning signs that she had done so. 
But, we were both young and inexperienced in such things.


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## UMP (Dec 23, 2014)

*Re: "wife" vs that other human person and what that other human person feels, values*



NobodySpecial said:


> Whatever the case may be about the phenomenon of sexlessness or less enthusiasm or frequency that is desired, we get far more men here with this issue. The thing that resonates with me is how little they say about the person that their wife is. It is so frequently cast as what a "wife" should do. Should a "wife" do this FOR you? Give that TO you? They ask women WHY?
> 
> I often wonder what they hell these guys actually know about the person who wears the label "wife".


I think part of it is based on the male desire to fix everything.
To a man, a wife that does not want sex is like a car or a piece of equipment that does not work. We want to fix "it" asap.

Given the fact that women are obviously very complex emotional creatures, the man ends up behind the eight ball from the onset.

You cannot fix a woman like you can fix a car.

I had the same mentality. All I wanted to know was, how can I fix this problem and fix my wife. However, in time (many years) I realized I was dealing with an issue that may require some fixing of myself and how I related to my wife.

It's all a learning process. I think the most important thing is to have an open mind and not have blinders on. In fact, as a man, if your wife does not enjoy having sex with you, the first place you need to look is yourself. (IMO)


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## soccermom2three (Jan 4, 2013)

*Re: "wife" vs that other human person and what that other human person feels, values*

I'm always amazed at posters here that think women stop wanting sex with their husbands for absolutely no reason. There are always reasons. (And no it's not because they are naturally LD, that's rare).


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## EllisRedding (Apr 10, 2015)

*Re: "wife" vs that other human person and what that other human person feels, values*



soccermom2three said:


> I'm always amazed at posters here that think women stop wanting sex with their husbands for absolutely no reason. There are always reasons. (And no it's not because they are naturally LD, that's rare).


I don't think I have seen anyone here say that their SO stopped having sex for no reason at all (just from posts I have read), moreso the reason they "assumed" their SO stopped having sex is actually the wrong reason.

Of course it could be a myriad of reasons from bigger issues within the marriage, hormones, bait & switch, etc...


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## soccermom2three (Jan 4, 2013)

*Re: "wife" vs that other human person and what that other human person feels, values*



EllisRedding said:


> I don't think I have seen anyone here say that their SO stopped having sex for no reason at all (just from posts I have read), moreso the reason they "assumed" their SO stopped having sex is actually the wrong reason.
> 
> Of course it could be a myriad of reasons from bigger issues within the marriage, hormones, bait & switch, etc...


I'm more responding to this notion stated above that the spouse has broken a "contract" like it came out of nowhere. Most likely this "contract" was broken by the other spouse prior to that.


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## Mr. Nail (Apr 26, 2011)

*Re: "wife" vs that other human person and what that other human person feels, values*

Got that answer before too.
Her interest in sex disappeared 12 years ago on Monday evening when I broke the "marriage contract" by not taking out the trash for the 3rd time in 20 years.


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## NobodySpecial (Nov 22, 2013)

*Re: "wife" vs that other human person and what that other human person feels, values*



spotthedeaddog said:


> You think it's not a contract?
> So he's free to go get sex from whereever else without retributive reaction?


What do you imagine that that would build in the relationship? Trust? Love?


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## Vega (Jan 8, 2013)

*Re: "wife" vs that other human person and what that other human person feels, values*



spotthedeaddog said:


> You think it's not a contract?
> So he's free to go get sex from whereever else without retributive reaction?


You mean, he can't keep it in his pants _without_ a contract?


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## EllisRedding (Apr 10, 2015)

*Re: "wife" vs that other human person and what that other human person feels, values*



Vega said:


> You mean, he can't keep it in his pants _without_ a contract?


All I think @spotthedeaddog is implying is that with marriage you are agreeing to terms that do read as a contract (one being you will only share yourself sexually with your spouse). Not saying you should view marriage as a contract per se, but you are undoubtedly making certain agreements.


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## Vega (Jan 8, 2013)

*Re: "wife" vs that other human person and what that other human person feels, values*



EllisRedding said:


> All I think @spotthedeaddog is implying is that with marriage you are agreeing to terms that do read as a contract (*one being you will only share yourself sexually with your spouse*). Not saying you should view marriage as a contract per se, but you are undoubtedly making certain agreements.


Ahhhh, but see? That's just it, Ellis. What I bolded in your quote is pretty much the ONLY "obligation" that I see. Just hear me out for a sec...

If I fall in love with someone, I'm ALREADY "loving," and "honoring" and "cherishing" and yes, even being sexually faithful to him. I'm not doing these things because of any 'contract'. I'm doing these things because I WANT to; not because I _HAVE_ to. 

But it seemed that once I was married, all of what I was doing was viewed as things I HAD to do. No longer was I making 'him' dinner because I WANTED to; as "his wife", I now did it because I HAD to. 

Even when it came to sex. No longer was I having sex with him because it was something I WANTED to do. NOW I was doing it because it was my "duty" (not to be confused with 'duty sex'), my "obligation". 

Everything I did, I did because I HAD to. 

And I know that my late husband wasn't the ONLY person who thought this way.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The 'contract' that we make is vague. For instance, we promise to "love". Love, is a pretty WIDE umbrella. Heck, I can say that if you don't bring me breakfast in bed every morning, that you're not "loving" me. 

We also don't include things that are pretty important, such as agreeing to not HIT or PUNCH or SPIT AT or INSULT or MOCK your spouse. Of course, all of THAT is under the umbrella of "love", too...


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## EllisRedding (Apr 10, 2015)

*Re: "wife" vs that other human person and what that other human person feels, values*



Vega said:


> Ahhhh, but see? That's just it, Ellis. What I bolded in your quote is pretty much the ONLY "obligation" that I see. Just hear me out for a sec...
> 
> If I fall in love with someone, I'm ALREADY "loving," and "honoring" and "cherishing" and yes, even being sexually faithful to him. I'm not doing these things because of any 'contract'. I'm doing these things because I WANT to; not because I _HAVE_ to.
> 
> ...


I understand your POV given your experience. The point still remains though, by getting married you are agreeing to fidelity (along with many other things, you know the whole "In sickness in health", so it more then just sex  ). I am not saying you should be forced to have sex / duty sex. If there are aspects of your marriage that you know longer want to do (whether it be sex, emotional support, loving, honoring, etc...) then obviously there are more serious issues that would need to be addressed (or ultimately lead to the demise of the marriage).


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## Good Guy (Apr 26, 2016)

*Re: "wife" vs that other human person and what that other human person feels, values*



Vega said:


> Ahhhh, but see? That's just it, Ellis. What I bolded in your quote is pretty much the ONLY "obligation" that I see. Just hear me out for a sec...
> 
> If I fall in love with someone, I'm ALREADY "loving," and "honoring" and "cherishing" and yes, even being sexually faithful to him. I'm not doing these things because of any 'contract'. I'm doing these things because I WANT to; not because I _HAVE_ to.
> 
> ...


I think it's more about a set of rules you both agree to follow, so that there is no ambiguity about what your responsibilities are. If you are dating someone you can date other people at the same time - you can't do that and say you are married. The rules should be more thorough though, that's for sure - the behaviors above are disgusting things to do to ANY human let alone someone you've promised to love and cherish.


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## Good Guy (Apr 26, 2016)

*Re: "wife" vs that other human person and what that other human person feels, values*



As'laDain said:


> I don't know my wife. Not really. I have accepted the fact that I cannot really KNOW what goes through her head. I know that I can take on any persona, and people believe it to be me. If I can do that, then why would I think my wife cannot?
> 
> So, I can't say that I really know her. I gave up that line of thinking a long time ago. Instead, I decided that if I am going to love her at all, then I am going to love her regardless of what she feels or what she thinks. And since I can never truly know what her motivations are for her actions, I will love her regardless of how she acts.
> 
> ...


This is a fabulous insight. I don't know my wife either. She said one thing and did another for years and years. I told her several times what my problems were with our marriage as I saw them, she ignored what I said, and also I wrote a letter to her one night in the middle of the night spelling it all out. She has never done anything similar - I literally have no idea who she is. I haven't mastered telepathy yet. 

I think for her at least (and a lot of women from talking to my male friends) there is the person she shows to me and everyone else, and the person she really is - and there is very little overlap between the two people. She does not want to really communicate, except on her terms, only exposing those bits she wants you to see. I laugh at the trend to make men expose their "vulnerable" side - I'll happily do that if women do it first, since they are the ones asking for it.

I think this is much less common in men - most men it's what you see is what you get. Unfortunately men believe women are like them, and women believe men are like them, that's why so many try to "change" their man, and so many men are baffled when their wives change. It may sound sexist but that's what I've observed.


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## EllisRedding (Apr 10, 2015)

*Re: "wife" vs that other human person and what that other human person feels, values*



Good Guy said:


> them, that's why so many try to "change" their man,


I genuinely have never understood the rationale of marrying someone with the expectation that they will change or that you will change them


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## Holdingontoit (Mar 7, 2012)

*Re: "wife" vs that other human person and what that other human person feels, values*

This is why I say the whole institution of marriage needs to be thought through. Traditional marriage assumed a set of facts that no longer exists. Women could not own property and were prohibited from working outside the home. Men were assumed to be the gender with the higher sex drive. So marriage was very explicitly a contract that included terms obliging each partner to perform "upon demand". The basic deal was "he won't have sex with anyone else and he will support you financially and in return you will have sex with him whenever he wants you to." This "deal" was thought to be "fair" to both sides (at least by the men who made the rules back then).

Now women can work and can own property and society has matured / evolved to the point where we (properly and understandably) abhor non-consensual sex. That leaves the marriage "contract" outdated and unbalanced (if it was ever actually balanced). The problem is, we haven't come up with a replacement and society still enforces some of the financial obligations. Plus, the balance of obligations is very different for couples who both work outside the home and earn roughly the same amount compared to couples where one is SAH and the other earns the bulk of the family's cash income.

These days, marriage is risky for both sides, especially between a SAH and a primary breadwinner. When you throw in the inherent imbalance on the sexual side of the ledger (we have kept expectations of fidelity while eliminating expectations of availability), traditional marriage is under enormous stress. Which is one reason the marriage rate is way down except for the college educated. For people who don't have any "excess" financial resources, marriage has become too risky to be anything like universal. If we don't adjust the expectations and obligations to reflect changes in society, I predict the marriage rate will continue to fall.


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## Vega (Jan 8, 2013)

*Re: "wife" vs that other human person and what that other human person feels, values*



EllisRedding said:


> I genuinely have never understood the rationale of marrying someone with the expectation that they will change or that you will change them


Yes. 

Unfortunately, we also marry expecting the other person _NOT_ to change. (LOTS of sex in the beginning to NO sex later on.) 

Seems we're damned if we do, damned if we don't!

We can't grow without change, but sometimes we seem to 'grow' in the wrong direction. 

Kind of like an ingrown toenail.


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## Good Guy (Apr 26, 2016)

*Re: "wife" vs that other human person and what that other human person feels, values*



Holdingontoit said:


> This is why I say the whole institution of marriage needs to be thought through. Traditional marriage assumed a set of facts that no longer exists. Women could not own property and were prohibited from working outside the home. Men were assumed to be the gender with the higher sex drive. So marriage was very explicitly a contract that included terms obliging each partner to perform "upon demand". The basic deal was "he won't have sex with anyone else and he will support you financially and in return you will have sex with him whenever he wants you to." This "deal" was thought to be "fair" to both sides (at least by the men who made the rules back then).
> 
> Now women can work and can own property and society has matured / evolved to the point where we (properly and understandably) abhor non-consensual sex. That leaves the marriage "contract" outdated and unbalanced (if it was ever actually balanced). The problem is, we haven't come up with a replacement and society still enforces some of the financial obligations. Plus, the balance of obligations is very different for couples who both work outside the home and earn roughly the same amount compared to couples where one is SAH and the other earns the bulk of the family's cash income.
> 
> These days, marriage is risky for both sides, especially between a SAH and a primary breadwinner. When you throw in the inherent imbalance on the sexual side of the ledger (we have kept expectations of fidelity while eliminating expectations of availability), traditional marriage is under enormous stress. Which is one reason the marriage rate is way down except for the college educated. For people who don't have any "excess" financial resources, marriage has become too risky to be anything like universal. If we don't adjust the expectations and obligations to reflect changes in society, I predict the marriage rate will continue to fall.


Yes, but to what should it be changed? That is the multi billion dollar question :grin2:


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## As'laDain (Nov 27, 2011)

*Re: "wife" vs that other human person and what that other human person feels, values*

I went into my marriage expecting to change. Not that my wife would change, I figured I would. Then I tried, and thought it was impossible for a while. 

Then I realized that changing is as easy as making a decision . So I changed, and she changed.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Vega (Jan 8, 2013)

*Re: "wife" vs that other human person and what that other human person feels, values*



Good Guy said:


> Yes, but to what should it be changed? That is the multi billion dollar question :grin2:


Well, we can start with the idea of doing unto others. In other words, whatever we decide needs to be fair to BOTH sides.


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## EllisRedding (Apr 10, 2015)

*Re: "wife" vs that other human person and what that other human person feels, values*



Vega said:


> Yes.
> 
> Unfortunately, we also marry expecting the other person _NOT_ to change. (LOTS of sex in the beginning to NO sex later on.)
> 
> ...


True, naturally though there being a difference b/w growing as a person vs fundamentally changing who you are. Maybe some people get off on the idea of changing someone, like they are undertaking some sort of project, I honestly don't know.

Also, I keep my toenails nice and short :grin2:


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## DustyDog (Jul 12, 2016)

*Re: "wife" vs that other human person and what that other human person feels, values*



NobodySpecial said:


> Whatever the case may be about the phenomenon of sexlessness or less enthusiasm or frequency that is desired, we get far more men here with this issue. The thing that resonates with me is how little they say about the person that their wife is. It is so frequently cast as what a "wife" should do. Should a "wife" do this FOR you? Give that TO you? They ask women WHY?
> 
> I often wonder what they hell these guys actually know about the person who wears the label "wife".


Have you ever been in the repair business? Doctors don't have patients coming in and telling them "my health is great, thanks", they get patients saying "It hurts when I do this". As a young electronics repair tech, customers never brought me perfectly functioning equipment to express their pleasure...they told me what's not working.

So, here's a "help" forum...I expect people to present a story of what's bothering them. If they're open-minded, they'll accept responses indicating that they have something to do with it.

When I look at postings from both genders (although it's sometimes hard to tell, since usernames don't give gender identity), I see no difference in the presentation in that regard...women who show up complaining about husband aren't gushing about his good traits. 

Side note - in the US, there's this amusing little phrase that spills out sometimes from women "you have a lot of good qualities" and it is 99% of the time, the introduction to a mini-lecture on why everything is wrong and I'm leaving...this is such a meme here that it's used on TV and in movies.

Anyway, so if folks come onto any forum seeking help - and focus on what's wrong - well, it's what I'd expect.


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