Schadenfreude at mangina's expense

[S_Parc]

Dave and publicduende, my parents are still together, more decades than I can ponder. Yet, they are not happy and are only together because they can't fathom being alone. The idea of long term happiness and marriage is not some axiomatic condition, 'Yes, we're not divorced and thus, we're happy' or 'Yes, we're divorced and thus, our marriage was no good'. It can be any permutation of conditions and situations. These answers are not cut in stone.

My hope is that publicduende will remain happy but sometimes, I find myself remembering this old American radio hit, whenever I read his posts. I hope it's true for him & not just a song.

[abcdavid01]

My parents aren't divorced. They've been fighting a lot and are pretty close to it though. I wish they would divorce because I think they made a mistake getting married in the first place. The problem between them is existential, thus irreconcilable.

I think Cornfed can give a pretty accurate description of why. I don't think marriage is a crapshoot. There are certain things that can be done a priori to increase the odds of having a good marriage.

http://sociobiologicalmusings.blogspot. ... s-and.html

When my mom told me she never would have expected my dad to cheat I was baffled. It shows me the two were both completely delusional about their marriage. When they got married, her parents refused contact with her until my sister was born. His parents still kept contact, but they were passive aggressive to the point of just being aggressive.

I expected either of my parents could be cheating when I was a kid. Cornfed would call my mom one of those corporate cocksuckers. Whether that's literally true or not I don't know, but does it matter? She worked at home, but went to corporate retreats all the time, which really pissed my dad off. It might just be the company hired her for diversity quotas, but in any case she was laid off in the recession for having a non-essential job in product marketing management or some odd thing.

I have this memory of when I was maybe thirteen or so and my parents were having this loud, vicious argument. I retreated to my room and started listening to the Singles album by Travis. It's stuck in my mind because the dichotomy was so powerful. It's not my favorite album, but it is the one I listen to when I'm depressed and want to stop being depressed. If I had listened to Radiohead or, like, Kansas I'd probably be in a much worse spot. Just lots and lots of Oasis, over and over again. Some might say we will find a brighter day...

[S_Parc]

Dave, I'd say that many people are delusional about their marriages. And in a way, my sister's got a similar gig as my dad, in terms of manipulating her spouse. Her hubby has some Catholic-like belief system that divorce looks *bad* and thus, has retreated into his 250 sports channels and spends the rest of his time at work. Like my parents, they will not be getting a divorce.

The problem is that I'm firmly aware of all these dysfunctional things and thus, I've gradually lost interest in marriage and relationships, starting a few years ago. So while I can say that that Brazilian relationship was a *success*, after many years of putting up with AW nonsense, I now realize that it was a success of a pre-marital courtship. In reality, chances are, unless I firmly reject America and raise a family, entirely in Brazil with zero contact with Uncle Sam, that that family life will resemble something close to what I grew up in. Unfortunately, that scenario, in its totality was not acceptable to my ex-GF. She wanted our future children to be comfortable, either spending time in either Brazil or New England.

And yes, don't listen to Radiohead, esp if you're feeling depressed.

[Cornfed]

As an update on this, here is a thread with Brian, posting as Klingon Warbird, giving the very same common sense advice that he banned me for giving when he was in mangina mode. (Most of the other posts in the tread are nonsense).

http://manlyexcellence.com/forum/viewto ... =8&t=28805

One interesting point made in the thread is that there is a lot of nonsense talked in PUA circles about "beta providers" not making chicks wet. In fact, if you do have discretional control of the resources females depend on - if you are in fact their provider - this will make them wet. The fact is that most men are not in that position. The system is the provider, so the men's bitch wives don't respect them.

[Rich]

I do think for a marriage to have any chance of success, especially if the wife is quite a bit younger, the husband has to keep on performing financially. It's not enough to just hold down a job, one must be regularly getting promotions or, at the very least, sizeable salary increases every year. Not achieving this is corrosive. The husband might get a grace period of a year or two to sort himself out ie earn more, but after that god help him.

[Cornfed]

I do think for a marriage to have any chance of success, especially if the wife is quite a bit younger, the husband has to keep on performing financially. It's not enough to just hold down a job, one must be regularly getting promotions or, at the very least, sizeable salary increases every year. Not achieving this is corrosive. The husband might get a grace period of a year or two to sort himself out ie earn more, but after that god help him.

Yes, and of course the system is now structured to make sure that does not happen in most cases. But even that is not enough. You must be able to protect your assets from the wife stealing them by way of anti-family courts. Your wife will only respect you if you provide her with resources at your own discretion and she basically has to beg you to continue. After all, muggers don't generally respect their victims.