I agree that marriage is a business contract. And I agree that its origins arose from families essentially arranging these partnerships. And I further agree that marriage as an institution does not line up well with the idea of romantic love. However I have seen many MANY successful and loving marriages between man and woman that adroitly combine the two concepts.
You see, a successful marriage requires solid character. There will always be temptation around, both for the man and the woman. People with character choose to honor the marriage. And look, there is an appeal to "strange", and there is an appeal to someone new who is mysterious and unknown. My sister used to always say "I'm married, not blind....." meaning she still could observe the attractiveness of others, but her commitment to her marriage meant that she would never act on those fleeting observations.
It's kind of like having a car you enjoy. There are other cars out there that catch your eye. You don't go trade your car every time you see something else interesting. A very simplified metaphor, obviously, but it makes a sufficient illustration.
My father (a most esteemed attorney who practiced family law for 20+ years along the way) used to always say: "Marriage is a partnership in a literal sense. And like a partnership, an agreement needs to be reached in the beginning, when everyone is getting along, about how to unwind and dissolve the partnership, it should come to that at some point."
I can't agree more with
@BeExcellent you explained it really well..
This is why nowadays it is simply our choice as men whether to accept or not, whether to tolerate and tolerate all the lack of respect from women.
If you're doing well as a man, and you're controlling yourself, you're paving your own way, and you're giving it your all, then if you're not leaving any weaknesses that would make your woman look elsewhere because of some shortcoming of yours, then it's truly 100% your decision whether to continue or not, whether to take a step forward or not: I believe marriage today is more of a decision for men than for women.
As you said, women look around, but "contain themselves" because they must remain "faithful" to the commitment of their marriage.
For us men, it's different... and those like me will understand: for them, it's a task; for us, it's about love.
Woman loves a man if they feel obligated to perform a task for him or for the istitution (marriage) (social image).
Man loves a woman.
Of course, men look around too, but it's a huge difference. You know..
That said, it would be very interesting to understand what a man should do when his woman has decided to behave a certain way, to stir things up, because she has seen "the grass is greener on the other side."
However I have seen many MANY successful and loving marriages between man and woman that adroitly combine the two concepts.
And this is precisely where the man has made the difference: by enduring and overcoming difficult moments.
I have many examples of man being disrespected (not cheating), and LTR continuing because of the will of the man who "waited," created a "buffer" by being a bit absent/angry, hoping the waters would calm down. And so it was, but as the forum teaches us, this teaches the woman that the man in question wasn't strong for staying and now committing even more, but simply weak for staying and not walking away.
There is someone here, who has a special intuition for this type of thing, and I'm glad to hear more from
@Desdinova What are your thoughts about this?
ps:
@BeExcellent I've saved your quote!
