Modern Marriage, Part 2: What Men Hope Marriage is Like

In Part 1 of this series, we took an in-depth look into the reasons why guys get married.

In Part 2, we will explore what these men think their marriages will be like, and also a few examples of (if they do not watch their P’s and Q’s) where and how things can go completely and utterly wrong, wrong, wrong.

I can’t help but find it a wee bit amusing how guys get so stoked to tie the knot to their special girl, and everything is all puppy dogs and rainbows, and then six months later she is carrying his nuts around in her purse.

What do men really want to get out of marriage?

• A nice house?
• A two-car garage?
• 3.2 kids?
• Endless blow jobs and sandwiches?

That’s not even close to the half of it. While men are naturally a little more laid back about things and do not have the crazy sky-high expectations of an endless fairy tale like women do, the problem persists that men usually end up not only getting less of what they actually want, but end up getting a whole lot of other things that they really do not want and really hadn’t bargained on either.

And the more careless and less socially savvy the man is, the less his expectations are actually met.

Great Expectations, Greater Disappointment

A little more than a year ago, my best friend’s younger brother was about to tie the knot to his long-time girlfriend that he met while in college. I can still remember the conversation we had over a couple of beers at a cookout one evening:

Me: “So are you excited about the big day, man?”

BF’s little bro: “Hell yeah! She is super pumped about it too. Buying up anything and everything she can find for everything from the rehearsal dinner décor to stuff for games at the reception.”

Me: “Oh? You guys must be doing pretty well then. That’s good, because I see a lot of young people getting married before they’re really financially set.”

BF’s little bro: “Well, to be honest most of it is going on credit cards at the moment. Her parents are helping with some of it, but they seem to think I am made of money! I don’t think they realize I’m still trying to live on an entry-level salary.”

Me: “Damn, man. Well you know what, though? You’ll get a tax break when you guys get married. It’ll help.”

BF’s little bro: “Definitely! That and I’m canceling my Xbox Live membership and a few other little things like that.”

Me: “No way! You’re not going to roll out with me on Call of Duty anymore?”

BF’s little bro: “Eh... She hates it when I play anyway.”

I felt for the guy. I really did. In a few moments that seemed like a virtual microcosm of marriage itself, the jubilation I saw in his face when I first asked him about the wedding melted faster than a snow cone in hell.

I’m not attempting in any way to decry marriage as some sort of miserable prison where everything that is good under the sun is purloined from you, but rather just pointing out that you’ve got to be reasonable with your expectations of it. There is going to be a lot of sacrifice, and even more compromise to be made.

And those things can be hard to immediately accept if you have lived most of your life doing whatever the hell you want!

To continue the story, summer finally came. It was a beautiful wedding, and the reception was fun!

One of the games that they put on at the reception was a “cash-grab”. Basically, people wad up money and throw it out on the dance floor and the bride and bridesmaids try to grab as much of it as they can while the groom and his groomsmen attempt to do the same for an entire song until it is done playing.

They had placed a little “wager” on this competition as well... to make it more interesting.

If the bride and her team won, her husband would have to watch “The Voice” with her (and not complain about it) for one year.

Note: For those of you who aren’t familiar, “The Voice” is a horrible reality television singing competition broadcast on NBC.

However, if my friend’s brother and his groomsmen tallied the most cash, then she would be required to allow him to hunt two weekend days out of the month (also without her complaining about it) for one year.

Money flew all about the reception hall for the next five minutes, and at the end of this madness they counted all of the money. It was announced that the groomsmen had won by a landslide.

Nice, right? He will get to do his hunting a couple days out of the month and she isn’t even allowed to nag him about it!

Well, I saw him a couple months ago (roughly 8 months after the wedding) and he’d traded in his 4-wheel drive Chevy Silverado for a 4-door sedan, and according to him, hadn’t been doing any hunting either.

So, in the end, who really won the cash-grab? He loved that truck. I’ll bet he watches The Voice now too...

This is why frame control is such a vital thing for men to learn and master. Proper frame control in your relationships with women is an absolute must-have in order to maintain a masculine nucleus.

We are going to delve into that a bit more later, but first:

What Do Men Really Want from Their Wives?

Getting married and living with a woman sounds really great at first. “It’s going to be just like hanging with one of your cool guy friends, except with boobs and a vagina!”

Not unlike women’s expectations of marriage, most men have pretty overblown and unrealistic assumptions about the whole thing as well, only to have those hopes slowly but surely scraped away from the surface, eventually exposing the hard truths and realities of it all.

“All the Small Things”

Men seem to expect that they can get married and:

• She won’t talk through a critical series of plays while you’re watching the big game,

• There won’t be any pressure on him to “do like the other nice husbands do” and run tedious (and many times pointless) errands, and/or

• She won’t expect you to share her special interest in Lifetime Network chick flicks or her latest Pinterest discoveries,

• That she will be perfectly content to read a book in the bedroom while your buddies are over for the weekly Saturday night poker game, and

• When household chores like cleaning or organizing needs to be done, she’ll be pleased to do them without any help or any complaining.

Yeah, and then you wake the hell up! And when you do, it’s time to feed the three cats, kill the spider that’s been hanging out by her side of the garage, and run to the pantry mart for some tampons.

Now, I’m halfway kidding here. I am most definitely not actually advocating that you do these types of things for her, but rather I am simply conveying the differences in expectations when it comes to most of the smaller issues like these.

She’ll kind of expect that you will do them, while you will constantly be busy trying to find a way out of doing them.

On the surface level, these types of situations might seem insignificant enough. Though, mountains often are made out of molehills, so figuring out how to handle every little thing that she throws at you ends up being pretty key.

If you’ve now jumped to the quick conclusion that I’m just about to get all sexist and misogynistic here, hang with me for a moment. There are a lot of ways to come at these problems that solves them for both you and her.

I want to make sure it gets noted properly that there’s a big difference between things that

1. Give value to the relationship while not robbing you of your own value as a man versus

2. Things she wants you to do because she either is too lazy to do it herself or because she just wants to see what limits she can push you to.

Women are always talking about “the little things” and how they like to have all of these done for them. I never made the connection between “little things” and them being “a big deal”. Which is it? I don’t think you can have it both ways, can you?

It just has always made me feel like “the little things” is just a term women use to make insignificant shit sound like a big deal.

They’re really not a big deal. It’s all about balance though. If you refuse to do little things here and there when they are within reason, then it does become a big deal. It’s funny though, because if you manage them correctly, they won’t even matter.

You are definitely not going to get a congressional medal for running around like a chicken with your head cut off trying to attend to every last little thing. But you can’t do none of these and expect everything to be all hunky dory either.

Individually as they stand alone, however, things pretty much are what they are. They’re either a big deal, or they’re not.

Dealing with the “Little Things”

There’s no real need to go through every scenario here, but we should explore a couple of these in order to demonstrate how you need to balance certain things. And, as you’ll soon see, there’s a line to be drawn between things you do with her (shared interests) and things you do for her (little value for you).

Doing some of the things that she enjoys doing won’t necessarily hurt you, and it builds a stronger emotional connection.

This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do nice things for her, but you should be doing things that you want to do for her because you truly do want to do them for her. Maybe she submits art to local shows and displays, and you like to attend these because you want to show your appreciation for her hard work and artistic ability.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, and in fact, it’s something that she will actually appreciate. People like to see their hard work and talent acknowledged and have their endeavors supported.

On the flipside, you don’t want to do a lot of things for her that she’s just refusing to do out of pure laziness.

Running impromptu errands for tampons and the like are okay maybe a couple of times, but you should make it clear to her that not being prepared and then casting the task off on you is wasteful as far as both of your time is concerned. Tampons can easily be stocked up on in advance just like anything else.

You just mindlessly dropping everything and doing it versus giving her a little pushback is the difference between being the guy who’s just a complete pushover who gladly goes out of his way to do unnecessary and inefficient favors for her, versus the guy who will do it once or twice... but then he needs her to step it up and plan ahead so people aren’t running around wild over stupid stuff all the time.

So just use your best judgment when it comes to things like this:

• Taking her side in an argument: Is her viewpoint actually reasonable or correct?

• Cuddling: Do you actually want to, or are you too warm/uncomfortable at the moment?

• Small presents/flowers: Is this something you want to become customary and expected?

• Sharing her likes and interests: Do you actually enjoy these things too?

Those are only a few examples, but what I want to be unmistakably crystal clear on is that you don’t compromise your freaking man-card over them.

Balance these well, don’t let any of them get too unmanageable, set clear boundaries on the ones that you feel strongly about, and you’ll pretty well be all set when it comes to these types of things.

Got Respect?

Respect is something that is 120% expected, and additionally (believe it or not) it is probably the thing easiest to get if you’ve introduced proper frame control into the relationship from day one.

Again, frame control is vital here because it sets and maintains the principal rules for the social interaction (in this case, your long-term relationship with a woman) and provides a vehicle to project your dominant male essence so that you can lead properly.

Notice I said sets and maintains the principal rules, because if you don’t keep a strong frame throughout the entirety of the relationship, this is what takes a woman who was previously very nice, considerate, caring, and loving, and gives her the green light to start acting as though you’re just some little insignificant turd that can be trampled upon.

That doesn’t mean that respect doesn’t cut both ways, though.

As we’ll explore in depth in later articles in this series, one of the biggest reasons a woman resorts to having affairs is because her husband actually stops respecting and trusting her himself.

He might start watching porn when she’s away (she will find out about it), befriending strange women on social media networks such as Facebook or Twitter that he doesn’t even know and propositioning them in some fashion (she will find out about this), or even going as far as to engage in physical/sexual affairs with other women (oh, she will probably find out about this one too!).

The insecurities that arise from his porn addiction or interest in other women will often result in a reverse-psychosis of him then thinking she’s likely doing all of these too, even if he does not have any evidence whatsoever of her engaging in those types of behavior. He’ll begin to go through her private things like her phone or diary or her laptop. He’ll start interrogating her about where she’s been when she goes out for a pint of ice cream to calm her nerves after a long day at the office or with the children.

As soon as he starts fishing through all her stuff and badgering her about “whose dick you suckin’?” and all of that nonsense, the same reverse-psychosis principles that you saw in the husband will take effect in her and she will then begin to operate on the assumption that YOU are the one doing these things, and she will also likely take on a mindset of “If I’m being accused of it, I may as well do it!”. This is not to mention the obvious: that she will then begin to (a) respect him less and less and also (b) trust him less and less.

Am I painting a vivid enough picture of this for you?

Weak frame control combined with loss of respect and trust in the relationship is a definite slow-cooker recipe for divorce papers.

As I said earlier, respect is a two-way street... but, it’s even more important to be respected if you’re a man.

Relationships crumble the very moment that a woman ceases to respect the man she is with.

And why is that? The answer is, as Chase articulated so well in the article Respect in a Relationship: Where It Comes from, Where it Goes, that women (in most cases, mind you) play the “follower” role in a relationship. In turn, this is why women like powerful, firm, dominant men.

Respect in a relationship is preserved when the man’s dominance is preserved.

So what happens when she stops respecting you?

• She starts to view you as “pussy-whipped” and will start to not only expect more from you, but will begin actually start putting less effort into the marriage itself.

• She disregards any manners she might’ve had before (perhaps constantly talking on the phone or keeping you waiting).

• She doesn’t return messages or phone calls.

• She talks down to you/insults you/belittles you.

• She flirts with other men in front of you.

As far as a man’s expectations are concerned, you probably didn’t sign up for any of that.

If you are an avid reader of the content here, you probably are aware of the term “compliance momentum” and how you need to keep this momentum positive, since negative momentum only moves the result you actually want further and further out of your reach.

Well, it works exactly the same way with respect... except those momentum swings are ten times as firm. Once you’ve lost a woman’s respect, you are going to have a really hard time getting it back, and it’s definitely not 100% certain that you ever will.

And it’s absolutely assured that you won’t if you continue with the status quo.

Worse yet, it usually signals the beginning of the end of a relationship when a woman loses respect for her man.

Put the shoe on the other foot again just for a moment. What would you think about a woman who stayed with you even though you treated her like dirt all of the time? You’d dump her ass, wouldn’t you?

Multiply whatever just popped into your head about a million times, and then you’ll be close to feeling what women feel when they lose respect for a man and he doesn’t handle it appropriately and move with tenacity to get that respect back.

Matrimony Gone Wild

When I first met my wife, she was quite young. Fifteen to be exact. I courted her like a 1920’s schoolboy for some time (a good few months, anyway) before I finally “got” her, despite many and many blunders throughout those few months I’d been haggling to get her to go out with me.

I wasn’t her first lay, but nevertheless, she was quite inexperienced in bed at the outset of our relationship. The first time we had sex was on Valentine’s Day. We’d been dating for weeks and I had bought her flowers and a card (complete with a very long essay professing my pedestalization of her).

After a good amount of wine, we got naked and had sex. The sex itself was quite tepid, and set the perfect tone for a relationship devoid of any real crazy passion when it came to doing the nasty.

If the term “making love” truly describes something very different than “fucking”, then that was precisely what it was. Looking back on our sex life now, I recall thinking it was pretty great. However, knowing all of the things I do now, I realize that it was anything but.

The frame that was set at that point had all of the negatives right in the forefront of things:

• Basically, I had chased her and worn her down over time (so she “settled” for me)

• My puppy dog antics caused her to view me as a relatively weak man

• Somehow I had already sworn off socializing with other women at all

• I’d pedestalized her completely, and possibly worst of all...

• I thought that I was giving her great sex, but it was merely “okay” at best.

To make a long story short, our relationship progressed to a marriage wherein she wore the pants and I sort of just tagged along, just happy enough as it were to be partnered up with a former clothing model who now did nothing more than go to her part-time job and come home and watch some television or do something with me at night.

I thought I had it all: a great-looking woman who (again, I thought) was perfectly content with a constant daily dose of the good ‘ol conventional modern marriage life. Put quite simply, my expectation of marriage was completely warped and unrealistic.

Basically, after a few years of being conditioned by her to be anti-social around women while also hammering it into my brain that it was okay for her to flirt and text obviously philanderous men who were “just her friends”, things came to a head.

It all led to a crazy bout of one-itis for me (to say the least!), while her options were as wide open as ever before.

My complacency with all of this was not the problem. Me letting myself get into this situation in the first place was the big mistake that was made. Once a learned behavior has gone on this long, for years basically, there’s really no turning it around. At least, not in enough time to save your marriage.

My bed was made. My ship was sunk. I was screwed.

I was constantly dealing with this guy and that guy, mate-guarding her all of the time and generally just making myself look like a giant pussy. The relationship had probably been long over at that point, but I was too stupid to know it.

At this point, she had taken a bartending job against my fairly adamant instruction not to, and things really got out of control at that point. I won’t go into too much detail here, but even though I had no proof of any cheating, I still felt cuckolded at all times.

To me, this was all irreparable. It wouldn’t and couldn’t go away. It was like a giant wart on the decrepit ass of what was now my marriage.

Eventually I got smart enough to leave her and file for divorce. Honestly though, looking back on it, I had no one to blame but myself.

The frame was bad (to say the least), it progressed, and I just let it get worse and worse until nothing could be done to reverse it.

We’ll examine the causes of cheating and infidelity in more detail, but basically: I didn’t do anything right.

Did I set a solid relationship frame? No.

Did I effectively balance all of the minor things that add up? Nope.

Did I balance the power dynamic in a way that was favorable to me? Most definitely not.

Did I then get all fidgety and start accusing her of all kinds of things I had no proof of? Yep.

Did she then lose respect for me and start treating me like crap? For sure.

It just got to a point where the relationship was completely and utterly crippled and she had to take her sex and her emotions elsewhere, because I was taking care of none of it.

In Retrospect

Most people limp through the world like a drunken hobo, only to be jolted awake here and there occasionally by the various random happenings of life.

You have to maintain self-awareness in order to make the most of all relationships with people, but most of all with the one person you spend most of your time with: your wife. Marriage isn’t always what it is cracked up to be, and when it’s not, it is usually your own fault for not having a good mental map of your relationship or taking the correct countermeasures when things start to falter.

Throughout much of my life, I saw everything relating to differences in relationships as a clash between two people – it was them against me.

In order to understand an emotional response like that, I had to ask myself two questions:

1. Is this me actually being self-aware of someone else’s ulterior motives to screw me over, or am I just blaming them to save myself a few mental cycles?

and

2. What the hell is the difference between the two?

It’s only harmful to yourself to point the finger at others for your own non-adapted actions and reactions instead of understanding how you developed these behaviors.

“Our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world as being able to remake ourselves.”
-Gandhi

If you focus hard on continuing to develop yourself constantly instead of trying to shape the situation around you – basically, being a man that your wife will love and respect and be loyal to – then, you getting what you want (and what you think you’re going to get) out of marriage won’t be any issue whatsoever.

Because sometimes you just don’t get what you want. Sometimes, if you want it bad enough and work hard enough, you get something even better.

As for my own failed marriage, I really wish that I would have just saw the trouble ahead at the first turn before the homestretch, preemptively saving myself all of the anguish of going through several months of prolonged mental confusion and emotional suffering.

If I could go back in time, I’d see the writing on the wall before it all came crashing down.

It is what it is, and I’m definitely better off and now have a pretty damn good understanding of what marriage is actually like as opposed to how awesome I thought it would be.

All marriages go through rough patches. Even after 20, 30, 40+ years of marriage, some people still “wonder where the relationship is headed”, and that can be every bit as refreshing as much as it is frightening.

Let’s face it, we don’t know what our own marriage will be like, simply because it is the natural state of things. When we want to know things that we can’t know, all we do is generate even more uncertainty (and then the resulting frustration).

It’s like climbing a big tree in the dark. Where does this branch go? What’s beyond it? Then, what’s beyond the six branches that split off of the next three? And so on...

So at some level, you must embrace the uncertainties of marriage. Some things you will be able to control, other things less so.

And that’s not so bad.

Keep your expectations reasonable and feasible, don’t lose direction in your own life just because you’re spending so much time worrying about the other people you love, practice self-awareness, and always, always be working on being a better man, husband, and person.

If you always knew what was going to happen next, well, that just wouldn’t be very much fun now would it?

J.J.