I’m a woman. As I’ve gotten older I’ve watched the men around me— friends, and friends of friends, marry women they really didn’t want to marry. They’ve even admitted it, each saying they did it because they were dating her for 5 years plus and felt pressured to make it official. Some have told me they didn’t feel like their girlfriend was their soulmate or even a good match, but basically the pressure was becoming too great, and their girlfriend of 5+ years (and their girlfriends family) was starting to get impatient, so they did it.
We talk a lot of women settling, but nothing about how often men do.
I think people should get married out of love, commitment and admiration. That people should get married happily and excitedly. But what’s this??
Men of Reddit who married their long time girlfriends due to pressure and pressure alone— are you happy? Or would you warn against it?
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Really good and interesting question. Sorry not got anything to add myself, other than pressure can itself be the major problem.
I asked a counsellor once why they thought relationships break down. They replied incompatibility…
Don’t do it it’s my only advice, you’ll make her happy (temporarily) and make yourself miserable.
While also risking half your networth.
The real question is if they felt this way , why didn’t they break up with their gf at some point in time during those 5 years ?
Realistically if you’re with someone for 5 years and one wants marriage after 2 years and one doesn’t, someone has to cave or it just should be done. If your friends are saying they were pressured and still wish they hadn’t, why are they still with them ? If they are looking for 10/10 compatibility of love or w.e , then they would have known by now and should keep looking.
I got my girlfriend pregnant when I was 23. I thought she was on birth control however she stopped taking it without telling me. I thought she was for me but there were many red flags. I married her out of shame. I didn’t want to have a baby out of wedlock. Then she joined the army , it was part of her plan. You can’t join the military as a single parent. She had plans to divorce me when she got use out of me. Two kids later in that rabbit hole and 21 years later we are divorced. It broke me for 2 solid years. I had to get counseling and find myself lol. I’m better now and have found true love. I wish none of it happened. It also screwed my daughter up growing up with her. My son’s aren’t as bad. I wish I had a redo.
I got married out of pressure, subtle as it may have been. We dated for about four years. That marriage lasted for three years. Those seven years felt like decades.
After that divorce, I married my second wife after dating for about nine months. The twenty-two years we’ve been together have went by in a blink of the eye.
While it’s only an n=1 data point, it strongly suggests you’re right, OP.
My brother did and it was a huge mistake. She thought after the marriage , once the child arrived a year later things would be great, he’s a changed man and she would live her traditional catholic life with him. Little did she know he was pressured by her family, he gave in but still wanted to hang out and mess around. They divorced a year later after their unnecessarily expensive catholic wedding and she still holds a grudge 20 years later.
Yea, no to marriage. I don’t know what kinda goddess it would take to get me hitched into marriage but she better be pretty darn good lol. Marriage offers more to women than it does to men even tho society tells us otherwise many have started to see the truth. Which is, women are just as shallow as we can be when it comes to love, and because of this we don’t wanna work our ass off for a woman to come derail us, take half our worth, and leave with our kids. It’s quite a one sided relationship when you think about it. What’s the man get? In House Pus. Whoopty doo. Marriage could be abolished and I’d be perfectly happy, might even start trying to date again. One less expectation on men who date women? Sign me up
Ehhh….
Sometimes.
Maybe 30% of the time. Definitely not my soulmate. Not sure that is something I believe in, though. She isn’t a bad person but she hid some compatibility issues and now that we are married and in a house she has the image that she wants and that’s just where things are. For now.
It happened to me once. I had only been with her a year. She kept asking and asking when when are we going to get married. Then, one night, she had a few drinks and really got going. I buckled just to make it end.
Then I broke up with her a few weeks later. I didn’t want to marry someone who was always pressuring me into what she wanted. But I imagine some guys would stick it out.
While we’re at it, why not ask why they are dating people for 5 years + that they don’t think are a good match? Why waste a woman’s time like that? There are other men who won’t. What is with men who won’t take responsibility and blame external factors (pressure, society, parents) for their decisions?
My wife and I were degenerates in our youth. Both high school dropouts. I was a construction laborer, and she was a cab driver. She had her GED and was trying the community college route, but doing poorly due to the overnight cab job when we started dating. I had no interest in higher education, I was happy in the trades and could find a job anywhere I traveled too. In the early stages of our relationship, we partied at concerts and festivals, and nothing to show for our work, renting an apartment in the worst part of town, problems paying bills. Together we wanted to start growing up. I got my GED, and started saving money weekly. She got her associates degree, and then we stagnated. Then one night she got robbed in the cab one night which led her to want to continue her education and not be stuck driving a cab the rest of her life. She ended up getting accepted to a school 450 miles away. We talked about moving away so she could go to school. I didn’t want to move away without assurance we were in this together. I didn’t want to loose her either. I had enough saved up for a ring, so I took my two kid brothers to help me pick one out. I felt like I was rushing, we were only saying two years, but it felt like one of those I’m gonna loose the best thing that had happened to me at 23. I proposed with doubt in my gut. I explained why I was proposing, and what she meant to me. She cried and said yes. Our wedding was super cheap, but it was ours. We moved and I got a job that allowed me to provide a roof over our heads, and food in our bellies so she could focus full time on college, and only college. She graduated summa cum laude with a 4.0. We’ve grown even more since then. We’ll celebrate our 14 year wedding anniversary this June. She’s my best friend, my queen, the most important gut feeling I ever chased. I couldn’t imagine walking through this chaotic world with anyone else.
Edited, removed two redundant words
I felt pressure being from the Midwest and needing to settle down early and have kids by 23 or 25. I thought she was the right one for me but I think she and I both ignored the red flags. We divorced on our one year anniversary. That year wasn’t miserable, I think we had a pretty good time but the last two months terrible.
An interesting question. There’s always so much external pressure on the man if they’ve been together long enough. Calls of wasting a persons time if marriage isn’t brought up after a couple of years.
If it’s not a resounding YES from both parties then they shouldn’t get married.
A lot of guys stay with a woman because they don’t feel that they have options. So better the devil they know than the dating scene. Not to mention they get a little Stockholm syndrome. So many guys don’t truly see how awful their wives are until they leave. The weight they feel lifted is massive.
My question to the men answering here- why would you date someone for 5+ years if you didn’t feel like they were your soul mate? With or without the marriage pressure…
I thought I would be until she caged me, tore off my wings, domesticated me, and then decided I was no longer the prize.
And only comes groveling back when I start choosing myself.
I promised to my first fiancé because I felt like that’s what I should do. Happy as a pig in shit that it didn’t work and was called off a few months later. Fast forward to my wedding day and my step father in law asks if I’m sure. Without hesitation I said “I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.” You don’t have to be that assertive but if you have any legit doubts about your future with this person, might be best to not go through with it.
I wish people would work on the day to day vibe, test things out a bit. It’s weird when someone thinks they have ‘caught you’ and immediately starts working through their shopping list of life goals, the ‘escalator’.
An initial attraction, short bit of time together and some sex doesn’t mean much. Not everyone wants to get married, have kids, fly to trendy holiday destinations etc etc. How bout a few wide ranging conversations and bit of a laugh to make sure we actually like spending time with each other? Well done to the people that have found it.
As people have said here, compatibility goes a long way.
I stopped going to weddings after a while because of all the divorce, and then you get an invite to the second wedding! No thanks.
The people who pressure you into marriage are doing it because they think youre their only chance of getting married. Or they want to lock you in for what they can get out of you. If anyone pressures you, just walk away.
I’m going to be one of the few people here who say yes.
Gf at the time had kids — her first marriage was a disaster. I had a decent manufacturing job and was (is) utterly smitten with her. She needs me to marry her for health insurance and for real life things like buying a house. So we marry.
I’ll admit today (and then) I was hesitant.
And almost 35 years later, I’m stupidly happy — still. The kids are grown. I moved up in career out of the factory into engineering. Career is great. Kids are all out of the house with a few grand babies out there. Wife and I travel the world. We’re still really sexy together.
Hahaha my sister tried to pressure a guy she was casually seeing to commit to her, to be exclusive, after like a year of fooling around. Me, and everyone else was like “hey, why don’t you just…. Find someone who actually wants to be with you?” She gave a billion excuses: he does like me, he does want this. In her defence he gave her mixed signals because nobody else was willing to sleep with him so he lead her on, so I don’t think she’s the devil here. Tbh I find most relationship problems aren’t one sided, but anyways, she was trying hard to pressure and he never cracked. They broke up and he immediately committed to the next girl he was with. Sister was pissed for about a month and is now entirely over it and matured. I asked her what was up with that, pushing him when he clearly didn’t like her that much (it was obvious) – she said it was the ego boost of someone actually wanting her. She finally admitted she didn’t even like HIM that much either, I don’t think shes thought of him more than maybe 5 times in the four years since they broke up
To vent they were a total mismatch. She values health and is fit and is ambitious even if she’s not super experienced. She talks and is hilarious and makes friends, new friends, easily. Shes cultured and has a myriad of interests. She asks questions and is a good time. She’s non judgemental and fun and likes to go out. She is a bit crazy. He is very fat and makes no effort to get in shape besides constantly complaining. He is so boring sitting near him, not even having to talk to him directly, makes time feel extremely slow. He has no interests besides video games, doesn’t care about his work, wants a simple life.
She’s been in love with someone else for the last four years and hasn’t pressured him at all, leaves him alone when he asks, doesn’t fuck around at all lmfao. Men and women both act right with someone they really value vs someone they want for ego stroking