Should I get married?

Here’s the situation. I have an ex from a couple years ago, we were together for about a year. We broke up because he’s in the Army and was deploying and wasn’t handling it so well and was having a hard time trusting that I’d wait for him and stuff…nothing very relevant to the present. We’ve kept in touch, and he really wants to get back together and get married soon.

What you need to know about me is that I have relationship/men issues. I don’t have extremely strong feelings for this ex, but I honestly don’t think I’ll ever have extremely strong feelings for the right kind of man. There’ s a guy I’ve been seeing off and on for over 6 years and he’s manipulative, narcissistic, unpredictable, dishonest, and so on. He’s the one I have strong feelings for. So my point is that while the obvious advice would be to wait until I find someone who I have strong feelings for AND is a good guy, I truly don’t think that will happen for me no matter how long I wait.

This guy is a good guy. And I kind of want to settle down and get married and have more kids. I’m 27 and have a 9-year-old daughter and I’m tired of doing everything on my own. My daughter is tired of it being just us. She’s more social than I am and she wants more going on in the house. And she loves this guy and he loves her. He would make a great stepdad and that would be good for her because unfortunately her dad has really dropped the ball these last few years and rarely sees her.

I’m hesitant for a few reasons. First because the Army is sending him across the country in a couple months and I do NOT want to move. I like where I live and I’ve never lived anywhere else and it would be very hard for me to move away from my family and everything I know. I’m also just generally scared of change, but that’s not a good reason in itself.

But the thing I really don’t know about is my lack of very strong feelings for this guy. Now, I’m not the romantic type–far from it. I believe that the practical concerns for a marriage are at least as important–and probably more so–than the silly romantic notions. If I was going to marry someone I was fixated on and couldn’t keep my hands off, then I’d marry the narcissist…and be absolutely miserable.

Still, obviously love does play some role. But as I said, I’m not going to find someone I feel how I feel about the narcissist who would also be a good husband. And there are different kinds of love and I can certainly love this guy, it’s just not that infatuated type of love.

Ideally I DO want both. I want the narcissist to start acting right and then I could be with him. But I also want a million dollars and that’s not going to happen either. So is it really wise to just hold out for someone that I don’t think exists? Or can a person really be happy if they “settle” for someone who would make a good husband, father, and provider, but doesn’t make me swoon? On what bases am I supposed to make this decision?

PS - I’ve already tried to address my issues with men and get therapy and do soul-searching and all that. It doesn’t work. I lust after the wrong kind of man. That will probably never change. And it will definitely never make me happy.

Well, arranged marriages seem to work fine in a lot of cultures. Your parents pick a mate based on similar ideals, culture, religion, etc.

Infatuation can never be maintained. Marrying someone with a decent head on his shoulders, and a commitment to family seems like a much safer bet. You’d be surprised 5 or 10 years down the road how important stability and friendship are, versus infatuation and sex.

Having said that though, and speaking from experience, settling for someone is not exactly a panacea either. It really depends upon what you want from life. There’s something to be said about growing old with someone who you can trust and respect.

Is it possible to continue dating for a while until you know for sure what you want?

I understand your dilemma and think not jumping into anything rashly is a good idea. Mr Narcissist is compelling but will make you miserable (good for you for realizing this first); but Mr Lacklustre doesn’t turn your crank.

I think you have to consider not only the right reasons to marry your ex, but also the right reasons not to marry your ex. Whether you can learn to love him or love him on some level already may not be the point. He was concerned enough about whether you’d wait for him previously that he won’t likely be able to bear it if he finds you don’t love him the way he wants to be loved.

It may be a very nice thing for your daughter, to have a family and possibly siblings, but you are also modelling how one lives and makes decisions. Would you want her to sacrifice her own happiness to make what seems like a safe decision? In fact, rather than being selfless this decision could be self-ish. If you can’t make it with the good guy, because you are unsatisfied on too many levels (or worse find another compelling ‘bad boy’ who lures you out of the marriage) your daughter will go through much more trauma than she likely feels now.

Please don’t underestimate your own level of unhappiness when you are far from your family, friends, and the familiar. It might push you closer to your new husband, but just as likely it could foster resentment and bitterness.

I do think you might find the guy to whom you’re attracted AND is a good guy. Don’t close yourself off from options other than the narcissist. IMHO it would be a mistake to marry the good guy - just because.

Perhaps you can examine your personal values a bit to determine what it is about the bad boy that really attracts you . . . then find another way to get that value fulfillment . . .

I wish you the best and know that having considered the issue even to this point, bodes well for you.

Are you one the same page about the emotional and sexual status of the relationship?

I haven’t seen anyone discuss this, but you’re not going to be doing him any favors if you marry him to “settle” or for the utilitarian purpose of having a replacement daddy for your kid. I think it would be hard for it not to come through in your dealings with him. You could begin to treat him offhandedly knowing that he wasn’t your first pick. At worst, you could have contempt for him for being willing to marry someone who obviously cared a lot less about the relationship than he did.

And – how confident are you you can stay faithful and put the badboy out of your life and out of your mind, and not find another badboy to obsess over? I assume he knows about the relationship/hangup with the badboy, right?

That’s a lot of potential baggage to impose on your potential Provider Beta. Of course he’s got to be smart enough to caveat emptor too.

Well beyond all the considerations from your end you also have to consider how your military guy would handle a lukewarm wife “in like” with him who’s “settling”. You don’t sound like someone who’s going to be able to represent anything other than what you are, and his notion of marital bliss is probably going to be seriously skewed when he faces the reality of life with you, and your “I’m settling” attitude toward him which will come out in time.

I’m not criticizing you for feeling this way, you sound very rational and grounded, but if the infatuation is mostly one way he’s likely to get disgusted with this after a while, and then you are back where you started and even older with dimmer marriage prospects.

If you are really attracted to sexy, clever, artistic you need to go find that in a less toxic package than your pretty boy. Dutiful military guy deserves a wife who’s really in love with him and you deserve a man who can make you tingle. That’s not what’s in the offing.

If you have to ask…

If you marry someone you think would be a good husband but you don’t have feelings for, you’re eventually going to leave him for someone you do have feelings for. You may even make a practical decision and cheat on him with someone you have feelings for, while staying with the stable guy for the sake of being, well, stable. And for your daughter, of course.

I’ve been there. It wasn’t fair for either of us.

She does have some feelings for him, though, just not very strong ones, if I’m understanding correctly. At least, she said she can love him.

If you wouldn’t mind, Blackberry, I think clarification would be helpful. Are you attracted to him sexually? Do you actually love him or do you just think you can? Feelings can’t really be reliably induced.

Marriage is supposed to be a lifetime commitment, isn’t it? You don’t seem to feel any big commitment to this guy - so you’d be lying to him, and to your daughter.

Having been the lackluster but responsible good guy once upon a time, I don’t think you are doing him any great favors sticking with him either.

Its good to see you recognize your own preference for the bad guy. Have you ever been able to isolate what exactly it is about these guys that you find so appealing? There are a LOT of men out there, hunting for a narrow subset of decent guys who have the look/attitude/whatever you are looking for may be hard but I doubt it is hopeless.

Maybe its me…

How you doin? :smiley:

Yeah, I was thinking about this too. I’ve read things to the effect that arranged marriages tend to be as happy or happier than regular marriages. Not that I’d want an arranged marriage, but I think it goes to show that romance and infatuation are not the only or most important factors.

Well, he’s moving in 2 months, so if I don’t decide by then, that will probably be the end of it.

No, but on the other hand I hope she grows up to be attracted to the right kind of man (or woman, whatever). It seems like a stable life and a good male role model would make that more likely.

Also, I’m not sure how accurate it would be to say I would be sacrificing my own happiness. I’m not especially happy living as I do now. It’s okay for my 20s, but it’s no way to live my whole life. But to marry him, move away, have more children…it would be such a drastic change that I don’t know how to be sure how I’d really feel about it.

Don’t a lot of happily married people look back a little enviously on their single days sometimes, even though they don’t regret getting married? Maybe I would just feel like that?

Well, he doesn’t feel the same way as I do about it. But he pretty much knows how I feel. He knows I’m not into romance and all that crap, and I guess is okay with it.

I feel very confident that I could, but I don’t know if I should trust my feelings since I’m not good at this relationship stuff. And yes, he knows about my relationship issues in general, not the specifics of that particular guy.

But doesn’t everybody settle in some way? I don’t feel that I’d be settling overall, but you can’t have everything. Especially when some of the things you want seem to be contradictory.

You’re absolutely right that I’m not the type to be able to pretend things are different than they are. I think it’s common for people to get married for similar reasons, but most of them probably don’t explicitly admit it to themselves and others. Has anyone here done it and had it actually work?

That’s, right, I do have some feelings for him. I am somewhat attracted to him. When we were together I think I loved him. I don’t know, I feel stupid saying it this way because I should KNOW these things, but I don’t. But I was happy with him before and I missed him when I didn’t see him and enjoyed his company.

But if I did marry him I would be committed to the marriage. But, like people are saying, I just wonder if eventually I just wouldn’t want to do it anymore. Right now I feel like I could, no problem, but I have no idea what it’s like to be married for 20 years and how I’d feel 20 years from now.

:wink:
But seriously, I don’t know, it might be hopeless. I like cocky bastards. I think I like the type who I know I can’t have a real relationship with because on some level I’m scared of relationships. But from what I hear, a lot of women have some inkling of wanting a badboy, but don’t act on it, because they know it’s a bad idea. But of my close friends and family, they’re either 1) happy with their nice guy and have absolutely no desire to be with a badboy, or 2) DO date the badboys. Well, there’s also 3) a few who are with the good guy because they got tired of the assholes, but I think they’re lying to themselves about their feelings and motivations, so they’re no use to ask. They’d be offended at the mere question.

If I’m reading this right, you’ve been apart from this guy twice as long as you’ve been together, and you are not currently together as a couple. But he wants to marry you within a few months and bounce around the country pretty frequently. You don’t like the prospect of moving even once, and if you don’t do it then he’s going to move on and not look back. You’re not in love with him and you’re scared of committed relationships, but you’re lonely and tired and want another baby and your daughter wants a daddy and a family.

Frankly, it sounds like a total disaster waiting to happen. You guys were happy a couple of years ago, sure. But not only was that a fairly short term relationship, you’ve both changed in the intervening time, and so has your daughter, and you don’t know what the three of you are like together now. Typical military wife life sounds like it would make you miserable–it tends to involve either moving every year or two or staying in one place alone with the kids while hubby is deployed elsewhere. You need to think very, very seriously about that factor. If you’re lonely and unhappy with one kid and doing everything by yourself, think about how it would be when he was on a year-long deployment and you had 2 or 3 kids and were doing everything by yourself.

What really troubles me, though, is the whole “marry him in the next few months or end it forever” thing. That does not bespeak the sort of emotional commitment it takes to make it through the rough parts of marriage. If a guy really, truly wanted to be with you specifically, he’d be willing to give you a reasonable amount of time to make such a huge decision and plan a wedding if you wanted to have one.

You want to cheat on a nice guy with a manipulative narcissist? Because that’s how I see it playing out. You are only 27. There doesn’t have to be an ultimatum.

If you don’t decide in TWO MONTHS to marry him, the relationship between you two will be over? Is that really what you mean?

If he thinks you’re the right gal for him now, then you’ll still be the right gal for him a year from now. Or whenever the current deployment is over.


Dear Straight Dopers,
There’s this girl I know. She’s a single mother, and she tells me often how tired she is of having to do things for herself all the time. Also, she wants more kids, and has noted that I seem to not be sterile.

She has stated - in so many words - that she “doesn’t have extremely strong feelings for” me. There’s an ex in her life who she IS, on the other hand, very attracted to, and I know for a fact that still carries strong feelings for him. She’s capable of feeling excited and lustful and all that wonderful stuff, but I don’t inspire those feelings in her.

So whaddya think, Dopers. Should I marry her?


Blackberry, what advice would you give the guy in the letter above?

The deeper issue is that the OP isn’t sufficiently mature to be in any sort of serious relationship. Using a stable partner as source of support, and as a source of playmates to assuage the daughter’s boredom is reprehensible.

But in arranged marriages, both members of the couple pretty much grew up expecting they would have an arranged marriage. Neither of you grew up that way. It sounds like you might want to settle for something like that just to avoid bad boys, and he’s settling for it because he’s infatuated with you, or something like that. So what happens when the novelty wears off?

But then…

Let me get this straight. You were in a relationship with Mr. Narcissist, then you got together with Mr. Nice Guy, and when that ended, you took up again with Mr. Narcissist.

And now you’re wondering if you should marry Mr. Nice Guy, even though you have “strong feelings” for Mr. Narcissist.

And Mr. Nice Guy is in the military, and soon to be redeployed, and you don’t want to uproot everything and go with him.

And you’re asking strangers on a message board if they think you should marry someone you don’t love, who within six months will either be asking you to go with him – which you don’t want to do – or stay behind, with Mr. Narcissist presumably still nearby.

Do yourself, your daughter, Mr. Nice Guy AND Mr. Narcissist a favor and don’t do it.

From personal experience with friends, every single person who gets married simply because it was the best option at the time, and not for passionate love, lives to regret it. In most cases, they then meet the person they DO love shortly afterward and it goes downhill from there - causing lots of grief, hard-feelings and court costs.

In other words, let me chime and say “NO!”.