In my case as I said in the other one, I simply want someone who is as passionate about the things I care deeply about as I am: wild places, birds, kids, personal growth, and my music. Doesn’t mean she has to be a female clone of me, but it does mean that whenever we share in such things there is a definite spark (and that is before bedroom activities become an issue-I’d hope that the feelings for the other stuff can feed back in there, if ya catch my drift, like going at it to a song you both love to death).
I’m single, and I’ve never been married. The opportunities which have presented themselves have been toxic, to put it mildly.
I made the decision a long time ago that I would rather die alone and be eaten by my cats (had to get some first) than settle for something as unhealthy as I was offered.
I’ve seen a lot of marriages from the outside, and it seems to me that the one factor that absolutely has to be there for the marriage to work is the willingness to put your spouse first and the dedication to work through whatever issues come up, to absolutely refuse to quit in the face of adversity. So, to me, it’s not exactly waiting for The One, which I think is a poisonous concept, but waiting and looking for A Match - someone who has a compatible personality, someone with whom I can be friends and lovers, and above all, someone who is willing to make the same commitment I’m offering.
Married 35 years next Monday. How about someone who respects your passions, and is passionate about her stuff. (Someone not passionate about anything is unlikely to understand your passions.) it is a plus when you love some of the same stuff, though.
Willingness to work through hard times counts. Similar feelings about things like money and sex does also.
One problem about waiting is that the longer you live alone the more you get adjusted to your way of doing things. I’d think getting married when you are young and flexible is much easier than when you are old and relatively rigid. You still get rigid, but you get rigid together. (Insert erection joke here.)
Make damn sure you can live with the person you marry. Lonely may suck but living day in and day out inside a toxic relationship is far, far worse.
As someone was in a long and painful marrige I can tell you I longed to be lonely.
I have no idea. I think the more I work on my self worth the less I ‘need’ a relationship, and the more the idea is more about someone complimenting my life rather than fulfilling it like I thought when I was younger.
I don’t think there is the one though. I don’t want to settle for someone who is abusive, or controlling or unreliable either. I’d much rather live alone than do that. I dislike how people associate not being in a sexual relationship with ‘being alone’ though. You can have tons of gratifying, nurturing relationships outside of sexual ones. If anything, the non-sexual ones are the most nurturing because you don’t have all the baggage and efforts to find the highest quality made thrown in.
I don’t think I want to ‘marry’ either because the legal system is biased against males. If there are kids or assets, you are probably hosed if the relationship goes bad.
I don’t know if I want to get married but I don’t believe in “the one” so if I wanted to get married I have some criteria and most are purely practical. There also needs to be a spark and sexual compatibility, but not some fairytale or romance novel bullshit.
I need a lot of time and space to myself so it would have to be someone with a compatible lifestyle to mine (we would need to be able to afford a bigger place than the two bedroom apartment I live in now, and preferably he’d travel for work or something sometimes). And I’d need to be able to trust him. Plus he would need to trust me. With an ex of mine, who I would have married, it wouldn’t quite work because he was in the Army and couldn’t trust that I would be fine with him being gone so much, even though I actually preferred it (not that I wanted him gone to dangerous places or for a year+ at a time when he was deployed, but I could *handle *it better than many, and the times when he was gone for a week or whatever were great with me). We didn’t have much in common as far as personality, interests, and background, but we enjoyed each other’s company and were attracted to each other and respectful to each other. Good enough for me! And I wouldn’t consider it “settling”, but it’s also not “the one”.
This is not a question that anybody else can answer for you. There are lots of potential ones out there, for nearly everybody. At the same time, that’s no guarantee you will meet one of them before you die. There’s also no guarantee that the one you choose to be with is as good as another one might be. You could meet a woman tomorrow who is gorgeous, the best friend in your whole life, shares all your interests, and likes giving erotic massages to Nine Inch Nails (or whatever your favorite band is). In that case, settling before you meet her would be stupid in the cosmic sense. Or you might never meet such a woman, in which case it could be stupid *not *to settle for something less (if you want kids and a decent partner when you’re old).
If hearing the decisions other people made helps you, though, I’m really REALLY glad I didn’t settle for any of the jerks I was with in my early 20s. I thought they were ones at the time, and I was wrong (but only in retrospect). My current boyfriend is the best one I’ve ever met, totally without a doubt 100% marriage material. In 10 years I might not be singing the same tune, of course. Such are wisdom and hindsight.
In the end, it’s all a balancing act. There is a risk of regret whether you err on the side of partnership at all costs or the side of loneliness (or, as most do, somewhere in between). All you can do is what seems best for you at the time. I mean, I don’t know about you, but I’m just tripping through this whole adulthood thing one misguided half-insane footstep at a time. The only things I’m fairly certain about life are what I *don’t *like, and even those things are subject to change.
I don’t believe in The One but I do believe in waiting for someone about whom you feel no reservations. If you do feel reservations, then one of you isn’t cut out for it, and you’d better cut bait and run.
(I’m married, btw. Met my husband when I was 27. First man I met about whom I had no doubts).
I’m not willing to lower my standards at all, even though it means I get very few opportunities. I do get lonely pretty often, but usually I have plenty of stuff to do on weekends to keep my mind off dating.
I have a decent life already; some friends, some interests, some socializing. It’s not perfect, but I’ve seen a whole lot worse. I don’t believe in The One, but I can’t see the point in marrying someone that I won’t be happier with than I am now. If I’m holding out for anything, it’s that. I know it takes effort and there would be rough patches, and I’d be willing to do that with the right person; it’s the finding that’s difficult.
I think these are very wise words. Some people who really want to be in a relationship go with someone while their inner voice is screeching “no no, not this one!!” and they then justify it by saying they don’t want to wait for perfection. However, there is a difference between scuppering yourself by having impossibly high standards and going for someone who just isn’t right because you don’t want to be alone, and I do believe often deep inside you know which one applies.
Back in 12th grade, one of our required courses was History of Philosophy. Every Friday was debate day, and one Friday the subject was marriage (our divorce law had just turned 10, so it was a hot subject). That particular debate was over in minutes after we expressed the convinction that the biggest reason marriages fail is because people go into them thinking “oh gee, (s)he’s so cute, so nice, gives me presents, let’s be all cute and happy together!” rather than “ok, in 20,30, 40 years, when my back hurts and (s)he has a toothache and we’ve both got flab and our hair goes to shit, will I be willing to put up with him/her and with our kids, who are going to be absolute brats at least part of the time? Will I still want to hug him/her?” - if the answer wasn’t “yes”, you shouldn’t marry. FTR, the immense majority of that class is married and there have been no divorces or separations.
The closest I was to getting married was to a guy that I wouldn’t have minded flabby, toothachey and with the hair on top of his head migrated half to a 'stache and half to the inside of his ears. Pity I wasn’t able to bring myself to do what it would have taken to get him to listen-to-me-damnit (a bazooka might have been required, he just never listened to anybody), cos if I had, he wouldn’t have had time to propose
I’ve been married twice (divorced when quite young, widowed 13 years ago). Don’t want to marry again or live 24/7 with someone. When I came across this article, I realized this is my ideal at this point in my life.
