Expectations

[martian687]

Saturday evening, over scones, snakeskin1982 and I were discussing why it has been so difficult for us, two intelligent, personable, attractive (at least I'd like to think so), women in our late twenties to find a permanent relationship. She wondered if our modern independence had raised our standards and expectations for love and partnership to an

Comments

[istar]

Men have this issue, too... I just read a very interesting blog post the other day about how equality has changed the playing field in terms of how men and women get together and what their expectations are.

Sexual equality has created the possibility of greater exactness and complementarity in matching women to men. That is, in my book, a huge gain to men. But equality does raise expectations for love and marriage. The prospect of finding a true partner, rather than someone to satisfactorily perform the generic role of husband or wife, leaves many of us single and searching for a good long time. But this isn’t about delaying adulthood, it’s about meeting higher standards for what marriage and family should be.

[martian687]

Exactly. Sigh. This isn't giving me much hope.

[maerdi]

I forget, have you tried internet sites like match.com or eHarmony? One thing they are probably pretty good at is finding people with values and lifestyle desires that are compatible with your picky marriage criteria; then you'd have to date them to figure out if they were workable in other ways, but if you really have a bar you're not willing to give up, it could help. As a side note, I know several couples who met on eHarmony who ended up married, and as far as I know none of those matches has suffered from divorce or even separation

[paperclippy]

I would think about your criteria and figure out which ones are really necessary. For example, at your current situation in life, it doesn't make sense to date someone who isn't interested in marriage and children. It's just a waste of your time and theirs. That is a totally valid reason to exclude people (IMO). The biggest problems people have in marriage are related to children (have them, don't have them, how many, when) and money, followed by religion and politics (at least, from what I've read). Those are probably the most important deal-breaker-type issues (do not underestimate the importance of financial compatibility

[dragonmudd]

But, what if in college I had dated someone who was religious and wanted to raise their kids in their religion? (Something I'm not sure I'd do know.) And what if, instead of worrying about it and breaking up as soon as we realized the potential mis-match, we kept dating, because we were young and in college and weren't feeling the pressure of time? And what if, over a multi-year relationship, we figured out how to deal with the differences in our relationship?

Or, what if you had tried to make those compromises, and over time come to resent those compromises, and then some number of years later you find yourself getting divorced?

I think either scenario is something that could have happened.

[martian687]

Yeah. I think the moral of the story is "who the fuck knows?"

[porfinn]

There ya go! That seems to sum things up nicely.

[madduckdes]

I know people who have broken up (at least partly) over not liking the same bands. I've known other people who have raised children despite strong differences in their religious beliefs. I think what matters the most is the attitude of the people, not how many ticky boxes they match up on.

If you only look for partners who start out as a strong match in terms of hobbies, you're not going to give yourself much room to grow.