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marriage.jpeg

Married former friend constantly looks jaded, exhausted Anonymous 102722

A woman I was friends with ages ago got married a few years back. She has no socials I'm aware of, so when we lost touch, she disappeared from my life pretty thoroughly. I heard about the wedding through the grapevine, I was not invited.
I hadn't so much as heard ABOUT this woman until recently, but eventually I connected with a mutual on Instagram and saw the first images I'd seen of her in I guess something like 10 years.
I was a little surprised at what I saw. In virtually all pics she was in she looked tired and jaded, with a blank look that I can only describe as a thousand yard stare. She was not smiling in a single one. I got a vague feeling from some of these pictures that she might have been on heavy amounts of psychiatric medication, but that's just a hunch. The exhausted look was unmistakable.
Obviously this tired look could be due to any number of things, but is it possible that her marriage is directly causing it? She does not have kids, so the 'exhausted mom' thing isn't it. Could it be that the husband on his own is making her feel exhausted? What kinds of things to married moids do to make their wives feel exhausted? I wish to understand what's going on here but I have no way to talking to this woman directly.

Anonymous 102723

What's the point in theorizing about a woman you haven't spoken with in many years?

Anonymous 102729

>>102723
This, way too vague to make any real guesses so there's no point in pissing in the wind

Anonymous 102754

marriage and kids always have that effect on women. this is why ill never do either

Anonymous 102767

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>>102722
There is a very high chance that your suspicions are confirmed. The effects of marriage on a woman are detrimental, and inherently incompatible with her health and happiness by design. If the woman in question is not only a wife, but a housewife, then the mental numbing is doubled.

>What kinds of things to married moids do to make their wives feel exhausted?

If this is something that interests you deeply, I recommend reading The Future of Marriage by Jessie Bernard, where she explores the gap in men and women's marital experience, including in terms of happiness.

I will share one relevant paragraph so you can draw your own conclusions. It's a long read, but imho it's worth considering:
Another way to solve the paradox of depressed wives reporting their marriages as happy is to view the socialization process as one which "deforms" them in order to fit them for marriage as now structured. We cut the motivational wings of young women or bind their intellectual feet, all the time reassuring them that it is all for their own good. Otherwise, no one would love them or marry them or take care of them. Or, if anyone did, they would be unhappy and feel caged if they had wings and could not fly, or unbound feet and could not run.

There may have been a time when this made sense. It might well be asked if it still does. But whether it makes sense or not, we are quite remarkably successful. We do not clip wings or bind feet, but we do make girls sick. For to be happy in a relationship which imposes so many impediments on her, as traditional marriage does, a woman must be slightly ill mentally. Women accustomed to expressing themselves freely could not be happy in such a relationship; it would be too confining and too punitive. We therefore "deform" the minds of girls, as traditional Chinese used to deform their feet, in order to shape them for happiness in marriage. It may therefore be that married women say they are happy because they are sick rather than sick because they are married.

There are some researchers who believe that this is indeed the case. They note that our standards of mental health for men are quite different from those for women, that if we judged women by the standards which we apply to men they would show up as far from well. A generation ago, Terman could judge women who were conformist, conservative, docile, unaggressive, lacking in decisiveness, cautious, nontolerant to be emotionally stable and well balanced. They were the women who had achieved an adjustment standard of mental health. They fitted the situation they were trained from infancy to fit. They enjoyed conformity to it. They were his "happily" married women.

But modern clinicians see them in a different light. Inge K. Broverman and her associates, for example, ask whether a constellation of traits which includes "being more submissive, less independent, less adventurous, more easily influenced, less aggressive, less competitive, more excitable in minor crises, having their feelings more easily hurt, being more emotional, more conceited about their appearance, less objective"—a constellation of traits which a set of clinicians attributed to mature adult women—isn't a strange way of "describing any mature, healthy individual." These researchers conclude that we have a double standard of mental health, one for men and one for women. We incorporate into our standards of mental health for women the defects necessary for successful adjustment in marriage.

We do our socializing of girls so well, in fact, that many wives, perhaps most, not only feel that they are fulfilled by marriage but even hotly resent anyone who raises questions about their marital happiness. They have been so completely shaped for their dependency and passivity that the very threat of changes that would force them to greater independence frightens them. They have successfully come to terms with the conditions of their lives. The do not know any other They do not know that other patterns of living might yield greater satisfactions, or want to know. Their cage can be open. They will stay put.

Picrel is from one of our own which further reinforces the points made. If I recall well, I found it on a PinkPill thread here. If the anon who wrote that is still around: that was a brilliant post and CC loves you

Anonymous 102798

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>>102767
>Write a contract that says my moid has to give me 50% of his stuff if he cheats on me
>This makes me oppressed

We don't live in the middle ages nona. You can just choose to not marry if you can't find a decent moid

Anonymous 102813

>>102729
>>102723
I'm in a serious but not soulmate-tier relationship in which marriage has been discussed. He's dead set, I'm kinda "we'll see…" I want to know the possible consequences of marrying someone who, while not being actively abusive or anything, certainly doesn't make me feel head over heels for him. I've read the feminine mystique and I get a strange feeling that the problem that has no name is ultimately rooted in marriages that lack emotional substance.
>>102767
>more conceited about their appearance
Oh, I should say that the woman in question is definitely more concerned about her appearance than she was when we were friends.

Anonymous 102814

>>102798
This is very true, but manipulative moids are relentless

Anonymous 102816

>>102813
why'd you get with him if you're not "head over heels" over him?

also, from personal experience, love isn't being "heads over heels"with someone. it's having a best friend to rely on in tough time, share good moments with, and lwho you can grow alongside. sure, you will go out reignite that spark of love from time to time– or even have a good sex life with– but that's not a healthy ideal in a long-term committed relationship.

Anonymous 102830

image_2023-08-08_1…

>>102798
Males are so coddled and catered to that even having their smallest liberties curbed, such as not being able to cheat on their partners without consequences kek, is a reason to go to a female-only imageboard and post a passive-aggressive response.

>>102813
If a male is offering you something, be assured that he did the maths and he benefits from it a ton (they are self-serving like that). I recommend reading up on what married women say about marriage, and see if it actually suits you. Naturally, if it's something that doesn't suit your lifestyle/desires/goals/needs then absolutely refuse and don't feel bad about it. You can marry whenever, there's no need to rush, but divorces cost money, time, stress, and if you invested a lot into the marriage, then it's a massive loss financially and emotionally. Just to emphasize: people underestimate how straining divorces are, so if you aren't sure about marrying, then don't take the risk until you are.

Anonymous 102834

>>102798
it goes both ways nona - if you earn more than a man (which is increasingly likely in a society where women are outcompeting men professionally) they'll rob you of your health in the process of having kids and money and property



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