This discussion was a real eye opener for me.
I was raised by a self-centered, psycho bitch who thought that constant physical, verbal and emotional abuse of small children (she only stopped the physical stuff when we got old enough to fight back) was OK.
She never worked outside the home, was rarely home, had a maid and was lauded by the community for her “wonderful” and “kindly” ways because of the facade she was able to put on. She made my father’s life so miserable, I think he was happy to die when his time came just to get away from her.
And yet, in spite of this, I have always put women on a pedestal and would have gotten married in a second had I ever had the opportunity. And I tried. Hard.
I was (and still am) honest, loyal, hard working, communicate well, care about and LISTEN to people. And though it took a long time, I’m also financially successful too.
Didn’t matter. In every male-female deal, I got the very short end of the stick.
Last year, I ended an 18 year relationship (no kids, no marriage) and have felt – and been treated like – the “bad guy” for leaving. (Even though there was no paper and no kids, I “left her” very well off.)
After a year now of having my balls busted by this person with her endless post-relationship craziness and seeing that she is completely immature and unable to deal with life emotionally on her own, I’m horrified that:
a) I spent so much time with this person (though she does have some good personal qualities) and
b) I actually thought for all these years, that *I* was the problem.
I’m by no means perfect, but now that I’ve had a year to clear my head, I realize how thoroughly manipulated I was and how my deeply-seated feeling of being “bad” (a bequest of my mother and society at large, including the idiot who wrote the column we are all commenting on) made it so easy for me to be conned.
But all’s well that ends well.
I’m 48, in incredible shape, and – amazing to me after years of poverty, hard work and struggle – a multi-millionaire (OK, it’s only two million, but let me brag a little.)
I spend my free time – of which I have a good amount – giving money and time to community causes.
I used to feel TERRIBLE that I didn’t have a real marriage and didn’t have children. All these years, I had assumed that the fault was 100% with me. It never occurred to me there could have been any other factor.
If I was at fault, it was that I didn’t know my own worth (kind of hard to do in an environment where you are denigrated constantly) and didn’t have the smarts to know that there are “exceptions to the rule” and I should have held out for better.
Up until my 18 year long pairing I had been with lots of women. Most treated me very badly, irrationally so and my heart was crushed more times than I care to count.
Now looking back, there is not one of them, not ONE, that I would want to be paired up with, let alone be obligated to spend more than ten minutes with.
And, yes, they all just LOVED the bad boys until they felt like settling down and then they went for the steady guys with money. How noble of them…
The sex drive is strong and the drive to be part of a family is strong. Lay those two things over a propaganda system that tells you how “bad” you are, throw in some pathological parents, and you’ve got a recipe for misery.
But again, all’s well that ends well. This year has been a real eye opener for me and this dialog has chrystalized a lot of things that I just wasn’t able to sort out alone.
Thanks to everyone who posted.
I’m disinclined to lay all the blame on society (though I agree “society” has become a total sewer) and I’m also disinclined to lay blame on “women.”
Every individual is different and I now realize there may be some women out there who are like me and share my values and might even have the capacity to treat me as well as I am naturally inclined to treat them.
Maybe I’ll meet one, maybe I won’t, but I’m done with worshipping at the altar of womanhood and accepting crap just because the person dishing it out was born in a female body.
Bottom line as far as this topic is concerned:
I didn’t get married (thank god) because nearly every young woman I encountered romantically in my young life was damaged goods and behaved like a swine – and luckily for me, found me “boring” because I wasn’t a Bad Boy.
I have no plans or desires to be married, but I’m not against it if the right person comes along. Now after 48 years, I finally have a glimmer of a clue of what kind of person that might be.
By the way, I hate video games and prefer drama to action films, though I love martial arts and shooting guns with my buddies. I also like talking to and listening to women.
Go figure.
