Posted on 07/20/2003 7:59:11 PM PDT by Archangelsk
Marriage, Horror, And Susan Reimer
Take Horror. It's A Better Bet.
July 21, 2003
Were I to offer thoughts on marriage to young American men today, in these the declining years of a once-great civilization, my advice would be as follows: Don't do it. Or, if you do, do it in another country. In America marriage is a grievous error.
And why so? Because of The Chip. The Attitude. The bandsaw whine of anger, anger, anger that makes American women an international horror. It's there. It's real.
You, a young man, may not recognize the Chip if you have never seen normal, warm, happy women. If you are twenty-something and haven't been out of the US, you haven't seen them. They exist by the billion-in Latin America, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaya, China and, last I looked, France and Holland. And of course not every woman in America carries the Chip. None of them think they do. Yet it is the default, the usual, what comes out of the box.
The following is a perfectly ordinary, everyday, bulk-lot example, suitable for poisoning a cistern:
"Other than a 29-inch waist and a full head of hair, there isn't much to recommend the twentysomething male He is living an extended adolescence -- an adult-olescence -- and every immature, irresponsible, self-absorbed thing he does is reinforced by the latest issue of his favorite men's magazine." (Susan Reimer, a columnist for the Baltimore Sun. I bet she goes out a lot.)*
Hers is the Attitude -- and what they think of you. It is the defining trait of American women. Exceptions exist, and they have my apologies, but they are few, and no, sport, your Sally probably isn't one of them. They're coiled to bite. As soon as problems arise in the marriage, they turn into Susan.
Susan Reimer is what is out there, guys: bitter that no one wants her (as who in his right mind could?), sure that no one is good enough for her, never having grasped that those who would be loved must first be lovable. Understand this: Susan is America. Some hide it better, springing it on you after the ceremony, but Susan is the rule.
The Susans do not like men. Sometimes they actually take courses in disliking men ("Women's Studies"). Yet they want to marry one and have babies. For them, the contradiction actually makes a kind of sense, because (and they know this, believe me) they will get the house, the children, and the child support.
For you, it makes no sense. You will get raped in the divorce courts. You don't know how bad it is. Don't do it.
A prime effect of marriage is backbreaking financial overhead: the excessive house in the prestigious suburb, the pricey but boring cars, all that. But if you don't fall into the trap, keeping your expenses down means you can live in Alaska or overseas and enjoy existence. There is more to life than debt service. Yet, although these are bad times for marrying, they are extraordinarily good times for being single.
Now, children. This is sticky. You may want them, or think you want them, or think you may want them. She wants them. My advice is to move to almost any country where English isn't spoken and women don't want their husbands to be the mothers of their children. Any country inhabited by the Chinese would do nicely.
Incidentally, remember that it is never now or never. Your prospects improve with time. At thirty-five or fifty you will be perfectly able to find a good woman if you know where to look. See above list.
Remember also that these are not good times for having children in America. It is almost irresponsible. The schools are scholastically poor, drug-ridden, given chiefly to political indoctrination, and hostile to male children. The universities are little better. Divorce is hell on children and their fathers, and nearly universal. The country lunges to police-statedom and isn't, I suspect, as stable as it might be. Worse, worst, there is Susan Reimer. Her name is legion, and she seeps everywhere, like the effluvium of unwashed socks.
Further, there is no social duty to have children. Some argue that the white population is in decline. Tough. If the country chooses to make having kids undesirable, then let it decline. It is not your problem.
Now, you might well wonder, why are American women carrying the Chip? Practically, it doesn't matter: They do carry it, and will continue. Still, it is partly because from birth they are fed the notion that they have been oppressed, battered, cheated, deprived, harassed, used as sex objects, not used as sex objects, on and on. Being rational, you are perhaps inclined to point out that never has a female population been less any of these things, but don't bother. It will have no effect. The Chip is an emotional artifact to which they respond emotionally.
The bedrock of The Attitude is that everything is the man's fault. Wonders Reimer, "What is the answer, especially if the 20- and 30-year-old male is such poor marriage material?" She does not wonder, "If I am such a grindingly awful termagant that men on three continents are crossing their legs and feeling queasy over my mere column, and won't come near me except in a Kevlar bathysphere with a disinfectant system, maybe I'm doing something wrong. Gosh. I wonder what?"
Yet something more is going on, though one does not easily see just what. Note that in recent decades we have seen the invention by women of bulimia and anorexia, which no one had heard of in 1965. Men made them do it. At roughly the same time women began getting breast implants, which men also made them do, and then suing about it. In the same period they began having induced memories of being raped or satanically abused by their fathers. Men again. The psychotherapy racket grew like kudzu, a sure sign of deep unhappiness over something.
All of this is recent. You have to be fifty to remember women who were resilient, sane, psychically strong and, within the limits of an often sorry existence, content. But whatever the answer, guys, the problem isn't yours.
Spend a year overseas, however you have to do it. For smart, classy, just plain glorious women who often speak English, try Singapore. Argentina is splendid. Many places are. You would be amazed. See what's out there before you marry a gringa with her Inner Susan, who will one day burst from her chest like one of those beaked space-aliens in the movies, dripping venom. They're death.
I knew I'd get the personal attack. But to be fair to you, you could be right. Doubt it though. I know far too many American women and far too many non-American women to be mistaken I think. Unless you know lots of non-Americans well, I think the difference will not be clear. But one thing, my American women friends are all big-city types; small-town girls could be different for all I know.
Of course, such women can also turn into psycho hose-beasts after you marry them. Trust me, I know...
To one extent or another, all people fail the "truth in advertising" test. If for no other reason than we do not remain the same person throughout our lives, but drift at an imperceptibly slow rate. If you are lucky, the other person drifts in the same direction as you such that you don't inadvertently trip their trigger and vice versa.
You know, I could almost believe this. But after ten years in the most evangelical, conservative, fundamentalist Christian church there is out here, I have found that there are a plethora of bitter, angry, venomous, hate-filled Christian women, all coiled and ready to blame their men for everything and as a kicker, ready, willing, and able to use the Bible as their means to that end and their personal weapon for payback.
It's happened over and over through the years. I was a lay minister who provided marital counseling until I just couldn't do it anymore. I simply could not referee at anymore shriek sessions that featured women who went into marriage with the idea that their husband would provide them with everything they wanted and cure everything that ailed them. And when that didn't work, out came the hissing alley cat, finger pointed in accusation, all the while trolling for the next prospect warming up in the bullpen.
Our pastor always ran a marriage and family series every couple of years or so. In the last eighteen months, we've run the same study four times. I asked one of the associate pastors what the criteria was for doing this series. He told me that when the battered spouse crisis calls (both sexes) and divorce counseling sessions reached a critical point, that triggered the study.
Four times in the last eighteen months. Church is no place to look for Ms. Right. She's as screwed up, resentful, controlling and filled with hate as any radical feminist you will ever meet in a single's bar.
There are days when I honestly believe there is no hope for this world.
See, I take this as evidence for my claim that the bitterness of the American female reaches across all segments of society. NOT just the women I know; reports like this are coming in from all over. But let's be fair, to complain and nag and be bitter is a stereotypically female thing to do at times, perhaps it's not their Americanness but just plain what a female does when things go wrong. Men drink and withdraw, women blame and complain.
Well, if she's speaking about the typical run-of-the-mill American "yoot" today -- well, Susan's absolutely right. Today's average 20-something American lad is a clod, a heel, a loser. Reimer may be a b@ll-busting b*tch, but she's basically right.
Very much a woman, very much a prospective partner rather than a financial burden and an accutrement.
American women have bought into the personal entitlement thing. They are always there for the good times (as they define them) but if the going gets rough....oh boy!
Have a great time; eat the pelmeinei it's out of this world.
Regards,
Yes and no.
If you are wealthy (and I mean really wealthy) and she is not, AND you have no children-EVER-a prenup is a good idea.
Once you have a child, the courts will use "child support" to take anything that they cannot get from "alimony", and prenups with regard to child custody and support are almost never found valid.
HTH.
What denomination are you?
Short answer: sometimes. But don't bet on it
I posted on another thread Men Behaving Badly - Why?:
You are mostly right, but the law of supply and demand means that men can make demands prior to getting married, such as requiring a prenuptial agreement, requiring that the prospective spouse be debt-free etc.Prenups are mainly for the case where both parties come into the marriage with assets, and the husband needs to ensure that his assets go to his kids from prior marriage, instead of new wife. Do NOT count on a prenup being enforcible against a wife if you have significant assets and a well-paying job. The courts will probably not enforce any contract that would make some irate feminist columnist upsetThis assumes that the prenup gets enforced. The courts may decide to enforce it, or may disregard it as "against public policy". See here. Also, provisions regarding child support are prohibited (see here) and any prenup which would "provide a standard of living far below that which was enjoyed before the marriage" will also be unenforcable (see prior link). Also, it may be cancelled if one party "signed under duress" (here), where "duress" may be found to include "sign this or I won't marry you"
Bottom line: a prenup may not be enforcible against her, but certainly WILL be enforced against YOU
The face may get a guy's initial interest, but it's what's behind the face that will keep his interest. After marriage, a plain-but-sweet-tempered woman is your wife, while the beautiful-with-a-bad-attitude woman is just "that b---h I married".
You see all these news stories about guys being caught in infidelity when married or engaged to gorgeous celebrity women, and you hear people on talk radio going on about "why would he stray when he's got such a beautiful wife at home?" Well, the callers only see the face, and not what's behind it.
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