Should you ever get married? Are you a man? Answer the second question first. If the answer to the second question is “Yes”, then the obvious answer to the first question is, “NO!” The fact is, marriage has never been all that it’s cracked up to be. And in the past few decades, this venerable old institution has actually degenerated even further into an absolute soul and wallet draining waking nightmare, especially for the male of the species.
There used to be a great many practical and logistical reasons why marriage was an ideal arrangement (albeit, from vastly different points of view) for both men and women. However, in the 21st century, the majority of those reasons have passed into the murky mists of history. Today, it simply makes more sense not to get married. It’s one thing to fall in love, another to surrender your emotional and economic freedom.
10. She’s Going To Gain Weight, No Matter What (So Are You, By The Way)
If she gets pregnant, she’s obviously going to gain weight (Score one for all you Captain Obvious fans). But, even if you remain childless, the both of you are going to gain weight. In fact, in many ways, the first five years of a marriage are a slow but steady race to see who can let themselves go the farthest, for the longest amount of time, with the fewest possible repercussions.
According to a recent study conducted by the University of Queensland in Australia, women who live with a partner (in this case, let’s go ahead and read husband) tend to gain more weight than women who live completely alone. Is it hard to understand why this should be?
No, it really isn’t. The fact is, women who are in a secure, exclusive, and committed relationship, particularly one that has been formalized with a legal ceremony and a wedding ring, feel no twinge of guilt whatsoever in gradually letting of the svelte little bod they had on offer back in your courtin’ days. And, honestly, are they wrong? Is a gain of ten pounds going to nullify your wedding vows? Do you have a leg to stand on in court over this trifling matter?
Of course, the female side is taking the brunt of the argument in this particular scenario precisely because this article is being written from the male point of view. Trust us, tough guy, women notice when you pack on the pounds as well.
9. Marriage Shuts Down All Other Possible Options, Permanently
Not sure what you’re getting into? Don’t know how you really feel about not having the luxury of keeping all your other options open? Not keen on consigning your “Little Black Book” to the flames? In short, are you getting more than just the normally described case of cold feet over you impending nuptials?
If this is the case, it’s more than an ominous sign for the future of your marriage. We’d say it’s more in the line of a direct express telegram from the Bachelor Deity, warning you to shake off the chains before they bind you fast in the fetters of unsuitable monogamy.
Marriage means an end to all the casual dates (and the casual sex). Marriage means that you wake up with the same person, morning after morning, after love making, after arguing, after many nights of sheer, soul lacerating boredom. Marriage demands the state of monogamy, which, from a male point of view, may as well be more accurately labeled, “monotony”. It’s the end of your freedom and all of your options.
To put it bluntly, when you enter into the bonds of marriage, you’re stuck with each other, until death do you part. There’s a reason that these phrases sound so ominous and so final – they’re designed to be. Of course, nowadays the radical cure of divorce is far more easily available than it used to be. But if you’re already reassuring yourself with such thoughts this early in the game, it’s just another little hint that you really aren’t ready for the big commitment.
8. Getting Shacked Up Will Empty Your Wallet For Years To Come
The average total cost of a wedding in the United States is currently in excess of $30,000.
According to a recent survey published by CNN on their official website, the total costs of the average American wedding break down as follows:
- $14,000 to rent the venue where the event will be held.
- $5,800 to buy the ring.
- $3,500 to hire the band.
- $68 catering costs per invitee.
- $439 per printed wedding invitation.
- $275 per set of miscellaneous party favors.
An average of 43 percent of the total cost of the wedding will be paid for by the parents of the bride, which leaves someone else – namely, you – on the hook for the remaining 57 percent. Greater minds than yours have furrowed their brows in despair at the escalating costs and the long years of their lives about to spent in making payments on a plan. While many have survived this ultimate ordeal, there are plenty more who wonder what demon whispered in their ear to make them sign on the dotted line and wreck their lives.
It’s easy to see why many young people of marriageable age choose not to tie the knot. It simply costs too much! Being tied to a payment plan is no one’s idea of a good start to any relationship, particularly one that is scheduled to last for the rest of your natural lives. In fact, there’s only one thing that costs more than marriage: Divorce.
7. Marriage Is Essentially Nothing More Than A Blizzard Of Paperwork
Remember when you first decided – or someone decided for you in terms resembling an “offer you couldn’t refuse” – that it was time to get married? Remember all of the paper work you had to fill out? Blood tests, marriage license, all sorts of other forms and miscellaneous legal formalities – it’s only the tip of the iceberg, friend. Indeed, there is much, much more to come.
When it’s time to fill out all the forms for your newly opened joint bank account, you’ll be signing your life – and an inevitably large chunk of your future finances – drearily away. When it’s time to fill out all the paper work for your shared health insurance, you’ll be sighing away as more precious hours of your life pass by. And there’s more, much more, to come.
When you really stop to take a good hard look at it all – and we imagine you’re doing so now as you read this – you’ll realize that the state of being married is essentially a large, formally legal, fiction. Does being married solve all of your intense personal issues, or does it merely create new and less immediately solvable problems?
Does the fact that the two of you have cosigned a marriage license really make you that much more in love with, and committed to, each other? Whose idea was it to sign this paper, anyhow? Yours? Your spouses? Her parents? Was it peer pressure from your friends or your church? This is a question worth inquiring into.
6. Marriage Means Sticking To The Plan – No More Spontaneity
Do you enjoy going crazy on the weekend? Driving up to Brooklyn on a whim and partying with your best friend’s brother’s cousin’s uncle’s boss’ nephew at a new Italian themed night club that just opened up? If so, plan on never doing so again. You’ve got a wife to come home to, paper work to fill out, dinner to eat, dishes to clean, television shows to watch, and a full night of doing exactly what you did the previous four nights to look forward to. Sounds great, huh? It’s your life when you’re married, partner.
Sure, you’ll hear about married couples who manage to keep the “spontaneity” alive in their marriage. These are Fortune 500 execs and hotel heiresses who can afford to fly (frequently separately) to any breezy location in the world that they please. The rest of us don’t have it so good. Spontaneity is a dead letter in a middle class marriage. What truly prevails is routine, and the desperate need to play things safely so as not to introduce some new and terrifying pretense for misunderstanding and resultant bickering.
If you have children, you can count on the drudgery to become even worse. You can’t have a babysitter in every night if you expect to actually get to know your children. And, for obvious reasons, you can’t be partying on the other side of town when they are going through their first few pivotal life events. While witnessing these events is certainly a rewarding experience, the monotony that surrounds them may prove unendurable.
5. Marriage Is Constant “Compromise” (Meaning You Lose, No Matter What)
One of the things that your father or father confessor will continually attempt to drill into your head before you take the plunge is that marriage essentially consists of an endless series of compromises. Now, this is where your recollection of the earliest events of your childhood ought to kick in. To wit, do you remember the various arguments and disagreements that your mother and father engaged in while you were living under their roof? Who won the majority of those arguments?
Sure, your Dad could always lead off strong with the “I’m the bread winner” charge. But wasn’t your Mom quick to counter with “Who does the shopping, the clothes folding, the nose wiping for the four year old, etc.?” When all else fails, she fought dirty: Cue up the old reliable water works! Your Dad really never had a chance.
Yes, he could stage a “down tools” protest for a couple of hours by heading over to his brother’s house to drink a few beers and commiserate in the garage. But, sooner or later, he’d be back, doing exactly what he didn’t want to be doing, with the person that he would least enjoy doing it with. Some compromise, eh, Sharky?
Of course, here and there, you’ll win a few small victories. You’ll get to keep a few of your old high school yearbooks or a few Kiss concert T-shirts that you’ve almost, but not quite, outgrown. The rest of this compromise business is her domain, which she permits you to live in –pro tempore.
4. Did You Enjoy The Premarital Sex? Good, Because Post Marriage Sex Is A Myth, Much Like Nessie And Bigfoot
Remember all the sweet good times you and your Significant Other had in the sack before you tied the knot? Let’s hope they were good enough – and plentiful – enough to last you a life time. As it turns out, you’ll need those sweet memories to see you through a long, intercourse free desert of married life, which -need we remind you? – is currently scheduled to last until death do you part.
The fact of the matter, in case you haven’t guessed, is that sexual intercourse decreases sharply after marriage. There’s a million logical (and perfectly joyless) reasons why this is so. To begin with, if children are the immediate sequel of your first few weeks of honeymoon sex, you can just imagine how strong your wife’s aversion to further potential “accidents” might become.
If children are indeed involved in your life, you can likewise imagine how sharp of a toll that looking after the little bundles of joy will take on your potential allotment of sack whoopie time.
There will come a stressful, intercourse free, period during which your little toddler(s) will want to sleep with Mommy & Daddy so as to avoid the monster in the closet. There will come a time when Mommy will simply be so worn out after a stressful day at the office that she will be fast asleep in the bed by the time you’ve finished brushing your teeth. Prepare for the coming drought.
3. Divorce: All Good Things, And Some Very Bad Things, Come To An End
Previously, we wondered aloud on your behalf whether there was anything truly as terrifying, mortifying, and soul scathing as the average experience of the institution of marriage in the United States. You’re in luck! We found something worse: Divorce!
Want to bet half of your income, 18 years of child support payments, and 50 to 90 percent of your property on the slim and shady proposition that your marriage is sure to succeed where over half of all other marriages contracted on the same day will fail? Be our guest!
Will your soon to be blushing bride lose her bright cheerful smile and adopt a scowling eye when you bring up the subject of a prenuptial agreement? This, more than any other, is the sure forecast of an unsuccessful marriage. Look, if she’s not prepared to risk her all, why should you take the plunge for two?
In case you even need to contemplate how potentially costly a divorce may be, let’s add another scenario to the mix: It’s too costly to consider, especially while the children are too young to leave home, and you’d be on the hook for 10-12 years of support payments. So you wait it out. You wait until the kids are old enough to head off to college.
How does 18 years of doing time like a long term felon sound to you? Pacing the walls of your cell and cursing the day you ever let yourself be booked into this loveless sham? It happens more often than you think – are your parents still married, chum?
2. Are You A Risk Taker? There’s One Big One Left: Marriage
Earlier on this list, we pontificated on the fact that getting married pretty ruins the spontaneous lifestyle of both partners, both as solo individuals and as a couple. But, rest assured, there’s a distinction to be made here. Being spontaneous doesn’t necessarily have to mean that you are intrinsically prone to taking wild risks with your life. After all, there’s nothing inherently risky about deciding on the spur of the moment to drive down to the pier for an ice cream cone.
However, if you enjoy truly risky endeavors, such as extreme martial arts competition, surfing rough waves, or cliff diving, you’re going to need to check your lust for wild adventure at the chapel door. You certainly won’t be able to indulge in such risky and dangerous past times when you’re expected to watch the kids on a Saturday morning while your wife is at the supermarket.
But, as it turns out, if you really want to live a wild and devil may care sort of existence, getting married has more than its share of potential pitfalls and “winning ugly” scenarios. As stated above, marriage is a proposition in which you essentially stake your home, career, income, and accumulated property on the thin likelihood of making it last for anywhere from 40 to 60 years (sometimes longer). If that’s your idea of the ultimate “Take no prisoners” thrill ride, be our guest!
1. Marriage Lasts Forever (And We Mean It)
The moment you get married, you’re married forever. Even if you later divorce, there will always exist a specific time and place within the continuum of eternity in which you were married. Even after the both of you pass away, that moment will exist for the duration of the Universe. Once married, always married. Even if you manage to escape the snake pit with your limbs intact, you will always leave a piece of your soul behind. That’s the price.
Even if it lasts, you may still feel that you have wasted a significant portion of your youth, as well as all of the opportunities that were laid before you, on being married. Many married people, both male and female, express extreme regrets regarding the chances they missed, or could have taken, which were instead sacrificed at the altar of holy matrimony.
At the end of your life, what memories, what experiences, will you have to look back on? Will you regard the closing days of your existence with something like satisfaction, secure in the knowledge that you have lived a full, well ordered, and happy life? Or will you sigh with regret, despairing to the end over the life you have well and truly wasted?
Nothing is guaranteed to us in life, including the optimum duration of life itself. Since all things are in flux, it may already be later than you think. If you’re still on the search for your ultimate adventure, or your ultimate goal in life, it’s time to get on the stick. Marriage will only slow you down. Don’t stand still!
One Is The Loneliest Number, And We Like It That Way
In the end, the arguments against marriage stack up with overwhelming power against the arguments in favor of it. If you want to live your life free and unencumbered, marriage is nothing but an endless drudgery fest. Even though this article has been presented for the benefit of the male sex, from the unabashedly biased viewpoint of a very happy bachelor, it should not be taken as pertaining only to men.
The fact is, each and every one of these arguments and propositions could easily be reversed, or perhaps slanted in a different direction, to answer many female objections to the institution of marriage. Both parties to a possible marriage need to think long and hard over the arguments presented in this editorial. Rest assured, there are many more besides the ones that can be read here. Most of them are much, much worse!
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