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Wellness Wednesday for September 18, 2024

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

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Is it possible to be weighing engagement vs breaking up at the same time ?

I'm dating the sweetest girl. Good head on her shoulders, intimacy is good. Shes cute. She would make a good mother and partner. No wierd hangups. No red flags. If Im honest, I cant articulatw any real big problems.

Logistically, we're very long distance and will last another year, which is the biggest issue.

For some reason, I cant shake this feeling that this isnt it. There isnt someone specific I'd rather be with. I will occasionally find her the prettiest and other times I'll notice all the blemishes. Sometimes I appreciate her steady self confidence. Other times, I am frustrated by her lack of brutal drive to self improvement. Shes objectively achieved enough that her intelligence is not up for question, but other times Im dissastisfied with the lack of sharp off the cuff retorts that ive come to expect from my male friends.

The relationship feels like coasting. And some part of my brain wants jazz.

As i read this, I know I sound like a manic pixie dream boy. But, the brain wants what it wants.

Have any of you faced this ? Is this just standard anxiety as men move into the mext phase of there lives ? Or is there something real here ?

Sometimes I appreciate her steady self confidence. Other times, I am frustrated by her lack of brutal drive to self improvement.

If you expect to find a woman who would never frustrate you, will be perfect in every regard, who would never do anything to piss you off and do everything exactly right and exactly like you want it - that's not going to happen. People are imperfect, and they are imperfect in a myriad different ways. There's no way a real person would be exactly perfect complement to all your wishes. The real test is whether you want to stay together despite all the rough spots. When it's obvious to you that what you're getting out of the relationship vastly exceeds the blemishes.

And yes, a part of you wants excitement and novelty. But you can find it in other things. Part of you would be scared at the thought of spending the rest of your life (or at least a very very long portion of it) with the same person. But if you feel good around this person, maybe it's not that bad an idea, actually? As a person who's been married for over 20 years, you can't keep the excitement of the first years on the same level, but you can transform it into different forms and different things. Of course, it's on you to decide if this relationship is what you actually want. But you should also be realistic and not expect things that can not happen, and be ready for work and frustrations which are a normal part of life and relationship. Don't be afraid of doubts, but also be honest with yourself and recognize what your true feelings and needs are.

The real test is whether you want to stay together despite all the rough spots. When it's obvious to you that what you're getting out of the relationship vastly exceeds the blemishes.

I am reminded of this line from The Wise Man's Fear:

"Anyone can love a thing because. That's as easy as putting a penny in your pocket. But to love something despite. To know the flaws and love them too. That is rare and pure and perfect."

I loved this line when I read it, because I think it nicely encapsulates what marriage needs to have. You need to love someone, warts and all, or it simply isn't gonna work.

Let me ask you the question others have asked only implicitly: was there a woman in the past, whether your affection was required or unrequited, who you felt was truly interesting, truly desirable? It’s not about her, and you make that clear enough. But it might be about the idea of her.

you have a catch, friendo

my only caution is, as a long distance thing you kind of still are on your best behavior when you're around each other and aren't really experiencing what the other is actually like on an every day basis

so, I might not consider engagement until you've spent 6 months together in the same place

Is it possible to be weighing engagement vs breaking up at the same time ?

That's the only way to be. You should always, after maybe a month, be considering marriage, and if there's not a realistic path to marriage breaking up.

Certainly when you're at the point where you're ring shopping, if you're not gonna pull the trigger you should break up.

The alternative is weighing engagement versus wasting her time.

You could be describing my wife there. I am very happy to be married to her.

Short answer: Yes, it's human to think about these things.

Longer answer: For what it's worth, I had similar feelings, occasionally, before getting married. Almost 10 years in now and it's good stuff.

My experience with all relationships and partners is you have to choose what's important to you. Nobody rolls nat 20s on all their stats. Do you want a sharp-tongued, aggressively driven woman? Prepare to be exhausted fighting about stupid shit and being emasculated every once in a while. Do you want a demure mother of your children? Prepare to have to be exhausted leading the household all of the time. Do women want a ripped god? Well then he'll be eating like a bird and working out all the time. Do you want material comfort and money? He may not be as attractive as the former.

Consider those pros and cons and what is truly important to you. Bluntly, I am primarily driven by sex and did not optimize enough on this parameter when selecting a partner, and overshot on almost everything else. What is the evergreen desire you want out of your relationship? And for the love of god, shuck away the confines of what "the culture" demands of you. You are under no obligation to get married because you've dated for a while, and you're under no obligation to marry some uber-female who puts you in your place all the time.

Is there a defined end date to the long distance? Have you dated in-person for most of the relationship? How is the sex (Note that this is separate from physical attractiveness)? Have you dated someone previously who gave you the "Jazz" you're looking for?

Other times, I am frustrated by her lack of brutal drive to self improvement. ... Shes objectively achieved enough that her intelligence is not up for question, but other times Im dissastisfied with the lack of sharp off the cuff retorts that ive come to expect from my male friends.

Gross. This isn't real. You don't want a wife who's like one your your guy friends. You don't want your wife to be a sarcastic, grindsetting bro.

As i read this, I know I sound like a manic pixie dream boy. But, the brain wants what it wants.

I wanted a manic pixie dream girl, the girl I married isn't anything like that, I had real axiety briefly while dating her about that, I made the best decision in the world.

Logistically, we're very long distance and will last another year, which is the biggest issue.

This is the only objection you've raised that is legit. Also, could a source of you lack of investment be related to a lack of real chemical interaction?

Is it possible to be weighing engagement vs breaking up at the same time ?

It's quite sensible; when you know your SO well enough to decide whether you want to spend your life with them, the best answers are "yes" or "no", not "no but I'll waste both our time dragging things out anyway".

Sometimes I appreciate her steady self confidence. Other times, I am frustrated by her lack of brutal drive to self improvement.

Pros: she's confident

"Cons": she's not brutally driven

her intelligence is not up for question, but other times Im dissastisfied with the lack of sharp off the cuff retorts

Pros: she's intelligent

"Cons": she's not sharp-tongued

the brain wants what it wants.

It is definitely possible that you're not the kind of person who can be happy forever with her, and I certainly don't know you or her well enough to say you are ... but it says something that you were trying to lay down criticisms and your top three were one triviality plus two humblebrags.

The relationship feels like coasting. And some part of my brain wants jazz.

Jazz gets a lot of value out of tension and dissonance, but like any music the trick is the balance between tension's creation and its release. If you've got a partner who consistently relieves tension, then finding tension elsewhere (e.g. from your own hopefully-not-quite-brutal drive to self-improvement) is going to be much easier and more productive than the alternative of demanding/creating tension in your closest relationship.

(not to be mistaken for the alternative of creating tension via your closest relationship - I wonder if humans are ill-adapted to handle a "feels like coasting" malaise phase because historically we'd have all the tension we could want from the "when will baby start sleeping through the night and my brain fog go away" phase sooner)

Other times, I am frustrated by her lack of brutal drive to self improvement. Shes objectively achieved enough that her intelligence is not up for question, but other times Im dissastisfied with the lack of sharp off the cuff retorts that ive come to expect from my male friends.

Honestly, sounds like you have been mind-killed by modern media. Real, actually living women are like this. From this comment and other comments sounds like you have a great catch.

Hah I'm in the same place except... definitely some problems/red flags. But they came up after I proposed.

What are they, if you don’t mind sharing?

DM me if you're curious

Im younger, less long distance, not about to engage, but otherwise in the exact same boat. I have nothing helpful to say sorry. My current thinking is that this is just something introspective people have to suffer through.

Sometimes i whish she gave me a reason to break up with her. Maybe i need to be challenged by my partner in order to have something else to pour energy in. I love putting energy into the relationship.

I've never experienced this, but I have experienced similar internet threads.

You're probably not going to have a deep intellectual connection with a woman. The idea that your partner should be your best friend, soul mate, sexual muse, etc... it's a bizarre modern fetish. Get more male friends and focus on the unique things that your partner provides which friends cannot. Cherish the differences between men and women. But don't ask her to be a man.

Long distance is a problem. I'd try to solve that immediately.

If she's someone who is easy to be with, who wants kids, and would be a great mother, then you are like 90% of the way there.

I've had deep intellectual connections with several women over the years. Probably more women than men, if I'm honest. None of them were sexual relationshipa, however. I also don't know if any of them would have been the type to post in a forum like this. Sorry it always seems rather shortsighted to me to make these kind of pronouncements. I will concede that one might not want a romantic partner to also be someone with whom one has constant deep reflective talks.

Thanks for the context.

Yeah, she's practical and low drama to an astounding degree. She'd be a genuinely great mother. (Like GOAT level) And she is admittedly very easy to be around.

She's offered me a 6 month trip for me to move where she lives (literal paradise) fully paid by her. I make significantly more, but she wants to gift me a time to just be myself. It would fix the long distance issue. Were aligned on where we want to end up by 2025.

The deal is great. I get a long needed break, an American citizenship, a high IQ wife who wants kids.......maybe I should take it.

But I want to nip my anxiety in the bud before making the leap.

Yeah I'd say just go for it man. Moving in will make a lot of things clearer.

Yeah, sorry, this sounds like a no-brainer. Don't fall for modern soul mate propaganda. Especially if you're here, chances are you're prone to over-thinking and to be over-critical. Objectively, the things you worry about are absurdly rare in women, to the degree that any women exhibiting these traits will most likely have something wrong with them. If you want kids, you ought to want a great women, not an even greater man with tits.

Also, I know it sounds unromantic, but long-term what matters is to find a person you can respect, whose quirks you can tolerate each day again and again, and who is attractive enough that you like having sex (and vice versa, of course). Love at first sight, deep intellectual connection, sharp humor, extreme attractiveness, spontaneity, all those things that romantic movies push are certainly nice extras, but don't really matter much in the long run.

Or to put it in a bit more romantic terms: It's not the love you start with that matters, it's the love you learn.

Yeah, she's practical and low drama to an astounding degree. She'd be a genuinely great mother. (Like GOAT level) And she is admittedly very easy to be around.

high IQ wife who wants kids ..

So... what are you holding out for? Just move and if doesn't work out so be it.