WOW Why Young Men Fear Marriage

Why Young Men Fear Marriage:
Posted by Palco MP3

Love and Marriage

Daryl Motte and Seth Conger have got a lot going for them. They're young, attractive, smart, employed, single, funny, down-to-earth, slightly old-fashioned and curious -- the kind of guys who'd make perfect husbands.
Except that Daryl, 31, and Seth, 28 -- two longtime friends who run the irreverent dating advice blog, We're Just Not There Yet and have an upcoming book by the same name -- are just not there yet when it comes to marriage. And a big part of that is the fear of the D-word: Divorce.
It's a valid fear. Daryl and Seth's generations -- Daryl's a Gen-Xer, Seth's a Millennial -- are already divorcing at surprising rates. Of those who married in 2009, 43.9 percent were men in their age group, 25 to 34, according to the Census Bureau's "Marital Events of Americas: 2009," while of those divorcing, 23.7 percent -- more than half -- were ages 25 to 34. For men ages 15 to 24, 19.5 percent married and 3.8 percent divorced.
Men Daryl and Seth's age are "in that stage of life where they are building their income, their economic independence. The worst thing would be if they were to lose it all," says David Popenoe, who headed the National Marriage Project at Rutgers before it moved to the University of Virginia under Bradford Wilcox's leadership.
For Daryl, that is a very real possibility: "I don't see marriage as an option until the (divorce) laws are equal. They're heavily weighed against men," says Daryl, who adds it's just too easy for people to walk away.
The two aren't alone in their thinking. In AskMen's discussion of Popenoe's 2006 study, "The State of Our Unions," it's clear that along with the fear of losing freedom and space, dealing with emotional baggage and compromise, feeling pushed into something they may not be ready for, and the idea of having one sexual partner forever, the D-word weighs heavily on men:
When we've been divorced and run through the wringer of the court system, many of us are reluctant (read: "terrified") to risk a second commitment. Nowadays, we aren't exactly chomping at the bit to sign a contract legally allowing a woman to clean us out financially. Successful achievers -- those of us who have built companies and high-powered careers from the ground up -- are especially afraid of being forced to hand over all the fruits of our hard labor and may make the decision never to get involved in a serious relationship again.
But even those haven't been through a divorce have come to expect it. In a recent study of newlywed women, half said they expected infidelity would be part of their marriage and 72 percent said they'd probably experience divorce. With so many couples starting their new life together with those sorts of expectations -- even as they vow "till death do we part" -- it's no wonder they become self-fulfilling prophecies. Nor is it surprising that men might be hesitant.
A recent Time article, "Debunking the Myth of the Slippery Bachelor," declared men want to marry as much as women do, according to a study of 5,200 people 21- to 65-plus years old. The standout were men ages 25 to 49 -- they were less inclined to get hitched than the women.
That's what twenty-something blogger Jessica Massa discovered in the past year of interviewing 22- to 35-year-olds across the country for an upcoming book and movie based on her observations on Millennial dating (WTFIsUpWithMyLoveLife.com). "The guys say, 'Oh no, divorce is not an option. That's why I'm going to wait.' They'd rather not get married than get married and get a divorce. And that puts more pressure on them to wait."
Mark Pfeffer sees it, too. The Chicago psychotherapist runs an "unwed anxiety" group for thirty-somethings at his Panic, Anxiety and Recovery Center. It isn't divorce per se that scares them, he tells me; it's the financial ramifications of breaking up -- having to face a "50 percent chance of misery." If someone hasn't married by thirty-something -- and the age for a first marriage now is 28 for men and 26 for women -- then he or she has most likely been to enough weddings and experienced a good share of divorces to see what Pfeffer calls "the carnage" of a marital breakup. That's enough to rattle a thirty-something's idea of wedded bliss.
Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais have faith Millennials will avoid the carnage. Co-authors of Millennial Momentum: How a New Generation is Remaking America, Winograd and Hais don't see the fear of divorce as a big deterrent to twenty-somethings' marriage plans. The 50 percent divorce rate is more the reality of baby boomers, not Gen-Xers and most likely not Millennials either, they say. Although most Millennials are still too young to be walking down the aisle, the ones closer to marrying age "are being so careful about choosing a mate," Winograd says.
That may be true but many young adults still "hold unrealistic, idealized views about marital relationships," according to a 2007 study of southeastern college students. And it's those unrealistic, idealized views that often lead former love-birds to divorce lawyers.
For Millennials, says Paul Taylor, executive vice president of Pew Research, "Only six in 10 grew up with both parents. So broken homes, never-formed homes, re-formed homes -- it's part of their life experience, and ... they are repeating that pattern, perhaps even more so."
As more chose to cohabit, they won't experience divorce but many won't avoid a breakup --40 percent of cohabiting hetero couples split within five years.
Still, as Daryl and Seth watched their friends exchange vows at numerous weddings this past year, the D-word was the farthest thing from their mind. "I feel there's still hope," says Seth.
But they're just not there yet.

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Why Can't Men Love Like Women?

Why Can't Men Love Like Women?:




Why Can't Men Love Like Women?



I was having one of "he can't connect emotionally" conversations. A friend was telling me about her relationship angst over his inability to understand her needs and to talk about his. Even though I'm in research and not therapy, as a psychologist, I get that a lot.



As I listened, a question occurred to me: is she confusing love with the expression of love? In so doing, was she subjecting her perfectly warm and loving significant other to a test he was bound to fail?



Maybe ... men just love differently. To jigger the famous line from Sex and The City; it's not that he's not into you, it's just that the expression gets hung up in the netting of a woman's expectations of expression as proof of existence.



Current research confuses the issue -- particularly the study by Rutgers University biological anthropologist Helen Fisher, whose study of 5,000 American adults found that men are becoming more interested in commitment and attachment, and women are more interested in relationships that allow them a degree of independence.



One might assume that a shift toward commitment and attachment might create a slipstream that would pull along more open and demonstrative emotional communication.



It's an assumption that runs into some formidable limitations imposed by biology. There is more at work here than too many Clint Eastwood movies.



University of Pennsylvania neuroscientist Dr. Ruben Gur says that the same way men and women have different bodies, they have different brains -- with eons of evolution creating distinct wiring. It goes well beyond the formative impact of testosterone and estrogen.



It's a matter of how we're built, he says, not what we learn. And he has the brain imaging to prove it.



Other studies elaborate on the biological link to male-female communication styles. Men are wired to act during times of high emotion, since emotion can lead to violence; there is a shut-off mechanism. He stops talking -- just when women, wired entirely differently, want to talk.



As reported on the Web site Uncommon Knowledge, there may actually even be survival instinct at work. It takes longer for a man's blood pressure and immune system to return to normal after high emotion than it does for a woman.



Research, the site reported, also found that boys were faster to turn off a recording of a baby crying than girls. Simple insensitivity and impatience? Actually, the boys reacted to the crying with a higher release of stress hormones. Boys are more fragile than girls medically and emotionally. Boys are more susceptible to birth defects and developmental disabilities; they are more vulnerable in the womb, with more fetuses lost in miscarriage. As children, they are more easily stressed, which means they cry more when they are upset and have a harder time calming down. And they are more emotionally vulnerable to the ill effects of extreme lack of affection.



Then, too, there is the documented fact that elderly men are much more likely to die after losing a partner than are elderly women.



Such findings point to some serious irony. All these insensitive men are actually more reactive to emotion than women, so they are genetically programmed to avoid it.



This biological Venus-Mars dynamic -- and confusion -- extends beyond the precincts of romantic love.



In my research for my recent book, I found that this confusion extends beyond romantic love. A number of women said they had worked hard to create an emotional connection with their fathers, but failed. Yet, when they described the relationship and the level of interaction, it is clear their fathers cared about them very much.



All of that begs the question "Can't we all just get along?" If we have an appreciation that we are products of our wiring, it should be possible to logically override the programming, and simply give each other what we need.



Psychotherapists know well it's not that easy. One of the many challenges in couple's therapy is that both halves of the couple want "validation" that each partner experiences the other's emotional state, and sees value in the experience. The problem is that means taking an excursion into the head of the other person. Women are often fine with that -- welcome it. Men often don't want their deepest feelings valued -- much less experienced -- by anybody. If knowledge is power, what could be more powerful than knowing somebody's innermost feelings?



For women hungry for the emotional growth of their partners as measured by communication of feelings, it could be an uphill journey, pushing against the great big boulder of biology. When the other signs are good -- reliability, kindness, attentiveness and the rest -- it might mean coming to terms with the fact the love is there, it's just expressed in ways that will be clouded by the mysteries of the male gender.







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