What's so great about commitment?

[carhill]

Crusoe, I don't recall if you've been married, but, regardless, IMO, marriage is something every successful man should commit to, once. Within it, your true commitment to success will be challenged, hopefully supported and, if you're fortunate, be long-lived and fruitful. If you feel any intimacy with women (beyond sexual gratification) I hope you'll give it a try. If you want to wait until, say, 80, that's OK with me. At that age, if you're healthy, it's like shooting fish in a barrel

[Knossos]

Commitment...is that a foreign word?

 

Seriously, commitment is a great idea in theory. In practice, it's rarely...well, practiced. No one stays together anymore unless there is some cost effective reason behind keeping a legal union intact.

 

As for who benefits more in a committed relationship, I think the deciding factor is children. A woman who has children is more likely to benefit from any divorce proceedings because she will usually have primary custody. The man is usually shafted financially as well as emotionally (speaking from the experience my father had after his first marriage).

 

If there are no children involved, then the balance of power shifts to the male. He gets the practical benefits of a committed relationship (hasn't it been proven that married men live longer than married women?) without having to worry about supporting dependents. He can cheat all he wants, and then he can walk away without any guilt when the little woman gets too old/other flaw. (Of course the woman can do this as well. However, from personal observation, it seemed like the marriages that failed were more difficult emotionally for the women than the men. Once a man decides the relationship is over, he's disconnected, remote, somewhere else, even before he tells the woman it's over. Many women are like this, to be fair, but I think it's a learned response based in previous relationships where the man cast them out without a second thought. Reap what you sow, guys).

Edited December 21, 2009 by Knossos

[Crusoe]

Crusoe, I don't recall if you've been married, but, regardless, IMO, marriage is something every successful man should commit to, once. Within it, your true commitment to success will be challenged, hopefully supported and, if you're fortunate, be long-lived and fruitful. If you feel any intimacy with women (beyond sexual gratification) I hope you'll give it a try. If you want to wait until, say, 80, that's OK with me. At that age, if you're healthy, it's like shooting fish in a barrel

 

Yes I have been married, and to be honest I loved it, but I now equally enjoy being alone, it is a lifestyle I am not sure I ever wish to change. My comments on this thread have been based upon many friends, male and female, talking to me of their troubles, regrets, pain and sadness. From where I sit I see an imbalance, and from where I sit I see that imbalance harming society.

You said yourself we have a lot of evolving to do, until that happens, until we can all be honest, fair and equal, we need honest, fair and equal rules.

[DolceVenganza]

I may be late to the party on this post, but I wholeheartedly agree with most if not all of what has been stated by the OP.

 

Many times the strength and pain of a fight has only occurred because of the threat and definition of committment. As the years pass, things we would not tolerate initially become commonplace and regular. Such things as yelling, insulting, belitting, snapping, flipping or excessive drama.

 

It is the comfort or illusion of the guarantee of a relationship (committment) that lulls people into divulging their bad and deep-seated behaviors. "Oh joy, they committed to me, I can unleash the beast, be myself, put my feet up, and reveal the bad side I was hiding for so long so as not to scare them off."

 

I also feel that committment is easy and assumed because it is what people do for comfort. Life without such pathes is what it is, chaotic. By adding the tenets of religion, marriage, carreers, etc, 'the belief in something larger than ourselves,' we can give meaning to life that we otherwise do not have. By following the typical path, we can, in a way, measure our success/failures.

 

I feel it now, like I have been on an invisible treadmill since my childhood became my teenage years. Nearing 30, I feel the outward pressure to get back on track and the inward presence to just follow my fancies as they go.

 

But many relationships falter because we are a society built on feeding the ego. Men and women have access to the kinds of relationships they want, but don't need to have. Men can acquire sex, either through effort or money, fairly easy, and the same with women. The illusion of this access being available forever keeps people single until they come to the relationship of how short and nearly meaningless life is (unless we give it meaning). Then they do committ. Finally, they battle with committment as opportunities arise.

 

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To me, marriage is a symbol of a deeper committment. I witnessed someone proposing and his line to his gf was "i want to love you forever." i hope that is true and that they retain the meaning through and through. Otherwise, I see far too many women and men marrying who ought not to, but alas, it is their choice.