Woman, what is your role in dating?

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You do realize that when you plan for divorce or separation, you make it inevitable, don't you?

Pragmatically it is wise to take your time merging lives and eliminating options, but if you can't trust at some point that the person you are with is the one you will be staying with, then why get involved at all? There is no such thing as having the best of both worlds, one foot in and one foot out.

Sigh. Maybe my age and religion are showing, but I believe in commitment. It makes both people stronger. MUCH stronger. I can't even begin to figure out how to explain it to someone who doesn't believe in it.

To be sure, we didn't rush anything. But we are 100% committed, and that got us through some pretty rough patches. So much would have been lost if we hadn't believed in trying to get through those together.

More direct to the topic of the thread, our roles in the relationship have changed often. They change when you have kids. They change when one spouse goes through health issues. They change when one spouse hates his job and abruptly quits to avoid a breakdown. Life throws things at you, and it is good to be able to roll with it, with each person stepping into the most suitable roles for the current situation. Not all couples can do that, because sometimes the skills fall too clearly on one spouse, but I married a man where part of our yin and yang is that we are both able to make money or care for kids or care for the house, and so on, even though some of those roles may not be our favorite. Maybe we instinctively knew that we were each going to need that.

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Many years ago, probably in the early 1990's, I saw an article on financial planning for women. I was curious, since I couldn't understand how financial planning would be different based on gender, especially in modern times. In reading the article, I saw no surprises, except one - the author advised "When you plan for marriage, plan for divorce." She went on to support her advise by citing the high divorce rate and significant consequences. Further, she said time and time again people make the mistake of planning like their marriage will actually work, so they neglect a dissolution plan.

Well, if it was in a women's magazine it must be true... sorry, I couldn't help being sarcastic.

I'm not married, so I don't have any experience to offer, so I probably shouldn't comment, but I am looking for someone who is interested in commitment and I agree with DWaMom.

I agree with both. What SoftwareEngineer points out is what prenuptial agreements are for. A good precaution in case one partner is driven insane over the course of the relationship. On the other hand I agree with DW_a_mom because I want a more entangled attachment than the minimum.

Thank you DW for a different way to approach the problem. I would prefer the equality role if it could be called that. I do something nice for you then you do something nice for me, I ask you out on a date then you ask me out. A role where you are mutually treated and taken care of.

Thank you hurtloam for your continued interest in this thread and your point of view on expectations. Not as cold as Sheldon and Amy but the general idea is right. It stops people from making mistakes. How can you have a commitment without a contract? Without it then the commitment is presumed, a delusional fantasy that one partner possesses and the other may not. It?s why you can suddenly walk in and find your partner having sex with someone else. Or pursue someone for years only to find out upon moving in together that they are not who you thought they were because they lied. It?s why you can reach a certain level of comfortability with someone and then they just stop trying to be nice to you because there is nothing demanding that they do so as there is no accountability. It confuses me why anyone would not want a contract to govern events.

Thank you rdos, I found what you said quite interesting. I know I have abandonment issues and thus attachment issues perhaps this is where my problem lies. My fear of abandonment demands an assuredness of attachment that the typical person simply does not require to reach the same emotional state of comfortability. Hurtloams response on her expectations supports this theory.

Thankyou to everyone else who has responded.

I'm finding this thread helpful in sorting out my own thoughts about what I'm looking for.

Generally people refer to this contract as "marriage" they get a marriage certificate as far as I'm led to believe. I genuinely think you are raising some good points here. It stresses the need to have an open conversation with your partner about what you expect from the relationship and to get them to express in turn what they are looking for. I think alot of people neglect this and are so wrapped up in the idea of love that they forget the practical aspects of their relationship and then get disillusioned when love isn't enough to help them when real decisions come into play like where to live, what if one person gets a job in a far away town, will they move? Will they have children? What are the financial priorities?

I think people should talk about these things when dating and work out if they are compatible for each other before making a commitment.

I thought "I give it a year" was a bit of a rubbish film, but it was good from the perspective of exploring the relationship of 2 people who got tangled up in love and rushing into a marriage without discussing the more importand every day things.

Roles are to a great extent a convention.

The archtype where the man fights, provides food, makes tools, and the woman has babies, cooks, gathers, makes the home was a division of labor thats origins go back many 100,000s if not millions of years. It was a practical approach based around child bearing and designed for survival of the species.

But it was just that, a method of dividing the labor to make the team more efficent for propagating the species.

As far as courtship rituals go, in all 200 primate species the female selects the mate. The two identified selection criteria proposed from studies are that the female find the male attractive and possess some different DNA. This last is believed to have occurred as diversity in DNA is advantageous health-wise.

This is just some backround as to how things developed. The situation is changed now.

Btw, what does blahdeblah mean?

This is also for hurtloam.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 204845.htm







Here you go, hurloam, this is an economical exchange at work.



Ha!! This rings a bell, most of the threads in dating sites about someone wishing to have a second date with the same person is usually created by a male. Males overthink a lot whether their date wants to see them again, and they try hard to contact the female despite the non-interest hints from her.

Another study about Jordanians:
http://www.uk.sagepub.com/ciel/study/ar ... rticle.pdf
Although this study is limited to a specific culture, the conclusion says it adds support to the validity of previous international findings on mate selection (the biggest cultural difference tho was the importance of religiosity and attitude toward divorcee women).

No, nothing has changed. That is why Aspie males have a hard time getting a relationship. People still play these ancient courtship rituals, whether feminism acknowledge it or not.,

That's also why playing the neurodiverse courtship ritual will weed-out incompatible NTs. If everything was culture, this would not be possible.

I think in view of the studies presented we can draw the conclusion that I am a hopeless romantic, glass half full kinda gal.

It's funny you should mention this as I was thinking about it today. In my social circles it seems there are more single women than there are single men. I have no idea how this odd scenario has come about, but this is the fact of my life. I have come to wonder if this is the norm. Talking to men on here has been an eye opener for me. The view that women have the choice of loads of men is so contrary to my life. I feel like I am an odd, quirky girl, competing with a load of normal looking people.

Last edited by hurtloam on 09 Jun 2014, 8:10 am, edited 1 time in total.

I forgot to add earlier in this thread that I do like bouquets of flowers, although some women don't (I just don't expect to get them is all) But I am not interested in jewelry at all. I hardly ever wear any.

So I think that highlights how women need to be treated as individuals and there is not a one size fits all scenario when dating.

Chocolates are always good though whether you are male or female

I can only hope to be fortunate enough to meet someone like this. My experience is that commitment is a four letter word to most women I meet. As I see it, if I see the need a pre-nup for any reason, she isn't Wife material. Still doesn't mean I wouldn't pack away some savings for an emergency though: you never know what life can throw at you. What do I know though I am woefully inexperienced compared to most men as Aspies usually are.


Well, in my case I absolutely despise chocolate and consider it the single worst food imaginable. I hate the smell and I get physically sick just at the sight of it. I would rather eat an ashtray than chocolate. Maybe that's why I don't get too many second dates

hurloam, the contradictions in yourself are laughable . You claim you are hippie, you claimed that you don't care about job/car and care much more about personality and intelect , yet at the end the one who caught your eyes is...well, the stereotypical successful and social man, not your intellectual colleagues. The fact that you are mentioning job and car means that these are important into your mate selection considerations.

I was like Awww when I saw you reply in that other thread (about the fiance gift), I found it cute and ideal but.... hmm.. is that really what you go for in real life? :Lol:
knew right away that the OP is Middle Eastern btw. http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp6093801.html#6093801


This guy you are talking about is most probably in the third of men category.

It's mathematical impossible that there are more single women than single men, if the gender ratio is 1:1. The best explanation of your social circle is that single women befriend each other more often than with women in relationships.

hurloam, the contradictions in yourself are laughable . You claim you are hippie, you claimed that you don't care about job/car and care much more about personality and intelect , yet at the end the one who caught your eyes is...well, the stereotypical successful and social man, not your intellectual colleagues. The fact that you are mentioning job and car means that these are important into your mate selection considerations.

I was like Awww when I saw you reply in that other thread (about the fiance gift), I found it cute and ideal but.... hmm.. is that really what you go for in real life? :Lol:
knew right away that the OP is Middle Eastern btw. http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp6093801.html#6093801


This guy you are talking about is most probably in the third of men category.

It's mathematical impossible that there are more single women than single men, if the gender ratio is 1:1. The best explanation of your social circle is that single women befriend each other more often than with women in relationships.

I think we mean different things. By the situation has changed I mean the environment, those forces that drive evolution, such as weather, flora and fauna, food, security. Men and women have always been essentially interchangeable in most roles and never more so then now, when besides a period of time around childbirth, men or any other partner can effectively raise children. This is what feminism has been doing these last decades is proving that. The typical man, no longer fights, no longer hunts, and gets his tools from a store. A woman, in the form of a modern job may be more effective in providing food and shelter.

What has complicated the situation is that Humans are not only shaped by their environment but have learned to shape the envirionment to suit themselves. This ability is part of what made Homo Sapiens Sapiens so successful and the dominant life form.

But for several decades at least we have known the approach is unsustainable. We breed too much, the resources are running out, our destruction of the other life forms comes back to bite us, and now even the weather changes.

So I would say yes, the situation has changed dramatically.

^ True, and very true about the interchangeable roles, studies proved that men's testosterone levels decrease during parenting phases, less T. means less sex drive, more loyalty, more genle to child play..etc, this is a strong evolutionary evidence that our male ancestors were involved in parenting and raising children.

As for regarding changing environment, technology and sciences are very recently developed on the evolutionary scale, hence its impact on our dna composition is still barely visible.


Off topic: This discussion reminds me of an incident at school, I was 14 and there was that Arabic literature teacher who was strongly Creationist, and she said that Darwin's theory is full of bull because Ancient Egyptian drawings proves that humans looked the same back then, I facepalmed and the teacher asked me about my reaction and summoned me to the board to explain myself, so while on board I drew a long horizontal line and said "Ms, this is the age of Earth", then I drew a small dot at the end of line "and this is the whole known human history", she got very very angry , she requested to punish me for my "blasphemy" but luckily the admin refused her request because it's a secular school.