To say: Women, stop marrying down.

[MarriedUpMindset]

Too many women are marrying men with less ambition, less emotional intelligence, less income or less stability, and calling it “love” or “potential.” Then they carry the emotional labour, the life admin, the income gap, the household mental load and quietly burn out while trying to stay “grateful.”

I’m not saying you need a millionaire. I’m saying stop being the upgrade. Stop settling for men who see your strength and success as something to lean on, not rise to.

You don’t need to mother him, teach him how to communicate or drag him toward adulthood. If he’s not already moving through life with direction, respect and maturity, why are you tying yourself to that?

AIBU to think a lot of women’s relationship problems would disappear overnight if they just stopped marrying down?

And it can conquer all.

It really can't. 🙁

I'm more intelligent and organised than my husband, but he's more diligent and conventional. He earns more than me, he's kinder than me, I'm funnier than him. Looks probably about equal. He does a decent share domestically, he changed his career at my request to suit family life, he's choosing to move with me to my preferred place to live. I made him wait years to have kids. He made me wait years for him to learn to bloody drive. I'm crankier and more critical. I'm also less grumpy about domestic chores.

I could go on and on, but hopefully you get the gist. We're two imperfect people who probably would be "on a level" with other people. But I don't see how you can manufacture a relationship where equality is actually the right goal.

Our tough times come from life's adversities - if we were exact equals, we'd be left exposed with the same weaknesses and fallibilities - I think our differences are a strength.

You're lumping together two different things as though they are one.
Marrying someone less wealthy or with less earning potential isn't a problem, as there's no reason a woman shouldn't be the primary earner. Given the GPG, most women do 'marry up' in this way whether they seek to or not, and it hasn't done a lot for our situation, mainly resulting in us putting our own careers secondary to theirs, creating a vicious circle.
Marrying a man inadequate in other ways is obviously not a good idea. However many fail to reveal themselves as such until a family has been created.

I did this OP, and I'm now divorcing. I settled as my biological clock was ticking.
I don't actually regret it though, i have a wonderful DD, STBxH is a good loving dad, but otherwise infuriatingly useless, but not a bad person. I could have found myself in a much worse situation.

It doesn't pay the bills or give you a happy life.

Crucially, Darcy reflects on the error of his ways and apologies unprompted before Elizabeth marries him. I do like to think he's changed.

Also they have servants to darn his socks. They will have very different roles in the household, but I think Elizabeth will accept that as normal for the time.

What I really don't understand is the posters who say "I'm expecting my third baby and my husband is a bastard". I mean, I know contraception shouldn't be entirely the woman's responsibility but it's in her vested interests not to keep having babies with a cunt.

Surely that depends on whether they are a well-mannered, intelligent gas engineer with a couple of staff and a £100k yearly profit, or a rude, dirty bricklayer who earns £150 a day (when he can get work) because he's unreliable and lazy?

It also depends on where you are in life... if you're lazy and smelly then it's a lot harder to marry down than if you're royality!

I think the important things are to share a lot in common - ideally being brought up in similar households in a similar location with similar values and similar political views, work ethic etc etc etc... but then again opposites can attract and different people can compliment each other, so there's no hard and fast rules!

I have to say that as a couple with two degrees, two post-grad qualifications and two professional qualifications between us, I would very much hope that ours study and do well in traditional terms... but I fear that over the coming years and decades the people who do well will mainly be whoever came top of the class at Oxford, plus those tradesmen who have the people skills and work ethic to run successful small businesses. Everyone in between could well end up in a very poor place!

Tell that to any women who married for “love” and thought they could motivate a lazy husband.

Thanks so much for this nugget op🙄

Hard agree. It’s not about money or power but about who you are. In my friendship group the marriages that broke down where the ones where the partnership was unequal. My three beautiful, clever, friends married men who just didn’t deserve them - these men were lazy and entitled, less ‘engaged’, expected to be treated as ‘the master’ of the home, and their professional engineer/pharmacist/journalist wives to obey them regardless of the drinking/gambling/womanising problems. In two cases these women became victims of physical domestic abuse. Lucky for them, because they had good jobs and good friends around them, they were able to leave their awful marriages and are much happier now. Many aren’t so lucky.

I think we need to teach women that they always, always, always, ALWAYS need to make sure that at any given moment, they do not need a fucking man. Move in with him, sure > make sure you have a deposit for a rental and rent saved before you do. Be a stay at home parent if you want > as long as you've saved enough in your personal savings that you can put a deposit down on a new place and pay for childcare at a moments notice. No its not popular. But im absolutely horrified at the situations people voluntarily put themselves in where they are reliant on other people. Never mind 'trusting someone when they promise they will support you', that might have passed 50 years ago but its 2025! Noone younger than say, 50, can seriously be under the impression you marry the first nice boy you meet at school and you stay together forever madly in love. We have such immature attitudes to relationships. And if you dare say 'but, most relationships ending, its a fact of life, not a moral failing, we need to treat it more as part of life not the world ending' you get accused of being miserable or hating men. I love love! I love (one) man! I love that people still fall head over heels! But come on... people still approach relationships in a way where they go about their business like it will never end, when the likelihood is it will?? You wouldnt go to Scotland in October without a raincoat and then panic when it rains.

💯 Too many women on MN are carrying too much dead weight.

50% of people in marriages are "marrying down".

True. My electrician has three kids at independent schools. He knows how to charge, and he’s worth every single penny.

Ah, but there you were - you were in your career, and a demanding one - already.

When I met each of my exes I was young enough to only be starting my career (and they the same - generally at a similar level, or me a bit higher)

Then they pitch the whole 'team work' thing, and you have no kids, so that's fine, I took on the bulk of the stuff 'I was good at' - cooking, organising (not cleaning TBH ;) ), DIY etc. Then kids came along (he was actually the driver of that , although I also wanted children), and 'it was just sensible' that my career took the back seat. Which soon became 'but you're better at it' and 'but if I step back they won't understand' and 'but you have qualifications so I'll never get another job' and before I new it, I was running myself ragged looking after home and kids and trying to keep a career.

It's so easy to fall into - and I'm a stubborn fucker normally! I just thought we were a team. And he thought I was his caddy.

When it comes to trades, I'd happily have a relationship with a tradie - I find general competency very attractive (I'm still a bit mystified what I saw in my ex TBH - he didn't know which end of a hammer to use). Skilled, makes own hours, what's not to love?

Yanbu but unfortunetly so many of us grew up with low self esteem, got bullied off our parents, grew up watching our parents have toxic relationships ect. It really trickles down

We had nice holidays, a nice life, nice clothes a big house ect. But we were surrounded by toxic adults.

I think it's all well and good saying what we need to do, what we should accept ect. But really it starts at home doesn't it and it starts with what we believe we deserve. I had children with an abusive violent man ( i left when they were 8 months old and 2.6 ) and if I had the self love then that I have now, my children would of had a decent father. Instead hes not been allowed by law to see them since 2017.

But nobody taught me how to love myself or accept better for myself. I've had to really learn the hard way and I'm not even sure I have learned as I've just stayed single for 8 years instead.

What we all need to do is make sure our kids grow up with enough self worth and self love that they don't seek it in the wrong people and for us to teach them what an equal relationship is. And for me personally I am raising my son to know how to use the washing machine hoover and how to cook ect

@JamieCannister

Surely that depends on whether they are a well-mannered, intelligent gas engineer with a couple of staff and a £100k yearly profit, or a rude, dirty bricklayer who earns £150 a day (when he can get work) because he's unreliable and lazy?

Nail on the head there. Not all tradesman are the same!!

I think the 18th century called and wants its expectations back.

I could have married "up" for money, but I preferred good conversation, shared values and mutual respect.

The issue is that men are not stepping up as husbands and fathers. Perhaps we should blame their mothers for not teaching them better manners. Whonelse is to blame for the feckless dead weights we all encounter?

Instead of saying Women, stop marrying down, perhaps we should be saying, Mothers, mother your sons properly.

I feel like there might be some rage-baiting going on with the OP, but I do agree. It's why I am single.

Isn't blaming women for men's failings literally the definition of 18th century values? Good old-fashioned misognyistic ones, anyway.

Men set the level in a hetero relationship. They will drag you down or lift you up.
I don’t know why? Probably because men are socialised to prioritise their own needs and women adapt to the men around them for safety and because we’ve been socialised to do so….
Either way, pick a man who will bring you UP to where he is, not drag you down.

Equating a "man in trade" with having "less ambition, less emotional intelligence, less income, less stability" is kind of offensive. The only thing in that list directly affected by a man's job is income, and even that depends on how good he is at the job. Excellent tradespeople can more or less name their price these days.

100% - and as a mother of sons, I'm trying (even the little stuff - like expecting them to manage to get birthday and Christmas presents for each other and me without being repeatedly reminded)

I intend to send mine out into the world able to basically manage a house, wash their clothes (and themselves), cook, pull their weight, pay the bills, and not be a jerk. I hope it works.

It was not a judgement I made.