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?

Oh! A trade isn’t marrying down is it? Some of the most financially comfortable people I know are tradespeople. I thought we were talking attitude not occupation.

My friends dad started off as a builder, made his millions in commercial property and died suddenly not knowing whether or not he had been granted a peerage to the house of lords.

Totally agree with this.

They always say “he changed” but i bet their friends and family members would tell a different story.

Have high standards.

"less ambition, less emotional intelligence, less income or less stability" - realistically it's going to be difficult to find a man who doesn't fall into at least one of those four categories. Different people have different strengths and weaknesses and that's fine!

(I suspect in particular ambition and emotional intelligence are negatively correlated.)

Successful relationships are about making the most of your different complementary qualities, not joining together two clones.

Also to be consistent you'd also have to rule out a man who has more ambition/emotional intelligence/income/stability , because if he's willing to accept the imbalance you clearly share different values, so basically you're stuck with the tiny number of people who are exactly the same as you in all these respects.

It was not a judgement I made.

Think it’s true, not the ambition and money bit. The unable to adult or just generally lazy disrespectful fuckers. I do have to say looking at all the men in my family (including the ones who married in) you kinda knew which ones would be decent husbands and dads without having a deep understanding of their psychology.

So yeah it’s not your fault if he’s an arse but it is your fault if you knew it and married him anyway and then expected him to change. I don’t change unless I realllly have to, so I don’t expect it from anyone else either.

Better that than hooking up with and producing children by a sub-par loser.

I think the crux is that the vast majority of women want to have a baby. They don’t really want to be a single mother, therefore they need a man.
Now the majority of men don’t make great husbands and fathers they really don’t. In most relationships where a woman wants a baby something has to give. That might be that he doesn’t do at least 50% of the childcare or at least 50% of the housework, or he didn’t match his iartner in terms of attractiveness and grooming. Lots and lots of ways in which the woman can be termed ‘better.’
What can a woman do if she wants a baby? Will Mr. Right come along in time? Will he be perfect for her? Before her biological clock runs out. Before he fathers a child with another woman and then becomes much less than perfect.
I’m still shocked at the number of women having children with men who are already fathers. Who have already failed at being fathers. Never mind women settling for men who haven’t shown they will be terrible fathers.
Yet women are criticised for having too high standards. Expecting a partner to meet their level of intelligence, compassion, ambition, pride, cleanliness, attractiveness, thoughtfulness. I actually believe that you should marry someone very similar to yourself. I don’t believe that opposites last, too much friction.

TBH unless yourself or your DH, not as in the poster above, but in general are capable of fixing a boiler/leaking tap or whatever needs fixing/building it's those very trades people they call on to do the job for them.

Why are you cross with me? The disapproval came from her parents, not me and the couple are happy.

Not really. Not when it saddles offspring with a shitshow of a life and a useless “father.”

I did it.
In my case it was poor role models though, and I didn't realise I was marrying down until it was too late. I thought it was normal.
I did leave though, and my life became much better and happier afterwards.

👏

I think this tends to manifest itself in a different way.

It's the women in my family who are largely useless, with the men doing most of the running around, the "shitwork", housework, as well as working full time jobs.

Invariably this is described along the lines of "devoted husband", "family man", or at worst the woman is thought of as being a bit of a princess or hard work, but I don't think it's ever couched in terms of the man having "married down".

There are two individuals I'm thinking of in particular who are just straightforward unpleasant people. They completely domineer their husbands, but their behaviours aren't reserved solely for their spouses, they are "difficult" with everyone. I pity the men for having to put up with it, but the reality is they chose to get involved and chose to stay despite it, so that pity is also limited.

So yes, I agree with some of what OP is getting at, in that if more people had a bit more self-respect they wouldn't permit their partners to trample all over them and take the piss, but that goes both ways.

I think people have different values and needs and different people bring different things to relationships.

I firmly believe that no woman should move in with or marry a man she hasn’t witnessed living as an independent adult for at least a few years. Away from home, either in his own or a shared house, and fully able to do all his own chores, household management, sort his own social life, remember his own family birthdays…

I would never recommend marry for money or not following you heart... but on the other hand we are moving into an increasingly unequal society, more like it was in the 18th century.

Another decade the way we're going, and Farage flogging off the NHS in 2030, and you may well find that people choice is effectively "marry up for money and get decent healthcare" or "don't marry up for money and die very early due to lack of access to basic medicine"

I wouldn’t say marrying a bloke in a trade was marrying down necessarily . It’s more about the man’s attitude to life and willingness to be better.

I would say that if you perceive yourself to be either above or below your partner, you should not be marrying them. And if you perceive people in general to be in this sort of distinct hierarchy then you should not be dating full stop.

Women have traditionally found themselves in pretty awful situations as a result of marrying "up" (scare quotes necessary of course) as well, needless to say.

"Up" or "down" isn't the real key, that's compatibility, and every relationship I know that's foundered has been because the two people involved were INCOMPATIBLE. It was neither one's fault but for whatever reason they decided to overlook it and a shitshow resulted.

Every smart tradesman I know are killing it 🤔

Was it Mae West who said 'I married beneath me, all women do' ?

I am a lesbian. And perpetually single becuase my dating history is shocking. I do not have a fantastic job or a pot load of money, but I do okay, and I have never met a lesbian who is 'higher up' than me in any stakes or even equal. I am not saying they do not exist, I know they do. I just have never found one.

Do the fathers not get any blame here?

Practically everyone told me my DH was "beneath me". We came from very different backgrounds, I grew up in a stable home with both parents, dad had a stable income, mum was a SAHM, they owned their house etc. Went to a good school, did well in my GCSEs. DH grew up with a single schizophrenic, abusive mum, in and out of care, didn't start any kind of education until he was 14. Became a father at 18. Was working in a shop on a YTS.

The only person who was ever supportive of our relationship was my mum. We've been together for over 3 decades now, he's the most stable, emotionally available, loving person I've ever known. A fantastic father, always shared the load (kids are all grown now), both with the kids and the housework, always worked hard, always putting me and the kids first.

It's not always about being similar, it's about the person they are.

You may not have meant it, but it was implied because in your example the clever woman had a happy marriage despite marrying a man in trade.