Why do so many women marry or partner up with men that are not thoughtful and not great at showing emotion

[LardLizard]

It’s puzzling me

So many men that don’t seem to be great
Don’t do there share
Aren’t able to express emotion

I know I'm going to get flamed for stating this especially as a guy but I do believe there is some truth in it. I am a pretty sensitive guy, self aware, thoughtful, loyal, shows my emotions, etc.

But women aren't attracted to me because of this. What women say they want and what they actually want in a guy seem to be two completely different things. I know this is a huge generalisation and I have noticed as I've gotten older it is different as a woman moves past her 20s and 30s but often by then it is too late as they have gotten together with someone completely unsuitable for them long term but they attempt to make it work.

Women seem much more drawn to the confident alpha male even if they know him to be completely the wrong guy. You can almost see the attraction in their eyes as they look at him, their eyes sparkle and you just know there is no point even bothering to compete because confidence in a guy seems to trump all other qualities and blinds them to everything else. I've even had what I would consider stable female friends chase after guys for no other reason than the fact he seemed to be attractive to other females because of his confidence, despite everyone knowing he has every other flaw under the sun.

My ex left me for a guy who was a complete racist as well as a criminal past but I as one of my friends said to me 'as he has his own mind with his beliefs - this is what women like whether they admit it or not, not a beta chaser who wants to be a pleaser'. She even said it herself when she dumped me, her words were 'I need to fancy someone more'.

Rich - the trouble with the example you ended with is that people are often attracted to what's different and new. So if you were a "pleaser" it makes sense someone who wasn't would appear exotic in comparison. I've known just as many women cheat on a stoic, "alpha" male with a more sensitive, arty guy because they "understood" them or met their "emotional needs". The author of "Eat, Pray, Love" wrote an article, in fact, about she used this very fact to her advantage to seduce married men: www.nytimes.com/2015/06/28/magazine/confessions-of-a-seduction-addict.html

But it's true confidence is attractive. But there's no reason a guy can't be emotionally mature and confident too. Being a "pleaser" just means you're overstepping the boundary between an acceptable amount of attentiveness and looking after your own needs.

“Women marry men hoping they will change. Men marry women hoping they will not. So each is inevitably disappointed,” said Albert Einstein, and there's a lot of truth in that.

Eh, what?

I think its the choices we make through character, impulse or circumstance that shape the relationships we end up in.
I made ignorant, naive, downright stupid choices at 17 that led me into a relationship that brought nothing but heartache and several years of grinding poverty.
No-one explained to me how it all works. And foolishly, I believed that love could conquer all.
Young women need to be educated about how the world works and about why generally speaking, it works against rather than for the average female.

Plenty of reasons, many just want a man so take any that will have them. Others want the wedding day and don't think of the consequences. Likewise others want children or the money that a man can bring into a relationship. A few may be on best behaviour but if you date long enough before making the commitment of children and marriage then you'll see the real them. Too many rush in with no thought.

Because they feel they can 'change' them,
It's like an MN joke that every twattish husband 'might be autistic'.
Insult to autism actually he's just selfish
It does seem that any man rather than no man is the default position. Women are told they should be grateful.
It is funny that men overestimate their attractiveness, even the really ugly ones, and look for women better than them, they seem insulted when the 40 year old fat ones like me are interested.
Similarly women do the opposite, they go for uglier and behaviourally challenged men because they are expected to be content with less. Very rarely do you see an average woman with an attractive man.

I never thought I could change my x. My parents were also controlling and told me what I thought so the dynamic was unpleasant but familiar and I slipped into it.

The whole cliche about women being foolish enough to believe they can change a controlling/abusive/bad tempered/blamer is annoying.

I know what you mean about men overestimating their own attractiveness though. The men who message me on POF, I know I'm in my forties with two kids and I'm no Cindy Crawford but there are men messaging me who look like they should be in a nursing home (but only if somebody could smuggle in 60 fags a day to them). The men who have good profiles and look healthy, normal, not particularly attractive but not UNattractive, they can do better they think.

A relationship is so ''prized'' that although a woman can find sex with a good looking man easily in order to get a man to commit to her he must be uglier, fatter, older, less dynamic, charismatic....

This is OLD anyway, real life, who knows.

Lots of reasons. Personally I avoid "alpha" males like the plague - loudmouth, aggressive, cocky know-it-alls do absolutely nothing for me. DH is not like that at all and thank god. He has no qualms about looking after me when I'm ill, cooking, cleaning, buying sanpro etc. I think for some women there is an attraction to the "bad boy", which I don't really understand but it definitely seems to be a thing, plus lots of people (women and men) seem very keen to accept any and all behaviours rather than be single.

@ifyouseeritamoreno, I agree, I NOW think that I should have had a baby at 20 and then spent my twenties 'building' my adult self. As it turned out my focus in my 20s was on finding somebody, a 'husband type' so that I wouldn't miss out on love, family, children. I now realise that focus took me away from looking inwards and examining why I was a pleaser and examining the legacy of my parents' parenting on me. I wish I'd had the focus of healing, recovery, optimism, future, finding my path, finding my self earlier but I was just going to work every day and coming home and hoping that somehow miraculously I'd meet a nice man who'd treat me well and that I wouldn't miss out on my opportunity to have a child.

Oh yes, alpha males, no, no.

The type of man who says ''all women are after money'' is the type of man who only recognises that a woman is a woman if she is stereotypically feminine and young - even if he himself is not at all successful, interesting or attractive.

I hate alpha males, dh is sensitive and caring, that's what attracted me to him, however, in my youth I was attracted to 'bad boys' and it always ended badly. I met dh in my 30's and was much more sensible then 😏

IMO low self esteem and the dynamics of the relationships you grew up around are the biggest factors.

I'm quite a confident person and I have standards of how I expect to be treated, I know in myself that if a partner doesn't meet those standards then I'd be absolutely fine on my own and if I did want to find someone else then it wouldn't be very difficult. When I was younger I just assumed that everyone else was the same as me but over time I have realised that it's not the case. I now feel incredibly lucky to be confident and I really value my self esteem. It's the main thing that I hope I can instil in my kids because I realise how much its benefited me in my life.

Actually that is so true it’s very rare to see a very attractive man with an average female .... never even thought about that before

Because at the start it’s not apparent how he is as he’s on his best behaviour (as we all our) and there are no life trials to test the relationship.

Then things gradually slip and by that time you’ve fallen in love and hope it’ll go back to how it was.

A few observations from me

Interesting that this conversation is now edging towards it being about the choices men make. Not about the choices we, women, make. I mean that as a genuine point. Are women destined to be always be passive? We don’t need to pick slacker men and we don’t need to put up with slacker behaviour. The question and quandary is the extent to which we do. Social conditioning and biological vulnerability may be things we can only slowly escape from.

I think a large proportion of women do give more than they take in a relationship. Men seem to be able to maintain their boundaries much more. But I know that it is difficult to resist the opportunity not to take advantage of someone with weak boundaries who lets themselves be dumped on or who is bizarrely controlling.

I try not to base my world opinion on things written on the internet. Too much fakery, fantasy and one sidedness and too little detail and balance. So I don’t really think we learn much from some of the posts on here. In real life most women I know well have eventually picked men that suit them or chosen to be single. I don’t think any of them tolerate slacker behaviour to be honest. But they tolerate things none the less. I think their partner would probably have the same to say because none of these women are paragons of virtue. That being said they are mostly older successful career women who are able to assert themselves in most situations.

To be honest it is the single career women or SAHP I know who tend towards aggressive or passive aggressive behaviour respectively. But that is a very small sample. I think the working mothers or partners have learnt how to be more in control and have established boundaries because they need to. But they are enabled by incomes that afford them the luxury of outsourcing a lot of homemaking.

For me and mine the cliche is reversed. I tend towards rational responses whilst he does emotional intelligence much better. We have gained and learnt a lot from each other because of this. We have become better and healthier people. When it doesn’t work it is an odd clash of anger and intransigence.

I think even the most intelligent women are subconsciously driven to expect less.
Women have depression, they carry on putting the family first.
Men have depression, they put themselves first.
Swap depression for any illness.
Men on here are the ones who have hobbies, time away from the kids, weekends away. They expect when they get home from work that they deserve 'rest'. Most of the time the women are up in the night.
Men are always 'a great father' for doing basic tasks. They 'help a lot' at home when they've simply washed a few pots and put the bin out. Then wifey doesn't mind him going round his mates later.
I wouldn't be proud of the title 'wife' or 'mrs' for the world.
All it indicates is submissive, skivvy, disrespected and basically having your primary role as having to make an entitled man happy at all times and put him first even after you've had kids so they don't 'get PND' which men can't get and are trying to steal the title of just to take something else from women
Of course if you don't do those things then don't be surprised if they have an affair.

And every woman here will say 'my marriage isn't like that we are equal'-but as a woman you are never equal and even if your husband isn't objectively lazy/annoying/abusive, socially you still get the bum deal and he gets the better one. It's the advantage patriarchy brings to all men.

I split with my husband and lived together for 4 months after. We’d told no-one about the split because we wanted to tell the kids first, at the point of new house being available.

I was DONE cleaning up after him, we weren’t even together.

One day FIL came over unexpectedly and I said, on the doorstep, “I’d like to apologise in advance for the state of the kitchen - I’ve been working away all week, and frankly I’ve gone on a work yo rule over it”.

FIL laughed and said “but you knew what he was like when you moved in together”.

No. No I didn’t.

When I was dating him, his house was clean every time I arrived on a planned date. Because he knew that I’d wouldn’t have fucked him in a gross smelly unwashed bed. Then when we lived together he grumbled about me pointing out his share of the housework, but did it. Once our marriage deteriorated to open hostility, he would just leave stuff everywhere. Dirty plates on lounge floor for a week. Passive aggressive (and filthy) cunt that he was. It was a combination of the real him, and him trying to get at me.

I did leave him - but when we got together, trust me, he presented a different man.

Women don’t just stupidly pick arseholes!

@SteakandKidney I’ll be the first then to say “my marriage isn’t like that”

I will say though, that it’s my second marriage and that’s a big part of why!

As others have said initially during the courting stage all is good. Once however they have their feet under the table and there are children in the household most women are trapped and men know it.

I am actually amazed how many women come on here and moan about their men but do nothing about it. Why do you bother with their birthdays when they don't remember yours? Why do you run around after them when they are sick if they don't show the same level of care? Men do it because they are let to get away with it. Men do it because a lot of women think it's the norm and that they should take mother their partners.

Not every woman wants a super confident man, and many find it off-putting! Some do actually prefer quiet men, and you can't always tell which is the confident one. You can tell who the extrovert is, and they're not always desirable.

Society, and in ours, patriarchal society shapes social performance, which more in men than women, hides men's true traits borne out of patriarchal mysogyny, which isn't 'shown' at the start.

Periods of abuse are triggered by certain events, marriage, pregnancy, birth of baby, its a recognised pattern.

It relies on hooking a woman in far enough to get to the point of ties, like in marriage or moving in together. With patriarchy comes the sense of ownership of women/DC.

It's not easy to see at the start, especially for the woman herself as she has a different relationship to him than those on the outside.

We all have flaws, none of us perfect, so discounting abuse in relationships I would say of the others women and men, especially young, are very sensitive to perceived societal norms.

Is everything ok OP?

Agree cupofteaandcake
Double standards, I think borne out of a patriarchy, that men do this, and women, that.
Why men are excused for never sending any of their relatives/friends a single birthday or Christmas card, but if a woman misses out one of his family/friends shes slated for it. Women take on this role, men shirk it.
It's one that always fascinated me as a sister that also has brothers, that I would receive cards from their wives, when I really wanted the sentiment from my brothers.
I hope this is not so prevalent now, with new couples just starting out for the first time that those old traditional roles are dumped.

rich, you say the same thing on all threads which address this — women don’t like nice guys, they like brash macho alpha males — but it’s been pointed out to you very kindly on numerous occasions that you are basing this largely on your experience with one ex you were only in a brief relationship with, and who left you for someone awful, and a subsequent lack of success in dating which is in part down to the fact that you’ve still not moved past your ex in your head.

Just fucking low expectations