The average age gap is 2.3 years in North America. Only about 8% of relationships have a 10+ year age gap.
The biggest issue with a large age gap is that your partner will get old and sick faster and will die while you still have many years left. In other words it's less of a problem in the beginning but becomes more of a problem over time.
The best piece of advice I could give is that by the time our in your mid 20s you should be purposefully dating with the goal of marriage. The main mistake women make today is they don't start that process until their late 20s or often their 30s.
Some of the best advice I received was to ask myself, after getting to know the other person at more than a superficial level, "Will he/she be happy with who I am and what I have to offer?"
Of course, I will have already considered this question from my perspective, and if the answer is "No", then there is no point in continuing the relationship.
Let me note that my wife and I celebrated forty years of marriage in June, and we are still happy. We still appreciate my Mom's comment, made about six months after we were married, when she said, "It's a good thing you two married each other so you didn't spoil two normal marriages."
I feel like I just got a message from a parallel universe whenever I read anything Bryan (or anyone else, really) writes about how women are unsympathetic to men who open up about their feelings. I know a lot of women and this has never been my experience. Ever. Every time I have seen another man open up to a woman, or done so myself, the response has always been sympathy, concern, and appreciation. Often the woman sees vulnerability as a sign of trust that indicates the man really values their relationship/friendship. Are women really that scornful of male vulnerability, or is it something like cow-tipping that everyone swears is real even though it doesn't happen or make any sense?
Some theories I have as to why this might be:
1. Age. I'm a millennial, and so are most women I know. It's possible that millennial and Gen Z women are more accepting of male vulnerability than older generations. However, I do know some older women and they behave similarly.
2. Professional bubble: A lot of the women I know are in "helping" fields like teaching and social work. Maybe those professions reward personalities that appreciate vulnerability more.
3. Miscommunication: A lot of the women I know show concern in a very maternal way. It's possible that other men misperceive this as condescension, and therefore thing they have gotten a negative reaction to opening up when they actually have not.
4. Obliviousness: Maybe some women I know actually have behaved scornfully and unsympathetically, but I haven't noticed because they were polite about it.
5. Personality bubble: I know a lot of nerds. It's possible that nerdy women are unusually empathetic and understanding towards male vulnerability (there's certainly a lot of fanfic written by women about men being hurt and vulnerable, and how that makes them extremely attractive). Again, however, the non-nerdy women I know appear to behave the same way.
I'd be interested if anyone else has any other theories, or thinks one of my theories is especially plausible.
RE: Number 5 for Women on Praise: The value of praise and positive reinforcement cannot be over stressed I think. Men will do a lot of stuff to make women happy with them, from drudgery to the highly dangerous and stupid. At the same time, we stop doing things that don't seem to matter. The well runs dry without that positive feedback, so failing to express pleasure over something you liked is not likely to encourage ever greater acts but rather encourage men to just stop trying. As C.S. Lewis pointed out, men see not being selfish as keeping to themselves and not causing problems, i.e. inaction, so if someone doesn't appreciate what we do we tend to just stop. Men don't tend to feel compelled by "you should be doing more" pressure so much as women tend to.
That ties in with point 13 as well: it is easier to thank and praise when it is sincere, so liking who someone is already is more likely to lead to getting more of what you like than trying to mold them from being substandard into what you want.
You don’t specifically mention height but in my experience it is a big deal to women during the dating process but very unimportant during an actual marriage. The great guys who I know that are unmarried are mostly short guys.
Despite being married to a no-Western woman, I'd say your generalization is a bit too broad. My wife is Japanese, because I was there and all the single women I met, save one, were Japanese. The stereotypes aren't true. Anyone who mistakes good manners for subservience may well discover the hard way that there is a difference.
Your points are mostly sensible, but I have to disagree on this: Physical attraction is important. Sure, it may fade over time, and we all wrinkle and spread out over the years. But you have to begin with attraction and passion. Your life will be poorer if you haven't had that.
Never get into a relationship with a lazy person who is looking for an easy life. That one is gender-neutral. Someone has got to cook, every night. Clean, every day (if you have kids) or every week (if its just 2 adults). Someone has to mow the grass and take care of the car. No matter which way you look at it, there is always enough work for 2 fully functional adults, and dragging a lazy person around is a relationship killer.
Good advice among the 14 tips, but #13 is plain wrong. Too many women pretend to be temporarily the kind of gal that their intended wants, i.e., being on their best behavior and acting like an ideal GF instead of themselves. Only after they nail down the BF, do they begin to show their true selves. BTW, I’m a woman, long married.
re: item 7 in your gender-specific advice – I (female) feel very strongly that this is true, wish other women in my extended sphere would internalize it, and have written a blog post on the subject:
The 'Gender-neutral' advice "Give personality a very high priority and looks a low priority." is pure wishful thinking in the case of men's priorities - and against all the evidence; empirical, experiential and literary. A fact that is, in any case, flatly contradicted in Advice Item 10.
Waaay too complicated. A much simpler rule is to just watch how a potential mate treats service people (hotel staff, airline employees, retail salespeople, Uber/cab drivers, etc but ESPECIALLY waiters/waitresses) b/c that's how s/he will be treating you in 6 months.
"Risk of divorce is correlated with increasing age gap."
I've heard this statistic before, and it annoys me. Because the variable of interest isn't the GAP as an absolute value. It's man's age minus woman's age.
Sociobiology clearly predicts that men should prefer younger women; women should tend to prefer, not so much age per se, as things that come with it. We see that pattern all the time.
So I'd expect stability to be maximized at man's age minus woman's age equals two, or four, or six, or something. That's just a hunch and open to empirical correction.
But the empirics is worthless if it focuses on the GAP, thus lumping together man's age minus woman's age equals four (sounds good) with man's age minus woman's age equals NEGATIVE four (odd).
Is there any research on the correlation of age gaps and divorce rates that structures the question competently?
Also, if you are a saver don't marry a spender.
The average age gap is 2.3 years in North America. Only about 8% of relationships have a 10+ year age gap.
The biggest issue with a large age gap is that your partner will get old and sick faster and will die while you still have many years left. In other words it's less of a problem in the beginning but becomes more of a problem over time.
The best piece of advice I could give is that by the time our in your mid 20s you should be purposefully dating with the goal of marriage. The main mistake women make today is they don't start that process until their late 20s or often their 30s.
Some of the best advice I received was to ask myself, after getting to know the other person at more than a superficial level, "Will he/she be happy with who I am and what I have to offer?"
Of course, I will have already considered this question from my perspective, and if the answer is "No", then there is no point in continuing the relationship.
Let me note that my wife and I celebrated forty years of marriage in June, and we are still happy. We still appreciate my Mom's comment, made about six months after we were married, when she said, "It's a good thing you two married each other so you didn't spoil two normal marriages."
I feel like I just got a message from a parallel universe whenever I read anything Bryan (or anyone else, really) writes about how women are unsympathetic to men who open up about their feelings. I know a lot of women and this has never been my experience. Ever. Every time I have seen another man open up to a woman, or done so myself, the response has always been sympathy, concern, and appreciation. Often the woman sees vulnerability as a sign of trust that indicates the man really values their relationship/friendship. Are women really that scornful of male vulnerability, or is it something like cow-tipping that everyone swears is real even though it doesn't happen or make any sense?
Some theories I have as to why this might be:
1. Age. I'm a millennial, and so are most women I know. It's possible that millennial and Gen Z women are more accepting of male vulnerability than older generations. However, I do know some older women and they behave similarly.
2. Professional bubble: A lot of the women I know are in "helping" fields like teaching and social work. Maybe those professions reward personalities that appreciate vulnerability more.
3. Miscommunication: A lot of the women I know show concern in a very maternal way. It's possible that other men misperceive this as condescension, and therefore thing they have gotten a negative reaction to opening up when they actually have not.
4. Obliviousness: Maybe some women I know actually have behaved scornfully and unsympathetically, but I haven't noticed because they were polite about it.
5. Personality bubble: I know a lot of nerds. It's possible that nerdy women are unusually empathetic and understanding towards male vulnerability (there's certainly a lot of fanfic written by women about men being hurt and vulnerable, and how that makes them extremely attractive). Again, however, the non-nerdy women I know appear to behave the same way.
I'd be interested if anyone else has any other theories, or thinks one of my theories is especially plausible.
RE: Number 5 for Women on Praise: The value of praise and positive reinforcement cannot be over stressed I think. Men will do a lot of stuff to make women happy with them, from drudgery to the highly dangerous and stupid. At the same time, we stop doing things that don't seem to matter. The well runs dry without that positive feedback, so failing to express pleasure over something you liked is not likely to encourage ever greater acts but rather encourage men to just stop trying. As C.S. Lewis pointed out, men see not being selfish as keeping to themselves and not causing problems, i.e. inaction, so if someone doesn't appreciate what we do we tend to just stop. Men don't tend to feel compelled by "you should be doing more" pressure so much as women tend to.
That ties in with point 13 as well: it is easier to thank and praise when it is sincere, so liking who someone is already is more likely to lead to getting more of what you like than trying to mold them from being substandard into what you want.
You don’t specifically mention height but in my experience it is a big deal to women during the dating process but very unimportant during an actual marriage. The great guys who I know that are unmarried are mostly short guys.
Despite being married to a no-Western woman, I'd say your generalization is a bit too broad. My wife is Japanese, because I was there and all the single women I met, save one, were Japanese. The stereotypes aren't true. Anyone who mistakes good manners for subservience may well discover the hard way that there is a difference.
Your points are mostly sensible, but I have to disagree on this: Physical attraction is important. Sure, it may fade over time, and we all wrinkle and spread out over the years. But you have to begin with attraction and passion. Your life will be poorer if you haven't had that.
Never get into a relationship with a lazy person who is looking for an easy life. That one is gender-neutral. Someone has got to cook, every night. Clean, every day (if you have kids) or every week (if its just 2 adults). Someone has to mow the grass and take care of the car. No matter which way you look at it, there is always enough work for 2 fully functional adults, and dragging a lazy person around is a relationship killer.
Good advice among the 14 tips, but #13 is plain wrong. Too many women pretend to be temporarily the kind of gal that their intended wants, i.e., being on their best behavior and acting like an ideal GF instead of themselves. Only after they nail down the BF, do they begin to show their true selves. BTW, I’m a woman, long married.
re: item 7 in your gender-specific advice – I (female) feel very strongly that this is true, wish other women in my extended sphere would internalize it, and have written a blog post on the subject:
https://eudai.substack.com/p/the-odds-are-good-and-the-goods-are
The 'Gender-neutral' advice "Give personality a very high priority and looks a low priority." is pure wishful thinking in the case of men's priorities - and against all the evidence; empirical, experiential and literary. A fact that is, in any case, flatly contradicted in Advice Item 10.
Waaay too complicated. A much simpler rule is to just watch how a potential mate treats service people (hotel staff, airline employees, retail salespeople, Uber/cab drivers, etc but ESPECIALLY waiters/waitresses) b/c that's how s/he will be treating you in 6 months.
"Risk of divorce is correlated with increasing age gap."
I've heard this statistic before, and it annoys me. Because the variable of interest isn't the GAP as an absolute value. It's man's age minus woman's age.
Sociobiology clearly predicts that men should prefer younger women; women should tend to prefer, not so much age per se, as things that come with it. We see that pattern all the time.
So I'd expect stability to be maximized at man's age minus woman's age equals two, or four, or six, or something. That's just a hunch and open to empirical correction.
But the empirics is worthless if it focuses on the GAP, thus lumping together man's age minus woman's age equals four (sounds good) with man's age minus woman's age equals NEGATIVE four (odd).
Is there any research on the correlation of age gaps and divorce rates that structures the question competently?
We used to say, if divorced the only thing that matters is does he have a steady paycheck and will he be nice to the kids.