Women and Marriage; is it for Love or Money?

Originally posted by dadudemon
He's closer to being correct.

Money is the #1 reason for divorce. Specific reasons are uknown. Still lookin'. (took me five seconds for this first one)

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/35097/top_reasons_people_divorce.html

He said specifically "the number one thing he said that was destructive to a marriage is that the women makes more money and is unhappy that the spouse does not." ... that might be one reason included in money, but it's not the same as the general label "money".

Originally posted by Bardock42
He said specifically "the number one thing he said that was destructive to a marriage is that the women makes more money and is unhappy that the spouse does not." ... that might be one reason included in money, but it's not the same as the general label "money".

"He's closer to being correct"...was not optimal...because I didn't specify that what it wa relative to.

I meant to say "he's close to being correct."

My bad.

I didn't look after posting that post. I just don't care enough. If someone else is willing to looke further, he can either be pwnt or vindicated. I highly doubt his reason is correct because that is a rather specific problem that doesn't occur very often. It's probably closer to who controls what money or something.

Originally posted by dadudemon
"He's closer to being correct"...was not optimal...because I didn't specify that what it wa relative to.

I meant to say "he's close to being correct."

My bad.

I didn't look after posting that post. I just don't care enough. If someone else is willing to looke further, he can either be pwnt or vindicated. I highly doubt his reason is correct because that is a rather specific problem that doesn't occur very often. It's probably closer to who controls what money or something.

I know the majority of my married male friends are up to their eyeballs in student loan debt and have a good decade or two of hard work ahead of them to pay it off. I would say that about half of them are going to be working in high paying jobs as a result of their education and the other half are going to have a harder time paying off those loans because they're working in fields where the rewards are more intellectual and emotional than financial. Of my female friends I would say that all of them have married beneath their own financial standing.

I would guess that the reason money is mentioned as a problem in so many marriages is because most people in this country, and in the world for that matter, are not rich. By averages money is going to be an issue for the majority of people because most don't have very much. However, I can honestly say that of the divorces with which I am familiar (my mother and step-father, my friend's parents and even a few of my peers who got married earlier than most) the problem was not money but the emotional differences the couple had from the beginning.

Originally posted by Bardock42
You are obviously right that her "evidence" is just as anecdotal as yours...but "she did it, too" doesn't make what you said any better, now does it?

Enough of this B.S. Bardock.

On Page 1 you used the password to Sanctuary's account to spam Stoic's opening statement.

Page 2 You lashed out when I quoted text of you using the sock as evidence.

Page 3 Questioning the Integrity of Established Members.

You've Earned a Warning.

Originally posted by shiv
Enough of this B.S. Bardock.

On Page 1 you used the password to Sanctuary's account to spam Stoic's opening statement.

Page 2 You lashed out when I quoted text of you using the sock as evidence.

Page 3 Questioning the Integrity of Established Members.

You've Earned a Warning.

A cousin of mine is one of the people who sets interest/Lending rates in a Large Multinational bank. Her husband is a Physical Education Teacher.

Both are incredibly down to earth and bring the best out of each other.

For about 5 years in a row my Dad's business came close to collapsing. But his Wife kept him going financially.
I still think my Dad's Superman and I think of my Stepmom as my own Mother.

I've seen them arguing but its mostly over taking too long to put on make up and stuff.

My Godfather went through a phase when all his assets were possessed His wife watched his back. I don't think he's ever recovered but they have kids and a life together so something like money isn't gonna kill their relationship now.

Originally posted by Devil King
I know the majority of my married male friends are up to their eyeballs in student loan debt and have a good decade or two of hard work ahead of them to pay it off. I would say that about half of them are going to be working in high paying jobs as a result of their education and the other half are going to have a harder time paying off those loans because they're working in fields where the rewards are more intellectual and emotional than financial. Of my female friends I would say that all of them have married beneath their own financial standing.

I would guess that the reason money is mentioned as a problem in so many marriages is because most people in this country, and in the world for that matter, are not rich. By averages money is going to be an issue for the majority of people because most don't have very much. However, I can honestly say that of the divorces with which I am familiar (my mother and step-father, my friend's parents and even a few of my peers who got married earlier than most) the problem was not money but the emotional differences the couple had from the beginning.

Anecdotal paradox:

I am paying down my debts down and off while going to college.

When I go to graduate school, I will have less debt then than I do now. 😐

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Originally posted by Burning thought
Depends on the person, generally I would say it goes like this but there are sometimes the rare person who goes on Love but:

-Children, this is the first thing on their minds and Marriage is usually a stepping stone towards it.

-if their young, its simply street cred/brag rights, brag to their friends that they have marriage etc etc, "damn I bet your jelous that ime married" same thing could be for children, but marriage is the case of this thread.

-Money is indeed important, because this links in with children, they often want to spoil the child rotten and be able to buy whatever they want for it and themselves, this is especially selfish kind of women who makes a guy into a credit card, ignoring the fact that a guy who doesnt mind being treated like this is using her as a sex bag.

It depends on age as well, younger girls may be leaning towards brag rights and material possessions, older may be for other things. Many of the reasons are linked to children, brag rights etc

reality: it's all about the cash flow.

even if you're not a millionaire, the girl wants to see if your making money.

Originally posted by Dr. Leg Kick
way off.

reality: it's all about the cash flow.

even if you're not a millionaire, the girl wants to see if your making money.

pffffffffffffft

as if those baby makers are smart enough to understand cash dynamics. 🙄

Originally posted by dadudemon
No worries.

Also, I agree that it is describing subjective experience based on nerurology. (Your other way around.) The love "mind-state" is measureable.

Here's one...not quite on point with what I was getting at:

"“Brain areas activated when someone looks at a photo of their beloved only partially overlap with the brain regions associated with sexual arousal,” said Arthur Aron, one of the authors from the State University of New York-Stony Brook. “Sex and romantic love involve quite different brain systems.”

Specifically, the scientists found that “love” activated the right ventral tegmental area (VTA) and dorsal caudate body of the brain, which are regions associated with motivation to win a reward. According to another author, Lucy Brown of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, this may explain why romantic love can feel like such a driving factor. In addition, this association may help us understand why depression, murder, and suicide are so strongly related to rejected love."

http://www.jyi.org/news/nb.php?id=274

Ah, here's a much longer versions:

""Male brain - female brain
In their work with the lovestruck, the scientists found brain differences between men and women.

"The men had quite a bit more activity in the brain region that integrates visual stimuli. This isn't surprising considering that men support the porn industry and women spend their lives trying to look good for men," says Dr. Fisher.

But she adds there's probably a more anthropological reason at work. Simply put: A man's evolutionary mission is to spread his seed. That won't work if he mates with an 80-year-old grandmother.

"Men have to be able to size up a woman visually to see if she can bear babies," says Dr. Fisher.

The women's brain activities were a bit more puzzling.

The scientists found that women in love had more activity than men in the areas of the brain that govern memories. Dr. Fisher theorizes that this is a "female mechanism for mate choice." There are no visual clues for whether a man is fertile, but if a woman really studies a man and remembers things about his behavior, she can try to determine whether he'd make a reliable mate and father.

Thus, if it sometimes seems like a woman remembers everything -- good and bad -- about a man, "it's not just her being picky. It's an old Darwinian evolutionary strategy."

What's love got to do with it?

In the end, Drs. Fisher and Brown say what they learned from lovers' brains is that romantic love isn't really an emotion -- it's a drive that's based deep within our brains, right alongside our urges to find food and water.

"This helps explain why we do crazy things for love," says Dr. Brown. "Why did Edward VIII give up the throne for Wallis Simpson? The systems that are built into us to find food and water are the things that were also active when he renounced the throne of England."

Now their research is centered on the flip side of love. They've recruited college students who'd just been rejected by their sweethearts. Again, the scientists performed MRI's while these students looked at photos of the objects of their affection.

This time, the results were different, Dr. Brown says. The insular cortex, the part of the brain that experiences physical pain, became very active.

"People came out of the machine crying," she said. "We won't be doing that experiment again for a long time."

This is what I was talking about.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/02/14/love.science/index.html

I'm trying to find a medical source with all of that delicious science stuff and not the digested versions.

Alas, I am too lazy to continue.

We can be sure that that study and the interpretations of data are not the end all be all of what "love" is. But it brings us closer to an understanding.

Both of what you posted are news media reports of this study:

http://homepage.mac.com/helenfisher/Sites/030606articles/Article_final_JRS_06.pdf

Largely what I suspected to be true was. Namely, the jargon used by you to describe what is going on misses the nuance of the neuroscience that is being reported on (not your fault, the news media itself is is terrible at reporting science). Also, the report is a meta-analysis, meaning that there is no new research being presented. That is fine, though subject to certain problems normally not associated with research papers (again, the media missed that entirely, and I'm also not saying anything about the paper being wrong).

We pretty much agree on everything. In the paper, love is described as a subjective interpretation of activation in an "attraction system" reinforced through dopamine. We can split hairs about how to phrase how that refers to love, but largely I get what you are saying, and you aren't "wrong" (lol, love the ego, eh?).

I want to take you up on something you mentioned before. You said "Love is just a chemical reaction" or something to that degree. I think this study is actually evidence against that. I'll try to explain, but this is sort of needlessly complex.

So, to begin with, everything is just a chemical reaction. What you are seeing and how you feel and every movement you make and your interpretation of how far away an object is, EVERYTHING is a chemical reaction in the brain. If love were a chemical reaction, that would make it identical in all ways to everything else that people are.

Now, look at something like pain. Pain is a chemical reaction (when you feel pain there is something going on in the brain) however, there s no measurable way to say "there is activation here, thus this person is in this much pain". This is because pain is subjective. You can feel pain even if you have been anesthetized, and you can not feel pain when you clearly should (like if you slice open your toe and don't notice for 10 min, but when you do it wont stop hurting). So, researchers are able to look at the brain of a person and see activation indicating that the person is suffering from something that would indicate that receptors in the skin are responding in a pain type fashion, however, that gives no indication about how much pain a person would be in subjectively (this is actually a major obstacle in animal research). The affect of marijuana on a person is similar. I know you like to imbibe occasionally, so this will probably make sense. When you get stoned, subjectively there is a sense of relaxation. However, physically, your autonomous nervous system jumps into action. Your heart rate increases, you become more anxious (why pot is bad if you are having an anxiety attack, or being high makes things more likely to trigger anxiety attacks), but you don't have the subjective experience of these things happening (most of the time).

When I say love is not chemical, this is what I am referring to. Yes, there is an attraction system that activates based on contextual conditions etc. And you can measure the activation in that system, however, that measure will give you no idea whatsoever about the subjective "love" experience of the person, and is actually why I'm a little resistant to refer to it as a "love" state of mind.

Also, as I was saying before, knowing that love is a chemical reaction tells us nothing about love anyways, given that everything you know and experience and do is a chemical reaction in the brain. What activates each person's attraction system is going to be unique. While things like "motherly" or "good provider" may form sort of abstract categories for generalization, each individual is going to have in their memory a different personal experience with what a motherly person is or what a good provider is. There may be genetic disposition, but the huge variety of people and of people who get married show that this is highly non-specific at best. Also, the adage or men marry people like their mothers and women their fathers (not entirely untrue either) gives good reason to believe that what makes the ideal mate is something learned from experiences with one's own parents.

Sort of circumventing all of this, however, is the story of toilet training. In the wild, the evolutionary ancestors of man lived in trees, where, in comparison, the evolutionary ancestors of cats and dogs lived on the ground. Dogs and cats can be house trained in very little time, because evolutionarily, an animal living on the ground would HAVE to be mindful of their own waste, and would have to learn ideal places to defecate and urinate. Tree dwellers, on the other hand, would have no such need. Their food and living quarters is high off the ground, and their waste falls to the ground as well. Thus, there is no genetic disposition for humans to use toilet facilities, and total genetic disposition for us to just crap where ever we want (as I'm sure you know, given you have kids 🙂). However, with intensive behavioural manipulation, we can teach kids that, almost instinctively, they need to use the bathroom when they go potty (running out of synonyms for "taking a shit"😉. This line of evidence shows that genetic dispositions are highly subject to modification in people. Meaning that, if there are any things that naturally are supposed to activate our "attraction system", they can be overridden by life experience.

and I'll leave it at that.... probably a TLDR anyways..

Originally posted by Dr. Leg Kick
way off.

reality: it's all about the cash flow.

even if you're not a millionaire, the girl wants to see if your making money.

whats way off? i feel I basically mentioned what you said anyway, that the women wants some cash...I simply outlined reasons for it, and child support is one of the high ones.

No one has any money today, soooooooo better do it for love.

well...Bill gates may have something to say about that 😛

Originally posted by Deja~vu
No one has any money today, soooooooo better do it for love.

hmmm.... you're a women correct? Would you be able to love, and marry "someone" that was poor without feeling regret later?

Whooo boy! I feel like I just set myself up for corrective action, but I am just so curious about what your answer will be, that caution has been thrown out the door.

Be honest ok.

lol

OMFG

"gee, could a woman ever love someone who wasn't taking care of them as some sort of dependent? Could a woman be financially independent from her husband and still love him?"

c'mon

Originally posted by inimalist
Both of what you posted are news media reports of this study:

http://homepage.mac.com/helenfisher/Sites/030606articles/Article_final_JRS_06.pdf

Hey, I tried. But the cnn one did have direct quotes from Fisher, though.

Originally posted by inimalist
Largely what I suspected to be true was. Namely, the jargon used by you to describe what is going on misses the nuance of the neuroscience that is being reported on (not your fault, the news media itself is is terrible at reporting science).

What are you talking about? What jargon? This is your second mentioning of this jargon. 🙁

Originally posted by inimalist
Also, the report is a meta-analysis, meaning that there is no new research being presented.

I'm not sure what you're talking about. If the 17 people measured was a metanalysis, I'm quite confused and don't understand what a metanalysis is. If you were referring to the huge amount of quotes and almost nostalgic dialogues paying homage to other studies and writings of other people, I wouldn't necessarily consider that a metanalysis either. It seemed more like a dissertation or general intellectual discussion on the subject matter. It wasn't approached as being a metanalysis when it was written and I don't believe it was intended as such either.

Originally posted by inimalist
That is fine, though subject to certain problems normally not associated with research papers (again, the media missed that entirely, and I'm also not saying anything about the paper being wrong).

Your words confuse me further. The media missed what? It was rather straight forward. 17 "in-love" MRI tests.

Originally posted by inimalist
We pretty much agree on everything. In the paper, love is described as a subjective interpretation of activation in an "attraction system" reinforced through dopamine. We can split hairs about how to phrase how that refers to love, but largely I get what you are saying, and you aren't "wrong" (lol, love the ego, eh?).

LOL. I see. Cool.

It wasn't about me being wrong. It was simply citing a study that shows "in-love" is programmed into humans to further the survivability of our species. True that the conscious interpretation of "in-love" is very much subjective and it delves into an area that I am not relatively familiar with (I'm rather weak in psychology.), but that doesn't mean that there aren't commonalities between the "in-loves" that can't be measured and found consistent. Which was my point earlier. We're just animals and we jump through evolutionary loops that nature has set for us a long time ago. (which goes back to my original point in the thread.)

Originally posted by inimalist
I want to take you up on something you mentioned before. You said "Love is just a chemical reaction" or something to that degree. I think this study is actually evidence against that. I'll try to explain, but this is sort of needlessly complex.

I read ahead. Everything you said is correct but it isn't what I was meaning when I said that.

What I was referring to was our addiction to the chemicals/hormones released when we are "in-love". Dopamine, brought up by yourself, is a major example. I was referring to humans having a chemical addiction to the love state. I wasn't trying to say that we are p-zombies running on chemical whims; or, in other words, just plain old chemical meatbags. That isn't nearly romantic enough, imo. I'd like to think that the whole is greater than the sum of our parts, if you know what I mean. I'm not talking religion, either. I'm talking about real sentience which doesn't require god to be part of the equation.

Originally posted by inimalist
So, to begin with, everything is just a chemical reaction...

...

The affect of marijuana on a person is similar. I know you like to imbibe occasionally, so this will probably make sense.

Sorry, man, if I gave the wrong impression. I've never smoked marijuana nor have I ever been high. I would most certainly LOVE for marijuana to be legal, though. I would get a prescription and smoke during the summer. (because that's when my allergies act up the least.)

Anyway...tangent.

Also, I meant no disrespect with my trimming your post...just saving space. I do it later on too.

Originally posted by inimalist
When you get stoned, subjectively there is a sense of relaxation. However, physically, your autonomous nervous system jumps into action. Your heart rate increases, you become more anxious (why pot is bad if you are having an anxiety attack, or being high makes things more likely to trigger anxiety attacks), but you don't have the subjective experience of these things happening (most of the time).

I thought that the physical manifestations were quite variable. Meaning for some, heart rate decreased. Some sweat more, some sweat less. Some get excited and more energetic, some calm down (though, generally, it is a depressant). Etc. etc. so on and so forth. With this "love" study, brain activity was measured. I don't want to go as far as to say it was universal, but I would say that the data was quite solid.

Originally posted by inimalist
When I say love is not chemical, this is what I am referring to. Yes, there is an attraction system that activates based on contextual conditions etc. And you can measure the activation in that system, however, that measure will give you no idea whatsoever about the subjective "love" experience of the person, and is actually why I'm a little resistant to refer to it as a "love" state of mind.

Cool.

Well, it's not just a love state of mind...if you were referring to brain activity alone. There's also that plethora of chemicals associated with being in love that is consistent among humans.

Originally posted by inimalist
Also, as I was saying before, knowing that love is a chemical reaction tells us nothing about love anyways, given that everything you know and experience and do is a chemical reaction in the brain.

Sort of..but not really. I think we're arguing apples and oranges again.

Yes, these chemicals tell us a great deal about being in love. They don't tell me nearly as much as a pharmacologist, though. lol

When specific chemicals(hormones) can be measured and behavior correlated to that chemical, it is only compounded to a holistic level when we deal with multiple elements (again, hormones) being associated with a set of stimuli. Example would be a sexy ass women flirting with you when she was wearing clothing your found appealing while wearing a perfume that you found appealing (even if you didn't realize it at the time.)

Dr. Fisher has even stated that the colognes and perfumes we select are selected to augment our own set of smells that function in attracting a mate. This is related to immune systems and producing the best immune system in offspring. Though that is a bit out there and it may even be an antiquated behavior we perform due to our waning pheromone system, it may hold some sort of mate selection plausibility.

Are you getting a better feel for where I was going with this now?

Originally posted by inimalist
What activates each person's attraction system is going to be unique.

I agree.

Originally posted by inimalist
While things like "motherly" or "good provider" may form sort of abstract categories for generalization, each individual is going to have in their memory a different personal experience with what a motherly person is or what a good provider is. There may be genetic disposition, but the huge variety of people and of people who get married show that this is highly non-specific at best. Also, the adage or men marry people like their mothers and women their fathers (not entirely untrue either) gives good reason to believe that what makes the ideal mate is something learned from experiences with one's own parents.

All very interesting. I must say that I've never heard that adage.

Also, according to the work done by Fisher and her peers, men choose their sexual partners more based on visual queues than things of a psychological origin. I'm not referring to just the MRI study. Some of the other items was covered in my thread about sexual attraction.

Originally posted by inimalist
Sort of circumventing all of this, however, is the story of toilet training...they can be overridden by life experience.

I must say that I have never heard or studied that shitting example from any anthropologist. Very interesting. I can assume that that is not your original thought, but if it's not, cheers for being an ubertastic intellectual. I'll let you tell me before I start sucking your dick too much that...lol

However, your line of thought is becoming more tangential with this last one.

I was originally talking about a women trying to find or attract a man, based on her evolutionary programming: something or somethings held in common among the genders that can be observed occurring in the highly social species known as humans. That's what I was talking about.

Originally posted by inimalist
and I'll leave it at that.... probably a TLDR anyways..

I read it, but I didn't feel like typing out a response. I was rather busy lately. Finished most to all of my homework for the week earlier today so I had time.

One of these days....we'll meet up and share a bowl. These conversations never grow dull.

The gold digger stereotype pissing me off because no one ever mentions the other side of it. Rich guys date young attractive women because they are just that, young and attractive. Isn't that the same as women dating rich men? They're both getting something out of the deal so its fair.

Originally posted by cococryspies
The gold digger stereotype pissing me off because no one ever mentions the other side of it. Rich guys date young attractive women because they are just that, young and attractive. Isn't that the same as women dating rich men? They're both getting something out of the deal so its fair.

The men's motive is usually love.

Where as the women aren't concerned with their looks, nor any other kinds of emotionss.

Originally posted by Bada's Palin
The men's motive is usually love.

Where as the women aren't concerned with their looks, nor any other kinds of emotionss.

You're kidding right?