Transcription
Don't judge a book by its cover. Look before you leave. Money is not going to make you happy. Don't follow the crowd. These are just some of the many, many, many lessons that people try to teach us that are really quite unteachable.
When we're young, and we hear these things, and we think, yeah, maybe that applies to you, but I'm not so sure that it applies to me. I believe that I can avoid all the pitfalls and not step on the mines that you did. Just because your life sucks doesn't mean my life is going to suck. I can live my life by my own rules. I don't need all of this wisdom that you pretend to give to me.
Anyway, fast forward a few decades, and suddenly all this wisdom starts to make some sense to you. It's like, wait a second, somebody tried to warn me about this. I remember, I remember, "Don't marry the prettiest girl." I remember someone saying something like that. Don't judge a book by its cover. Don't pursue money. Don't try to find happiness in things. All of that stuff was, uh, was given to you for free if you were listening. Oh, but very few of us actually listen to that stuff. It's not until we get a lot older and we have a lot more experience does any of that stuff start to make sense, and then we become the source of all this wisdom. We try to tell people, "Oh, let me tell you about relationships. Let me tell you about marriage. Let me tell you about jobs and careers and money and things."
Anyway, today we're going to talk about why more experienced—we'll call them not old, we're not going to call them old men—older men, more mature men—I'm going to say why more experienced men are not lining up to take that vow, to give that commitment, to get married. So let's talk about it. CU. I think that this is a very good topic.
I would argue that the best thing about getting older is the accumulation of experience. In fact, I think that life really is about just exactly that: it's the accumulation of experience. Now, it's just not experience for experience's sake. I think you actually have to accumulate wisdom with it. So maybe I should alter that a little, a little bit. It's about the accumulation of wisdom. But unfortunately, it's been my experience that without experience, wisdom does not come very easily. Too often times I've been told in my own life the right path forward, and I've been given some very sage advice by people who had my best interest at heart, and I ignored it, and I, um, went down that same path, and I discovered exactly why they had come up with that sage advice.
Now that I'm older and I look back on it, I wonder, was there any way for me to have listened back then and been able to avoid a lot of the problems that I was facing? I look back at the time when I met my wife and how, you know, happy I was that I had met this wonderful girl that I was going to marry, and I was so excited about it. I look back on that time and try to remember, was there anyone giving me any sage advice? And you know, I don't think there was. No one was saying, "John, you need to really slow things down," or, "You should really, um, you know, take a look at, you know, these issues and consider this and consider that, and you know what you're giving up in terms of what you're getting," and all that. No one gave me any of that. I just plowed forward, literally and figuratively. I just moved the whole process forward relatively quickly. Within about, I don't know, less than a year and a half of meeting her, we were married. I thought I was going at a pretty decent pace. Little did I know, I probably should have added two or three more years to that.
Most men who have been through marriage—not all, but most—have gained the wisdom that comes with that failure, because it is such a significant failure when your relationship ends in divorce. And I use the term "failure" in a positive way here. I'm not talking about, you know, you're you're a failure because you had this experience, but the experience itself failed, and as a result, there's this huge opportunity for wisdom, because this experience is so impactful, it's so traumatic, it's such a huge deal that, um, you have this opportunity to gain enormous amounts of wisdom from it. Unfortunately, based on the number of guys who get married a second or even a third time, not everybody gets the lesson the first time. So a lot of guys, like, didn't pick it up the first time, or they thought it was an anomaly. They thought, "Oh, that was just one of, you know, obviously that was just a mistake. I need to do this again. Let me jump in, try this again," and then that didn't work out, "Let me try that one more time." No, I am very lucky, and I think most men are, that once you've learned this once, like you don't need to go back for seconds. You know, um, yeah, it's like sticking one of those, you know, those really hot peppers you get at Asian restaurants. They tell you, "Don't eat that," and you eat it, and you have to leave the restaurant because your mouth is so on fire. Yeah, I don't have to do that twice. I've done that once, and I will never do that again. Um, and that's the way it is with marriage, and I think that's what it is, why most men when they get older, more mature men, are not out there looking for a, uh, another marriage. Now, maybe dating, maybe, um, you know, casual relationships, but certainly nothing that has a level of commitment even close to marriage, because we know that with that commitment comes a lot of loss of freedom, and with that loss of freedom, you lose a piece of your identity, and when you start losing your identity, it's very difficult to, um, enjoy your life, you know, because you feel like you're dedicating so much of it to someone else, and if you've done that in the past, you certainly don't want to do that again.
Just the sheer grief that you go through, just the emotional aspect of a divorce, and you can even go along with a very long-term relationship, 'cause I know a lot of guys who have not gotten married, but they've been with the same woman for five or 10 years, and that breakup and the grief that goes with it is pretty, uh, significant, and it's like putting your hand on a hot burner. You've done it once or twice, you definitely learn your lesson; you don't want to do it again. So when you're in your 50s or 60s and you have been burned a few times, you understand that that's not an experience that you want to emulate.
Plus, relationships are like any other external source of pleasure and even happiness. So when you go into a relationship, if you are not 100% happy with your life and fulfilled with the experience that you're having, there is no point in starting a relationship. And when you're young, you have no way of knowing that. When you're young, you think that by bringing this person into your life that you are going to add happiness and fulfillment, but if you are not already happy and fulfilled, you are literally depending on this relationship and maybe even this woman to open the door to happiness and fulfillment for you, and that is an enormous mistake. And I think as you get older as a man, you realize that. Plus, you also realize that the happiness and fulfillment you can have on your own, without a woman in your life, is pretty significant. It's very low risk at that point. Once you have achieved that level of happiness and fulfillment, there is no risk in continuing down that path. You know, you can continue to add aspects of your life based on how well you know yourself and your own level of authenticity that you don't need to bring another person, another human being, into this experience. In fact, bringing another person is just going to disrupt things; it's just going to make things less fulfilling, less happy, more often than not. Now, it's possible you could bring someone into your life that will add to that experience and make it even better, but if you're not already there, like if you're not already maxing out on your own levels of happiness and fulfillment, just on your own, you're not going to get it from someone else; you're just not.
When you are, like, if you're at that level where you feel like, yeah, I am right there, everything in my life is just buzzing along as good as it can be, and I am happy and fulfilled, and it might be nice to add somebody, then maybe you would add somebody, but you would be really hard-pressed to offer that person a commitment or a marriage, because you realize that with that commitment and a marriage, the dynamic of that relationship changes so significantly that it's too risky; it's just way too big of a risk. Because once that commitment is made, that power dynamic shifts from one where there is equilibrium in the relationship to one where suddenly she has more power, she has the upper hand, and she has the ability to leave you and potentially take a lot of your resources with her when she does. So as a man who's more mature and has some wisdom and experience under his belt, you'd be very hard-pressed to even consider a marriage later in life.
Um, now here's where people get into some trouble. This is where we run into problems: is older guys often times think, well, what about, uh, if I get sick? Well, that's an unrelated issue. Okay? You can't conflate the possibility of being—as you get older, because you will get sick as you get older—with having another human being there. Because if that human being doesn't like you, I don't think she's going to help you out too much, and it's not going to make your life any better. Plus, if you're in a stressful relationship with somebody, the likelihood of you becoming sick goes through the roof. So I would much rather just die alone in my own little world, on my own bed, with my dogs, than I have some nagging, mean, unhappy woman making my life miserable for those last few days. You know, I'd rather have the remote in my hand, maybe, uh, some kind of an intoxicant by my side, and my favorite TV show is running or something. I don't know, but I certainly wouldn't want to, uh, you know, have some unhappy, ungrateful, nasty woman there, um, just to make my last few days on this planet less, less enjoyable. So yeah, I, I wouldn't go for that at all.
If you guys can see those ducks back there, I see these two ducks here all the time, like this time of year they seem to come back to this spot in this area. I wonder if it's the same two ducks or if it's two different ducks. From what I understand about, um, ducks, talk about relationships, they, they, they mate for life, and so they're always together. It's pretty cool. That's one of those rare times in nature where you find that happens. I wonder how they make that decision, how they make that, that initial hookup, you know, and then how do they know that they're going to stay together for life? These are really interesting questions. But as an older man, after you've been through a marriage and a divorce, your priorities change significantly.
When you're young, obviously sex plays a big part of it, you know, and finding an attractive woman to be with is a big part of it as well. Sometimes I think of, you know, finding a beautiful woman is like driving a fancy car. It's something that we do as a, as an accomplishment. And, um, when you get older, you find that you don't need a fancy car anymore. So I used to drive lots of fancy cars when I was younger, and now I have a Subaru, because it's, you know, it's the Wilderness version. It's all-wheel drive; it's got good off-country or off-road ability, um, as much as I will need. Um, it'll pull, pull a trailer if I need to pull a trailer, but I don't need something that's, um, costing me $100,000. I don't need a car payment of a thousand bucks a month. You know, it just isn't worth it. I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to pretend to be somebody, I'm not trying to impress anybody out there in the world. And I think that when you're young, attracting a beautiful woman is a way that guys try to show that they have value, that they are worthwhile; that being able to attract an attractive woman or being able to marry a beautiful woman is a way that they can show the world that they are, um, valuable, or they have, uh, qualities that are worthy of attracting such a beautiful person. And of course, beauty in our society is so, um, revered, and so to marry a beautiful woman is to tell the world that, uh, you have, you know, you own this, this beautiful thing, in a way that's kind of sick. I know it is, but I believe there's a lot to it.
Anyway, as you get older, you realize that the quality of a person's character is so much more important than how pretty she is, and the content of that person's, you know, soul, her ability to love and to be loving and to, um, be reflective and understand life and to be, uh, interested in a relationship for the sake of relationship, because there's an even exchange of value in that: you are, um, exchanging ideas and beliefs and understanding, and you are offering compassion and love in a, in a meaningful way where there are no legal entanglements, where there are no expectations, where each person is able to stand on their own. That has a lot of value. Now, it's impossible to see that from the outside. I've been around couples that have that, where, um, it's very clear they did not marry for physical attraction—like there must be some physical attraction there, obviously—but that was not the primary objective, you know, um, but the quality of their relationship is extraordinary because they see in each other something that no one else can, and that is the kind of attraction that I think as you get older you value much, much more.
I think Debu has focused in on these guys; he is very intensely watching these ducks. Luckily, I have my foot on the leash, so he will not run, or if he does, I will be thrown over onto my ass. So I hope he, he doesn't [Music] run. I don't think that the feminists back in the 60s foresaw this happening, because I believe that the worm has turned for women when it comes to feminism, and for men when it comes to, um, who's the pursued and who's the pursuer. So for much of my lifetime, men pursued women, but here, over the last 5 or 10 years, I can see that this shift is starting to occur where men are becoming less and less interested in offering women the kind of commitment that they want, and marriage rates are dropping, infertility rates are dropping, and more and more men are finding that they just don't want to get into that relationship. Feminism plays a big role in that, not just because it can be infuriating to men the way women are acting, but also because men are no longer required for women to be independent. And what makes that really wonderful is that I don't have to marry a woman in order to have access to that woman. Um, she has a job, and she can take care of herself, and she has the finances and the home and all that stuff. Especially as women get older, you know, they get into their 40s or even their 50s, they certainly, most of them, don't need any financial assistance. And, um, being able to have a relationship with a woman where marriage isn't even on the table—it's like both of you recognize that marriage is not an option, and neither one of you are interested in it—both of you appreciate your own independence, both of you have your own finances; you don't need to have a relationship with her, um, for the purpose of getting married. You can just have a relationship for the purpose of having a relationship, whereas just the actual physical act of being together and sharing time and experiences—that has value; that, that is the whole thing; that there is nothing else required. When you're older, that's where the value is; that is, um, the essential, uh, experience that you're looking for. Feminism makes that possible, or has made that possible, and my generation is probably the first generation that has fully experienced that, where women, um, don't need to get married, and so men don't need to feel obligated to offer marriage as a, a part of the relationship, and it's a wonderful, wonderful thing, and I certainly, uh, appreciate that I have that opportunity at this stage of my life, because it changes the dynamic of relationship so much that, um, as a man now, you don't need to buy the farm in order to have access to the cow, and that's such a great relief, because it's a much more equal relationship. And I think a lot of women were not expecting this equality to work both ways; they were expecting to become more equal, meaning like they were going to get a lot of advantages and benefits from this, and I think they have, but they weren't going to have to give anything up, and I think now they're understanding that men are not necessarily obligated to marry you just because we sleep together or we want to hang out together. You know what I mean?
Now, there are many other reasons why men may not want to have relationships with women as they get older. Obviously, if you've been through a divorce and you have been taken to the cleaners financially, you may be burned; you may not want to go through that experience again, and I certainly understand that. Um, if you've lost custody of your children, you may not want to have that experience again; that would be a very difficult thing to, to go through. Uh, I think Deu is going after the ducks. Hey Deo, come back. Yeah, lucky the duck swam away. Um, it may also be that you were taken to the cleaners to such a degree that, you know, just even the idea of going on dates is not financially viable for you. So the family court system has really done a number on our generation of men, um, where 65% of the time mothers are getting custody of the children, and, um, they're ending up with alimony for extended periods of time, and the financial stress put on men has resulted in—of course, we've already talked about this in other videos—increased, you know, rates of suicide and homelessness and all kinds of terrible things. So there's lots, lots, and lots of reasons why, uh, men would not want to have a relationship later in life, and you don't need a ton of wisdom, just some basic common sense to not want to get into it again.
Um, one of the questions that a lot of younger guys ask me is, what about sex? What about sex? Don't you miss sex? And that's a really great question. Um, I think that as you get older, now there are people who say, well, your testosterone levels drop, and maybe that's a big factor, and I've had my testosterone levels tested, and they're still pretty strong. I don't have any issues with that, so I don't think that's it. I think it's just, over the course of my life, I have had sex with dozens of women, and I've had sex thousands of times. You know what I mean? Like, I have been there and done that. I have been to the, you know, I've been to Disney, and I've ridden the ride. You know, I know what that ride is. I got on that roller coaster a thousand-plus times. I know, know what that's like. So what am I willing to give up to get to ride that ride again? Really, you know, it's really just not that important, you know, I mean, I have not met anyone who's doing anything that different. You know, they all have the same parts; they all fit the same way. I mean, they're all a little bit different, but you know, it's the same basic experience over and over and over again, and after a while, it's just like, is it really worth it? Is, is that really what this is about? I mean, is sex really so valuable that you're willing to risk so much? And I think that when you get older, you understand that it's just not worth it. You've got more to lose; you've got more experience; you've been there; you've done that, and it's like, ah, it's really not worth it. Um, I, it's hard for young guys to get a handle on that, and I, I understand that, and maybe that's why, you know, uh, wisdom is so valuable, and is because it costs so much, and the experience that you get from, um, a life lived really is the only way to fully understand this. But, um, if you have any insight or…
You have the ability and the maturity to listen to this message. And you're a younger guy; I strongly recommend that you do not allow sex to be a deciding factor in your decision to, um, have or not have relationships, or pursue or not pursue relationships.
The only time that a man should be pursuing a relationship—this is the wisdom I'm going to give you from age 60, going back to age 21—is when you are when you're firing on all cylinders in your life. Like when you've got your, uh, money right, you've got your career right, you've got your your home right, you've got your lifestyle right. You know who you are; you're comfortable in your own skin; your health is good; you feel good about yourself; and you're just like, your life is just full. You've just got so much going on that you feel great about everything in your life. At that point, you're now at the right time in your life when you could bring a woman into your life safely—possibly, if you pick the right woman, of course. You're going to have to get your values right; you're going to have to know what you're looking for and know what's important to you and be really clear that these factors, or these these, um, considerations that you're looking for, are really the kinds of things that you want in your life.
You know, if you get to that point, then absolutely, I think you're capable of making a good decision about the woman that you're going to marry. I think the vast majority of us who have gone through divorces made a mistake in the process of selection. Now, we didn't think we were making a mistake at the time, and I think a lot of us might even argue that we we did the best we could. And I would say that's probably true, but it doesn't mean we did our best; we could have done better. We did our best we could at that day, on that at that time. We thought we were doing the right thing based on the information that we had available to us. But now, if you're listening to this, you have more information available to you. If you've been listening to my channel, you have a lot more information available to you. You can make a better decision; you can choose a better woman, because there are some great women out there. They do get scooped up early, you know, so you've got to keep your eyes open. Don't be afraid to marry a younger woman, like if you're in your, you know, early to mid-30s, looking at a woman in her, uh, mid- to late 20s, you're right on the money, man. Um, women mature a lot faster than men. Just make sure that you're looking for the qualities that you really want in your life, because if you're going to spend a lifetime with someone, you want to really, really like them—not just love them, but like them. It's one thing to give your commitment and say that you're going to love them forever and all that stuff, but to really enjoy their company and to know that that's a good person, someone that has your back and won't betray you and all that stuff—they're hard to find.
But if you're at your peak, you're at your best, you're a high-value guy—not just in terms of your your, you know, job and your finances, but as a person—you're a high-value man, you have high character, guy, then you can attract the right kind of woman. The problem is, for my generation, we didn't have that concept at all. It was like, um, you know, a bum's rush to find the prettiest girl; that was it. And, uh, yeah, and we just just made that mistake, you know. And I I fully—now my wife, she had a lot of good qualities, too; it wasn't just she was pretty; she had a lot of nice qualities, too—but I overlooked so many red flags. You know, somebody said in the comments, and it was one of the most brilliant things I've ever heard: "It's hard to see red flags when you're wearing rose-colored glasses." And that is so true; it's very hard to see the red flags when you're wearing rose-colored glasses. So you definitely need to be clear-eyed about what you're doing and what you're getting into. Like I said in the beginning, one of the great things about being older and having experience and wisdom is that you know how to take off those rose-colored glasses and see things for what they are. And, um, and that's the gift that you get, you know, with age and with wisdom, experience and wisdom.
All right, you guys, that's all I got for you today. I hope you've enjoyed the video. If you have, please like and subscribe, and, um, you know, please feel free to share the video with guys that you know might be going through some experiences or having some tough times, or, you know, just considering some of these issues, because I know a lot of us do. And, uh, and sometimes just hearing that somebody else has the same thought that you have or the same experience that you have really gives you a sense of, um, belonging and comfort and reassurance that you're not the only guy out there struggling with these issues. All right, see you in the next one. Until then, stay healthy, and if you can, stay single.