Worst man for the job?

[ManDudely]

The situation:

I've been asked to be the 'Best Man' for a good friend, which is honestly something I never expected to face. I'm honored to fulfill the role, but I do have some problems with it. My own parents divorced when I was six, leaving me with a lasting bad impression of marriage. My mother is currently undergoing the process for her third divorce. I've seen marriage used too often to merely trap a partner, either for temporary or lasting financial security, directly from the father or through government subsidies, or for reproduction out of some unconcious desire to replicate the hasty, clueless babymaking of their own parents.

 

I met this friend through mutual friends in university and, though he has a couple years on me, we've gone through the philosophical, theological and political awakening side by side, challenging and encouraging each others ideas. Though I rarely use the terms to avoid straw-manning of arguements, we are atheist AnCaps. For as long as I've known him, almost ten years now, he has been romantically attached to the woman he's now proposed to. While I obviously don't know her as well as he does, I entirely trust his judgement of her character, and completely agree that she is very unlikely to treat him the way so many women have treated other men. I'm absolutely certain they intend to have children one day, when they are in a financially advantageous position to do so, which may be soon, and I'm certain she'd be a great mother, non-violent, caring and fair, and he a great father.

 

I'm at the age where a lot of friends are starting to marry and have children. Some, I would say, unwisely. I think if anyone can make marriage work then these two people have the best chance out of anyone I know, and they are fully on board with the idea and principles of Peaceful Parenting. But I still have my reservations on marriage itself. I expect I'm going to have to give a speech at a ceremony sooner or later and I don't want to bomb it with my shaky trust in the institution of marriage, and how it is more and more frequently used almost like a social weapon. I'm painfully aware that my doubts stem from my own prior experiences, so any help rendered in overcoming this aspect of my personality would be greatly appreciated.

[WasatchMan]

What I would consider in this situation is that your apprehension towards marriage is an aesthetic preference, not a ethical one.

 

Whether you are right or wrong about the risk of marriage, your friend has made the decision to take this risk.  If you do trust that he understands the risk that he is taking, and that he has chosen a women that should minimize these risks, I would recommend that you find a way to put your aesthetic preference aside for now and support your friend and celebrate their choice with them.

[J. D. Stembal]

From reading your post, I would say that you are the "best man" for the job of Best Man. If you are asked to speak at the wedding, you will have a lot of thoughtful blessings to say. Talk about the couple, not the institution of marriage, which in my opinion, is very much tainted by the state.

 

Looking back at my friends who got married soon after college, I would say that most of them chose poorly. I've never been eager to settle down and have children because my own childhood was so desolate. Also, like my friends in college, I would have made a terrible choice for a marriage partner back then, and would assuredly be divorced or miserable by now.

[ManDudely]

Hello again, FDR. Dropping in with an update.

 

I struggled with the issue outlined here for a while. I'm completely aware that the initial hesitation stemmed from my early environment, but the awareness of my bias and its cause didn't help me overcome it. I always stumbled on the point of marriage as a very dangerous trap. I have to say though that the video Stef released a few days ago has really helped me square away this problem. I've listened to Stefs content for years and although he's touched on these matters before, this presentation really laid it all out and brought it together. Honestly, one of the most important videos he's ever put out in my opinion. And not just because it helped me change the way I think about marriage, but the potential it has to also help the countless other young men raised out of divorce who struggle with the idea of marriage.

For anyone in the same position, or who has yet to see it, this is it: 'Saying No To Marriage', https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imcQrPW-A-Y

 

My circumstances are different to the callers, but we share a childhood of divorce. I was not fortunate enough to have been given into the custody of an affluent parent. I lived the 'general outcome' as Stef described, given to my mother in low-quality rented housing in poor neighbourhoods surrounded by, as he put it, 'the dregs of society', with no real good male role-model to look up to and learn from. I recognised within myself the behaviours Staf outlined as causal of such environments, namely a lack of empathy, a heightened 'sex-drive' but also a fear of intimacy. These were not new revelations to me, but now I have an even better understanding of them.

 

Growing up, I percieved the effects of marriage to invariably lead to misery, either due to a divorce that binds one party into forever funding the other through divorce settlements, or because both parties were living a life without self knowledge, perpetuating the dysfunction of their own childhoods with petty, pointless arguments. There were no good, happy couples who could imprint a better model of marriage upon me. Of course I absolutely, but unconciously, internalised the idea of marriage as something undesirable.

 

At a few points in the talk I actually welled up with tears as Stef so accurately nailed both my upbringing and the perspective and behaviours that usually arise from it... without even aiming the discussion at me. Due to my upbringing, or perhaps despite it, I've come to a path of attempting self knowledge and personal betterment, so I was aware of some of the content already; the relationship 'red flags', the unconscious self programming, the attempts at manipulation by women to mould men into models of conquered masculinity, and even the data that explains why so many marriages fail. I was all too aware of the dangers and pitfalls. The benefits were more distant, hazy and hard to forsee. Not so much now. I no longer have an instinctive fear of the idea of marriage. Infact, permitting the chance to meet the right partner, I actually look forward to it one day for the first time.

This was, without equal, two of the most useful hours of listening I've ever spent. Stefan, I can't thank you enough for unknowingly helping me smooth out this intellectual and emotional knot. May I suggest a follow-up to this video? 'Saying Yes To Marriage', perhaps as a full presentation to really lay out the case for marriage. I think it would be immensely helpful to your audience. If this has already been done and I've missed it, I'd love to be pointed to it.

[Mothra]

I had a similar reaction to listening to this podcast. I was also a child of divorce and previously thought the entire institution was stupid and dangerous. I had listened to several other podcasts on marriage, but this one was the first that actually convinced me of its merits. Stef did a great job laying out the connection between a stable two-parent household and a society of people without traumatic childhoods.