Why Men Sometimes Avoid Marriage

Marriage, as an institution, is broken . Men seemed to have realized that — as have the women who ended up marrying them. Around half of all marriages, nowadays, end in divorce. Why do guys not want to get married? There are a lot of reasons.

Because women have more rights and now have more economic clout, they no longer need men to have a stable household. Men who may have taken advantage of women’s positions in life, therefore, are finding that women no longer tolerate the behavior that was once very common. Men, too, may have gotten tired of dealing with their wives . As a result, both men and women flake on one another, often years after marriage.

I honestly believe this is what “broke” marriage as we knew it. However, unlike others, I believe that the broken institution of marriage is a blessing in disguise for women — and a curse for the guys who boast about being single .

The fact is that men are avoiding marriage and it’s really hard not to see why. Factually, both men and women end up in serious financial disrepair if they divorce. A single divorce experience would be enough to turn most people off, especially if it was costly, bitter, and drawn-out. I can’t fault either gender for being worried, especially after they have witnessed the pain a fed up (or just awful) spouse can unleash.

As bad as the potential pitfalls of marriage are, most women are way more open to marriage than men are these days. This baffles me because men get a better deal out of marriage than women do. In fact, if you look at the numbers, a lot of guys are shooting themselves in the foot by choosing not to marry. Here’s why…

1. While men can lose goods in divorce, they also tend to gain a lot more when married.

Most men I’ve talked to have a lot to say about the risks of “losing their stuff” when married . But this is only half the picture.

When two people pool resources via marriage, they often get an overall better standard of life. In single-salary homes, one partner gets to come home from work with dinner on the table and a cleaner house. In dual-income marriages, the overall amount of spending power you have goes up, along with tax cuts. Assuming you don’t divorce, the benefits outweigh the pitfalls in many cases.

Married people are also more likely to get higher salaries from employers and are more likely to be seen as “moral” by people who matter. As a result, people who are married often enjoy a higher status in society and are more likely to be able to have the right standing in a company.

2. Women, in many ways, have a lot more to lose from marriage than men do.

Women who are married do far more housework than married men or single women. If they have kids, they are more likely to also feel isolated as a married mom than if they were single parents. Women also are known to do the emotional and mental labor of housekeeping, which, in turn, adds even more workload and stress. Meanwhile, men get a minimal amount of extra chores added.

Even in the overall quality of life, women end up running second fiddle to men. Unhappily married women have the lowest life satisfaction rates, even lower than unhappily married men. The ones with the highest life satisfaction rates? Happily married men.

Interestingly enough, more male divorcees are open to remarriage than female divorcees. Most guys who married once but divorced end up marrying again. As one of my female friends who went through a divorce said, “I’ve done it once. Never again. I’m done with marriage and all it represents.”

3. Emotional labor is often assumed to be the woman’s role in a hetero relationship, and that means women end up working a lot more just to make a marriage work while men often end up reaping the benefits.

I’ve also noticed that most guys just don’t want to put in effort into their relationships . This is doubly true when they marry. Most stop “dating” their wives. Many also stop trying to keep the spark alive. In some cases, husbands may even refuse to work or do cleaning, in which case women may end up being forced to work, take care of the kids, and also clean up after a “dead weight man.” Though I see this with women, too, the vast majority of cases I’ve seen dealt with men.

4. Statistics show that single men end up being unhappier than single women in the long haul.

Overall, though, single men suffer more than single women , especially when it comes to living standards. Single men die earlier than married men do , and I’m willing to bet it’s because they don’t have a wife looking after them.

That aside, there’s more than enough studies that show that men most likely losing out by not putting a ring on a good person. Women, however, have been shown by studies to be burnt by marriage on a whole. So, maybe women should worry about commitment rather than men. After all, it’s about time the tables were turned.

5. Selfishness is what broke the institution of marriage — not women.

We’ve seen plenty of selfish women and plenty of selfish men treat partners like crap, use them, and take them for granted. All things considered, it’s easy to see why men would be cautious about marriage. Then again, women should be cautious, too.

If you want to see a thriving marriage in society , you have to look for two people who are emotionally mature, selfless, and empathetic. Most couples I’ve seen just don’t have that to them, primarily because the women in the couples end up getting burnt out by doing all the work keeping a family together. Marriage tends to be non-egalitarian and that’s what’s killing a lot of couples and why guys do not want to get married.