Successful marriage don\u2019t start with love \u2026 they end with it.<\/p>\n
Matchmaker\u00a0Hellen Chen\u00a0once stated that she thinks we\u2019re spending too much time dating. If you really want to get married, Chen says, you should simply commit to marriage an"},"modified":"2019-07-07T14:05:38","modified_gmt":"2019-07-07T14:05:38","slug":"3-reasons-why-you-should-marry-first-and-fall-in-love-later-citi-newsroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2019\/07\/07\/3-reasons-why-you-should-marry-first-and-fall-in-love-later-citi-newsroom\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Reasons why you should marry first and fall in love later \u2013 Citi Newsroom"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/p>\n
Successful marriage don\u2019t start with love \u2026 they end with it.<\/p>\n
Matchmaker\u00a0Hellen Chen\u00a0once stated that she thinks we\u2019re spending too much time dating. If you really want to get married, Chen says, you should simply commit to marriage and let romance happen later.<\/p>\n
According to her, dating is a recipe for heartbreak, and marriage should come first.\u00a0And strange as it may seem, she may just be on to something.\u00a0Chen says she\u2019s seen too many people date for two, three, even five or more years, and then break up.<\/p>\n
If you spend too much time dating, you\u2019re bound to get crushed instead of falling in love. Her marriage advice is that you need a spouse to achieve true happiness and freedom. When you have someone and something to come home to, only then will you experience freedom like you never have before.<\/p>\n
In her world, the barrier that separates two single people poses the problem, so if you just get rid of that and get married, well, apparently, problem solved.<\/p>\n
Be warned, singles looking to mingle: Chen\u2019s advice on marrying before\u00a0\u201cdating\u201d each other is bound to strike you as odd, if not out-and-out preposterous. After all, how do you find the person you want to marry if you don\u2019t date first?<\/p>\n
While I haven\u2019t experienced her matchmaking style directly, she\u2019s not expecting you to book a chapel on the first date. That said, her message is clear: Stop nitpicking every date to death and finding reasons\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0to commit to someone.<\/p>\n Stop wasting years and years in relationship limbo, cohabitating with someone you\u2019re not sure about. If you want a happy relationship, you have to settle to some degree. So, stop all this nonsense and just get married already.<\/p>\n Before you go dismissing Chen as some out-of-touch relic, remember that what she\u2019s advocating isn\u2019t much different from what Lori Gottlieb dared to suggest in the book\u00a0Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough<\/em>\u00a0(and the\u00a0notoriously polarizing\u00a0Atlantic<\/em>\u00a0article of the same name\u00a0that went viral).<\/p>\n Gottlieb warned us that we\u2019d live to regret the day we let that nice guy, with the receding hairline or questionable spelling, get snapped up by the woman willing to overlook his superficial flaws. If you find something wrong with everyone, you\u2019ll end up past your prime with fewer men to choose from.<\/p>\n She made her point, reached a lot of people, and perhaps humbled more than a few women into solid marriages they might otherwise have missed. (Did Gottlieb herself ever settle? Word on the street, says Melanie Notkin in her book\u00a0Otherhood<\/em>, is that she has not.)<\/p>\n In his book\u00a0The Paradox Of Choice<\/em>, psychologist Barry Schwartz illustrated the theory that too many options tend to confuse people, breed anxiety, and lead to a kind of paralysis when it comes to making decisions. An abundance, or even a perceived abundance, of partner choices may actually prevent you from choosing just one. After all, a better partner might be just around the corner.<\/p>\n Dan Slater, author of\u00a0Love in the Time of Algorithms<\/em>,\u00a0<\/em>believes that online dating even poses a threat to monogamy, or at least\u00a0happy<\/em>\u00a0monogamy. If you know there are other potential mates out there, why would you put up with characteristics you don\u2019t like in one person?<\/p>\n And yet, putting up with all of your partner\u2019s flaws is exactly what you must do, says Chen. That\u2019s the job!<\/p>\n She makes it clear that this is precisely what you\u2019re signing up for, but the payoff is worth every last quirk. Either you marry someone now and start creating a home and a life, or continue to pointlessly date and end up \u201chomeless and loveless\u201d (her words, not mine!).<\/p>\n So, here are three reasons why her \u201cmarry first, date each other after\u201d approach makes sense.<\/p>\n 1. Marriage requires serious compromise (and always will).<\/strong><\/p>\n Anyone who wants a specific thing must make some compromises to get it, whether it\u2019s something material like a fancy apartment, or something more spiritual like a spouse. And this isn\u2019t even just about marriage. If you want sex without relationship, you can have it, but you\u2019re still making a sacrifice; you risk not having a supportive bond.<\/p>\n If you want marriage more than anything else, you can do that, too, provided you\u2019re willing to do away with the impossible standards and endless dealbreakers you\u2019ve clung to in your search for Mr. Perfect\u2026 who doesn\u2019t exist, by the way. In other words, you must have the willpower to commit first, and then love second.<\/p>\n After all, it\u2019s only (fairly) recently that we demanded the whole package \u2014 true love, intellectual match, perfect partner, and best friend forever.<\/p>\n As Stephanie Coontz taught us in\u00a0Marriage: A History<\/em>, for most of recorded history, love was a pretty fickle reason to get married. Marriage was more about creating a family unit and a stable life, which is why today, with so many couples marrying for love alone, so many of us are leaving in droves.<\/p>\n 2. Arranged marriages could actually work<\/strong><\/p>\n You know where I\u2019m going here, right? Because what Chen is essentially telling you to do is perform your own arranged marriage. And you can decide to do it now. If what you want is a committed, long-term bond, then maybe this is the way to go.<\/p>\n It\u2019s estimated that\u00a055 percent of the world\u2019s marriages are arranged, 90 percent of which happen in India. The divorce rate, as you probably know, is roughly 50 percent in this country. Guess how many divorces result from arranged marriages? Four percent.<\/p>\n That\u2019s not because people are happier elsewhere or don\u2019t suffer the same emotions or experiences that all couples do. It just means the ones who enter into arranged marriages don\u2019t do so with the same expectations as others do.<\/p>\n They kind of say, \u201cHe\u2019ll do,\u201d and let the bond form over time. Then, love grows. Certainly not in all cases, but a lot more than you realize. Full lives, children, and a summer home\u00a0can all be yours, too.<\/p>\n Do countries where arranged marriages occur have a history of oppressed women, though? Yes. Have women historically been treated as chattel, a bartering chip for securing land, power, and influence? You bet. Do I like the idea of women not being able to choose? Of course not. In a first-world country,\u00a0you can choose. You just aren\u2019t.<\/p>\n As a non-wed woman (currently in a relationship) who never had the real drive or compulsion to get married, it\u2019s ironic to admit that I\u2019m squarely behind this argument. I realize that, but I am.<\/p>\n While we all want to feel loved and connect with someone, we don\u2019t all need to, nor should we all be, married. But if you do want to get married first and foremost, well, Chen\u2019s way makes a lot of sense.<\/p>\n 3. A successful relationship is something you must work hard at<\/strong><\/p>\n Here\u2019s where our cultural expectations get the best of us. We fall under this spell from a fairly young age, believing we should just have something magical \u2014 true, everlasting love. We think it\u2019s our God-given right and fairy tale romance should happen. Then, we\u2019re so beside ourselves when it doesn\u2019t happen the way Disney said it would.<\/p>\n In what other area of your life would you expect something like that to just materialize because you\u2019re entitled to it? You don\u2019t assume you \u201cdeserve\u201d a CEO position if you\u2019ve never held an office job, right? You don\u2019t just walk into a company with no relevant experience and say, \u201cI\u2019ll take that job up there in the corner office.\u201d When they deny you, you stomp out in a huff and complain there are no jobs out there.<\/p>\n Of course you wouldn\u2019t do that, but that\u2019s exactly what women (and lots of men) do when it comes to relationships.\u00a0I realize corporate hierarchy is a limping analogy, but you do want the job, so to speak. And if you want marriage and to live a married life, you have to start with what\u2019s available and commit to making the most of your life.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll admit, the idea of \u201cdating\u201d the person you married is appealing. It\u2019s enough to make me wonder if we waste all the good stuff while we\u2019re courting and then bore ourselves to tears after we exchange vows.<\/p>\n Chen may have found the secret to marriage. Imagine if the good stuff wasn\u2019t the appetizer, but the main meal. Think of how differently your romantic life would be if you could enjoy all the sexy fun of dating without wondering \u201cwhere this is going,\u201d because you\u2019re already there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Successful marriage don\u2019t start with love \u2026 they end with it. Matchmaker\u00a0Hellen Chen\u00a0once stated that she thinks we\u2019re spending too much time dating. If you really want to get married, Chen says, you should simply commit to marriage and let romance happen later. According to her, dating is a recipe for heartbreak, and marriage should […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-651914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-lifestyle"],"yoast_head":"\n