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A part of me wants marriage, child etc, a part of me doesn't

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Mikurotoro92
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15 May 2025, 9:00 pm

The reason it's so hard for a woman to divorce her husband is because of all the initial investment put into the relationship starting in the dating phase! !!

The whole entire purpose of marriage is to create and build up an emotional connection to your partner

This happens over time but the way I see it the more you invest into the relationship the harder it becomes to walk away! !! !! !



Sugamon
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15 May 2025, 10:33 pm

chris1989 wrote:
I don't understand why I feel the need to marry someone (despite not currently being with anyone) and have a child just for the sake of doing it because other people are doing it and not really feeling like wanting it while another part of my brain doesn't want it.

I'm worried if that happened because I did it because I "had" to, to keep up with the Joneses, I'll end up being a terrible partner/husband and father and no happier than when I was single.

You are very much correct, methinks.
Have children if you like children.
Date and get married if you want to spend the rest of your life with someone.
If you just do it to satisfy a societal narrative you'll be unhappy. It's all a construct anyway and what's expected today won't be in 30 years.

At 20 you care about what everyone else thinks about you.
At 40 you don't care what anybody thinks about you and do it anyway.
At 60 you realize nobody cared about you in the first place.

Other's reactions are just reflections of themselves, their own thoughts, likes and insecurities, and have nothing to do with you, who you are, because nobody has access to your full story anyway.

Imo.



Mikurotoro92
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15 May 2025, 10:41 pm

You must have that built-in desire for marriage and children, otherwise it doesn't make sense to suffer through ALL the required steps needed to reach that point!! !



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16 May 2025, 12:16 pm

Mikurotoro92 wrote:
You must have that built-in desire for marriage and children,


Yes, it isn't just social conditioning. We are genetically programmed to want relationships and have children. Some people end up not wanting one or the other but they are a minority. If we didn't have that pre-programmed desire, the human species would have died out long ago. From a purely logical standpoint having children doesn't make any sense, given the cost, stress, and possible danger of childbirth, but most of us do it anyways.

Social comparison is also pre-programmed into us.

From AI:
Research suggests that social comparison is not unique to humans but is also observed in non-human primates, such as baboons.
Studies have shown that baboons engage in social comparison to assess their performance relative to others, particularly those who are similar in characteristics like sex.
This behavior is thought to have evolved to facilitate social competition and cooperation, which were crucial for survival in ancestral environments.



Mikurotoro92
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16 May 2025, 6:41 pm

Pink Zeppelin wrote:
Mikurotoro92 wrote:
You must have that built-in desire for marriage and children


Yes, it isn't just social conditioning. We are genetically programmed to want relationships and have children. Some people end up not wanting one or the other but they are a minority. If we didn't have that pre-programmed desire, the human species would have died out long ago. From a purely logical standpoint having children doesn't make any sense, given the cost, stress, and possible danger of childbirth, but most of us do it anyways.

Social comparison is also pre-programmed into us.

From AI:
Research suggests that social comparison is not unique to humans but is also observed in non-human primates, such as baboons.
Studies have shown that baboons engage in social comparison to assess their performance relative to others, particularly those who are similar in characteristics like sex.
This behavior is thought to have evolved to facilitate social competition and cooperation, which were crucial for survival in ancestral environments.


What you are saying does make sense from an evolutionary standpoint and perspective

But...how do you explain the deviations?

How do you explain the people who DON'T desire love or marriage?

What is the difference between them and so-called "normal" (AKA neuro-typical) people?

If all of this was truly based on evolutionary psychology then wouldn't that mean everyone would desire marriage and children?

There would be no room for error or deviations!! !



Mikurotoro92
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16 May 2025, 7:22 pm

Like I said previously, we must separate the desires of marriage and parenthood

Only then perhaps we will start to see the bigger picture...



Pink Zeppelin
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20 May 2025, 2:57 pm

Mikurotoro92 wrote:
Pink Zeppelin wrote:
Mikurotoro92 wrote:
You must have that built-in desire for marriage and children


Yes, it isn't just social conditioning. We are genetically programmed to want relationships and have children. Some people end up not wanting one or the other but they are a minority. If we didn't have that pre-programmed desire, the human species would have died out long ago. From a purely logical standpoint having children doesn't make any sense, given the cost, stress, and possible danger of childbirth, but most of us do it anyways.

Social comparison is also pre-programmed into us.

From AI:
Research suggests that social comparison is not unique to humans but is also observed in non-human primates, such as baboons.
Studies have shown that baboons engage in social comparison to assess their performance relative to others, particularly those who are similar in characteristics like sex.
This behavior is thought to have evolved to facilitate social competition and cooperation, which were crucial for survival in ancestral environments.


What you are saying does make sense from an evolutionary standpoint and perspective

But...how do you explain the deviations?

How do you explain the people who DON'T desire love or marriage?

What is the difference between them and so-called "normal" (AKA neuro-typical) people?

If all of this was truly based on evolutionary psychology then wouldn't that mean everyone would desire marriage and children?

There would be no room for error or deviations!! !


There are deviations in physical traits and they are genetically controlled, so there should be also in social traits that are genetically determined. Plus you have mutations occurring now and then that will change the trait as well. So these desires for partnership and childbearing, while genetically determined, may not have the same strength in everyone.



Mikurotoro92
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20 May 2025, 5:01 pm

Pink Zeppelin wrote:
There are deviations in physical traits and they are genetically controlled, so there should be also in social traits that are genetically determined. Plus you have mutations occurring now and then that will change the trait as well. So these desires for partnership and childbearing, while genetically determined, may not have the same strength in everyone.


Are you saying that what determines people to desire marriage and children is embedded in our DNA?

And the people who don't desire those things have genetic mutations?



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20 May 2025, 5:42 pm

Mikurotoro92 wrote:
Pink Zeppelin wrote:
There are deviations in physical traits and they are genetically controlled, so there should be also in social traits that are genetically determined. Plus you have mutations occurring now and then that will change the trait as well. So these desires for partnership and childbearing, while genetically determined, may not have the same strength in everyone.


Are you saying that what determines people to desire marriage and children is embedded in our DNA?

And the people who don't desire those things have genetic mutations?
There could be some truth in this but I believe that life experiences as well as having some disorders/disabilities like autism could play a factor as well.


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20 May 2025, 7:06 pm

nick007 wrote:
Mikurotoro92 wrote:
Pink Zeppelin wrote:
There are deviations in physical traits and they are genetically controlled, so there should be also in social traits that are genetically determined. Plus you have mutations occurring now and then that will change the trait as well. So these desires for partnership and childbearing, while genetically determined, may not have the same strength in everyone.


Are you saying that what determines people to desire marriage and children is embedded in our DNA?

And the people who don't desire those things have genetic mutations?
There could be some truth in this but I believe that life experiences as well as having some disorders/disabilities like autism could play a factor as well.


Yes, absolutely!! !

Bad experiences with their parents' marriages combined with bad experiences in childhood can very easily turn someone off of those ideas altogether!

It is mostly neuro-typicals who desire to get married and start a family probably because their DNA isn't mutated?

Wait a minute...

I'm Autistic yet I obviously desire marriage and ***maybe*** a family

How is that possible?!?

One way to explain it is the desire overrode the programming

In other words, after seeing my friends & neighbors get married and have children that caused me to desire those things for myself despite being Autistic!



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20 May 2025, 7:37 pm

Autistics would often have the same genetic traits as NTs. That’s not to say that social conditioning doesn’t play a role, but biological factors likely contribute for a lot of people no matter their neurotype.


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21 May 2025, 11:45 am

Autism doesn't override all DNA and inherited social behaviors, just a few of them. Yes, the environment can play a part also, but the idea that people only want to get married and/or have children is because of social conditioning really doesn't hold up to most scientific findings.

Plenty of people come from really bad home environments, with parents who divorced or had dysfunctional marriages, and most end up partnering up or getting married and having children anyways



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21 May 2025, 3:30 pm

If only a part of you wants a child, maybe you can settle for having part of a child?


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21 May 2025, 6:51 pm

funeralxempire wrote:
If only a part of you wants a child, maybe you can settle for having part of a child?


Only if he is a cannibal.



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21 May 2025, 7:28 pm

The_Face_of_Boo wrote:
funeralxempire wrote:
If only a part of you wants a child, maybe you can settle for having part of a child?


Only if he is a cannibal.
On the early 90s sitcom Family Matters, Steve Urkel said a few times that he wanted 2.5 kids. I wondered how someone would have half a kid unless Urkel was talking about one kid & two siamese twins :?


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Mikurotoro92
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21 May 2025, 8:48 pm

nick007 wrote:
The_Face_of_Boo wrote:
funeralxempire wrote:
If only a part of you wants a child, maybe you can settle for having part of a child?


Only if he is a cannibal.
On the early 90s sitcom Family Matters, Steve Urkel said a few times that he wanted 2.5 kids. I wondered how someone would have half a kid unless Urkel was talking about one kid & two siamese twins :?


That's just fiction and is as unrealistic as the movie I watched at Day Program today where there was a cave with a pirate ship...