<p>That to me translates as “I like you, and it’s ok living with you and all, but I’m waiting to see if someone else might come along who I like better.”</p>
<p>My H proposed before we started living together, I told him I didn’t want to get married, but I would live with him ( I had lived with another man for almost a year previous).</p>
<p>After we had lived together for a few years I decided that I loved him enough to stay with him- before that, I had thought in the back of my mind that I would marry one of my best friends ( who was male) although we were each dating other people.</p>
<p>We have been together including “co-habitation” since 1976.</p>
<p>I have friends who met and became involved in 1990. They bought a house together in 1993. They had children together in 1994 and 1997. Obviously, they discussed marriage a lot. At first the woman wanted to get married and the man was philosophically opposed to it. (He is 8-9 years older, and came of age in the late 60s.) Later the man wanted to get married, and the woman was ambivalent. They switched positions on that a few times. Finally, they got married in 2002, in part because the man wanted to pursue elected office. The marriage lasted all of two years before they separated. No one whom either of them liked better had come along, but the differences in ambitions, work ethic, childrearing philosophy, and stuff like that they had always had finally swamped their real affection and regard for one another.</p>
<p>That to me translates as “I like you, and it’s ok living with you and all, but I’m waiting to see if someone else might come along who I like better.”</p>
<p>OMG…that was a frequent response that Rutgers found in The Marriage Project. These guys enjoyed keeping their options open - because they could.</p>
<p>but I’m waiting to see if someone else might come along who I like better."</p>
<p>I think this could be, because some men are so romantic.
They have this idealized version of life, in which they are the prince charming, the GI Joe, the Mick Jagger.</p>
<p>It is too real to hold their girl friend while she pukes after eating bad seafood, it is discomfting when she works the room at a company get together more skillfully than he can, and don’t even start on when they are more intelligent/ or earn a higher salary.</p>
<p>I think some people, men especially are attracted to a type that fawns all over them.
But I would think even the shallowest lady would have trouble keeping that up for long-women are just wired to be more practical. </p>
<p>We have to be, we are the genetic bearers and caretakers of the species, so we are programmed to mate with someone who can not only sire healthy children, but bring home an antelope for the long winter. ( I don’t eat venison- but you could bring me a nice wild king salmon from the Copper river).
:)</p>
<p>*I think this could be, because some men are so romantic.
They have this idealized version of life, in which they are the prince charming, the GI Joe, the Mick Jagger.</p>
<p>It is too real to hold their girl friend while she pukes after eating bad seafood, it is discomfiting when she works the room at a company get together more skillfully than he can, and don’t even start on when they are more intelligent/ or earn a higher salary.</p>
<p>I think** some people, men especially are attracted to a type that fawns all over them.**<br>
But I would think even the shallowest lady would have trouble keeping that up for long - women are just wired to be more practical. *</p>
<p>This is why people stray. They know the faults of the one that they’re with, so the “new one” out there appears to have fewer. Which is so not true many times.</p>
<p>Oh, yes, men do love it when women fawn all over them. They’re like sick puppies. That’s what can be so dangerous and can lead to affairs. They aren’t hearing all these exaggerated compliments coming from their wives (who are more than familiar with all of their H’s faults), so the compliments can be the songs from the sirens to these men.</p>