Dear Duana:
I met Dave in 2002 in our 20’s, and we broke up two years later. I dated around later, but he never did, and I couldn’t quit thinking about him. Although we’re back together, an issue from our break-up remains: He works for his mom and does not seemed inspired to do more. I love him in many ways, but I wonder: Will this always bother me?
Janie
Dear Janie,
ITE (In This Economy), there are plenty of folks who are un- or under-employed through no fault of their own. And if you were partnered with such a man, my advice would be to note his strident efforts to attain full employment, and to be supportive of those.
But there’s no sugar-coating this: No matter how wonderful Dave is, if he can’t show more get-up-and-go, a mountain of science shows you might get-up-and-leave…or stay and find yourself perpetually annoyed, worried, losing respect and having affairs. And the better-looking *you* are, the more true that is.
In fact, as exposed by mating psychology super-sleuth and Evolution Of Desire
As it happens, our shallow-seeming desires are as heritable as Great Grandpa’s brown eyes or Grandma’s china. At the dawn of pre-history, when life was tougher than a mastodon’s hide, some men and women managed to solve the very large problems of survival and reproduction. They, and only they, became our ancestors—passing down not just their appearance, but the psychological mating preferences that had ensured their success. So, for instance, men who desired older, infertile, unhealthy women may have lived happy lives—but nobody called them Dad. Instead, men who lusted after youthful, beautiful (read: fertile) partners prevailed, leaving male offspring who desired likewise. Their shallow desires reflected a deep genetic need that exists even now.
Women, on the other hand, had little use for The Young And The Restless, since men of almost every age could procreate. In fact, it often served women’s needs to marry up in age…and a lot of other ways. This inherited mating psychology is clearly visible even today as women on every continent reject suitors in too little possession of What Women Want: An ambitious, hard-working, resource-wielding, commitment-making Provider and Protector.
In one experiment, young women were shown a photo of a young man in a business suit, *or* the same young man in a fast-food uniform. Not surprisingly, women who saw Mr. Up-And-Coming were more impressed and more interested in a date than the women exposed to Mr. Want Fries With That. But it was the same guy, just with a different implied career! Other recent research on remarriage rates shows that even older men, now widowed, can marry much more easily if they are in possession of resources such as a good income, a home, and other signs of economic success.
Why women’s shallow emphasis on ka-ching? Because, just as men’s beauty bias is actually deep, so is women’s demand for resources. Our ancestral mothers who preferred and won a Committed Provider and Protector secured survival and success for themselves and their children. Women who failed in this task—women whose man gave the resources to other women or to drinking or to gambling, wouldn’t commit, wouldn’t provide, left them alone with nursing infants and no hunter, or actively abused them and their families—tended not to thrive and pass their genes forward to surviving or successful children. This remains true even today, even in the United States. Men aren’t just pleasant accessories to the core business of life, and never were.
Although it may feel affirming for men to know that they’re Needed, men don’t necessarily enjoy being viewed as success objects, any more than women like being regarded as sex objects. It can be tough to reside in a world seemingly populated by gold-diggers. But there you have it. Operating below the conscious radar, our genes don’t necessarily want us to do what makes everyone happy—they want us to do what gets them passed forward.
But, Janie, does Dave’s lack of great ambition have to be a problem for your relationship? Unless you do something, it will be. That’s because our genes have no “off” switch; they don’t reach a point of satisfaction and then let us feel safe. For instance, wealthy women have been found to prefer a mate who is even wealthier than themselves—even though these women are in no danger whatsoever of failing to survive or reproduce based on material goods. Just as we women seldom feel young and pretty enough, we tend to think our partners should earn more and more money. Maybe these preferences serve us to a point, but once our survival is taken care of, they just make us and our mates unhappy, and that’s the rub.
So, what to do? Your preferences arise from unconsciously motivated desires, so see if you can use your conscious mind to override those. Ask yourself: Does Dave make enough to carry his share of the load in life—and in your view, is he likely to continue that? Would he step up to support you entirely if you could not work, or if you needed and wanted to nurture young children or aging parents? Is he more devoted to you than to his mother’s every whim? Is he willing and able to make an enthusiastic commitment to you? Is he emotionally stable and loving and kind? And—this is important—are you so much better-looking than Dave that you’re often approached by wealthier and/or better-looking men?
In short, are you two otherwise well-matched, and is he good mate-material—just perhaps a bit less ambitious than you are, or want him to be?
If not, move on now; Dave won’t satisfy you, and an unhappy you won’t satisfy him, either.
But if Dave gets the green light on all the queries above, he sounds like a great man and a wonderful catch, and I’d advise focusing on his good qualities, rather than on ambitions that are only so-so. You’ve loved him for years, and he’s loved you single-mindedly. He could be The One. Look more closely and see.
Cheers,
Duana
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All material copyrighted by Duana C. Welch, Ph.D., 2010