Should love be about MONEY?

[Nolan1971]

How about during the dating stage, her friends are asking them to treat you more than the one you are courting??? :furious:

I usually ask the girl not to include them especially that in the Philippines, before you gain approval, you must treat the girl's friends haha

My ex wife actually paid for our first date! We equally shared after that and though i felt no obligation to do so spoiled her like crazy every B-day & Holiday.

 

[Nolan1971]

I can say with pure pride! During my entire relationship with my ex wife we never went without anything!
I was blessed to provide her with very happy holidays and B-day's Though I never had much left for me she would get
5-6 gifts for Christmas Avg $400 half a month's income. She never expected more and felt she did not deserve that kind of treatment.

 

[Ereth]

Men want sex, women want money. We debated this on E.Harmony/Advice, Yahoo Dating groups & lots dating FORUMs. Anything else SAID is ********. But it's fun to watch em color it in all kinds of PC language... Feminists freak out it shouldn't be about living arrangements. But in reality per the "new" feminists IT IS about living arrangements [MONEY.] Every real man knows what I mean. Every woman denies the Sun Shines... But how many feminists do you know have married a homeless man? Right...exactly...

I don't see what this has to do with feminism as an issue. Please don't go off on a tangent. You can start a new thread for that, IMHO.

 

[ghoulbler]

I feel like loving someone and finding a potential mate can, sometimes, be two very different things - but I don't think that's "bad".
You can have the potential to love anyone but at the end of the day, in order for you two to be compatible and for your home-life to work out properly, you need to be on the same page. Money plays a big role on whether or not someone is going to be a good choice as a mate.
You need to be logical. One of the biggest causes of divorce is money-related issues. People who jump into relationships and marriages because they love one another often overlook the differences they share and all of these problems build up and turn them against eachother. It creates a bigger mess in the end, and puts them both in bad places.
If two people can truly love eachother and work out a good home-life, I consider them lucky to have found one another.

Anyway - I don't think it's bad to be money-minded when finding someone to spend the rest of their lives with. You need to both depend on one another, because this is your LIFE at risk. When it's just casual dating, I think money should play less of a role, because there is less at risk.

There are differences - if there weren't, then poorer people wouldn't be married, which they are. I'm just defending an idea that most people seem to despise for some reason? We live in a world that prioritizes the making of money, and we shouldn't be surprised when lots of people within this world reflect that ideal.

I think everyone should just respect eachother's differences and move on to find their own s/o that suits their needs and desires instead of pointing fingers and going "You're shallow!"

 

[Soup]

There was a lot of stereotyping in one of the posts above (I'm too lazy to scroll back & find it). As for women wanting money, well....some want only that & a large heap of it. The vast overwhelming majority of women are not this way. If these are the types you are encountering, you need to reconsider where it is you are going to meet women! Few men are single & truly wealthy. Few women have the kind of looks, figure & access to environments where they are able to even meet these men. Think about it: when was the last time you hung out with a single, eligible multimillionaire?

Most women, again overwhelmingly, are married to or dating working class to middle class guys. When I met the man to whom I am married, he did not have what any gold-digger would call 'money'. Heck: at the time, he did not even have a car! As for men wanting sex, so do a great many women! Society depends upon the perpetuation of reductionist stereotypes in order to maintain the status quo. There are many men who scam single women out of their money. One such guy I remember not only pretended to be in love with women in order to bilk them, he was also deliberately infecting them with HIV/AIDS! Suave middle-aged Casanovas who troll cruise ships, churches & BINGO halls seeking old widows to seduce & bilk are notorious.

B@$T@RDRY knows neither race, religion, age nor sex or gender, unfortunately. It would be much easier to spot such people before they could manipulate others if they came clearly labeled!

As for women not marrying homeless men that only makes good sense! In my city, a shocking amount of them are both chronic substance abusers AND severely mentally ill! Not exactly a good choice for any woman. Men & women both need to consider the impact dire poverty can & will have on their marriage & the quality of life they can provide for their children. It doesn't have to be one or the other: a wealthy guy to bilk or starve in a bog with a homeless schizophrenic. Between those 2 extremes, there are plenty of sane and reasonable options.

 

[Ste11aeres]

Let's remember that love does not consist only in romance, sex, and marriage.
There is a lot of true love in the world that is truly platonic. An obvious example is the nurturing love one may have for a child.

A person may have platonic altruistic love for a drug-abusing mentally ill person who is homeless. That love wouldn't mean that one should date and marry this person. The same can go for someone who is clean, sober, and homeless. Just like you, assuming you're young, wouldn't even think of dating someone who was 85. Would that mean you were shallow? Would it mean you were shallow if you(statistically speaking this applies to most, not all of you) wouldn't think of dating someone of your own gender?
Is that shallow? No. But if you refused to (platonically) love someone because of homelessness, age, or gender, that would be shallow.

Loving someone doesn't require money. Making a life with them requires enough money to survive on.

 

[Sparticus]

You are right. I went way off course on this one.

I don't see what this has to do with feminism as an issue. Please don't go off on a tangent. You can start a new thread for that, IMHO.

 

[Dustman319]

I would not pretend to love a guy for his money, however, if I genuinely loved a guy, for his own sake, and wanted to start a family with me, money would be a consideration just because it would be pragmatically necessary. He wouldn't have to have a lot, we would just have to be able to support ourselves, even if that meant living very frugally.

You are what I'd call a realist. You are right you have to have some money if two people are living together(married or not) I've seen more couples argue about money than anything else.

 

[Sparticus]

Either I saw this on a film or it was my observation per being in nature so much:

In nature female animals get nesting material & build a nest. In Humans, a "nest" is a house, which is very expensive for the average man. So female humans want a "nest" ie a house...which can mean money. Not trying to bash anyone here; it's just an observation that might be right or wrong.

On the other side, lots of women fall in love with and marry men who don't have a lot of money. So maybe it comes down to personality, priorities etc? For some people living a certain life style and finding a partner who can give them that is love. For others it might be more of a pure heart, soul & non-materialistic thing?

 

[Sparticus]

Also-how does an Economic Depression add to it? Does that make some women desire money more to secure a certain lifestyle and not struggle as much? Does love mean different things to women than it does to men?

 

[Historianthomas]

Also-how does an Economic Depression add to it? Does that make some women desire money more to secure a certain lifestyle and not struggle as much? Does love mean different things to women than it does to men?

I think money or the potential to earn money is a factor for some women. Love and why we fall in love with someone is very complex with multiple factors.

 

[Sparticus]

You and Ste11aeres would make a great married couple. I say this with good intentions & sincerity.

I think money or the potential to earn money is a factor for some women. Love and why we fall in love with someone is very complex with multiple factors.

 

[Ereth]

I think money or the potential to earn money is a factor for some women. Love and why we fall in love with someone is very complex with multiple factors.

I don't think it's emotionally a factor for women any more than it is for men. However, as I stated earlier, men have historically been the ones with the earning power in households, while women were expected to stay home and take care of the kids. Women were not allowed to hold most jobs, so marrying someone of means was (and is still, in some parts of the world) their only way to survive.

And Sparticus, I don't think an economic depression would make women want money any more than it would make men want money, though it would depend on the circumstances (i.e. time, place, cultural expectations of women at the time). I imagine that a woman with no husband who struggled to feed her children during the Great Depression would understandably be thinking of money a bit more than a childless one.

My paternal grandmother, who survived the Great Depression, worked as a schoolteacher. If memory serves, my uncle was only a few years older than my father, who was born in 1941. I think my grandfather was a laborer of some sort at the time.

As for love, it can and does mean different things to individual people, but to generalize about women (or men) and say they all only want X out of a romantic relationship isn't sound judgment.

Love for me means that someone respects me and cares about me.

 

[Soup]

I think it is more of a combination between the individual woman's personality, her upbringing, her family culture & the society she inhabits. Here in Canada/USA, women have many options besides marriage. they can be single without it being a major problem for anyone, they can date, live with someone for a while or marry or whatever. Same goes for guys. We in Canada, nation-wide, can marry someone of the same sex if we want to. In some places, this freedom is socially & even legally absent. You get married off at a young age & that is that for that. You do not have other options. Education is open to guys only & even then it is for guys from certain affluent or well-connected families.

Comparing human women to female animals is not an accurate measure of anything. some species are strict matriarchies who avoid males unless it is for breeding. Others are very promiscuous. With seahorses, the males become pregnant & carry the young. In some birds species, the males build the nest & share in guarding the eggs.

As for 'what women want', well, you cannot generalize any more than you can about men. Everyone seems to want something different. People want different things at different stages of their life. Sometimes, too, people think they want one thing but they really want something else. Then, they want something & get it...only to realize that it was not what they thought it would be so they no longer want it. Then, to top it all off, there are a vast amount of people who flounder about because they haven't got a freakin' clue what they want! Oh: let's not forget those who want all kinds of things that are detrimental.

I know what I want &, fortunately, it is what I have. As for what someone else wants, good luck trying to figure that one out!

 

[Ereth]

Soup is absolutely on point here.

An individual's personal desires (for love, money, or whatever else) are the end result of any combination of factors, like the ones listed above. No single influence is going to 100% determine what kind of human being that individual becomes. It is also impossible to understand someone's whole character based on one impression.

(As an aside, I must commend Canada for being completely accepting of same-sex marriage. Unfortunately it is still illegal here in my state, the birthplace of the American Constitution . . .)

 

[Soup]

@Ereth: I never understood the big hoopla over gay marriage & I never understood why straight people would even care what a gay couple does. After all, you never see gay couples going around trying to ban straight marriages. Homophobia has to be one of the least rational (& stupid) phobias.

 

[Ste11aeres]

I would like to add, that I frequently read stuff by guys saying all women care about is money, but in my interactions with women, I have never never heard/read any one of them list money as something that makes a man attractive.


Retrieved from The Love Drug--Love's not sex "In a curious twist, while both men and women find the attribute of physical appearance as sexually attractive, men misunderstand what women seek, and women misunderstand what men seek, Regan says.
Men think women find a man with resources highly sexually attractive-while women think men find a woman who's stereotypically feminine attractive. The truth is men and women both list physical appearance as the quality that's most sexually attractive.
But the list is more comprehensive for romantic attraction. Both men and women list qualities of kindness, warmth, a sense of humor, sociability, trustworthiness and a stable personality as attributes sought in a romantic partner."

 

[Evanze]

I think it really comes down to how people want to live their lives. Up until recently I was in a bad relationship with a lady who had her priorities on making money. And it was not without reason that she behaved the way she did, she came from a background where her father could not be a reliable source of income for the family and it put her through many hardships. What did scare me was her actual behaviour towards money where she would overwork herself and complain about not being able to spend the money she had earned. Her frustration about it would usually spill over into emotional abuse and I was frequently the target as I come from an affluent background and I was able to go through university without having to take many part time jobs other than the ones I really wanted to put on my resume.

And I think that's where I draw the line. When money becomes the object of obsession and when you become the subject of abuse from said obsession then you should probably cut and run because this issue will almost definitely expand the longer the relationship progresses. All that being said, money is a factor when it comes to marriage or when you've been in a relationship for a long period of time but it shouldn't be a factor when you first start dating someone as it skews your impression of them unfairly.

 

[Spinning Compass]

In my opinion, money does factor into it when considering a potential mate. When I am barely making enough to support myself, the very last thing I need is someone insisting that I support them. So, no, he doesn't have to be rich, but he does have to be able to support himself. He needs to be able to pay his bills without help from his parents or girlfriend or anyone else. If he can't, I'm not interested in wasting my time.

 

[Judge]

I think with real love there is real responsibility required on some level.

So yes, it's impossible to remove money entirely from the equation.