You are a married woman, but you are not your husband’s first choice

It is a sad reality, but the reality of today’s marriage(btw 80-90 percent) are marriages where either partner has settled for the other partner. This does not mean, this marriages can not last or are not fullfilling, but often it is a marriage based in practicality and may lack passion either party may desire.

My focus today is if you are not your husband’s first choice in a wife, and how to navigate in such a reality where your husband does not see you as his soulmate and unicorn, but a woman he may love, but settled for.

The first thing is you are not alone. While marriage may be about love or connection, there is also a negotiation factor to marriage, in particular when men make the decision to propose marriage to a particular woman. Most men would want to end up to the woman of their dreams, however most men may not end up with that woman, depending on the their ability to draw that woman or win the affections of that woman. So for men, who are generally the deciders of relationships, they choose to settle for a woman they could win over given their position in life. When I say the man’s poistion in life I mean the man’s economic status, looks, social status in comparison to other men who are also vying for attention of any woman.

Knowing that men may settle for a woman is important because as women the closer you are to a man’s ideal of his dream woman, the better treatment you receive as his wife in the context of marriage. This is just a basic mathematical formula the closer you to man’s dream girl, the more of his resources and energy he will give you in the context of marriage which means financial, physical, emotional, and mental. This why women experience of marriage exists on a spectrum. There are women in marriages who receive little or nothing of their men’s resources or energy, since he doesn’t preceive you has a unicorn, but a woman he may be able to extract resources from or keep his resources until he meets his unicorn. On the other hand, a wife who is preceived as a unicorn would be given all his resources and energy. This is done by men on a conscious or unconscious level.

Let me show you what a woman looks like in unicorn treatment relationship and then we can go from there:

A married unicorn relationship:

1. Financially provided for- You will be a stay at home wife or mother. If you choose to work, the work you do will be about exploring your hobbies, the man is the full financial provider. You will have access to nannies and maids, anything to make your life easier, because this man does not want to see you suffer financially in anyway.
2. Physical provided for- The man hasn’t lost his sexual desire for you. This means regular sex to the satisfaction of both parties. He touches you, and you can see him staring at you from afar. He thinks you are the most beautiful woman and does not have sexual desire for other women. This type of man doesn’t have the desire to cheat with other woman.
3. Emotional provided for- This man makes sure he is emotional vulnerable to you, as well as he wants to meet your emotional desire. He doesn’t want to see you suffer, and makes your emotional satisfication come before anyone else including himself.
4. Mental provided for- This man likes to talk to you, engage with you and have fun with you. You are his best friend. He wants to get feedback on your thoughts about things he is thinking about, and things he wants to engage in.

As a wife if you see some elements in relationships as a unicorn status, but some elements are missing, you may fit in somewhere on the spectrum, it may not be at the absolute bottom, but you are still not getting all his resources and energy this man is capable of because in his mind he settled for the best he can get even though you are not what he would have wanted if he was the best version of what he sees as a man should be.

Knowing this reality how do you you navigate your marriage and how do you extract the best version of your man, or do you just end your marriage. The answer is simply is be logically and weigh your options and ask yourself is what you have been offered by your husband to the best situation for yourself, or can you improve your situation by improving your social marketability.

Let me start with a scenario, we have a married mother of two. She works fulltime and so does her husband. Her huband earns 60,000 per year, and she earns 40,000 per year. The children are school age 7 and 9. Both of their incomes allow for them to own their home and take a vacation each year. The family has access to medical and dental insurance and the children are well taken off. The wife is the primary home taker, her services accounts for about 70 percent of the home care. The wife takes care of most of cleaning and home chores, they have no nannies or maids, and the woman is often tired and slightly overweight. This a generally a good marriage, neither partner has cheated, both are sometimes too emotionally and mentally tired to have sex. They are lucky if the they can have sex twice a month. While this is normal marriage and happy marriage, it will fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum of an ideal situation for a woman and the question becomes what does this situation mean for the woman in this situation.

For me I would ask whether she happy with the sex life? whether she okay having two roles as a financial provider and full time care giver (is she overworked)? does she like being slightly overweight (does she want more time to herself to exercise, engage in her hobbies)? This is when as a woman you come to the realization of you social marketability, meaning the best you could get for yourself (given your looks,your age, your fertility, your youth and your social status) is man that can not or has choosen not to give you the unicorn status. The question is, are you happy enough in your marriage to come to acceptance of your social marketablity and what you can get from any man or can you upgrade your social marketability and extract more resources or energy from husband or upgrade your social marketabilty and find a better suitor for yourself and children. My advice is to upgrade your social marketabilty (your looks e.g., weight lost, dressing better) and see if that would motivate your husband to increase his recources and energy towards you and the marriage and if that doesn’t work, try looking to see whether your increased social marketabilty would draw a better suitor. At this stage your husband has decided what you mean to him unless he comes to sudden realization to make you his unicorn, you must decide what you mean to yourself.