Imagine being 31 and single, not by choice, but by circumstance. You’ve gone through several bad relationships and looked back asking yourself what were you thinking.
There was this one guy you dated who was secretly married – no wonder why you could never go over. Then there was this other person who after two years still wouldn’t commit.
You were sick of waiting around, so you left him, your job, and the city where you both resided to live closer to your parents.
With pressure from your parents and a desire to start a family, you try the internet to find a match. After going on several unsuccessful dates, you finally find this guy with a wonderful resume – a law degree, a $250,000 a year job, a close family, and a good group of friends.
At 37, he wants to start a family too. There’s only one problem. You’re not physically attracted to him. Instead, he feels more like a brother than a lover.
After a year of dating, he finally asks you to marry him. What do you do? You value quality of life and emotional security the most. Sexual chemistry has only failed in the past.
Such is the situation of a FS reader named Mary Jane. She has until the summer when she officially becomes Mrs. MJ. 
MARRY THE RESUME OR THE SOUL MATE?
MJ has never met a guy as stable as him. He also has the perfect resume. Every other guy MJ has dated was less accomplished with a lower level of education and financial wealth. After all, less than 5% of households make over $200,000 a year and less than 10% of Americans have a Master’s degree.
If MJ marries him, she’ll live a comfortable life, especially when she adds her $120,000 income to his salary. Some might think what’s wrong with living a fabulous single life with her income until the perfect guy comes along. Sadly, when one bedroom condos rent for $3,000+ and the median single family home in the Bay Area is 10X higher than her income, life is OK, but not fabulous.
MJ is a realist. She realizes most marriages don’t maintain their physical intimacy level over time, so what’s the big deal if she isn’t physically attracted to him to start? There’s only upside! She cherishes friendship and companionship more than anything else.
At the age of 31, MJ also worries her pool of suitors is shrinking because she only wants to date older guys who are more accomplished. As we’ve learned in the Golden Cross Of Love, she is exactly right.
Some believe life is too short to marry someone with no chemistry. Why not just be friends? 31 isn’t that old by any means, especially from the perspective of us older folks.
But what if he’s as good as it gets? What if a guy of this quality never asks her to marry him again? She’s already gone through multiple horrible relationships. She doesn’t want to be alone and she loves attention.
Being with a financially stable person who treats you well isn’t the end of the world, even if everything he does agitates you. There are many cultures where arranged marriages are the norm. “You may not at first love your arrangement, but you’ll grow to love him or her over time,” one of my Indian friends said.
Should MJ marry the resume and live a financially secure life with a lack of chemistry? Or, should MJ continue to wait things out until she finds the perfect man who turns her on and has the financial requirements she expects? $200,000 a year or greater income, the ability to buy a $1.5M or greater home in the San Francisco Bay Area, a good family background, a professional degree, physically fit, 5′ 10″ or taller, and can always give her the love and attention she needs?
Please share your thoughts in the comments below and take the poll.
THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY
I’m guessing most of you will be romantic idealists and choose to stay single rather than marry someone with a great resume, but with no chemistry. Being practical is so boring. Why not just go for “the one” or nothing, right? Fair enough.
But guess who are the dreamers? Young people who’ve never been scarred! They enter the work force all bright-eyed and think they want to work forever. Then, one day a colleague stabs them in the back or they get hoodwinked by their boss.
If they haven’t been diligently saving since day one, they might wake up like most people and have this “OH SHIT” moment where they’ve got no other option but to work at the job they hate because they don’t have enough money saved.
The same goes with dating. We grow up watching love stories that always have happy endings. But after dating one too many scumbags or disloyal women, we start thinking whether we’ll ever find someone worthy of being our life partners. We become jaded. We question whether someone else’s affection for us is genuine, or a ploy to just toy.
It’s really too bad we can’t know then what we know now. Marrying is like investing your entire portfolio in one stock.
If the marriage doesn’t work out, there’s always divorce. According to Brette Sember, family attorney and author of two books on divorce, “You can plan on mediation costing somewhere between a few thousand and $7,000, whereas if you litigate, you could spend $15,000 – $50,000.” Then there’s the wealth destruction of divorce itself.
For those of you who have that ideal someone please give him or her a hug. Go into detail about what you appreciate about them. Thank them for putting up with your idiosyncrasies that might drive a lesser person crazy. Let’s never take our partners for granted!
The Pros Of Marrying A Resume
- More financial security
- Potentially less arguments since money is a top reason why couples fight
- More respect for a partner due to their professional achievements
- Parents might be more proud of you and your spouse
- More chances to network with other people who can provide more opportunity
- More financial security for your parents
- A greater ability to do what you want because your spouse makes enough money for both
- More money to help other people in need
- More happiness due to more financial freedom
- Won’t be alone
- Nothing wrong with marrying a friend
- If you divorce you get half
The Cons Of Marrying A Resume
- Lack of passion or no passion
- Physical and emotional intimacy becomes a chore
- Higher chance of infidelity
- You might always wonder whether there’s a soul mate out there waiting for you
- Less happiness because you’ve chosen to settle
- Potential shame or disappointment due to a divorce
Loading ...Related posts:
The New Rule For Engagement Ring Buying
Marrying Your Equal Is Better than Marrying Rich
WEALTH BUILDING RECOMMENDATION
In order to optimize your finances, you’ve first got to track your finances. I recommend signing up for Personal Capital’s free financial tools so you can track your net worth and analyze your investment portfolios for excessive fees.
Run your financials through their amazing Retirement Planning Calculator. Those who come up with a financial plan build much greater wealth over the longer term than those who don’t!
Your spouse can change on a dime but you dont know when. Love or un-love is one of the key motive in crime.
I meet all of those requirements, however I am 30.
I wouldn’t marry a resume: I am the resume someone might want to marry ;)
Resumes are a disqualifier rather than a qualifier. You can’t marry just a resume, you also need to share some commonalities like faith and goals, but marrying someone without the right financial profile is a recipe for disaster.
I’m not romantic in a conventional way, so I don’t think love is important in a marriage, but feelings are.
To borrow from Marie Kondo:
Does being in the presence of the other person spark joy? Do you have positive experiences associated with meeting the guy/girl or just neutral/negatives. Does he/she make you laugh? Do you see yourself living for 50 years without laughs?
“Physical and emotional intimacy becomes a chore”, this is by far the worst thing that could happen in my opinion. As humans, our minds are heavily influenced by our bodies. Sex creates good vibes, it promotes physical and and mental health. Even the most cerebral persons out there would still appreciate good sex, our bodies won’t allow us not to.
So, you don’t have to be in love with somebody, but he/she should at least be a “buddy” that you can hang out with, have fun with and have sex with. As long as you can associate them with positives in your life, you are good. Because what he/she brings to the table is valuable. If they don’t spark joy in you even at this point, what will happen 20 years from now when you have to deal with multiple problems like taking care of aging parents or finding the money to help your kids graduate?
Great article…
At first it is all depends on the women’s income
1). women who makes less money tend to marry very early and just stay at home with kids
2).women who make over 100K+ a year will enjoy her single life first then worry if she will be too late to have kids then just want to settle down
3). women who make over 100K+ a year but did not care if she is going to have kids or not… then can just continue enjoy her single life (but keep dating for fun..)
Life is about choices…you cannot have everything in your partner, (looks, make good income, is your soul mate, etc etc) have to be willing to give up something in order to get what you really want.
Soul mate? Really?
The most over-used, over-hyped, ridiculous concept.
Between Hollywood and Cosmo, American women have been indoctrinated that there is some perfect creature, aka “the one”, who will sweep them off their feet, satisfy their every need, as they ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after.
Grow up.
Love is hard.
Relationships are hard.
Get over yourself, and figure out what you need, and what you’re willing to do to get it.
Now suck it up, and go do it.
Well said. The concept of a “soul mate” makes my skin crawl. Life is give and take, joy and suffering. Love is really mostly about choice, the “honeymoon period” does not last, hedonic adaption will play its course.
I think it all depends on what stage of life you are in. If you are in the young and wild stage which is about partying and crazy sex then that is one thing. If you are in the next stage which is stability, growth, and kids, then that is another thing. If you are in the next phase about maintenance and raising a family then that is another. If you are in the empty nesting phase and in the next phase adventure and retirement phase that is completely different as well.
I am young (41), and still in my prime, but my kids are in college. I am almost in the empty nest/retirement phase. Try finding a woman who is 41, and is also in the same phase as me? My point is that I have done all those phases, and am ready for someone who is willing to have fireworks but realize I am not looking to spend the next XX years raising kids, I am ready to move on.
I can see the appeal of both but I am looking for solid friendship and the rest will follow.
The best marriage advice I’ve ever heard is: Marry your best friend.
Like blackjack, its depends on both the dealer and players hand. You have to be realistic about yourself on a 1-10 scale. It’s about what you want out of a relationship, everyone is different but sexual chemistry is very important if it wasn’t there wouldn’t be so much infidelity. Happiness is the goal, maybe it’s money, maybe it’s comfort and safety, maybe it’s super hot sex every night. Prioritize your goal and make your own life, and remember you can’t change someone else although you can modify behaviour.
You give up a lot when you just marry for a resume, the concern here being that giving into this may turn out to be a long insidious road to complacency and can come back to destroy everything down the line. In life two of the biggest decisions a person makes is what they decide to spend their time doing and who they decide to spend that time with, thus should not be taken too lightly.
However, our world has plenty of marriages where love grows with time as evidenced by the multitude of arranged or planned marriages that end up being very successful with little upfront time in terms of courtship investment.
This is definitely a case where you should go with your heart. If she strongly feels that she should go with resume and thinks that everything will work out in the end, go for that. If she thinks otherwise, go with soul mate option. Unfortunately with time ticking away that adds unneeded pressure.
Re: physical attraction… if she’s on hormonal birth control pills, she should see if she’s physically attracted to him when off them, since they can change who seems sexually attractive.
Other than that, only MJ can make this decision and what I would want is irrelevant to what she wants.
She should marry the guy and see if they can make it work. They could just get a divorce if it doesn’t work out. I don’t think the chance of divorce would be any difference from marrying a soul mate. Nobody is perfect. You just have to work with what you have. Physical attraction will fade.
One of my friend is 42 and she couldn’t find the perfect guy. She kept dating and now it’s even harder to find that soul mate. At this point, she wants to be a mom and she’ll probably have to go the donor route…
How does she know that she won’t fall in love with someone who doesn’t meet her requirements NOW, but will so later on?
I didn’t really have any requirements when I met my husband 15 years ago, but I’ll tell you this, his “resume” was terrible – separated with two young kids, living at home with his parents, and unemployed. I could tell he was a good man, though, plus we were attracted to one another and had similar life philosophies. Needless to say, we quickly fell in love.
Now we own a home, and he makes really good money which we are socking away for retirement. Life is good. Maybe I just got lucky, but had I looked at his situation and thought “loser” and moved on, I wouldn’t be as happy as I am today. Food for thought.
Nicole, but weren’t you in the exact OPPOSITE situation MJ is now? You want for the soul mate/passion route. She’s focusing on the resume route b/c she doesn’t want to risk leading a life she does not want to lead, even though there might potential.
I do agree that she could grow to love him more or find that physical spark if the mental connection grows.
I saw it mentioned a few times earlier, but I want to emphasize the man’s feelings in this case. It’s not fair to him if someone is only marrying him for his resume. Does the lawyer know what he’s getting into? Does he realize that she’s not physically attracted to him? I guess if he knows what he’s getting into, and they both agree on it, then it’s a different story.
I’ve definitely thought about this. But honestly, I think my earning potential is great enough and growing to the point that the resume of my SO doesn’t matter. That said, I really struggle to connect with people who aren’t highly ambitious and intelligent. Doesn’t necessarily have to translate into high earnings for me though.
It’s good to believe in oneself. As a NYC resident who may want to buy in NYC however, having a good resume partner is very helpful. In big cities, no longer are you competing with just an individual, but you’re competing against a couple and foreign buyers and their parents money as well. This is the biggest frustration I’ve seen single people have who live in expensive cities.
I tried this. I dated a kind, wealthy guy for 2 years. I was 28 and couldn’t figure out why I didn’t want to marry him; it didn’t make sense. So when he proposed, I suggested we go to Vegas and get it over with. The next day, I woke up crying.
Why? Because you can’t force love. We got our marriage annulled three weeks later. It’s now been over a year, and I haven’t regretted the breakup once.
MJ, don’t do it. Hold out for someone who makes your heart sing. If it were right, you wouldn’t be writing in to a blog for advice.
Hi Susan, pretty classic to go to Las Vegas for a wedding! Perhaps if the engagement. It was longer and it was a more traditional wedding, you would’ve had more time to think about it and break it off for the actual wedding?
Is the X has been with someone else? How about you? Have you been able to find someone that makes your heart sing?
Yes, it was definitely an experience! I don’t regret doing it either; I learned valuable lessons, and am hoping MJ can also learn from my mistake.
I do think I would’ve broken off the engagement had it been longer than six hours — but it might’ve just prolonged the pain and confusion for both of us. I couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to marry such a great guy; I figured there was one way to end my indecisiveness once and for all, and I was right.
I know my ex has been dating, though I’m not sure about his current status. I wish him nothing but the best — he deserves it. I did find someone else who made my heart sing; being with him made me remember what true, passionate love should feel like. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out , but I am optimistic about the future.
It’s out there, MJ. And it’s worth waiting for!
Very provocative post! It’s a bit of a twist on the ‘money or your life’ dilemma. When we’re at the store and can’t decide on something, my wife and I will often say “If you don’t know, don’t buy.” It breaks the uncertainty and has undoubtedly saved us thousands of dollars over the years. I think the same applies here – if you don’t know, don’t marry.
I like that rule! Thanks for sharing.