Can someone explain this to me?

Art Doc

Art Doc

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A 27 year old woman, attractive, smart, in veterinary school so she will have a high paying career, wants to marry a man the same age, who barely graduated high school, been laying around for past 9 years at parents' house not working, not going to college, not doing much of anything? He has never had a job in his life. Has never had his own apartment. Has never accomplished anything. Shows no motivation to do a damn thing with his life.

Why would a driven, intelligent woman want to marry a bum? Why is she happy supporting him? What am I missing?
 
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I believe it's called Florence Nightingale Syndrome, or, if it isn't, it should be. The lady in question thinks she can "save" this loser, & make him into what she wants him to be. Of course, that rarely happens. I remember my ex, in a rare moment of candor, told me that what she liked most about me was what she hated the most about me, in that she couldn't get me to do anything I didn't want to do.:cool::D
 
When I was in graduate school, I saw this same phenomenon a number of times. Attractive, intelligent, female students would hook up with no-account, drugged-out bums. After observing enough of these relationships, I concluded that there were two main reasons for them: 1) The female got to place herself in the role of the "rescuer", which made her feel good about herself, much like she would feel if she had taken in an abandoned puppy or kitten. 2) It put her in complete charge of the relationship. Because the male was essentially helpless and totally dependent on her for everything, he had very little say about anything. She got to call all the shots, and she liked it that way. And I'm sure that in some (maybe most) of these relationships, both factors were involved.

My caveat is that this analysis is not based on any scientific data. It is based solely on my own observations, and may not apply to your situation.
 
A number of years ago I worked for a firm in Iowa City, home of UIOWA. Our group had a young woman as a secretary who was always bragging that her fiance was a medical student at the school of medicine. She was telling everyone that when he became a M.D., they would get married, and she would not have to work anymore, and that her life would be easy. This went on for 3 years, and about time for him to graduate. She started having problems getting to work, or if she made it to work, staying there. Nobody seemed to know what was going on, and eventually we found out! Her fiance was not a medical student, was not in college, and basically had been sponging off of her for multiple years including the three he was supposedly in medical school. He disappeared, and her drinking became an obvious problem. Never did determine if he was a liar, she was delusional, and/or both, or other? We thought she actually believed he was a medical student up till the last. Seems that most anyone could see through the lies if they lived together in the same town? Love, alcohol, stupidity, delusions, who knows ?
 
Opposites Attract.

SaxonPig said:
A 27 year old woman, attractive, smart, in veterinary school so she will have a high paying career, wants to marry a man the same age, who barely graduated high school, been laying around for past 9 years at parents' house not working, not going to college, not doing much of anything? He has never had a job in his life. Has never had his own apartment. Has never accomplished anything. Shows no motivation to do a damn thing with his life.

Why would a driven, intelligent woman want to marry a bum? Why is she happy supporting him? What am I missing?
Click to expand...

Opposites attract, and then they get divorced after 2 years of marriage. Don't let it worry you, she will learn some really hard lessons from this.
 
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swsig said:
When I was in graduate school, I saw this same phenomenon a number of times. Attractive, intelligent, female students would hook up with no-account, drugged-out bums. After observing enough of these relationships, I concluded that there were two main reasons for them: 1) The female got to place herself in the role of the "rescuer", which made her feel good about herself, much like she would feel if she had taken in an abandoned puppy or kitten. 2) It put her in complete charge of the relationship. Because the male was essentially helpless and totally dependent on her for everything, he had very little say about anything. She got to call all the shots, and she liked it that way. And I'm sure that in some (maybe most) of these relationships, both factors were involved.

My caveat is that this analysis is not based on any scientific data. It is based solely on my own observations, and may not apply to your situation.
Click to expand...

Scientific data is highly over-rated at times, and I concur with your assessment, even if it was derived from common sense. How did you make it through grad school and retain good sense, that is what puzzles me? Because, that is not the way that it usually turns out.
 
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I used to have to drive by a county jail on my way home from work. I was always fascinated by the fact that there were always some very nice looking women waiting for visiting hours. My lady is a lawyer who used to work as a defense attorney. She said lots of them like these kinds of relationships because once the guy was on parole they figured they had control. I think the rescue thing is also valid. Had a SIL who had a total loser who sucked off her and she kept saying he wanted to change and she could help him.

Men marry women thinking they won't change and they do
Women marry men thinking they will change and they don't or if they do it is very very slowly. (my case. LOL)
 
SOMETIMES....

I seen awful lot of that, 'I'm going to change him' stuff. I have seen SOME cases though where people are just crazy about each other and live their lifestyles to suit themselves and each other is fine with that.

I knew this one old piano refinisher that honestly acted like a slow teenager but she was obviously nuts about him. And, there are 'kept' women' also, 'kept men.' and their arrangement is that she'll make the living, and he'll make the living worthwhile.

Anyway, hardly anything applies to the whole population. Some people are.....different.:)
 
I have a doctorate. My wife has a GED. We are 16 years apart in age. We have been happily married for 30 years and our relationship is the envy of many more "closely matched" couples. I agree with Watchdog, and there probably isn't anything you can do about the situation anyway. "Give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference" has been good advice to me in many situations.
 
Men have been doing this for years!
SaxonPig said:
A 27 year old woman, attractive, smart, in veterinary school so she will have a high paying career, wants to marry a man the same age, who barely graduated high school, been laying around for past 9 years at parents' house not working, not going to college, not doing much of anything? He has never had a job in his life. Has never had his own apartment. Has never accomplished anything. Shows no motivation to do a damn thing with his life.

Why would a driven, intelligent woman want to marry a bum? Why is she happy supporting him? What am I missing?
Click to expand...
 
There's a lot of things I can't explain and I found that trying to only makes my head hurt.

I hope she wakes up sooner than later.

My wife had a good one when her God Daughter was messing up in a one way relationship. "Well, There goes Jessie's first Porsche". And that's just about what it cost her before she had enough.
 
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