I’m sure you’ve heard the saying that “love is all that matters,” right?
As children, we were often fed the narrative of ‘happily ever after’ as soon as the lady and the guy tied the knot.
But is this really the case?
Marriage isn’t synonymous with happily ever after, as those fairy tales made us believe.
Building to arrive at the happily ever after phase takes a lot of work and intentionality.
Sometimes, I wonder when I see unhappy couples if they saw the red flag or if their love was too blind.
I have heard people share how, after marriage, they fell out of love with their partners.
The back story for others is that they never loved the person they married in the first place.
If “e shock you” (Nigerian slang for – it shocked you), please know that it came as a surprise to me too.
Can we discuss why a man would marry a woman he doesn’t love?
Read on to unravel this mystery!
Why Would A Man Marry A Woman He Doesn’t Love? – 10 Astounding Reasons
1. Family and societal pressures
It is fitting that the family is the first agent of socialization in a child’s life because this is where the first values are formed.
If the family the man is from is rooted in a culture that has no regard for romantic feelings or emotions, he may be pressured to marry a woman he doesn’t love just to do right by his family and please them.
Similarly, societal pressures have a way of streaming down a person and forcing them to make a decision against their better sense of judgment.
If a man is part of a society that believes that marriage puts you ahead and makes you honored, he may not care about the love factor because, societally, honor is seen as more important than love.
2. Lack of self awareness
A man who lacks self-awareness may settle for a woman he doesn’t love.
Loving and knowing yourself will help you make decisions you can live with.
However, when you lack self-awareness, you may do things you think are okay, only to regret them later.
A good example is the crop of men who get married only to discover they don’t love the woman they now call ‘wife.’
How exactly did that happen?
How did you date a woman and marry her only to discover weeks or months after the wedding that you don’t love her?
If you are equally perplexed, then that makes the two of us.
The answer is that the man in question lacked self-awareness.
He didn’t know what love meant to him or what he wanted; he only went with the flow, hence his confusion.
3. Benefits
I believe you’ve been waiting for this.
The power of money can not be underrated in circumstances like this.
If a man has something to gain, he may marry someone he doesn’t love for it.
This is clearly an ‘arrangee marriage’ (meaning arranged marriage) and not one built on the foundation of love.
Some men marry women they don’t love to boost their business and political statuses.
For these men, it is all about the money; it is the money they love!
4. Frustration after breakups
If you were served one too many ‘breakfasts the premium style,’ you may have lost hope or faith in love.
After a series of breakups and heartbreaks, some men get frustrated and decide to ditch feelings forever.
A friend once shared a post where a couple shared their beautiful love story.
Honestly, it was almost too good to be true, but the romantic in me believed every word.
Guess what?
The comment section was a mess!
Many people were projecting evil on this couple, while others claimed they were lying.
Only a few comments celebrated their love story.
While I disagree with the cynical views of the masses on that post, I could understand that many were only speaking from their hurt.
Many had suffered terrible blows for love’s sake and gradually became hardened to the possibility of love.
This is what the frustration of breakups can do to a man.
A time will come when the man will stop believing in love altogether, and when he needs to marry, he’ll marry a woman he doesn’t love.
5. Pregnancy
A home goal is seen as a stigma for any football team, but the players eventually have to live with it.
A man can score a home goal by getting his girlfriend pregnant.
Even though children are great blessings from God, it is complicated when they come out of wedlock.
While some women may not mind being just a baby mama, others may insist on their guy putting a ring on their finger.
At this point, his feelings for them are inconsequential; all that matters is the baby on the way.
He may end up marrying her even though he doesn’t love her because he feels duty-bound.
6. Ignorance
Not everyone has experienced love or true love.
If a guy is naïve and hasn’t had much experience with the opposite sex, he may not even know what love is.
Perhaps, in his ignorance, he thinks love is sexual attraction, and so he marries a woman he is sexually attracted to but doesn’t love.
Please note that this point relates to sheltered men who have seen little of this side of life.
Out of ignorance, he can marry a woman he doesn’t love.
Heck! He doesn’t even know what love is.
7. Fear
A man can marry a woman he doesn’t love because he fears that love will weaken him.
Men who are very patriarchal and macho like to stick to business and keep emotions at bay.
Perhaps this guy is also generally emotionally unavailable and would love for it to remain that way.
A woman who understands how to be a wife without being too mushy or breaking down his walls will do for him.
He doesn’t want love because love scares him, and he believes love is for weak men.
8. “She’s a good woman”
What do you do when you’re with a girl who has every quality of a great wife and mother?
“You marry her!”
Please calm down; I am only echoing the thoughts of some men.
They decide to marry a woman because she is good and homely and not necessarily because of chemistry.
They seek a woman who is homely, a great cook, can nurture the family, is a suitable help for them, and has all the qualities in their “good woman” book, and that’s who they marry.
Having a good woman is their priority, so they go for that.
Sometimes, men are very eager to settle down, especially if they’ve been unmarried for a very long time, and they settle down with any available good woman.
I once had a suitor.
I was a university undergraduate in my twenties while this dude was in his forties and desperately wanted to settle down.
He believed I had what he needed in a wife, but I didn’t have any feelings for him and was not ready for marriage, so I declined.
9. Sex
Yes, many men marry for sex!
They marry to have sex, and if they have an attractive lady with a hot, banging body, it is easy to confuse what makes their erection respond to her as love.
Since sex and sexual appeal are their motivation, they may very well end up with a woman who gives them all that and more in the bedroom but who they don’t genuinely love.
What then happens is that after the sexual pressure is relieved, they find that they cannot connect with their wives after all, and sex is their only common ground.
In case you are wondering, love is not sex.
You can have hot, steamy sex with a person and not particularly love them.
What makes you carry them in your heart, really like them, or like to be with them, especially when no ‘bedmatics’ is ongoing?
What makes you want to do all that and go the extra mile for them is love.
10. Mindsets/ Mistakes
Have you heard of statements like; “Men are scum”?
“All women are bitches.”
“Love doesn’t exist.”
If this is the widely adopted belief in his society, a man may not be looking for love in marriage and may end up marrying a woman he doesn’t love.
I have heard people advise young singles: “Love always comes later.”
Well, I must confess that love is not merely in the butterflies in the tummy you feel, even though that has its part to play and is indicative of physical attraction.
However, I don’t buy into the philosophy that love always comes later, as this doesn’t happen in all cases.
Sometimes, love never comes, and you start feeling stuck.
On the other hand, some believe that “love is a choice” and is not restricted to just feelings, so you don’t need to fall in love with one particular woman.
Anyway, I am not about to argue that.
The point is that our mindsets and beliefs about things spur us to corresponding actions.
Some men marry women they don’t love because of mindsets they have about marriage, women, and the family.
For some, love isn’t important; for others, they made a mistake or got carried away by physical beauty or sexual appeal; some just traded off love for money, fame, and influence.
However, one thing stands out to me in this article: “Choices have consequences.”
Whatever choices we make in life, we always have to face its consequences, just like the men who end up married to women they don’t love.