Notoriously, husbands tend to see their wives as hot, when they would never see some other woman of similar age as hot. If they are separated from their wife for a year or so, for example by divorce, the wife goggles fall off.
Wife goggles appear to happen primarily to fathers. If the wife does not have children, then as she grows older, she rapidly becomes less attractive, as any woman rapidly becomes less attractive past thirty.
In the ancestral environment, particularly in northerly lands, women and children were dependent on males for food. Therefore we are descended disproportionately from males who stuck around, but we are also descended disproportionately from males who only saw fertile age women as attractive.
One possible resolution of these conflicting requirements (natural selection wants man to hang out with fertile age woman, but natural selection wants man to stick with the mother of his children) is for a man to see his wife as always that age when he had children with her, or always as sexually attractive as she was at that age, which is to some substantial extent what happened to me. Which suggests that one should have children as young as possible.
[…] … or maybe, sixth, you just need Wife Goggles. […]
Or at least with as young a woman as possible.
[…] By jim […]
Nice that you threw in that personal bit at the end. It instantly tripled the credibility of what you’re saying.
But what about an old woman after her children are gone? She can’t have any more children, so her further survival doesn’t pass on her genes (unless she helps her grandchildren survive, or something). However, if her husband has sex with someone else, he can still have more children.
These “wife goggles” should only last as long as the children (and possibly grandchildren?) need her nurture. Once that’s done, the husband should be done with her.
unless she helps her grandchildren survive
Yes, this is reason nature lets women live after menopause, also men since sexual dimorphism would be more expensive than letting men live long (also nipples)
This is so cute. Who said reactionaries can’t be romantic?
On the other hand the Japanese have a word, ???, which means “people who love their wives”. Implied is that most men don’t.
It’s not being romantic, its recognizing biology. Fatherhood drives physical and hormonal changes that make you more interested in pair-bonding and shared life history.
Well, as I said in East Asia it’s common for married man to lose all sexual interest in their wives after childbirth, and middle aged men all look for mistresses if they can afford to. The Japanese have a word that means “man who loves his wife”, which assumes most people don’t, and Confucians had elaborate norms telling men to sleep with their older wives with a set frequency; which assumes they had to be told to.
Then again that may only apply to the literate class, which generally married when older. It’s my impression that Asian peasants are generally affectionate with their wives, they also generally married very young.
Or maybe it’s just about lifestyle; upper class men spent little time at home, peasants worked with their wives as a team.
It is possible that wife goggles only stay in place if one spends sufficient time with one’s wife. This has been the case in examples of wife goggles suddenly falling off.
> Asian peasants are generally affectionate with their wives, they also generally married very young.
And they are perfectly willing to throw their wife under the bus if that means they can get rich and have better mistresses. When you can’t have a better choice, you may as well make your current choice most adorable. This is basic human psychological optimization mostly happening at unconscious level.
Loving his wife and having mistresses are not mutually exclusive though. If man can physically provide for more than one then he can psychologically love more than one. Again, psychological optimization.
It’s not about willingness to provide, Jim talks of finding her hot. A good measure would be frequence of sex after 40. It seems to me Asians lack at that.
Hotness is almost synonymous with fertility. If the wife is fertile, yes hotness can be extended somewhat. A 40-ish wife is not hot. Though she may still be somewhat sexually attractive due to love, need for psychological bounding, and a lack of better sexual option.
The asian view is quite realistic. Japanese, as in everything, dwell in extremes.
[…] Wife goggles: one should have children as young as possible. […]
One of the more profound scriptures is “Remember the wife of your youth”
Yup this is true. I remember some relationship researcher talking about women telling about 80 year old men interviewed telling the women she looked like she did at 17, when they started dating.
I posit that women, at least women who bear children have “husband-googles” as well. Yeah yeah the guy Mad Men may be hot but pudgy bald middle aged desk jockey is not. However, he’s sweet, and romantic and hopeless dork, and a sap-even though he used to try to play hardass, and well what can you say he’s gotten good in bed with all the practice over the which the demanding hardass is to insecure and selfish to do, and well, even if he’s kinda man-frumpy you love him and wouldn’t have it any other way. Sigh. Husband goggles. Sounds nice. I don’t have it. I’m divorced
Which brings me to the other kinds of goggles:
Ex-wife goggles: she’s so bad and wrong and even ans Deliah to my Sampson. Poor poor little me.
Ex-husband goggles: why miserable coniving sexist asshole, I hate his guts. Accusations of abuse during divorce are 98% true so you won’t find those here, but you might hear negligent dead beat zoned out and any swear words you care to apply.
The socred lover/wrong husband or wife. This is very gender and sex specific but none the less you will find it, in almost any relationship status for almost any length of time.
Wronged Wife/Scored Lover or Mistress: this may be the oldest type he’ll hath no fury like a woman scorned.
Cuckolded Husband or the updated version the Emasculated Husband: true cuckolding, where a man unknowingly raises another man’s passed off as his own due to his wife’s adultery, rarely happens anymore. It’s the whole falling birthrate contraception thing. The availability of paternity tests, much like the availability of DNA tests in rape cases, may not lead to the truth but when backed into a corner it can make people modify their “origin of sperm in location” story. The ultimate failure in this? Bill Clinton. However it’s infinitely for likely when you have 14 kids and no birth control instead of 1.3 kids or whatever the national average is and can buy condoms at every gas station. Now men are reduced to the bitter important furry of being emasculated usually by leaving or cheating or undervaluing and low impact on an ex. Not quite th same for women but with increasing power of women and changing gender dynamics this is increasingly happening to men as well. Although may have more or as much to do with general public humiliation and less to do with all consuming personal jealous wrath.
The rest of these are more about female reproductive strategies. Back in the day a woman had a one in ten chance of death. To quote an African midwife:
If a mother dies in childbirth her baby follows and a month later her toddler.
Diets were mostly vegetarian, nobody was particularly well nourished to begin with. Women and children were frequently beaten. Everybody starting from 6-7 was doing hard manual labor. Frequent back to back childbearing left women increasingly malnourished and their babies were often small and weak, born early or both. Even at the best of times infant morality was 50% in the first year. Almost all water was contaminated with raw sewage which lead to dangerous diarrhea which frequently lead to malnutrition and death in young children. For infants anything other than exclusive breastfeeding was usually fatal. Weaning toddlers onto a starch diet often didn’t provide enough protein, calories, or essential micronutrients to keep them from starvation. 2-3 years of breastfeeding was almost essential unless the parents could afford a high meat diet with adequate nutritional diversity which was very rare. Child spacing was absolutely critical to infants survival to pass on the mothers genes.
A mother who got pregnant again, risked not only herself and her current baby, but also any other children she has under three and not being around to get the raise the rest of her children to adulthood. Having babies back to back 9 months apart was an extremely poor strategy and most women didn’t. Farmers, who usually had more food and need for children’s labor, spaces their pregnancies 2 years apart. Hunter gatherers generally spaced their kids 4 years apart.
Ever tried to revive a sexlife with a mother of baby, toddler or both? Yeah just tell me how that worked for yuh? It didn’t. This is why. She’s supposed to build up he’s nutritional reserves, breastfeed, and recuperate before conceiving again. This brings us to the other kinds of goggles.
Post birth or “I shall kill you now” goggle: This is rapid completely random contextless spike in overwhelming rage hated and desire to seriously physically harm the father of your children. It’s like flipping a light switch. This won’t show up externally in most women beyond mild irritability. It is truly contextless. Nothing the man did, besides being alive breathing and in your presence has anything to do it. Women know that. But the suddenness severity and intensity are shocking. You can literally be sappy about him fawning over you and bring you flowers one second and feeling fury and an overwhelming desire to stab him in the chest if he doesn’t go away the next. It’s frightening how quickly and randomly it comes on, and then as fast as it can it leaves again…only to leave and return occassionally. This usually starts 3-5 days post birth, and can come and go for about two months afterwards.
No sex for 6-8 weeks? Well you’re not going to get pregnant if you’d kill him as soon as let him near you.
Mother Nature is a smart bitch.
Pillow goggles: these sent in about the time “I hate you” goggle leave. They settle about the time the newborn phase is over. It’s the deep and abiding love a woman with a young child baby or toddler feels for her pillow and anything associated with sleep. It leaves her completely unmoved by her former lovers ardent advances.
Pinning Daddy goggles: the forlorn longing of a man for his his young hot wife who has left him another ma-….on ho wait, her pillow.
Fortunately this resolves around the time the youngest child hits 3. In the mean time its like the mom is basically chemically casterated by mother natures.
On the other hand, because Mother Nature is a convincing bitch with an evil sense of humor women with babies between six month and three can also be plages with
Babysitter goggles: the overwhelming desire to leave the kids with someone else and have your husband take you out alone together somewhere private
and fuck your brains out. This is rare but it happens. This is also closely correlated with Murphy’s Law. It will happen when the opportunity is completely impossible to act on…or on the rare chances you are both home alone together in private and can do something about it….the kids will promptly wake up. The odds of the children waking up are directly proportional to the woman’s desire for sex.
Fortunately all this does eventually where off when Mother Nature lets up onher female hormonal chemical castration because it’s time for the next baby. All sing the praises of sexual desire and modern family planning.
The last category of goggles is not seen in married couples but in never married couples shortly after breaking up, and in long divorced couples after the serious acrimony is over.
Mother/Father of my children goggles: for never married and non cohabiting couples this comes up as prolonged jealousy, romantic feelings and sexual attraction long after they both know they should be moving on. Sometimes one or the other will milk this intentionally. In long divorced couples it will show up as a deep abiding warth, affection, and fondness even if the couples history or character doesn’t remotely justify such a thing. Once the acrimony is over these couples will almost always forgive and like one another even after coparenting is done. This however does not include sexual chemistry.
[…] an age when I should be over such childish concerns, they concern me more than ever. I know about wife-goggles but I’m afraid that I might be too cynical and deficient in sentiment to develop this helpful […]