Been married for 16 years & were engaged for 2. Basically our relationship is old enough to smoke.

Met 20 years ago in college. We shared a class, but never spoke to each other. She quietly admired that I was an outspoken Conservative Christian. A year and a half later we shared another elective class and became lab partners. A month later we became a couple and a little later we were engaged the rest of college.

A couple of points that made this work this long:

1. We both filtered by religion/politics before it was cool. In fact it was heavily frowned upon in the early-mid 2000s.

2. We were not adamant Christians but we had that background and were open to it. This would save our marriage later.

3. We had defined gender role expectations for the other. If neither of us didn’t like it, we needed to find someone else.

4. She had to give up some of her time/space demands of me; I had to give up some of my excessive alone time.

5. We fought mean to each other, but would do exactly what the other wanted later...quietly.

6. Addictions are slow poison for a relationship. Make sure you’re working to fix them.

7. Resentment = relationship death. Keep it to a minimum.

8. If you’re hiding it from your spouse, you shouldn’t be doing it.

9. You either want kids or you don’t.

10. We like each other’s physical company. Physical presence is ultimately going to make or break it. Make sure ya’ll are good in person.

I met my fiancé in High School, and so far we have been together for almost 13 years at this point, with no end in sight.

While she doesnt really care about any of the things we talk about on here, she also hates the SJW's more often than hating us so I consider that a win. She is also a gamer so that also also helps.

I was talking to a coworker about Gauntlet, and then in autistic excitement invited her to play it because I fucking love Gauntlet: Dark Legacy on the PS2 with no further thought of the implications. That was more than a decade ago, and now we have multiple children and own a house.

Its not really an exciting story, but it does surprise most people in my life to this day that the "Misogymaster" such as myself isn't a bitter incel living at home, but instead a grumpy family man to plural daughters and a wife.

My wife and I met at work. I was essentially her supervisor for a bit. We were both young when we got married. I was 25 and she was 21. We've matured a lot over the years, especially after having children together.

We have an interesting mix of tradition and modernity in our relationship. We're both Christian and really involved in our church. One thing that's atypical though is I am a stay at home parent and my wife is the breadwinner. It works pretty well in upside down world where I've run into glass ceiling after glass ceiling as a dreaded white male.

When the kids get older I'm considering starting a business or something. We'll see. Last thing I ever want to do is rejoin the corporate world though.

it's a really small segment, but basically met a girl from argentina who came here legally, already got her citizenship here. she's from a conservative town, conservative family. so it's kinda passport bro, without any of the risk of being a passport bro.

Met my wife in college like 16 years ago. Basically revealed my power level from the get-go - never bothered to soften or keep my opinion to myself. Wasn't really a plan so much as I wasn't really into her in the beginning because I had a particular type and she wasn't it. Establishing a relationship based upon brutal honesty has been good, I think in the long term. Now that we're getting older she can believe me when I say I think she's attractive in contrast to the times I've told her she looks like shit.

Also I can call her retarded niggerfaggot, so I've got that going for me.

I'm not interested in a relationship without complete honesty and a good sense of humor, but it will take some convincing of the utility of that for the average person, who is increasingly retreating into puerile fantasy.

I'm not in a relationship right now, but I did date a woman for a while recently before we parted ways amicably. It's not really a success or stable, but by the average KiA2 schizo's view on women, I might as well have won the lottery, especially since she's a co-worker (gasp!). I haven't been poisoned, lost my house, or saddled with raising another man's kid.

Talked to a girl with a nice booty at work and thought there could be something there. Things were lukewarm until I recruited her into a mobile game (she loves those) and then it really took off. At some point I talked her into a park date and we had a great time, which led to more dates and hanging around her house.

Turns out she's a hardcore leftist who posted about shooting conservatives as soon as Trump got into the White House but still was into me after she found out I was a Christian who loved Trump. Then she started talking about marriage a few weeks into the relationship. Broke up with her after she needed "more time to herself" and found out from her former best friend that she literally summoned a demon in her bedroom. Wrong thread I guess.

Some things I picked up on:

• If you aren't making progress with your crush, find the thing that really gets them going and engage them with that. The difference was like night and day.
• Some deranged liberal maniacs are sort of genuine people under that.
• Left wing women still like masculinity, especially if you temper it and don't take yourself too seriously
• Don't have sex before marriage. She basically offered me everything but thankfully I stayed strong because it made the breakup much more amicable and reasonable and it saved me from spending the night in a haunted house.
• Don't make friends with demons. No joke, DO NOT invite the occult into your life because it sticks around.

So you want to hear stories of only the outliers?

The problem is that the majority of men either cannot find a relationship because of unrealistic expectations from women or they get into a relationship that fails because the woman found an option that she thinks is better.

Western society incentivizes women to have unrealistic expectations and to not value loyalty to their partner.

I am about 5'10. I am average in terms of facial aesthetics and I am an Asian American who is in decent shape. I might as well be invisible when it comes to female standards on online dating apps.

Most women I meet in real life are psychotic progressives and thus I find them very unattractive.

My standards for a girlfriend would be to not be a progressive and to not be fat and age ranging from 5 years younger than me to the same age as me. I am in my 30s.

Based on probability I likely will die alone and I have accepted it. I am fine with being MGTOW and not dealing with the absolute cancer that is most modern women.

This is not the feel-good response you were expecting but too bad. Life is not fair and western society has gone to hell.

Fuck clown world.

While living abroad, I finally caved and got on Tinder.

I deleted the app three days later, but I still met my wife on there. To be fair, this was the ONLY way to meet other foreigners in that country at the time. Neither of us were looking for hookups. She comes from a very traditional country and is a PhD.

It is just one of those weird baseball stats about me. I met my wife on Tinder but I used the app for less than one week.

These relationship stories are inspiring. Nice to hear from people with lovely families and actual girlfriends/ wives. Gives me a little bit of hope.

They all seem to be from people who got into a relationship a decade or so ago though. Anyone get in one recently? Younger or older poster?

I met my wife when I was doing a network class, she was an assistant. I was oblivious and she liked me. She asked me out to the movies. Now married with kids and we are still doing great.

She is a Christian, I was agnostic at the time. I had an absurd of me-time that I gave up. I was kind of lazy and liked going out for drinks with friends way to much. I have no idea why she put up with me early on.

What made us work so far is going thru hard times together, we did not have much money but we managed to get a house that was in a bad condition, we struggled for a long time, I had to fix a lot of stuff myself - I was not good at it and it turned out less then perfect but we both prefer it that way now. The first kid was a shock to both of us, it was hard to adapt to having a kid but we pulled thru it together.

We both work now and that is less then perfect for the kids but it is what it is. We both get involved with the kids, and every important decision we take together, we're also trying to be open and honest to each other. We do argue sometimes and had rough patches. Another thing that helped was seeing other couples and realizing we are doing great by comparison, made us appreciate each other more.

Soft-engaged for a year, ring-engaged for another, will be 5 years married soon. Met at a wedding (boring I know). Chatting with a friend in a group of people and he told them a story about me. I was getting my wisdom teeth pulled, the surgeon was running real late and I hadn't eaten for 12 hours by that point (I was pretty fucking fat). I was practically passed on in the waiting room chair and a girl entered and he suggested I give up my seat for her and I told him to go fuck himself. "Ooh, a real life chauvinist!" was my now wife's reaction.

At the time it was still "LOL Trump running for president? Fucking do it, it'll be a gas" in the normie zeitgeist. Had the wedding been even a year later I'm sure I would have been kicked out of the reception hall. I remember being asked a bunch of questions like I was a zoo animal (not just from her, from the people that didn't know me or my friend) and I had enough to drink that I was just basically cross referencing Married With Children hot takes and throwing them out for a laugh but wound up making some new friends.

Got big into board games so having a little group was pretty good. From game performance I think she got the idea that you can be wrong about some things and right about other things, and eventually she realized I wasn't wrong about some things she thought I was wrong about. We were pretty evenly matched, and eventually she would tell me that she appreciated me hitting her with all I've got instead of taking it easy on her Because Girl like others in the group did.

My future wife would go toe-to-toe with me in versus games and we were pretty evenly matched overall but some games she was just better at and some I was just better at, so we each would try to poke at each other to break through. As the political rhetoric around TDS grew, eventually "the group" would became "just us" and, well, one night a game of War of the Ring was resolved by, let's just say a treaty.

When we met she was pretty liberal but then again so was I a while ago, helped her think things out with an assist from just how many lunatics there are on the left. I think that's pretty key, you can't discuss or address anything without being honest about what the problem really is and that extends to all the things that come with a marriage.

She helped encourage me to take better care of myself and lose most of my weight and didn't try to sabotage my efforts like previous girlfriends that were either fat or skinny-fat and coasting on naturally putting on weight.

Together I think there's just a trust we have for each other, and a mutual understanding and respect. We're going to each approach things in our way and if it's not in opposition to something important, just let it be. When people see things like "man cave" and call it a cuckening, I see it as it makes my wife happy to have an electronics-free living area and since I've got plenty of space to myself anyway, and can see her point about it being a little distracting, I don't care to fight it. When she does the laundry and people call her a Stepford Wife she knows I'm straight up not going to fold anything I don't think needs folding like socks so she does it because she wants things tidy. (And maybe to check for lipstick & make up on my collar I guess.)

Covok's list is pretty good. The only thing I would add that compromise being something where no one walks away happy is mostly a factor of how much you care about it. Conceding something that doesn't really matter never really represented a loss.

The great blindspot of the manosphere is that men also have a best by date if you want a long term healthy relationship.

Your SMV isn't the end all be all, timing is just as, if not more important.

I will never have a childhood best friend I've known for 20 years. Simply because I missed that opportunity, I'm not a child anymore and don't have one, so pursuing it now is futile.

A long term relationship is the same. You have to find a woman who will be with you as an investment, thus who is mature early. You both offer your best years.

If you don't find that early enough you've missed the boat. Exceptions may happen, I couldn't say. But your odds sink to the trench.

Healthy relationships are rare, partially because most of the population are selfish thoughtless morons, incapable of pair bonding without social pressure.

If you are in the category that requires that pressure to find somebody it will work with, tough luck mate. Get a dog

Hit my three year marriage mark two weeks ago. Before that I met women who had mutual friends or similar hobbies. If we kept hanging out, I would talk about dating.

My wife and I met through a friend I had known since middle school. He has been dating my wife and realized he was too depressed for her. So, he introduced us.

The biggest complaint I have is that she has no financial knowledge and I have had to teach her.

Forget Tinder. Socialize and find friends and do stuff with those.
I'm still friends with some people from school (my old pnp rpg group) and when I visit home I usually met up with them & their friends and we play boardgames or have a garden party.
One of them is really into parties and he has 3 friends who are the same. And they all have their birthday in summer around the same time, so they throw one big party. Due to me still being in contact I get an invite and make it most years. Age rage is about 20-40 for most people (except the little children, but families start leaving around 5pm) and there are 100+ people over the evening there. Friends of friends. New friends. Coworkers. Friends of coworkers.

That also leads to a subgroup from the same people who loves wine. So during wine season here in Germany they visit basically every wine festival there is here in the south west (and there are a ton). Just get a friend who also has an interest and off you go. You know people from previous events (and the party). You basically have 1-3 good friends with you, 3-4 acquaintances you talked to in the past and 10+ new faces.

Plenty of (cute) girls too. And you (and she) already established that both of you are capable of socializing and are not total crazy people.

From my experience you need to be extremely careful and not let your guard down. Any attempt to keep your woman in line when things go south is met with extreme resistance by everyone, so you need to make sure you don't lose control.

Happily married for 14 years this year, been together for a few years longer. Two kids, two dogs, own our house. Part of the key to success is both people learning to admit that they're wrong and talking out issues rather than sweeping them under the rug. Divorce shouldn't really be an option for either person unless there are very dire circumstances, such as abuse or constant adultery.

To gain anything useful from this question, it is necessary to define what criteria are being used to determine if a relationship is "successful". The question and the resulting responses are useless otherwise. There is quite a difference between "I'm not very happy in my marriage, we never have sex, my wife nags me constantly, I work 60 hours a week and have to do all the housework, but my wife hasn't divorced me and taken the kids and my house (yet?)" compared to "me and my amazingly hot 10/10 wife have sex everyday, she is perfectly obedient to me, as are our ten home-schooled children who are in perfect in every way".

Worked my way up to the top of a popular pop culture hobby in a major city. Ran through slew of women, some good, some bad. Got to the point where friends swiping on tinder were seeing pictures of girls with me. I must admit I got somewhat jaded due to how many women I went through.

Met my wife at an event for the hobby and she sought me out there. Was impressed right away that she wasn't flaky or have any baggage. Exceptionally industrious and driven as she is beautiful. Hooked up, noticed I had just taken her V card so good sign for long term. Didn't expect her to stick around but she did, through multiple years and countries. Essentially she cured me of my jadedness and made me believe in relationships again just by being consistent for years. Realized this was "it" and have been very happy.

Best advice is you really do have to "kiss a lot of frogs". Work on you but practice being a good partner and drop women immediately who are bad partners. At same time be open to being surprised and try not to get too jaded. The unicorns exist but you have to search far and wide, not to mention be worthy of it once you find it.