Why You're Still Single & How To Get Married | Brad Wilcox

- Do you agree with Charlie Kirk when he said that everyone needed to be married by 30 at the latest, or do you think he was a little too harsh? - He said that if we waited until 30 to have kids, they had only a 50% chance of having a child. And I thought, "Charlie Kirk doesn't know what he's talking about. Charlie Kirk was right on the money." But what we're seeing today in America is that no grip of Americans are reporting their lives are more meaningful and happier than married fathers and married mothers. - What is the divorce rate currently in America? Is it as scary as we've been told? - The divorce rate in America, Alex, has gone down since 1981, pretty consistently, went about one in two marriages and a divorce. But we're now down to probably around 40% of first marriages and a divorce. And that's not great, believe me, it's not great. But it's important just to understand and appreciate that most marriages will go the distance. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Why are so many incredible women still single? Birth rates are crashing, loneliness is exploding. Millions of young adults are delaying commitment. Opting out of dating entirely or losing hope that love, marriage and family are even attainable anymore. And what's fascinating is that this isn't just happening among secular culture. Christians are really struggling too. You have beautiful, successful, emotionally intelligent women saying that there are no good men left, men saying that dating feels impossible. Entire generations paralyzed by perfectionism, fear, unrealistic standards, political division, financial anxiety, social media comparison and a culture that tells people to endlessly optimize themselves before they dare to commit to another human being. So what do we do if we wanna get married? Today's guest studies exactly that. Brad Wilcox is a distinguished professor of sociology at the University of Virginia, director of the National Marriage Project, senior fellow at the Institute for Family Studies and author of Get Married. His work focuses on marriage, fatherhood, family stability and why strong families matter. Watch this episode on the Real Alex Clark YouTube channel or Culture of Pathocary on Spotify. Before we start, don't forget to leave a five-star review for the show, just write a sentence or two about why this show is important and why you recommend it to people. It really makes a difference for us. It takes a couple seconds for you to do it on Apple or Spotify. Please welcome author of Get Married, Brad Wilcox to Culture of Pathocary. Why are so many pretty, quality, successful Christian women's single? So I think there are a couple of reasons why even kind of good Christian young women are struggling to find the right man today. I think one factor that is, you know, as a big issue is just kind of the supply of good men. We've got a supply issue. We can talk about that more later. I think another sort of challenge though, is some they're sort of starting to late, you know. I've certainly talked to women. I wrote a piece called Get Married Young, kind of profiling them and name Elizabeth, who is a Christian young woman now in her mid-30s. And for instance, she went to a great college. She went to law school. She worked for big law in New York City. In her later 20s, then came back to Dallas to sort of keep going on her career. And by the time she got back to Dallas, she felt like her kind of pool of eligible men was small. It was hard for her to kind of meet the right person. So she had kind of looked earlier in college. She told me she thought she could have had access to a much bigger supply of guys who'd be kind of on her wavelength. She's attractive, but also kind of more nerdy, more kind of book oriented. And she felt like kind of in college, it would have been a bigger supply. So she thought she should have gotten started earlier. And that's another factor too for, you know. And then also just their profound ways in which the digital revolution has had a dramatic impact on young adults opportunities to socialize, to be together in the kinds of contexts that would facilitate friendship dating and then marriage. We've seen, for instance, young adults socializing dropped by about 50% since 2000. 50% in terms of hours devoted to young adults socializing. Yes. So if you're just not out there meeting people in a variety of sort of organic social contexts, it's gonna be a lot harder to find the guy who might drive a spark that would lead to romance and then marriage down the road. So these are some of the reasons that we see. I think it's also the case too, that because of the kind of post digital social collapse we've seen, we don't have enough deliberate efforts to be kind of putting adults together in lectures, dances and their kinds of venues that would kind of facilitate the mixing and mingling that would make for more dating and more marriage as well. Have we as Christians over spiritualized dating? I think certainly some have. I think somehow kind of this sort of soulmate model, like this sort of they have this notion, they're gonna find the perfect partner, the perfect person, the one who's gonna kind of check all their boxes. Lori Gottlieb, for instance, who is a psychologist or writer for The Atlantic, she's not a Christian, but she kind of begins this book called Maryham or she reveals she had like basically 61 different things, checks she was looking for in a potential husband, had to be a certain height, had to be kind of a certain level of professional success, had to be good looking. But her point and kind of revealing this list to the readers is that she had a list that was just way too long. And so she finds herself in her late 30s as a single mom when many of her friends had gotten married and they'd gotten married because yes, they had some non-negotiables in a husband, but they had a much smaller list. And they realized that this guy would actually kind of meet the most important criteria they had, but not every criteria that they had. So I think it's also important to sort of understand and appreciate how kind of keeping your expectations, you know, more realistic can be helpful in finding someone who would be, you know, a good husband, but necessarily your perfect soulmate. - You have done some shocking research. One in three Jenzeers may never get married. - Yeah. - One in four may never have children. - Right. - At what point does this cultural pessimism become some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy? - So I think we are kind of in a bad spot when it comes to dating and that then is a big factor in this sort of low marriage rate and low fertility rate. We're kind of hitting record after record in terms of low fertility. And that's all downstream of a lower marriage rate. I think in less than until we can kind of figure out how to deal with technology in ways that don't kind of sideline us from real socializing and also from developing the social skills that will make us good friends and good spouses. We're gonna be in a predicament. But I do certainly see signs from the Jenzeers that I know and work with that there is a kind of new approach to technology that I think will help kind of them and people like them, you know, make more headway when it comes to friendship dating and then later on marriage of family. So for instance, I'm seeing a lot of Jenzeers in my orbit kind of switching out smartphones for simple phones, especially in kind of the more religious world having kind of like more deliberate norms about things like digital fasting on Sundays, for instance. So I think it's these kinds of deliberate efforts to kind of develop a new relationship to technology that will help young adults increase their odds of forging a relationship for themselves with real people in the real world. Are you familiar with Dr. Deborah Sowe's work? - Yes, no, it's certainly a sobering. Her book's extinction is kind of giving you sort of, you know, the pretty negative story about kind of how difficult it is to date and define real love in today's world. - Yeah, so I had her on the show and she was saying how a lot of Jenze goes for situation shifts as opposed to real relationships. Now are we seeing that bleed into Christian culture at all? - Oh, certainly. Yeah, I mean, Christians don't live in a bubble, most of, you know, most of them, most of us. And so there's a way in which I think people who are even, you know, in church communities are, the report being ghosted by someone who's, you know, a Christian or the report kind of a sense of ambiguity in their relationship, a certain kind of situation shift where they feel like there's not a clear direction. It's certainly the case that the broader culture does shape the kinds of norms and expectations and behaviors that Christian young adults are also, you know, engaging in. And there's a lot that they have to, I think, sort of cast aside if they'd like to make headway and finding real love. - Is there missing messaging in the church kind of encouraging men to commit and to lead and to pursue? - Yeah, I think there's a reluctance in the part of many clergy and many kind of lay leaders to sort of speak clearly and confidently and articulately to men and to kind of, like, give them a clear and compelling vision of what it means to be a man and what it means to be masculine. There's kind of a worry about seeming like you're, you know, like a trogladiator that you're sort of out of touch or that you're kind of anti-woman. Part of the reason so many young men and so many teenage boys are struggling is they haven't been kind of cast a vision about what it means to be a man, right? And so lacking a kind of a clear and compelling vision of masculinity, they don't really know like what they should be aiming for, they should be striving for. So that's any part of the challenge. It's also a case though, to be on just sort of messaging, we need to think about, you know, kind of, what kind of ethos are we cultivating? You know, because in most cultures across time and space, there have been rights of passage, right? Rights of passage of ushered either teenage boys or young men into adult, you know, manhood, if he will. And these rights of passage have often kind of required them to do difficult, dangerous or-- risky things that show their courage, their strength, their capacity to display the virtue of fortitude. And so without these kinds of rights of passage, I think it's no accident that so many young men are kind of seeming not to measure up as more confident, strong, more manly. Are we seeing too many Christians waiting for God to reveal the one as opposed to learning how to actually build a healthy relationship? Yeah, there's certainly part of that. That's certainly part of the dynamic. I think recognizing and realizing again that in any one that we live in, like there's no perfect person. And I think it's also important to recognize that there is what I would call kind of male malaise out there where young men are not doing as well as in the moment it comes to things like schooling and when it comes to often socializing as well. And so I think being willing to kind of give a guy a chance who may be still kind of growing up can be a strategy to pursue. But then also kind of expanding your thoughts about what you're kind of willing to accept in a spouse. And so I think the obvious point I would make here is that we're seeing almost 60% of college students, for instance, are female and only about 40% are male. And that means that a lot of women who are college-educated obviously, if they want to marry, are going to have to look at guys who aren't college-educated. And we have to sort of understand and appreciate that there are guys out there who don't have college degrees obviously who are flourishing in life and are also doing well professionally, especially in like first responders, trades. By the way, guys in the trades ladies make a lot of money. Right. A lot of money. Correct. And also, I mean, I'm hearing too, I sat down with a friend recently for lunch and he's got two young men who are both avoiding college. These are bright, talented, ambitious young men, but they just, college is not appealing to them. And one's a fireman and one's getting a certificate in advanced manufacturing. These are, you know, one of his guys, for instance, has a YouTube podcast where he's playing the organ. He's a fantastic musician. So just kind of just being, I think, flexible in the things that are like the non-negotiable. So I would say that one of those things you should be flexible on is whether or not, you know, the guy you would date to marry has or doesn't have a college degree. Well, this piano playing firefighter or whatever, my audience will snap him right up. We just need to put his Instagram manual in the description of the show, I think. When young women and young men were pulled recently, more men said they wanted to get married and have kids than women. Correct. But the majority of young men, 18 to 29, have willingly dropped out of the dating pool by choice. So how do you explain those two pieces of data? So I think what's happening here is for a lot of young men, really two things, you know, so I was talking to my RA, you know, a few years ago. This is my research assistant at UVA, who is a very bright, talented, ambitious guy. And I asked him kind of like, what's your plan for your career? And he had like a very detailed plan for the next 10 years of his life that he kind of sketched out for me. And then asked him, well, would you like to get married? And he said, yes, I'd love to get married. And I said, what's your plan for, you know, getting married? And there was just silence. He hadn't developed the plan in a very kind of concrete strategy for his professional future of the next 10 years, but no strategy for dating and finding a wife. And so I think one of the issues is that we're not encouraging our young men to be kind of much more deliberate about developing kind of a strategy in terms of dating and also kind of thinking about how they can make themselves more appealing to the opposite sex. I think that's one piece. We're just kind of not giving them enough cues and enough, you know, reinforcement on that front. But I think the other thing is there's just a profound lack of confidence. So we did a survey recently that found that only about one in three young men felt like they had the confidence to approach a woman to indicate their interest in her. I think there's kind of a confidence issue we need to address and address it in terms of both trying to encourage guys to kind of take that risk to ask someone out on a date, but also to kind of take that smaller risk to kind of just engage women socially on a more regular basis. You know, it could be after church, it could be at work, it could be, you know, by joining a running club and, you know, engaging a fellow runner, you know, all these. Yeah, but just to sort of like take the small steps just to kind of socialize a lot more and that I think often can lead them to the confidence to ask someone out, you know, for coffee, lunch, dinner, whatever. You ever sit down and think I should probably start taking care of myself and then nothing. That was me two years ago. 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It's got tons of five star reviews because it evens out your skin tone and it doesn't feel super greasy and oily or totally drying and mattifying, which also just doesn't look good on 30-year-old skin. Let's just be very real here. The Glow Highlighter is really beautiful. I dab a little bit of that all over my eyelid as my base color. And I like a little bit of that on top of my cheekbones for natural glow. If you're unsure about your foundation shade, Dell offers a free color matching service so you can get the perfect match. Go to a Dell Natural Cosmetics.com. Use code "Alex" for 25% off your first order. That's a Dell Natural Cosmetics.com code "Alex" for 25% off. If a young guy approached you and they're like, "Okay, so I need to have a strategy to find a wife and get out there. What steps should they be taking? What does this strategy look like?" Well, I think big picture in my book and get married. I talk about the importance for wives of three things when it comes to their husband. I think that's relevant though for guys who are just endating. So one is providing a second thing is protecting and then a third thing is kind of paying attention, developing kind of an orientation to paying attention. In this case, to one's wife and many kids that you have. But I think those also apply to guys who are just kind of endating. So you have to, I think, be either if you're a little bit older like in your early to mid-20s to be gainfully employed. to be employed full-time and there are plenty of young men nowadays, you know, almost a third who are not in school who are not employed full-time in that sort of 20-something demographic. So certainly, I think one thing is to be employed full-time or if you're, you know, in high school or in college or in a trade school to be really taking your education seriously. So you're kind of signaling to someone that you're the kind of guy who could be relied upon to be a decent provider. This isn't saying women can't work or just sort of saying that even today in 2026, women are much more likely to date and to marry a guy who is doing, you know, well professionally or seems like he will do well professionally in the future. It's biological. Of course. You know, but it is controversial in the circles that I travel in, you know. Even with, even with liberal women or non-Christian women, here's what's interesting, is that I think it's about 65% will want to once they have kids either quit their full-time job completely to stay home or go down to part-time work, right? So it's like, this is women are always seeking this. Right. So in my book, for instance, I talked to a liberal, very high-achieving attorney in the south and she kind of made it very clear to me that when she was thinking about her future spouse, when she was in college, that the word ambition came to her head, almost unbidden. She wanted to marry a guy who was ambitious and so she's now a successful lawyer in the south, but her husband's a successful young entrepreneur and she said to me, it's kind of, it's comforting to know that I could lose my job or not work and just know that he would be there to support me, you know, that he's kind of a financial rock for her. So providing is one thing, but protecting is also super important. When I was interviewing a woman for my book, Forget Marietta, heard from them repeatedly that they admired a guy who would walk on the sidewalk on the street side, kind of protecting them in a sense when they were out and about when they were, you know, going to a movie or a restaurant or going to a club in some kind of context. So they really kind of noticed if the guy was protective. In fact, one couple of that interview, the woman Grace said that sort of what sealed the deal for her was that they were traveling in a subway, you know, in the metro and a guy approached them, looked like a homeless guy approached them and demanded, you know, their money and their iPhones and her then boyfriend kind of stood up, put himself between this guy and her, put his hand out and started screaming at the guy and then they kind of fortunately kind of arrived at the next station and they just, you know, they were able to kind of escape the situation. But she was kind of like that moment of his protection of John's protection for Grace really kind of cemented in her head and her heart like this was the guy. And so they later on got married. So she was just kind of looking for a protective guy and we do see in the research when it comes to dating when it comes to marriage, one of the strongest Brickers, women sort of happiness or interest in the guy is sort of his ability to project his capacity to provide. So I think for guys, you've got to be physically fit and to be kind of protective both in a kind of physical way, but also kind of being sort of chivalrous kind of indicating that you're the kind of guy who's going to look out for your girlfriend or your wife, not just in terms of her physical state, but kind of her safety like in social situations as well. And then the final thing is just paying attention. I think we live in an age that is digitally distracted. And if you go into restaurants or college dining halls, you can see couples where she and here are scrolling on their iPhones or things like that. Or also to where maybe the guy is not really giving an adequate level of attention compared to his friends or even other women obviously nowadays too. And so it's got to be very clear to that the guy is capable of giving her adequate attention in terms of his eyes, his mind that he's thinking about what she's going through, what she's interested in that he's very evidently kind of paying attention to her. So for guys who want to find someone to date, I think it's important to kind of cultivate the skills, the virtues, the orientations allow you to be perceived and to be a good provider, a good producter, and the kind of guy really pays attention to the women in his life. I just interviewed Michaela Peterson, or Michaela Fuller now, her American. And she had the most interesting hot take, which is that on her first date, if you feel butterflies, you feel the strong sense of what we think is chemistry, it's actually warning signs your body is giving you that like something may not be right that butterflies are a bad thing. When you first start dating somebody, do you agree or disagree? I would say something different. I would say it's important just to kind of give the guy a chance and also to be but really to be watching for character. And so I think right here, like a Pride and Prejudice, right? And so obviously at the beginning of either the novel, the movie or the BBC series, Miss Elizabeth Bennett does not have any butterflies for Mr. Darcy, right? She's kind of repelled by him. He seems way too prideful for her among other things, right? But over time, as she gets to know Mr. Darcy, she realizes that he has a lot of virtues going for him, and it's this kind of process of sort of seeing him in a wide range of context, seeing him in his home, seeing him kind of rescue her sisters in a bad situation that makes her realize that yes, one of his besetting sins is pride, but he's got a lot of other things that make him, you know, a great prospect. And so obviously she ends up by, you know, by marrying him at the end of Pride and Prejudice. So the point here is that I think women should be kind of looking for, you know, a series of virtues, of talents and diamonds. And then intuition is they get to know someone better that give them the sense that he would be a good husband, a good provider, but also a great friend. And I think it's often the case for many of us, certainly myself. If you've had Arthur Brooks, you know, it's sort of the same story for him. It takes oftentimes the woman, you know, some time to realize that the guy would be a great friend and then a great husband. One reason people seem to be putting off marriage is that they're saying that they're waiting to make sure that they are happy on their own first. Why is that terrible advice for life? You know, we're social animals, Alex, right? And this is what Aristotle said many, many years ago, we're social animals, right? And so what ends up being the case is that for human beings, our friends and our families, and especially our romantic partners or spouses later on end up being the most important people in our lives. And they're the folks who are most conducive to forging a meaningful and a happy life. And so what we've seen the research is that a lot of people today, a pusher, for instance, recently kind of found that people were reporting most of the time that they thought that a job was the pathway to leading a fulfilling and happy life. Just kept having the right career was the important thing. And yet we've seen the data is that the best factor of happiness for ordinary Americans is not money, it's not career success, it's not sexual frequency, it's not even church-going, it's not self-rated health, it's a good marriage. This is the most important factor that I see and what's called the general social survey, a big ongoing social survey. And so, you know, given kind of the importance of both, I think, marriage and friendship, we have to realize that we are rebuilt for both friendship and pair bonding. We're generally much happier when we have good friends and we have a good spouse. What do you say to young people who are dating, they're in a serious relationship, they say, "Well, I'm dating for marriage, but we just need to make a little bit more money first before we get married." As long as you're kind of getting started in your professional work, I don't think that there's any kind of real financial bar that you should set for marriage. And in fact, obviously, once you move in together, when you're married, you're, you know, in most cases, be able to save money too on things like the rent. So, there is this kind of like capstone model out there that a lot of people have in their hearts and heads. So, when I teach at UVA, most of my students are kind of thinking about 30, if they thought about it, is the best time to get married, you know? 30 years old. 30 years old, right? And so, they've, ducks and a row. So, you've got your education done, you've got some measure of career success, you feel like you've kind of gotten to know yourself, you've had some time to have some fun. So, the thought is that again, this sort of capstone model is the way to do it. And what we see in the research, I think, surprisingly for a lot of my students, is that a cornerstone model where you're kind of getting married in your 20s, a little bit younger, oftentimes, allows people to have more of a wee before me approach to marriage with a kind of building a common identity as a couple, as a family, they're better able to have the kids they would like to have getting started in their 20s and having children. They're also more likely to share a common faith if they're getting married, you know, because their pool is more open in terms of picking someone who might be a good spouse. And then they're also generally, according to most research that I've seen, we're likely to be happily married. So, people don't really kind of realize that postponing marriage can have its own downsides. Have dating standards become so hyper-specific that people are filtering out, like genuinely wonderful potential spouses over really minor preferences? I mean, I certainly think for some people kind of the social media thing is obviously very destructive. Kind of having this sense, you have to have like the guy who's, you know, a six-foot tall makes, you know, six figures as a six-packed ab, and they're kind of getting this sort of like implicit model from their social media feed, right? So, obviously, in the real world, you have to, you know, again, not sort of have this unrealistic expectation about what the guy should bring to the table or what the woman should bring to the table, and to realize and appreciate that marriage is about friendship. And it's about, I would say, also, it's about like a virtuous friendship, too. So, having like this both romantic connection, but also kind of a very clear-eyed sense of whether or not someone has the kinds of virtues that would make them a good wife or a good husband, a good mother or a good father, these are really important. And then also, it's ideal to have, you know, shared faith. These are the things that really matter and how tall someone is or, you know, how handsome and we're prettier. the size of their paycheck. These are things that are not fundamental. - At what point does discernment become perfectionism? - Well, I think it's important to be discerning about kind of what you're looking for in a spouse and to be discerning about the character of the person that you're dating or that you're meeting or getting acquainted with. But I think I do see for a lot of people today they're dating someone for a year or two or three or they're cohabiting with someone for a year or two or three. At a certain point I'm like either now or you don't know or you're either gonna decide or you're not gonna decide. But like this whole thing of like taking two or three or four or five years to kind of pull the trigger, I think is very destructive. - How long do you think it actually takes a man to know if he wants to marry you? - You know, I think it really does, it really does, I think for a lot of guys it's pretty instantaneous and it may not be like it's, you know, necessarily fully formed in his head and heart but I think he has some kind of intuitive sense like this person is the person. You know, but the story is very that I hear. So I don't think there's, you know, one complete pattern to be honest. I think it does vary for guys, but I think for him it often takes, you know, a longer period of time to sort of get the sense that this is the kind of guy who would be worthy, would be good, would be good for marriage and family. When it comes to women at work or at the grocery store, out in public or what have you at church, what makes a woman seem approachable to a good man? Like what do we need to be doing? - Yeah, so it's interesting, Debra, so who you had here on the podcast has written about this in her new book, "Sextinction." You kind of talk about the importance of, I think kind of a kind of a context where there's like me too and there's also like a word that like someone's going to like, you know, shout out against you on social media. It's going to say bad things about you. And that would, I think, you know, for ordinary guys, does devastating thing about being accused of either sexual harassment or accused of being kind of like, you know, a creep basically on the internet. So I think it's important for women who are interested in a guy to kind of signal in some way to him that they're interested. And I think that as Dr. So kind of mentioned, I think just, you know, smiling, looking directly at him, kind of just exuding a certain kind of openness. Now, I think it's challenging is that you could imagine that that that'd be kind of your typical approach dealing with all people, you know, male or female. But I think just sort of like trying to send a kind of physical signal that you, you know, that you enjoy being with someone that he seems like a great guy and that, you know, by the way, in which you look at him and smile at him that you're kind of sending a signal that he has permission to approach you, to engage you, and then eventually to ask you out on a date as well. Alex Cooper, the host of Call Her Daddy recently announced her pregnancy. You had some hot takes that made people mad. So, you know, I think, you know, this is, in some ways like a very standard like story, right? Like, person kind of like, you know, I talk about kind of like a minus mindset out there and I'm on the login of Young Adults Day. Like, they want to like work hard. They want to kill it at work and life. And then also they want to play hard, you know, on the weekends and at other times. And they're particularly in their 20s. And I think kind of the messaging from Call Her Daddy was about kind of telling women they could play as hard as many men have in the past. They could kind of play the field when it came to both sex and relationships and take a more casual approach to all that stuff. And, you know, obviously, we all know people have kind of done that and have had, you know, wonderful marriages and families. I think it's pretty true that kind of the kinds of people like Alex Cooper who are hailing from pretty privileged backgrounds gone to good schools. In her case, landed a great job, a great gig. They often kind of land on their feet when it comes to a spouse and a family. But I think we have to understand and appreciate that when you kind of look at the broader pattern here, there's actually research telling us that people who are living the kind of more player lifestyle and it's true for both women and men are much more likely to end up experiencing marital distress and end up in divorce court. So, for instance, worked on by Jesse Smith and Nick Wolfinger, two sociologists, shows us that people have nine or more sexual partners. Again, both women and men are 165% more likely to end up getting divorced. That's a big effect in the social sciences. And the story there is robust to controls for things like religion, education, race and ethnicity. So it just kind of tells us that kind of putting yourself into a situation where you're taking a much more casual approach to sex and relationships like Alex Cooper was kind of urging her listeners to do. The beginning sort of faces of color daddy are increasing their risk, you know, down the road of facing serious marriage, you know, marital problems and again, ending up in divorce court. And so that's what I think our culture doesn't really appreciate, doesn't know. But for many things, kind of the more experience you have when it comes to, you know, sports like Alex Cooper's case or when it comes to music or teaching, for instance, the better you are at that thing. But one big thing where that's not true is when it comes to serious relationships and when it comes to sex. People who have had lots of experiences like cohabitation or sex, for instance, with different partners are for a bunch of reasons more likely to have difficulty and kind of like really locking in with their spouse, you know, down the road. - Okay, so I have like a hot take perspective on this which is gonna rub people the wrong way but just hear me out so I can explain it anecdotally in my life. - Yeah. - The girls who have done the most partying slept around the most got married first. And I'm thinking of like the girls that were really known for this in high school, almost exactly like right out of high school, they were married, they're still married today. I mean, this is like, I don't know, 10, 15 years later. Still married into the same guy, have multiple kids. What I think this speaks to is they are usually the more social girls, they're, you know, perceived as more fun, at least more worldly way. And so I think guys gravitate towards them and a lot of these guys, obviously they're not Christians. A lot of these secular guys kind of write that off and I don't know, it's attracted to these guys, they don't care. However, you know, they've only been married for 10 or so years. The statistic you're saying is we don't know how that's gonna pan out, statistically, it may not pan out well, even if they're married currently. So I think a lot of Christian girls see that happening and they're like, you know, they're single and they're wanting to be married. And they're like, I'm not sleeping around, I'm not a hard partier, I'm dating for a marriage. Why is it hard for me? But guys will marry them up right away. - Sure, so I think this really is a kind of, you know, cross-cutting factor. And that is some women are just very social. They're out and about. And they're gonna be, you know, just basically garnering the attention interest of, you know, men in their circles. And that can lead to marriage. So there's certainly, there are people that fit the kind of like pattern that you're articulating. But I'm just sort of saying you have to kind of look at this in a broader perspective too. And understand and appreciate that there are a lot of messy relationships out there in the world, right? And sort of the more kind of drama and complexity that you've experienced, you know, in your 20s or in your late teens or in your teens, you know, the more likely it is that you're gonna bring some of that into your marriage. - Oh, for sure. - And then that's gonna come back and hurt yours. - There's also no sin without consequences. - I mean, so yeah, so I think we all know that there are folks who can do this and seemingly do it well. But I think, you know, I've got a colleague, Gleina Rhodes, as a professor of psychology, Mr. Denver. She kind of talks about it in this way, about the sort of broader pattern, the broader issue. And she thinks that part of the issue is that there's kind of, potentially a sort of spirit of critical comparison that kind of set in, like if you've, you know, really kind of played the field hard, like, you're gonna compare your spouse to Will or John or Lawrence in terms of their sexual prowess or their ambition or their humor. And, you know, your spouse probably isn't gonna measure up to all of your previous partners on every dimension, right, in the best kind of way. And the same thing is true for, you know, for men as well, that they're gonna compare their wife to Liz and to, you know, Sally and to Amy in ways that are gonna make their wife, you know, not measure up, you know, as well. So I think this is the challenge in part. And then the other thing that's happening here too, is that, you know, from the research, we do see their kind of way. I think there are two impulses that we kind of wrestle with. One is to pair bond, but one is to, you know, so-or-wild oats. If you've kind of gone in the direction of sewing your wild oats, you can kind of develop, you know, a habit of just going from one person to the next. And again, it's gonna be hard, I think, for some people to kind of turn off that expectation orientation of kind of going from one partner to the next in pursuit of some kind of novelty, you know, once you are married as well. (upbeat music) Can I ask you something? Wibble-Din, Wibble-Din, Wibble-Din? No, not that. Do you actually know if your voter registration is up to date? Not, I think so, not probably. I mean, do you know that your voter registration is up to date? Because most people are walking around with no freaking clue. And voter registration is one of those things that people assume is just handled, and then they show up and find out the government has them listed as deceased, living in another county, or apparently still registered in an apartment where they once paid $2,300 a month to hear their neighbor practice the trumpet. Yeah, a lot can mess up your voter registration. You moved, you changed your name, you haven't voted in a while, you made one typo three years ago, and now you're in this bureaucratic hostage situation. Millions of people either aren't registered at all or they have no idea if they are. Like one in four people are basically just freelancing their democracy. So here's the easiest thing you can do today. Just go to real out of it. Alex Clark dot com slash vote. That's it. Real Alex Clark dot com slash vote. Takes 30 seconds on your phone. You can check your registration status updated if you need to. And then you don't have to pretend like, well, I'm pretty sure I'm registered to vote when November comes around. Go to real Alex Clark dot com slash vote and make sure you're actually good to go. It is so easy to check. I used to eat Dunkerous and Sunny Delight for breakfast. Yeah. I know. I was an '90s kid living my best neon sugar and me on catch up life fast forward to now. I'm in my 30s and I'm spreading pesticide-free beekeepers natural's honey with royal jelly on organic sourdough bread like some kind of wellness guru. This is the '90s kid to Crunchy Millennial Pipeline and I am the queen of it. Here's the thing. Most honey out there. It's loaded with pesticides in the US. Spees are exposed to a cocktail of chemicals that not only harm them, but sneak into the honey that we eat. You think you're eating sweet golden goodness? Probably not. You're eating a little chemical science experiment. And that's why pesticide-free honey isn't just a treat. 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As social media created a kind of Frankenstein standard for relationships, like we're stitching together the best traits and moments and aesthetics from hundreds of couples online and then expecting one real human being to measure up. 100%. I think, yeah, this is just, I think also for parents too. Like even like, you know, families, like, you know, I've, I'm married I've got a lot of kids. How many kids do you have nine kids? Wow. That's awesome. Yeah. So, you know, and you can kind of look at these families who are like posting from like their, in their trip to, I don't know, you know, Hawaii, whatever, or, or they're like, you know, like raising chickens in the backyard or like, you know, but, you know, no ordinary families going to be kind of like doing all those things, right? And so you kind of, when you're on social media, you kind of can develop a sort of a sense that you don't measure up either as a potential boyfriend, girlfriend or as a potential husband or wife or as a potential father or mother compared to all the different kinds of images and messages that you're getting online. What is the divorce rate currently in America? Yeah. So, I think one of the challenges sort of facing us, you know, is that there are plenty of voices in the culture. Many of them have been kind of on the left for a long time in the mainstream media, kind of telling women to kind of steer clear of marriage and motherhood. They're sort of seeing them as transitions of loss. So, for instance, Amy Sherman wrote in the New York Times that married mother in America is a game that no one wins. So again, from the left, we've been hearing about kind of how marriage is a bad deal for women, but we're now getting new voices on the right, like Andrew Tade and Pearl Davis, who are telling us that marriage is a bad deal for men in large, but because they think divorce to your question is just endemic in America today. And so from their perspective, a reasonable guy would invest in marriage, given that from their perspective, he's likely to land in divorce court. He's likely to lose primary custody of kids. He's likely to lose a substantial share of his income or his assets to, you know, to a next wife. And so they instead encourage guys to focus on kind of, you know, getting strong on making money and using, but not investing in the opposite sex, sort of avoiding love and marriage because, you know, it's a bad deal. But what they don't understand and appreciate is the divorce straight in America, Alex has gone down since 1981, pretty consistently. And so what that means is that there was, yes, this terrible divorce revolution in the 70s and 80s went about one in two marriages and a divorce, but we're now down to probably around 40% of first marriages ending divorce. And that's not great. Believe me, it's not great, but it's important just to understand and appreciate that most marriages will go the distance today. And there are things you can do to dramatically reduce your risk of divorce as well. Like what? In my book and get married, I talk about a number of things that we see are linked to less divorce. So one thing is kind of cultivating the spirit of we before me, you know, where you're kind of doing things as a team, you know, in your marriage, you're sharing the same last name, you're sharing a bank account. So we've got good evidence, for instance, that sharing in the same bank account kind of developing the sense that this is our money, it's our financial future together is linked both the stronger marriages into less divorce. That's one thing you can do. A second thing to do is to really kind of try to keep the romance alive in your marriage. And so I think regular date nights are incredibly important. For some folks, especially early on in marriage, especially if we've got kids in the house though, like a baby or toddler, they may have their date night in the basement, you know, to save money, but just are kind of setting aside time to sort of have one in one more romantic opportunities to listen to music, have dinner, you know, whatever it might be, that's going to be the thing that allows you to cultivate that romantic spirit and ongoing basis in your marriage. So we see that regular date nights are linked to about a 25% risk and divorce. A third thing that I see in the research is that guys who are reliable providers, and again, this doesn't speak to the women working are much less likely to get divorced. In fact, there's a relatively recent Harvard study that showed that when women lost their jobs were unemployed, it had no impact on their risk of divorce. But when the guy was unemployed or lost his job, it increased their risk of divorce by about 33%. It's a big effect in the research. So just kind of encouraging men to be intentional about, you know, being hard working and being gainfully employed. Of course, people lose their jobs, you know, on occasion, but I think the challenge on us for, you know, especially the husband to kind of realize he's got to get back on his horse and find a new job. And the fourth thing that I would say is just the importance of shared faith. There's just no question that couples who are engaged in a Christian community have access to what I would call kind of the norms, norms like fidelity and forgiveness, the networks of friends and other church goers are going to be good examples and also help them when things are going so well. And then what's called a nomos in the research and sociology and nomos is kind of this idea. There's a sacred canopy over you or over your marriage, over your family and the sense that like God is with you and for you. And so when the slings and arrows of misfortune to paraphrase Shakespeare, come your way, you know, your mom dies early, you lose your job, your daughters in the psychiatric, you know, word local hospital on a weekly basis, your wife's depressed when these things hit you. If you're a person of faith and you're plugged into a faith community, you're much more likely to be flourishing and to avoid falling in that negative spiral that can lead to divorce. So we see on the divorce front that couples who are regularly attending church are between 30 and 50% less likely to get divorced. So these are the kinds of things you can do to bring that that divorce risk even further down for a strong and stable marriage today. Do you agree with Charlie Kirk when he said that everyone needed to be married by 30 at the latest, or do you think he was a little too harsh? You know, I wrote this piece called Get Married Young for Compact Magazine and I was actually inspired by some of the comments that Charlie Kirk had made. And you know, one of the most provocative points that he had made in kind of making the case for younger marriage, what is he said that if women waited until 30 to have kids, they had only a 50% chance of having a child and I thought Charlie Kirk doesn't know what he's talking about. That seems like an incredibly large number. And so I had a colleague of mine, I think some of her family studies, Grant Bailey kind of look at the numbers and look at a large data. And he found that that was in fact Charlie Kirk was right on the money. The point is that if you're waiting longer to get married, you're waiting longer to start a family, then your odds of doing that are going to fall and they do fall pretty precipitously, you know, as you push past 30 for women. Now it's important to note that if you're getting married in your early 30s, you know, your odds of having kids are still reasonably good. But the bigger point here is there's sort of just given the fact that lots of people are experiencing more difficulty when it comes to dating today, that in the general adult female population, if you're kind of pushing past 30 without like a clear path to marriage and motherhood, it's going to be more and more challenging. And so Kirk was right to basically mourn, you know, folks that waiting too long can put you at risk of not having the family you would like to have. And so it's for that reason, in part, that I would encourage young adults to take their opportunities in college, in the workplace, in their local churches, in the local run club, you know, in their early 20s to look around and mix and mingle and see if they find someone who would be good candidate for marriage. I think to a lot of people when Charlie was live and those talks were going viral, I think a lot of women got really offended. You know, I'm I'm 33 and I'm not married yet. I'm a super serious relationship that's heading towards marriage, but I'm not married yet. A lot of women heard that and got very offended. I wasn't offended. I understood when Charlie would talk about those things. First of all, he's speaking in facts. These are true statistics. There are always exceptions to the rule. Exactly. Erica is quite a bit older than Charlie. Right. So his own wife was over 30 when they got married and then they had two kids and they wanted to have more obviously before he was murdered by leftist so it's like, you know, sometimes I think we need to hear things like that and understand that there are always exceptions to the rule. And you know, this goes this also goes with, you know, when Charlie would talk about, you know, it's really important that women are spending early early years with their kids and people took that as well. He's saying women should never work. Well, that's just clearly not true. I mean, even with Erica staying home when he was still alive, she had her own side businesses and her 365, you know, read the Bible on 365 days podcast. And Charlie also surrounded himself with tons of working women at turning point. But, you know, he also said in place, we have one of the best maternity leave policies in the country. Women at turning point USA have a six month maternity leave. And then also, there's a lot of, you know, working with women that work here for remote work or going to part time or just different things to make, make it possible. If you want to work, you can work, but we also want you to prioritize your family. Charlie did a really good job of walking the walk, not just talking the talk. So he was obviously not anti working women. Right. You know, there's just a lot of nuance that gets lost in those type of conversations. Right. I think it's important just to sort of underline that, you know, one of the more sobering kind of dimensions of the work that I'm doing is I am talking to a lot of women in their mid 30s, both my book at Mary, but also for my more recent work. And I talked to Elizabeth. I mentioned that before, whose inner mid 30s now in Texas. And she would like to be married with kids, but she's finding it really difficult to find a guy who'd be, you know, worth or interested in dating. So that's, and as I said, she was saying to me that if she had kind of thought about this more carefully in college, where there are lots of guys who were kind of like her, as she said, by her own words, sort of more nerdy, she thinks she could have found someone. And I think I also spoke to a man named Taylor who lives, you know, not too far from here. And she was encouraged in her 20s to sort of focus on her career as a designer, as a graphic designer. And then also to kind of, you know, have fun, travel, not really, you know, that really worried about getting married. And now she's in her mid 30s. And she's like, oh my gosh, I wish I had kind of taken a different pathway in my 20s. You know, I wish I had kind of looked more carefully for a potential spouse. I think just it's about kind of encouraging people, both male and female, to just understand that again, we're headed to a world where probably one in three young adults will never marry and one in four will never have kids. These are record numbers, like record levels of permanent bachelor's and permanent bachelor's of childless men and childless women. And in this newer world that we're kind of living in, we're dating does seem to be more difficult. It just doesn't make sense to say that just because you're 20 or 21 or 22 or 23 or 24 or 25 that you shouldn't be kind of looking around in your college or in your trade school or in your workplace, your church, your run club, for someone who'd be again a great friend, a great lover, and a great spouse. How do we know that? How do we know that one in three Gen Zers won't get married or whatever? So this comes from work done by my colleague, Lyman Stone, who's a demographer at this year's family study. He's just kind of looking at sort of the patterns and just trying to project based upon current trends in both marriage and fertility, what we're going to see for folks who are in their 20s. What you can see basically is that the share of folks in their 20s who are married is way below where it was in a place 10 years ago and a place even more so 30 years ago and not to mention obviously 60 years ago. So we're just kind of seeing the share of young adults who are moving into marriage in their 20s and then even in their 30s and then having kids come down compared to previous generations and that decline in marriage across 20s and things and 30s and things is leading us to project unprecedented low levels of marriage in America as well as unprecedented low levels of childbearing in America. And we can talk about why that matters for like the economy, we can talk about why that matters for social security and Medicare for the deficit. But the point I want to make for you and for your audience is that again, what we're seeing today in America is that no group of Americans are reporting their lives are more meaningful and happier than married fathers and married mothers. I'm really motivated to speak on these issues because I don't want my students at UVA, you know, my children, my, you know, friends, I don't know, friends to sort of like go through life without having the benefit of a spouse and family. If that's what, you know, they'd hope to do, that's what they were called to do. If you are seriously wanting to get married, right. Should you be on dating apps? So there are two points to make here. My colleague Dr. Wendy Wang has found in her research that couples who met first in church and then or in, you know, in college or in the workplace or socializing with friends are the happiest couples that she's seeing in the, you know, in her work on marital quality. And by contrast, couples are meeting through an online platform or less likely to be very happy in their marriages. So there's just kind of something about, you know, these in person opportunities that give you more information, often it's tacit information, sort of self cues, you're just picking up on at some level. But also you're often embedded to in friendship networks. And we know the couples who are marrying people who are kind of in their larger friendship network, who share their values, who are also going to be held accountable by, you know, their common friends tend to do better. So I think the ideal for folks, especially in their 20s is to try to find someone through an in person context. But again, given the challenges people are facing when it comes to dating, I would sort of look at, you know, the dating apps as a, as a necessary backup. And then I think it's important to kind of pick the kinds of apps that are more conducive to a serious relationship and marriage. So maybe it's a religious dating app or maybe it's an app like keeper, which is a new app that's using algorithms to kind of match people who are interested in either a long-term relationship or marriage. So kind of steering clear of the tender model, that's obviously not going to be helpful in terms of finding the kind of person who would be good for marriage. So dating apps are a necessary evil, I would say, you know, but the ideal is trying to find someone in person if you can. It feels like everywhere I turn lately, people are talking about glutathione. And honestly, it's for a good reason. Glutathione is often called the body's master antioxidant because it plays a major role in supporting your natural detoxification pathways and helping protect your cells from oxidative stress. But what's interesting, instead of taking glutathione directly, which can be expensive and isn't always officially absorbed, I really prefer supporting my body's ability to make its own. So that's why I've been looking at Gly NAC Plus from Utsi Naturals. That's Gly Gly NAC Plus. It contains two nutrients that your body uses to produce glutathione naturally. Glycine and NAC, which stands for N Acetylcystine. And I love the philosophy behind it because it recognizes something important. Your body already knows how to detox. The goal isn't to force some trendy cleanse or seven day detox tea. The goal is to provide your body with the building blocks that it needs to support the systems it already has, right? So that's a much smarter approach in my opinion. If you're interested in supporting your body's natural antioxidant defenses, healthy aging, cellular health, and natural detoxification pathways, Gly NAC Plus from Utsi.com is definitely worth looking into. You can learn more about Gly NAC Plus from Utsi Naturals at Utsi.com, utzy.com with code Alex. See why so many people are adding it to their daily wellness routine. That's Utsi Utsi.com code Alex on the Gly NAC Plus. For the longest time, I thought Criatine was only for the crazy gym rats, but the more I dug into the research, the more I realized that people are taking Criatine for reasons that I have nothing to do with getting bigger muscles. Yeah, Criatine is one of the most studied supplements for strength, power, and recovery. But what's really fascinating is this growing research looking into its potential role in cognitive function, mental performance, and even mood support. That is what got my attention. And the reason I chose Puri Criatine Plus, Puri is about P-U-O-R-I is because it's not just Criatine. So each serving of Puri Criatine Plus combines 5 grams of Criatine monohydrate with 400 milligrams of Tory. Now, both ingredients are known for their role in energy support during high intensity exercise, and emerging research suggests that they may also support cognitive performance and mental clarity. But I loved Puri's transparency the most. I'm really, really picky about supplements, and Puri is the only brand of Criatine that I have found with the Clean Label Project Transparency Certificate. So every single batch of Puri Criatine is independently tested for more than 200 contaminates and they publish the results online. You can literally scan the QR code on the bag, and you can see the test results for your specific batch. So that is the kind of transparency that I wish every single supplement company had. Go to Puri.com, P-U-O-R-I dot com slash Alex and use code Alex to get 32% off your first Puri Criatine Plus order when you start a subscription. We're going to save more than $23. That's Puri.com slash Alex. Use code Alex that check out for 32% off your subscription. Men say that there are no good women left. Women are saying there's no good men left. So where do we go from here? The thing is, I encounter as a professor at UVA, just tons of young women and young men who are great people, and who are single. I can't tell you how many students have sat kind of in my office hours and told me they haven't had one day at UVA. I'm just like, so I think it's about trying to figure out ways to bring people together and to also exploit opportunities where you're meeting people is part of the answer here. And then we also I think have to do more to organize events where people can and meet folks who are like mine, especially marriage minors. There's a new group, for instance, in Washington, you see, and they're organizing young adults, primarily who are Catholic, but you know, you need not be Catholic, who are interested in kind of in marriage, and they're doing lectures, and they're doing volunteering, and they're doing dances, and they're like these fun, well done events that bring together interesting people. You know, that's the kind of thing that we need to see a lot more. But I also think too, we as parents, and professors, and pastors, and priests, you know, need to do a lot more to kind of put people in touch, you know, to be thinking more deliberately about this person, would be good for that person, and to arrange for, you know, dinners and other activities where we can kind of like, you know, play the role of matchmaker. - How important is physical and sexual attraction when dating? - Certainly it's important, and this is why I think both women and men should be, you know, making an effort to, you know, be in shape or get in shape, you know, when they're looking to date or when they are dating. But I think it's certainly the case that a lot of people discover kind of romantic or sexual attraction, just by being with someone, by seeing them, you know, do something well, or by seeing them, you know, care for a certain person in a powerful way, or discovering a kind of a friendship, you know, that they hadn't necessarily expected. So I think that for many folks that kind of romantic or sexual attraction can develop over time by spending time with someone. But it certainly helps to, I think, dress nicely on both men and women, and then also kind of pay attention to your appearance, and then also to make an effort to exercise regularly as well. - I also want to say, women should not underestimate our amazing talents and abilities to give makeovers. You know, sometimes a guy, he's, you can see the potentials, like all you need to do is just grow a beard or get a different type of haircut, you know, or I can take you shopping, help you pick out some stuff, and it's like they're a whole new person. I mean, so sometimes a guy just needs a woman's touch. It's, sometimes it's not like that guy, you know, and then I think attraction can develop definitely with that too. For a lot of young couples, they feel like living together before marriage feels practical, it feels responsible, how else am I going to know for truly compatible? - Right. - Outside of religious arguments, 'cause I know the religious arguments, but outside of that, I think the data on living together before marriage is super compelling. Does it actually make your marriage stronger to live with each other before you get married? - This is a great question. And, you know, I think one of the most surprising things that students at UVA kind of tell me after my class is done is that there are thoughts about cohabitation had kind of done a 180. Because most young adults today have cohabit prior to marriage and most young adults think it's a great way to prepare for marriage. I think the challenge is people don't appreciate that cohabitation is not the same thing as marriage. And so it's not necessarily a good preparation for marriage. And so what we see is that cohabitation is linked, particularly when you're cohabiting with more than one person, to a much greater risk of divorce. And so for instance, there's worked on by a Stanford sociologist kind of showing us that folks who are cohabiting with someone besides their spouse are more than twice as likely end up getting divorced. So that's certainly one piece of data on the issue. And there's worked on by Scott Stanley and Glyna Rhodes, both at the mercy of Denver, kind of telling us that when people are cohabiting prior to an engagement or they're cohabiting with multiple partners, they're more likely to experience either divorce or oftentimes mirror distress as well. And so I think the issue with cohabitation is that there's a couple of things happening here. One thing that Scott Stanley talks about is kind of what's called sliding versus deciding. And so it's particularly when people are kind of moving in with any kind of clear plan for their future, just in general, but also in terms of their relationship. And they're just kind of like, they kind of move in. And there's not like, they're not really communicating like, are we on the same page here? 'Cause oftentimes one party is thinking about this as a way to save on the rent and enjoy regular intimacy and the other party's thinking that this is maybe we're gonna be heading to marriage here. And obviously if they're not in the same page that can create a really awkward and ambiguous situation down the road. So that's certainly one, I think, challenge. There's not a clarity, heavy into cohabitation. Another kind of point to make too is that people often have a much more kind of autonomous orientation. They have the kind of thought that, well, I can kind of keep my freedom and sort of be in this relationship. But then with that orientation, they keep it as they move into marriage. And so one example is finances, right? And so when people cohabit, they tend to have separate finances. And then they keep their separate finances once they get married because they've developed this more autonomous orientation to their relationship. So I had a colleague, for instance at Princeton, when I was in graduate school. And she told me one day that she was sort of frustrated with her husband, and I was a bit curious because her husband was professionally successful, had a good income. We had modest stipends at Princeton as graduate students. And what came out is that, they had separate finances. And so he had a pretty big bank account because he was making good money. And she was a graduate student with a very modest stipend. She didn't have a lot of money. And she wanted to buy a couch for their apartment. And she didn't have the money to buy the couch. And because they hadn't brought their money together, she couldn't buy the couch. And this had all kind of begun when they were cohabiting. So again, kind of this sort of more autonomous orientation often begins, the cohabitation extends into marriage. And then I think the final thing is just sort of, there's a way in which there's a lot of often ambiguity and lack of authentic commitment and cohabitation that can kind of cast a great cloud over the relationship as folks move into marriage, or even kind of allow a lot of people nowadays to spend even years in a cohabiting relationship that they thought was headed to marriage, but the other party was not interested in marriage. And so it can kind of lead them to lose out on opportunities to marry and have kids. And these are some of the reasons why cohabitation actually isn't a great strategy. And for folks who are skeptical of this point, you can just go into a like cloud, for instance, and say, cloud. Summarize the research on cohabitation and divorce. Again, this is not a Bible thing, it's not a Christian thing, it's not a Catholic thing. This is just a social science thing that is not the best way to get your marriage started off on the right footing. - How can parents raise their sons and daughters to have the traits and desire for successful marriages? - So I think one of the striking things that I see EVA is that a lot of my students are kind of telling me that their parents' primary values are the same. Parents are kind of telling me that their parents' primary expectations for them revolve around education and work. Even young adults are coming from Christian homes. They're kind of getting a message from mom and dad that what really matters for you and from our perspective, right, is you want to be killing it at college. And then you want to be killing it in your career in the next decade or so. And we see this also in Pew data telling us that parents are prioritizing for their kids, their future work much more than their future, marriage and family prospects. So I think sadly, sadly Alex, we're gonna see a lot of parents, when they hit their 60s and 70s or even their 80s, wondering where the grandkids are. Because they never communicated to their children that the most important things in life are family, friendship and for many of us faith, right? And so if you don't kind of clearly communicate to your kids, what matters most is marriage and family and friendship and faith and community. And you instead tell them that really matters is how well they're doing in school and what kind of career they're gonna have down the road. They're gonna listen to you. So in terms of formation, I think, yeah, taking time with your kids to form them in the faith is one important thing that parents need to do. But also kind of helping them understand or appreciate that love and family marriage are for most of us the most important things. And you should be thinking about kind of developing, the kinds of virtues that would make you a good spouse in terms of being decent at communication, being considerate, being hardworking and all those things. - I think being interesting too. - That helps, yeah, sure. - We need to be helping our kids become interesting. - Sure. - You know? - Developing real hobbies, real interests. - Yes, right. - Like instead of all they know how to do is scroll and play video games. That's not interesting. - Yes, that's right. Yeah, you're right. A big piece of this is really trying to do a lot with your kids in the real world rather than the virtual world. - Yes. - I mean, letting them be on the virtual world, yep. - How do you know if you're ready for marriage? - I think many of us, it's like, when are you ready to become a parent, right? You know, it's more about I think, I don't know if there's any point when you fully feel ready to be married or fully feel ready to be a parent, to be honest, right? I think it's more about kind of having the sense that, you know, like this is the person, you know, and also to that I'm, you know, I'm a Catholic. I think kind of having the sense that you're called to marriage, you're called to family is certainly part of the, but I think for ordinary people just sort of like, you know, having a strong connection with someone, you know, like, and recognizing that they would be a good friend, that when you're both old and 80, you know, sitting on your back porch for instance, you're gonna enjoy your conversations, even if you're not, you know, physically as attractive as you once were. - It was always a hard no for me to ever ask a guy out or to text first as a woman. Is that a good idea or should more women consider making the first move? - You know, I still think it's important for guys to kind of take the initiative when it comes to dating. And we do see actually a lot of research indicating that women prefer this as well. So this is not some kind of like, you know, sexist notion. I think it's also about two other important things as well. You would like to kind of date a married guy as a certain capacity for courage and confidence. And this is very clear in the research, women like guys who are more courageous and confident. And so this is kind of a good, you know, way to go. sort of see does he have that, you know, courage to do that kind of thing. And then I think also in a day and age when there are too many situations, it's a way for the guy to signal that he's interested in something, you know, more serious oftentimes as well. So I think it's that, you know, a lot of the things when it comes to relationships are the burdens are borne by women. Right. And so this is sort of one clear burden that we're kind of giving to the guys. Hey, you got to take the initiative here and signal that you're really interested in someone by asking you're on a date. You hear success stories from couples where the girl wasn't interested. The guy kept pursuing eventually she comes around. How does a guy know if he should keep asking versus let it go? Arthur Brooks, who's now at Harvard moving to Vanderbilt has a great story about kind of meeting his wife at a concert in Europe. She was Spanish. He was an American. You know, they locked eyes at this concert in Europe and he asked her out in a day through an intermediary and but I'm sure she thought like where is this going to go? I don't even speak English. She doesn't speak Spanish. That's crazy. There's a total language barrier. Total language barrier for Arthur and Esther. Yeah. And so but he was persistent. So I don't have like a set and fast rule for guys. I just I would just kind of encourage them if there seems to be, you know, some possibility there, you know, for for friendship and and you have some kind of intuition that this is going to work be persistent. But you know, obviously if after, you know, one or two days she's very clearly opposed. You've got to let go and move on. But there I think there for a lot of these stories, there's a kind of ambiguity, you know, and he keeps persisting and she's not entirely sure. But again, it's sort of like she sees over time that he's the kind of guy and Arthur Brooks is a very impressive person, you know, who has what it takes, you know, to be a good friend and a good good spouse. What does research say about health and marriage? I think we're all aware of like the importance of, you know, diet and alcohol and our cleansing. But I think we aren't always kind of attentive for the ways in which our relationships matter so much for our health, you know, like if we're in a good relationship, our health is, you know, going to be a lot better than if we're in a bad relationship or if we're sort of single and alone. And so we see in the research is that people who are married, especially people who are happily married, or people who are like, you know, a good enough relationship or more likely to be flourishing on the health front. And there's one exception when it comes to people being married, they're less healthy in one major way. Can you guess what that is Alex? Wait. 100%. So once you get married, you tend to put on a few extra pounds, right? Okay. Because in part, I think you're off the market, right? And in part, you maybe you enjoy more good home cooking. But in general, we see in the researchers that on a whole bunch of different fronts, people, generally speaking, especially men are healthier when they're married. But there's even research that just came out about a month and a half ago showing them what it comes to getting cancer, both men and especially women who are married are less likely to at a big level. It's like I think 50 or 80% less likely to get cancer. And so I think the story there is that when you are married, you typically are drinking less, you're using drugs less. That's a big factor. You're also less likely to be getting STDs and STDs actually are major cause today of cancer. So that's also a factor. And we also know too that women are having, you know, who are having kids are also less likely to develop certain kinds of cancer too as well. So there's just a way in which kind of embracing marriage, especially embracing a good marriage and being good spouse to, you know, to your husband or wife, redowns the benefit of people's health. And I've got one personal story here. My father-in-law had cancer and went to UV hospital and had extensive surgery. Things didn't go very well in the first round of surgery. And my mother-in-law was just, she was on those nurses and doctors, you know, like you wouldn't believe, you know, kind of asking them questions, making sure she was getting the best, you know, care and everything else. You went in for another round of, you know, of treatment at the hospital and came out successfully and he's doing incredibly well right now. And I would attribute a lot of his success in these two rounds of treatment at the UV hospital to the kind of diligent care that his wife, she was his advocate. If he would have been alone, he would have had no one fighting for him. And we know that sort of the protective effects vis-a-vis cancer, when it comes to marriage, don't just extend to not getting cancer, also we know that people who are married are way more likely to recover from cancer as well, because they have the support of people like my mother-in-law going through this, you know, this journey, this medical journey to get, you know, beyond cancer. Okay, where can people read more of your work? So my book is Get Married. It's Harper Collins, kind of talks about the importance of marriage for adults today, especially but also for kids as well, and gives people kind of five different pillars around which they can kind of build a strong and stable marriage. And then I have studies.org is the website for these sort of family studies where I do a lot of my research and I'm on Twitter at Brad Bullcock's IFS. I ask every guest if you could offer one remedy to heelistic culture, it could be physically, emotionally or spiritually, what would it be? I think to revive dating in American in the direction of pointing people, you know, to a pathway of dating with an eye towards marriage. So good. This was an excellent conversation, learned so much. I think this is going to be so helpful for my audience. And I hope you guys listening will share this far and wide. I think there's a lot of really important information that Brad shared. So thank you for coming on Culture Pop the Carry. Thanks so much. People act like this is just some lifestyle trend, right? Like fewer marriages and fewer kids. It's just morally neutral. This isn't a big deal. It's a fluke. It's just something that's happening right now. It's not forever. Well, this is actually a huge red flag. Civilizations do not survive when men and women stop forming families. And I know that this conversation can feel heavy because for a lot of people, this isn't theoretical. It is personal. There are people listening right now who genuinely want marriage, want family, want deep love and commitment. And they're wondering if it is still possible for you. And I think one of the most hopeful things that Brad brought up today is that healthy relationships are not built by perfect people magically finding the one. They're built by ordinary people learning wisdom, emotional maturity, courage, discernment, communication, sacrifice and commitment. Those are skills, right? Those are habits. Those are things that people can actually grow in. And despite what social media tells you, there are still good men. There are still good women. There are still healthy marriages. And there are still people who want something real. Please leave a five-star review for this show today. If you thought this episode was interesting and educational and encouraging, new episodes release Mondays and Thursdays at 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific. Anywhere you listen to podcasts or real outskirts on YouTube, amounts clerk. And this is Culture of Pawthakery.