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I'm leery of this for the reason I already gave, which is that I cannot take credit and I mean 'the grace of God' entirely literally.
But, off the top of my head:
It wasn't until relatively late in life that I discovered that I'm very attractive. All the signs were there all along but no one ever told me so I didn't know. Hilarious amount of history snapped into place when I realized it, etc. But this doesn't help anyone not in the same boat.
That said you may be more attractive than you know and regardless you are absolutely capable of maximizing this by working out and dressing well. The former does take a lot but pays its own dividends; the latter is much easier and cheaper than commonly supposed. Happy to expand on either upon request.
The usual advice seems to be that women are attracted to confidence (true) so the winning move is to learn to fake those signals (effective but ultimately pyrrhic). In fact the 'secret' is to genuinely become confident, which can only be accomplished through intentionally choosing to become worth that sense of self. In my case, going into business for myself and learning to stand my ground unflinchingly in the face of despair may be the single greatest factor in my maturation. Whoever said that trying to get one's own business off the ground is like eating glass every day until (and if) that changes was correct. While I've never gotten much alpha from stuff like BJJ I expect that in most cases something like that would be a helpful and viable path for other men. At least in the US we have been raised in a culture which seeks to infantilize and emasculate us; this must be countered consciously, but not obnoxiously. Women out there, regardless of what they repeat to themselves and each other, are desperate for grounded, confident, masculine men.
In that vein, if you want a hot young happy wife, and especially one content to be a full-time woman rather than pursuing her own career in the masculine sphere, you need to be able to generate enough income to keep her comfortable that way plus the inevitable frivolous expenses which please women so well. This may sound callous but it's almost impossible to manage that with a job at this point; starting your own business is, in our generation, the only plausible path I've found to this level of income, and it's far from a guarantee.
Learn basic stuff like how to repair things around the house, cars, etc. Youtube is amazing for this and a little bit goes a long way. My wife likes to say "A husband is a Daddy you choose" (tongue in cheek, mostly) and whatever you can do to push that button is probably worthwhile. Gets back to masculine confidence.
Trite as this may sound, I don't think I could have landed my wife until I had made peace with the possibility of not finding anyone, especially as I got older. Once I was at peace with myself as a single man I instantly became much more attractive. Not much turns off women like the smell of desperation. When a mutual friend introduced us I told her up front "I'm not really interested in dating at the moment," (true; I had decided to raise my SMV a bit more before getting serious about that) "but you seem really interesting so let's at least meet up." Was I conscious of this as 'game'? Yes. Did it only work because I actually meant it? Also yes. In other words, don't chase girls and don't try to make them into anything they don't want to become. Raise your own value, stand firm, and let the illiquid market come to you. This may be a comparatively high-risk strategy but the rewards, if any, are commensurate. She was amazed at how unconcerned I was with impressing her. "This is going to be yes or it's going to be no and either way it'll be by a landslide," I said; "Either way we don't need to worry about it."
Know what you want (this takes experience and maturity) and hold to it. When I met my wife I told her that if we were going to move forward she wasn't a vegan anymore (because babies) and that her beliefs were her business but we'd be going to church together, and ultimately as a family, every week. Pop relationship advice might label this as controlling or somehow abusive but I could almost see her sigh with relief. Women want you to establish structure and boundaries and can't feel safe unless you do. Flip side, again, is that doing this in a loving and appropriate way requires a certain gravitas which cannot be effectively simulated in the long run.
Your wedding is the starting gun, not the finish line. She married you because you gave every indication of continuing on the trajectory that she found so attractive and you owe it to her to live up to that, and only by doing so may you expect the same in return. Failure is more acceptable than you'd think, but defeat is a state of mind and must never be accommodated. Learn to take losses in stride without losing your own frame before imagining that you are ready for a wife.
Pray without ceasing. This will go over the heads of many here but you want the woman God has for you, or else none at all, and those really are the only two good options. You can be ready for her to appear but you cannot cause her to appear. Thy will be done.
The strongest relationship among my friend group is not a marriage, but still 10 years in. And I think a large part of that is the way she cleary considers him to be an atom-manipulating demigod. "[Name] can fix it" is a core, fundamental part of her worldview. Either he knows how to fix her car, faucet, beloved childhood electronics, etc, or he will after a few hours on Youtube. The admiration, comfort, and security this generates in her is plain for anyone to see.
The single greatest compliment I've ever heard a wife pay to a husband was "casual omnicompetence."
i.e. she considers him capable of addressing literally ANY problem. He has the toolset, the mindset, and the physical capacity to unfuck anything. And not just mechanical issues either.
And from her perspective, he does so while barely breaking a sweat. Though he will tell you, outside of her earshot, that sometimes it really does irritate him and/or stress him out to have to keep doing this.
But he knows he's appreciated, so that hardly matters.
A friend of mine once got a workplace review saying:
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Good advice. Especially 8. I see a lot of guys here extremely paranoid about “random" divorce. In general choosing a good woman and keeping 8 in mind should really eliminate that. Women want commitment from a high value male.
Given the number of women around age 40 I've seen blow up marriages (to men who were correctly maintaining their trajectory) because "they weren't happy," I think you are underestimating the pro-divorce psyop being waged on women in the U.S.
This does keep me up at night. OTOH it's already happened to me once and in the long run that turned out to be an incomparable blessing.
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Possibly, and I'm being a hypocrite in that I would be wary to marry an American woman. That said the guys online who fear divorce never seem to optimize against it. If you are both older than 27, both college educated, both same race, same religion. That knocks it down to something like 15% odds of divorce. Staying fit and having kids probably moves it down further.
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I'd echo this, especially 3, 5, and 9, as great advice. However I'm speaking as a guy who got pretty damn close to marriage before things imploded.
4 is where guys will stumble b/c pursuing that wealth can become all-consuming, and at the very least will interfere with actually looking for a woman. Although I gather that once you hit a certain level of success women are more likely to just show up in your life. You've time to make a decent number of dice rolls in your mid-twenties, but you also have to be smart.
So I'd say there's no shame in somewhat lowering your expectations and while you should walk around with dick-swinging swagger being modest enough not to promise the sun, moon, and stars to a woman avoids some problems.
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