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Married men of the motte, I need a sanity check.
To put it bluntly, my partner is lower status and less intelligent than I am. 110 vs 125 IQ points. middle class vs upper middle class.
We've been together for a year and our relationship is otherwise great (unrelated mental hang ups i have posted about here before aside). I can see myself marrying and being content.
Unfortunately, I am a pretty HBD-pilled individual, and the concept of my future children potentially being less intelligent and of phenotypically lower status fills me with dread. (The woman in question has many many positive qualities I DO want my kids to have.)
Is it over? Is that alone enough to say I should break up because that shows how I don't really love her etc? Are doubts like this normal for a young guy who's maybe getting commitment anxiety?
I come from a family of fairly accomplished people. Upper middle class academics and some geniuses. Her family generationally is lower/middle middle class.
My children would inherit this.
Now I should add that her family is of perfectly average to above average intelligence. The biggest difference is that they have very little intellectual curiosity. Abysmal levels of general knowledge, archetypical shape rotators.
(They do have their own opinions and are independent thinkers but they are deeply "practical people")
I thought this wouldn't bother me, and it doesn't, in the relationship. But I dread my kids being like that.
Narcissism? Does my girlfriend secretly disgust me? Am I giving this too much thought? I really want some outside opinion on this, preferably by people with children. This is obviously something I can only talk about on this forum.
It seems to me like you are far too focused on the idea of children getting good genes. Having children isn't a eugenics program, it's something you do (or don't) because it's meaningful in itself. It sounds like your girlfriend is fine (it's not like she's a moron whose company you can't stand, or you wouldn't have made it this far), and your relationship is fine. The only problem seems to be that you're getting in your head about something that isn't even important.
The two aren't mutually exclusive. I want my children to be better than I am, with every possible advantage in life. Because I love them.
I find it bemusing that there are putative parents out there who don't strongly value their kids being taller, stronger, smarter, more driven and beautiful than them. And given that the state of the art in gene therapy is woefully behind what it could have been in a sensible universe where ludditism doesn't run rampant, the best way is to find someone with the kind of genes that contribute to making them that way.
I work harder than I need to, live my life very differently than I could if all I cared about was maximizing hedonism or my short term satisfaction, because I want to give my kids opportunities I didn't have, the same way my parents sacrificed so much for me and would do so again in a heartbeat if they were handed a time machine.
I wouldn't marry someone pretty and dumb, I take pains to make myself better so I can demand the best. Am I perfect? Hardly. Still, I bring enough to the table that I expect to keep someone happy, happy enough to have kids with me, who, mediated by the unavoidable roll of biological die, can turn out in many different ways.
I intend to load the dice in my favor, and I 100% endorse what @curious_straight_ca says. You can find someone you love and who you can look forward to making your kids the best off they could be.
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