What would be the motivation for a person to choose a partner who is far less intelligent than they are?

Nice breasts?

Intelligence is just one of a number of factors that go into a relationship – so are looks, wealth, sense of humor, intelligence, personality, and on and on. It’s a bit unfair to judge from afar – and frankly I’m not sure it matters to anyone but the two people involved. Why are you passing judgment on another person’s intelligence (or another couple’s relationship)?

The broader question is- what is intelligence and how is it being measured in this context? Are you suggesting that MIT math professors cannot be partners with community college graduates?

And why does it matter, if they are happy.

Often people are not aware of the full extent of a partners weaknesses until after they marry.
My ex husband was fun loving but it wasn’t until years later that his lack of intellect really bugged me. When we met at 18 it was all about fun and partying, by 35 I couldn’t stand his lack of depth and intellect and failure to grow up. Reasons and seasons and all that.
Why people grow apart, many traits don’t go the distance.

A momentary lapse of reason

I have no idea. I never made that mistake myself.

I just think it would be really hard to relate to someone when you can’t talk about deeper things.

Really good shoes?

I agree with @elbanditoroso

How big a gap? “Intelligence” doesn’t define the ability to discuss “deeper” things, unless the less intelligent person is almost non-functioning, in which case there are much different issues to deal with.

@canidmajor Many personalty types are pretty much devoid of any intellectual curiosity or ability for abstract thinking. Intuitive thinkers are the intellectuals and sensor/judger types are more about details, order and routine.As a highly abstract NT creative type it drives me nuts when people cannot break away from reciting their hum drum daily bullshit routines. I have a friend like this, she is extremely reliable and fiercely loyal and loves to listen to me ramble on about all sorts of stuff but all she can do is talk about the details of her daily routine, facts of her life, literally…. ” On Sunday I woke up at 7 and had an english muffin with peanut butter then went for a bike ride, then got back at 11 and I caulked the shower and then I did 2 loads of laundry and made pork chops and mashed potatoes for dinner.”

Gah….I suffer along but it takes everything I’ve got to not want to just scream…JESUS, do you EVER think about ANYTHING other than your daily grind? lol

@Coloma : while I appreciate that you seem to have such high self-esteem, I stand by my statement. Unless and until @Dutchess_III tells us what she means by “intelligence” in this context, I can only assume that she refers to a general definition, for example:
”capacity for learning, reasoning, understanding, and similar forms of mental activity; aptitude in grasping truths, relationships, facts, meanings, etc.” which does not include the capacity for compassion and/or intuitive understanding of social or even philosophical issues.

Taking a chance at over generalizing…. I’ll use my ex boyfriend as one example.

I started dating this guy when I was 17—Bob… he was my ‘everything.’ I was head over heels in love with him. We were together on and off—he always came back in between girlfriends. He told me I was his fuel. Very undignified of me to be with him…

He would go with girls who were daffy, ditzy, giggly, and whaaaaa…. apparently, except for me, he didn’t like girls who had anything significant to contribute to the conversation. We accidentally got pregnant, and he disappeared after I decided I was keeping the baby. When he came back around, I wised up and sent him on his way. He eventually went on to marry twice- both times to complacent airheads.

During one conversation, when I asked him why he said he loved me, but kept leaving, he said, “I’m happy when I’m with you, but you see my potential and want me to be better, to be more. That’s not what I want.” He gave a very clear answer— as a smart, ambitious woman, I wanted the same for him. He was smart, witty and talented, but didn’t care a whit about that. He wanted to live an easy, complacent life and an unintelligent woman with no ambition or drive fit him better. And he’s happy.

I understood finally that many brilliant, ambitious people will choose people who aren’t their equals because it makes them feel more comfortable for whatever reason.

@canidmajor No need to get huffy…I too stand by my statement. It is a fact that dependent on how ones brain assimilates and processes information this will lend itself to the ability to understand and comprehend concepts and abstract ideas, form original thought vs. rote retention of facts and information.
There are many kinds of intelligence, however, it is widely accepted that true intelligence is not about knowledge, it is about HOW one thinks.

‘Great minds discuss ideas, mediocre minds discuss events and small minds discuss people” Eleanor Roosevelt.

Men: a nice set of gams, tight apple heiney, flat belly, firm high points with no sag, sterile, and acts like a whore in the bedroom able to suck a bowling ball through 5 yards of garden hose, if she acted like a lady in public, it would just be a bonus.

Women: Looks like a GQ or Abacromby and Fitch model, and be as sharp as a bag of bowling balls as to me malleable to her every whim, or have a pocket heavier than the sultan of Brunei, preferably both.

Who gets to define what is “far less intelligent” here? Or what type of intelligence is best?

@livelaughlove21 There is no perfect “intelligence” but there certainly is well rounded intelligence that would incorporate a good balance of academic, creative, abstract, conceptual and emotional intelligence and all the corresponding applications of.
The human brain is just an organ like any other organ and it is no different than someone having a weak back or weak ankles. Some brains are weaker than others, no shame in acknowledging that fact. haha

As long as the other person isn’t much much less intelligent, one reason can be that they are a break from a constant borage of intellectual questions and ideas. My dad was constantly talking about ideas and interests and dating someone not as intellectual was a nice break. With my dad it was like being in school. Sometimes there were quizzes. Not actual sit down and take a test, but he would ask questions at the end to make sure you were listening, ugh. I would have become frustrated if I had married someone with much lower intelligence though. A little less is fine. I definitely dated some guys not as intelligent as me when I was younger, partly because I could relax.

My husband is around the same intelligence as me, but he likes to watch ridiculou TV shows, doesn’t read books much, and isn’t constantly analyzing everything. I feel like I can relax with him, but at the same time if we need to tap our brains to figure something out, or if one of us is interested in something, the other is able to keep up. He is constantly analyzing at work, his job is fairly mathematical and he has to be a problem solver. I think he likes to have a break once at home. Me too.

I also think what @Dan_Lyons said is correct for some people. Men. Some men.

Also, as far as marriage goes, it depends how people define the roles of marriage. If the wife is expected to make babies and take care of the hoe and she does that very well with lower intelligence than her husband, maybe it works out fine. I think this happens less often now. I think people seek their equals more or less in not only IQ, but attractiveness, ambition, and some other measures.

Well, my husband isn’t as book smart as I am, but I’m certainly no genius. School always came naturally to me, so I got through college with great grades fairly easily. He slacked off in high school because he was way more interested in girls than school, and also because he’s visually impaired and was embarrassed to admit it, so he used the “I don’t care” defense to avoid having to move closer to the board or ask for help and look, in his words, “stupid.” He went to work right after high school, so he doesn’t have a college degree. He’s a good ole country boy and very simple, like a lot of people down here. He’s not an idiot by any means, but he just isn’t as academically intelligent as I am. I mentioned on another thread that he legitimately thought I made up the word “nostalgic” and it wasn’t a real thing. People he grew up with just don’t use words like that. He’s got common sense (most of the time), which counts for a lot with me.

I didn’t marry him for looks, sex, or money. And there was no lapse in judgment. There’s more to life and relationships than knowing a lot of random facts. I have no desire to have long conversations with him about physics or biology – I probably don’t know much about either, anyway. I did talk to him about things I was learning in school, and he’d listen and sometimes he’d get it and sometimes he wouldn’t. I studied psychology, so I doubt many people would call me an “intellectual.”

I married him because he’s a great person, I can be myself around him (whether I’m moody, serious, fun-loving, or just plain goofy) without any judgment, and he’s a hard worker. He’s not sitting around on a couch playing video games all day instead of working. He’s not trying to impress everyone with how much smarter he is than all of the other people in the room like some smart men I’ve known. He doesn’t try to make people feed bad about themselves if they don’t know something that he thinks is common knowledge. He’s not pretentious or condescending. He’s kind and loyal. I don’t mind being the “smart one” in the relationship, because he has his own great qualities.

I can understand being confused as to why a doctor or scientist might be dating a deadbeat who’s as dumb as a box of rocks, but I don’t think it’s fair to assume that only people of similar intelligence levels should be together. Just because someone is intelligent doesn’t mean they want to have deep, philosophical conversations about academics, and just because someone isn’t a genius doesn’t mean they are incapable of having such conversations. People choose their partners based on more than IQ, and there are much more important things to consider.

@livelaughlove21 That is all true, but, being more equally “yoked”, in all areas usually ups the odds of a successful LTR IMO.

@Coloma Well, we’re doing just fine after 7 years. I don’t buy that “odds” crap. Numbers don’t rule my life. The odds were that we wouldn’t make it out of high school still together. We did. The odds were that we wouldn’t make it through my time in college still together. We did. The odds were that I’d end up pregnant or living in some shit apartment living paycheck to paycheck. Not the case. The odds also say we’ll eventually end up divorced. We’re not going to let something as insignificant as me doing better in school and knowing more words than he does get in the way of our relationship. We have problems just like everyone else and we’re not naive enough to think nothing could ever break us apart, but there are plenty of people that are more or less equal in intelligence that end up divorced as well. The “odds” of a marriage lasting in any case is pretty crappy. I just don’t believe that differing intelligence levels accounts for any large percentage of the marriages that go down the drain. Smart guys cheat and deceive just as much as (or more than) guys with average or below-average intelligence.

@livelaughlove21 Of course, how did we go from discussing compatibility to cheating, and true, the “odds” of any marriage going the distance leans towards the feeble. Just sayin’ that the more two people have in common, whether that is intelligence or personality style, the better chance they have of growing together instead of apart.

@Coloma The cheating was just an example – a common reason for divorce. So, people should try to find their equal, someone that is exactly like them in intellect, personality, likes, dislikes, income, education level, family history, etc.? Sounds incredibly boring to date yourself. I know the “opposites attract” thing is absolute crap, but I think there’s also something to say about being too much alike. It’s important to have your own interests and your own identity separate from your partner. My husband and I have plenty of moments where one of us will say something, often as a reaction to something else, and the other one will say, “I was just thinking that same exact thing!” However, it’s nice to be surprised by what someone says or thinks as well. If he liked everything that I liked and he liked everything that I like, why would we ever do anything new?

So many points of contention come into a marriage when two people approach the same things in completely different ways. I get frustrated with my husband because of his absolute lack of money sense, and he gets frustrated with me because I tend to be tight fisted. I feel like I need to be so that we don’t find ourselves living from paycheck to paycheck. since I’m in control of the purse strings, I’m the one who catches the brunt of it all when we DO run short, even though he was the one who spent a few hundred dollars unnecessarily.

He drives me crazy with his “I’ll do it later” attitude, when he has the time to actually do it NOW, and a good part of the time he’ll never get around to doing whatever at all. I drive him crazy because I do things right then and there, if I can,....because I know I’ll forget if I don’t.

Would I prefer him to be more like me in those areas? Yeah. It would reduce a LOT of frustrations.

@Dutchess_III I don’t feel that way at all. Does Josh drive me nuts when he says, “I’ll do it in a minute” when I ask him to take out the trash and he’s just sitting on his phone texting someone or watching some stupid show? Absolutely. But do I want him to do everything just as I do it? No. This isn’t Stepford, and I’m glad that we do things differently. It’s not going to kill me to wait for him to finish typing the text message and, as his wife, I shouldn’t expect him to jump up and do exactly what I say when I say it. I’m not his mother and he’s not my slave. Now, if he was the type to say he’ll do something and never follow through, I’d have a problem with that, but that goes beyond being alike or different. We won’t be getting a divorce because he didn’t take out the trash until five minutes after I asked him to.

But what if he never got around to taking out the trash at all? Two days go by and he still hasn’t taken it out! (That’s just an example….I’m the one who actually takes the trash out)
This isn’t a question of stepping and fetching when I speak.
It’ isn’t about “I’ll do it in a minute,” and then he actually does it in a minute. That wouldn’t bother me at all. That’s normal stuff.
This is “I’ll do it later,” (for no reason) and, in the end, he doesn’t do it at all, because he’ forgets. But I’ve learned to deal with it.

@Dutchess_III But what if he never got around to taking out the trash at all?

From my response: “Now, if he was the type to say he’ll do something and never follow through, I’d have a problem with that, but that goes beyond being alike or different.”

How does it go beyond being alike or different?

@Dutchess_III It just does. It’s saying you’ll do something and not doing it. It’s laziness and, essentially, lying, which is not just being different from your partner. If it’s genuine forgetfulness, a doctor’s appointment is in order. We all forget to do things, but it shouldn’t happen consistently. I wouldn’t put up with Josh being consistently lazy or dishonest. The “that’s just how he is” defense just doesn’t fly with this girl.

But it’s still different from me. I do exactly the opposite in those situations.

@Dutchess_III I’m just saying it’s a bigger issue. Not simply “how he does it” vs. “how I do it.” It’s being dishonest, which is beyond simple differences. That’s it.

All issues, even minor ones, can morph into “bigger issues.” Differences that seem minor at the beginning can become unbearable down the road. His attitude isn’t unbearable to me. I just have to work around it.
The point is, it’s best to have someone who thinks similarly to you, has the same values.

@Dutchess_III Agree to partially disagree.

Sometimes it’s as simple as Ego. The partner doesn’t pose a threat to oneself being the dominant spouse or the one who brings home the bacon. Which is amusingly idiotic and pathetic in my opinion.

Agreed @Winter_Pariah. Utter shallowness. The kind of person who, even if he was among his peers, would dominate the conversation with his wit and intellect. Not the type of person to have a conversation with others because he already knows everything. Ergo, he doesn’t need to be married to some one he/she can discuss things with or share ideas with.