"Marry Him!": Lori Gottlieb presents a case for settling
Filed under: Relationships, After the 'I Do's'
Marry Him! By Lori Gottlieb - www.theatlantic.com, March 2008I am 35, and reluctantly-happily (yes, they do go together) single, and going on 36. Needless to say, the mere title of this article in TheAtlantic.com caused the blood to pool in my temples, and forced me to jut out my chin with a defiant glint in my eye. Yes, I write about weddings. No, I don't for one minute believe in settling for the sake of getting married. So, we read on ...
Wow. Let's start with this one:
"Ask any soul-baring 40-year-old single heterosexual woman what she most longs for in life", and Gottlieb informs us that the unequivocal answer is "what she really wants is a husband (and, by extension, a child)." She later goes on to point out that if we say otherwise we're either "in denial" or "lying". Don't EVEN get me started. Seriously? All we want is the peace and security of the blandness of settling with a passion-fest-free "partnership formed to run a very small, mundane, and often boring nonprofit business"? No offence, Gottlieb, but we're begging to differ ...
"Is it better to be alone, or to settle?" ... she advises us to settle. It seems that Gottlieb gave up looking for The One (too difficult, or something), and chose to have a child by sperm donor, and promptly realized it would be "nice" to have someone help with the dirty diapers. And has since taken it upon herself to inform us that "if you want to have the infrastructure in place to have a family, settling is the way to go" ... and within that, sharing with us that she had considered settling for a fellow who was rude to the waiter and had a "strong interest in terrorists" simply because he "very much wanted a family". Did I say "wow" earlier? Because, like, WOW!!
I can't speak for all those yet-unmarried-yet fabulous bachelorettes, or even those fabulous bachelorettes who are soon to be married ... or have already dashed the aisle. But I HAVE to believe that as a humanity we still buy into the idea of passion. Right, the concept of one true soul-mate who completes us is poppy-cock, but if should we be lucky enough to bring a pure, trusting offspring into this world, don't we want them to see either one, or two, parents who are full of joy, and love, and fire, and a willingness to relentlessly go to bat for the glory of intimacy, hope, and life?
Please tell me we're still fighting for the bastion of marriage based on true love and absolute friendship. Not simply the complacent truth that he's willing to puree peas and pull cheese-string bits out of the portable DVD-player, despite the fact that "you get a cold shiver down your spine" at the thought of embracing him.
It's Valentine's Day ... please say it isn't so??
I can't speak for all those yet-unmarried-yet fabulous bachelorettes, or even those fabulous bachelorettes who are soon to be married ... or have already dashed the aisle. But I HAVE to believe that as a humanity we still buy into the idea of passion. Right, the concept of one true soul-mate who completes us is poppy-cock, but if should we be lucky enough to bring a pure, trusting offspring into this world, don't we want them to see either one, or two, parents who are full of joy, and love, and fire, and a willingness to relentlessly go to bat for the glory of intimacy, hope, and life?
Please tell me we're still fighting for the bastion of marriage based on true love and absolute friendship. Not simply the complacent truth that he's willing to puree peas and pull cheese-string bits out of the portable DVD-player, despite the fact that "you get a cold shiver down your spine" at the thought of embracing him.
It's Valentine's Day ... please say it isn't so??
