Last year I read about this guy who woke up one day with a random phone number in his head – the phone number of a stranger who would eventually become his wife (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-447429/I-dreamt-phone-number-bride-be.html). According to the article, "I Dreamt Up A Phone Number and Found My Bride-To-Be" by Beth Hale, one day Michelle Kitson’s phone number just popped into David Brown’s mind as he woke up and kept running through his head all day long, until David finally texted her. They started talking, then they met in person, and the next thing you know, they were getting married. Judging from the comments that readers posted to the story, similar strange phone number incidents are not as rare as you would think. One person commented that one day, a friend mis-dialed his girlfriend’s number, ended up talking to the wrong number for a while, and decided to meet her for coffee. He ended up breaking up with his original girlfriend, and he and the ‘wrong number’ are still together 30 years later!
It reminds me of a story my mom once told me about a wrong number who called her when she was living in New York City as a newlywed. Even after the guy realized he had the wrong number, he chatted with my mom for a couple minutes, and finally he said, “If you don’t mind my saying so, you have such a great voice. I know this sounds strange, but I’d love to meet you in person.” But my mom politely explained that she had just gotten married, and that was that. I wonder where that man is today? According to my mom, he had a pretty nice voice himself – though not as nice as my dad’s, of course. :)
Showing posts with label marriage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marriage. Show all posts
August 18, 2008
July 16, 2008
First Comes Marriage...THEN comes love?
Had a nice dinner out with Mr. No Touchy-Feely last weekend. He did open up a little more, talking about his parents and siblings. His parents are divorced, and I think there may be some issues with his siblings. Still nothing more than a hug and a kiss on the cheek, even though it was our ELEVENTH “date” (!). I’m curious about his friends – like, does he have any? When we get together I’ll mention that I saw a movie with this friend or went to a concert with that friend, but he never mentions any friends. I’ve heard that’s a red flag.
The Nicest Guy in the World definitely has friends. But he, too, has a couple of issues that worry me. Then again, who doesn’t? I recently read about a book by Reva Smith called “First Comes Marriage: Modern Relationship Advice from the Wisdom of Arranged Marriages” (http://www.aapress.com/Arts_&_Entertainment/Entries/2008/7/5_First_Comes_Marriage.html), which argues that we can learn a lot from cultures that have arranged marriages. Apparently it’s quite possible to get married first and fall in love afterward. Smith’s parents were happily married even though they had an arranged marriage, and when she was growing up, she couldn’t tell the difference between her parents’ friends whose marriages had been arranged and those who were “love matches.”
The seven “secrets” that Smith claims we can learn from arranged marriages are: 1) Your man doesn’t have to be your best friend; 2) The musts are all that matter; 3) Commitment is the opposite of constraint; 4) It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t dance: the danger of confusing common interests with shared values; 5) Romance needs a rewrite; 6) His sex appeal? It’s all about you; and 7) Family matters: a higher purpose = long-term happiness. Interestingly, “love matches tend to have the height of ‘feelings and emotions’ at the beginning of the relationship and then gradually diminish over the next 5 years. Whereas with arranged marriages, the couples generally feel ‘neutral’ towards each other at the beginning, with love building over the next 5 years, often surpassing love matches at or before the 5-year mark.” I’m not sure that’s a rousing recommendation for arranged marriage, however. Say that there’s a couples’ happiness scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being “we hate each other” and 10 being “we’re madly in love and so blissfully happy, we don’t want to live without each other.” A love match might start out feeling like a 10, whereas an arranged couple might begin at a completely neutral 5. After a few years, the love match has gone down to a 7 while the arranged couple has gone up to a 7. So if you’re going to end up in the same state of happiness anyway, shouldn’t you try to find someone with whom you can experience that amazing high of a 10, even if it doesn’t last forever?
I can see the advantages of arranged marriages in communities where that’s encouraged. If almost everyone’s marriage is arranged, marriage is thought of in a completely different way – it’s a practical matter. You don’t expect your spouse to be the love of your life. Basically, you get married not because you’re so in love that you can’t imagine life without that person; you get married so that you can produce children to continue the community after you’re gone. But to have an arranged marriage in this culture would be a lot more difficult – always the temptation to compare your marriage with everyone else’s “love match” (not to mention with the Hollywood ideal).
It got me thinking…what exactly am I looking for? Someone I genuinely enjoy spending a lot of time with, who treats me well, who has his life together enough to commit to a lasting relationship, and who feels the same way about me that I do about him. That’s it. But that’s tough to find!
The Nicest Guy in the World definitely has friends. But he, too, has a couple of issues that worry me. Then again, who doesn’t? I recently read about a book by Reva Smith called “First Comes Marriage: Modern Relationship Advice from the Wisdom of Arranged Marriages” (http://www.aapress.com/Arts_&_Entertainment/Entries/2008/7/5_First_Comes_Marriage.html), which argues that we can learn a lot from cultures that have arranged marriages. Apparently it’s quite possible to get married first and fall in love afterward. Smith’s parents were happily married even though they had an arranged marriage, and when she was growing up, she couldn’t tell the difference between her parents’ friends whose marriages had been arranged and those who were “love matches.”
The seven “secrets” that Smith claims we can learn from arranged marriages are: 1) Your man doesn’t have to be your best friend; 2) The musts are all that matter; 3) Commitment is the opposite of constraint; 4) It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t dance: the danger of confusing common interests with shared values; 5) Romance needs a rewrite; 6) His sex appeal? It’s all about you; and 7) Family matters: a higher purpose = long-term happiness. Interestingly, “love matches tend to have the height of ‘feelings and emotions’ at the beginning of the relationship and then gradually diminish over the next 5 years. Whereas with arranged marriages, the couples generally feel ‘neutral’ towards each other at the beginning, with love building over the next 5 years, often surpassing love matches at or before the 5-year mark.” I’m not sure that’s a rousing recommendation for arranged marriage, however. Say that there’s a couples’ happiness scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being “we hate each other” and 10 being “we’re madly in love and so blissfully happy, we don’t want to live without each other.” A love match might start out feeling like a 10, whereas an arranged couple might begin at a completely neutral 5. After a few years, the love match has gone down to a 7 while the arranged couple has gone up to a 7. So if you’re going to end up in the same state of happiness anyway, shouldn’t you try to find someone with whom you can experience that amazing high of a 10, even if it doesn’t last forever?
I can see the advantages of arranged marriages in communities where that’s encouraged. If almost everyone’s marriage is arranged, marriage is thought of in a completely different way – it’s a practical matter. You don’t expect your spouse to be the love of your life. Basically, you get married not because you’re so in love that you can’t imagine life without that person; you get married so that you can produce children to continue the community after you’re gone. But to have an arranged marriage in this culture would be a lot more difficult – always the temptation to compare your marriage with everyone else’s “love match” (not to mention with the Hollywood ideal).
It got me thinking…what exactly am I looking for? Someone I genuinely enjoy spending a lot of time with, who treats me well, who has his life together enough to commit to a lasting relationship, and who feels the same way about me that I do about him. That’s it. But that’s tough to find!
June 16, 2008
The Lone Wolf
Had an interesting phone conversation with Mr. No Touchy-Feely a few days ago. He said he might participate in a group bike ride the next day, “but maybe not – I’ve been on the e-mail list for this bike group for years now, and I’ve never done one group bike ride.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I usually just look at where they’re going and then go on my own at another time,” he said. “But my resolution this year was to be more social, so maybe I’ll go with them this time.”
As soon as he said that, the fact that he still hasn’t made a move with me suddenly made a lot more sense. He’s a loner by nature. He probably hasn’t dated a whole lot. Joining eHarmony was probably part of his be-more-social resolution.
But, do I want to be with someone who is a natural loner? Is he the kind of person who, when a conflict arises, shuts down and flees for a bike ride alone, rather than stays and talks it out? I don’t know.
I do still like him, though.
There was a story in the “Vows” column of yesterday’s New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/fashion/weddings/15vows.html) about a couple who just got married, and it had taken the now-husband EIGHT MONTHS to kiss his now-wife when they first started going out (“Ms. Lucas wanted the relationship to develop; Mr. Kass said he needed ‘time.’”). Eight months! But he finally kissed her, so then they were definitely dating. But after four years, she had to give him a two-month ultimatum before he would finally propose. They were 31 when they met, and 37 when they finally got married. I don’t know if I could have been that patient. If someone needs an ultimatum to get them to propose, I would start to wonder if they were really in love.
“Why not?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I usually just look at where they’re going and then go on my own at another time,” he said. “But my resolution this year was to be more social, so maybe I’ll go with them this time.”
As soon as he said that, the fact that he still hasn’t made a move with me suddenly made a lot more sense. He’s a loner by nature. He probably hasn’t dated a whole lot. Joining eHarmony was probably part of his be-more-social resolution.
But, do I want to be with someone who is a natural loner? Is he the kind of person who, when a conflict arises, shuts down and flees for a bike ride alone, rather than stays and talks it out? I don’t know.
I do still like him, though.
There was a story in the “Vows” column of yesterday’s New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/fashion/weddings/15vows.html) about a couple who just got married, and it had taken the now-husband EIGHT MONTHS to kiss his now-wife when they first started going out (“Ms. Lucas wanted the relationship to develop; Mr. Kass said he needed ‘time.’”). Eight months! But he finally kissed her, so then they were definitely dating. But after four years, she had to give him a two-month ultimatum before he would finally propose. They were 31 when they met, and 37 when they finally got married. I don’t know if I could have been that patient. If someone needs an ultimatum to get them to propose, I would start to wonder if they were really in love.
May 16, 2008
Cheating
Here’s the latest on Mr. No Touchy-Feely: he e-mailed me last Wednesday and left me a voicemail on Thursday. I sent him an e-mail on Friday morning. Didn’t hear from him again until Tuesday evening, when he left me a voicemail after getting home from work and before going back out to another activity. I e-mailed him on Wednesday. He e-mailed me yesterday (Thursday) saying he could call me that night. I e-mailed that a friend and I would be having dinner and watching the “Office” season finale together, but I could call him Friday night if he’d be around. He e-mailed me back that he would be around, and that we could exchange our reviews of “The Office” when we talk. So, I’ll give him a call tonight. I do think he’s shy, at least in some ways (well, obviously!). But I like him enough to want to give him more of a chance. We’ll see.
Meanwhile, one of my friends (thanks, Gwen!) sent me a link to this article on “how to cheat-proof your marriage” (http://www.20daypersuasion.com/cheatproof-marriage-sample.htm). Do you agree with this paragraph?
“Men enter into a relationship or marriage expecting a woman to stay as beautiful and easy to handle. Women enter into a relationship or marriage expecting a man to change for the better. These differences are often what lead to breakups, separations, or divorces. These differences, along with the fact that men constantly want excitement, and women need affirmation and praise, all lead to infidelity.”
What do you think? Seems a bit stereotypical to me – “easy to handle,” that’s a more appropriate description for a horse than a person! Don’t most people of either gender want excitement AND affirmation AND praise? (I know I do! :) However, I did identify with the part about expecting/hoping a man will change for the better. Part of me seems to be attracted to guys who need mothering, guys with a lot of potential who haven’t quite gotten their act together in some way. It’s something I have to fight against. After all, it’s a lose-lose situation to get involved with and try to “improve” someone who isn’t willing to improve themselves. Much better to be with someone I like so much, I don’t feel they need any improvement. :)
The article also claims that cheating is the most common reason for divorce. But isn’t cheating due to some earlier problem in the marriage that went unaddressed? I would think that cheating would be a symptom of relationship trouble, not a cause.
Meanwhile, one of my friends (thanks, Gwen!) sent me a link to this article on “how to cheat-proof your marriage” (http://www.20daypersuasion.com/cheatproof-marriage-sample.htm). Do you agree with this paragraph?
“Men enter into a relationship or marriage expecting a woman to stay as beautiful and easy to handle. Women enter into a relationship or marriage expecting a man to change for the better. These differences are often what lead to breakups, separations, or divorces. These differences, along with the fact that men constantly want excitement, and women need affirmation and praise, all lead to infidelity.”
What do you think? Seems a bit stereotypical to me – “easy to handle,” that’s a more appropriate description for a horse than a person! Don’t most people of either gender want excitement AND affirmation AND praise? (I know I do! :) However, I did identify with the part about expecting/hoping a man will change for the better. Part of me seems to be attracted to guys who need mothering, guys with a lot of potential who haven’t quite gotten their act together in some way. It’s something I have to fight against. After all, it’s a lose-lose situation to get involved with and try to “improve” someone who isn’t willing to improve themselves. Much better to be with someone I like so much, I don’t feel they need any improvement. :)
The article also claims that cheating is the most common reason for divorce. But isn’t cheating due to some earlier problem in the marriage that went unaddressed? I would think that cheating would be a symptom of relationship trouble, not a cause.
May 8, 2008
Analysis of a Doomed Marriage
I just read a devastating article on a great web site called Tango: Smart Talk About Love (http://www.tangomag.com) titled “Marrying Mr. Wrong,” by Isabel Rose (http://www.tangomag.com/2006184/marrying-mr-wrong.html). It starts with this paragraph:
“JULY 4, 2002: I’m sitting on our deck in the Hamptons an hour after everyone has left, realizing that my marriage needs to end. There have been too many red flags and it’s been too hard for too long. I’m drained. I’m sad. I’m lonely. My husband is just on the other side of the screen door, sleeping on the sofa we bought together at Ikea right after we bought the house. On his chest, our eleven-month-old daughter drools in her half-sleep.”
Then Ms. Rose goes back and analyzes, one by one, the various red flags that prove she never should have married her husband (now ex-husband) in the first place, starting with when they met in April 1995. The one that really got me was when she was having a drink with her ex-boyfriend, and when he asked if her current boyfriend was her soul mate, she said, “Definitely not…he doesn’t understand me at all.” This was in June 1997 – after they had been dating for TWO YEARS! And not only did she go ahead and marry him a year later, but then she had a kid with him! It’s sad, really. Oh, and his outright ignoring her when she spoke (red flag #3)? Inexcusable! (I’m also surprised his boss wasn’t punched in the mouth, or even better, socked with a lawsuit – see red flag #8.)
Ms. Rose certainly wanted to get married. It was like marriage itself was the be-all and end-all, and it almost didn’t matter with who. She had a fear of being alone, it seems. I went through a time in my life, in my early- to mid-twenties, when I felt the same way. It’s easy for me to read her red flags, shake my head and say, “What was she thinking!?” But I’ve certainly excused away warning signs in my relationships, though not to the point where I got anywhere close to engaged, let alone married. However, if a guy had actually shown any interest in me when I was 25, I could potentially have done exactly what she did, which was to cling to the relationship at all costs, even though it was all wrong for her. Not meeting anyone back then was a blessing in disguise, because I learned I could take care of myself and exist just fine on my own. It’s fun to have a boyfriend, and amazing when you feel a real connection with someone. But it’s not like I’m going to die of loneliness or anything without one.
I’ll bet Ms. Rose’s ex-husband has his own list of red flags about their relationship. That would be interesting to read.
Lately, I’ve noticed that I truly enjoy articles exactly like this, about people who are unhappily married or who are getting divorced. I mean, I REALLY enjoy it. It’s like relationship porn for me. Can’t get enough. Is that terrible? It’s not that I like the idea of people being in emotional pain. It just assures me that it’s much better to be single than married to someone you’re always angry at, or don’t particularly like, or who doesn’t like you much anymore, either.
Oooh, I just noticed that Ms. Rose’s article is excerpted from a book that came out last year called “The Honeymoon’s Over: True Stories of Love, Marriage and Divorce,” edited by Sally Wofford-Girand and Andrea Chapin. A whole BOOK of relationship-porn! Excuse me while I mosey over to Amazon.com....
“JULY 4, 2002: I’m sitting on our deck in the Hamptons an hour after everyone has left, realizing that my marriage needs to end. There have been too many red flags and it’s been too hard for too long. I’m drained. I’m sad. I’m lonely. My husband is just on the other side of the screen door, sleeping on the sofa we bought together at Ikea right after we bought the house. On his chest, our eleven-month-old daughter drools in her half-sleep.”
Then Ms. Rose goes back and analyzes, one by one, the various red flags that prove she never should have married her husband (now ex-husband) in the first place, starting with when they met in April 1995. The one that really got me was when she was having a drink with her ex-boyfriend, and when he asked if her current boyfriend was her soul mate, she said, “Definitely not…he doesn’t understand me at all.” This was in June 1997 – after they had been dating for TWO YEARS! And not only did she go ahead and marry him a year later, but then she had a kid with him! It’s sad, really. Oh, and his outright ignoring her when she spoke (red flag #3)? Inexcusable! (I’m also surprised his boss wasn’t punched in the mouth, or even better, socked with a lawsuit – see red flag #8.)
Ms. Rose certainly wanted to get married. It was like marriage itself was the be-all and end-all, and it almost didn’t matter with who. She had a fear of being alone, it seems. I went through a time in my life, in my early- to mid-twenties, when I felt the same way. It’s easy for me to read her red flags, shake my head and say, “What was she thinking!?” But I’ve certainly excused away warning signs in my relationships, though not to the point where I got anywhere close to engaged, let alone married. However, if a guy had actually shown any interest in me when I was 25, I could potentially have done exactly what she did, which was to cling to the relationship at all costs, even though it was all wrong for her. Not meeting anyone back then was a blessing in disguise, because I learned I could take care of myself and exist just fine on my own. It’s fun to have a boyfriend, and amazing when you feel a real connection with someone. But it’s not like I’m going to die of loneliness or anything without one.
I’ll bet Ms. Rose’s ex-husband has his own list of red flags about their relationship. That would be interesting to read.
Lately, I’ve noticed that I truly enjoy articles exactly like this, about people who are unhappily married or who are getting divorced. I mean, I REALLY enjoy it. It’s like relationship porn for me. Can’t get enough. Is that terrible? It’s not that I like the idea of people being in emotional pain. It just assures me that it’s much better to be single than married to someone you’re always angry at, or don’t particularly like, or who doesn’t like you much anymore, either.
Oooh, I just noticed that Ms. Rose’s article is excerpted from a book that came out last year called “The Honeymoon’s Over: True Stories of Love, Marriage and Divorce,” edited by Sally Wofford-Girand and Andrea Chapin. A whole BOOK of relationship-porn! Excuse me while I mosey over to Amazon.com....
April 30, 2008
More on "Settling" vs. Compromising
I’ve been thinking some more about Lori Gottlieb’s Atlantic Monthly article “Marry Him! The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough" (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200803/single-marry), which I first blogged about it in my April 18th post. It made me think about Emily Giffin’s novel “Baby Proof,” which I read last year. In the book, one of the narrator’s sisters had, ten years earlier, dated a really nice, sweet guy who truly loved her, but she broke up with him because he wasn’t exciting enough. She said she couldn’t stay with anyone who didn’t make her pulse race on a regular basis. She ended up marrying a guy who did that, all right – but he ended up being equally passionate about other women and had one affair after another. I think that’s the sort of behavior Gottleib is trying to warn against. Don’t “settle” for the first guy who comes along, but do recognize that real love isn’t necessarily about nonstop passion and excitement. Real love is also about who will speak in soothing tones and hold your hair back when you’re throwing up from the flu. As Gottlieb writes,
“In my formative years, romance was John Cusack and Ione Skye in 'Say Anything.' But when I think about marriage nowadays, my role models are the television characters Will and Grace, who, though Will was gay and his relationship with Grace was platonic, were one of the most romantic couples I can think of. What I long for in a marriage is that sense of having a partner in crime. Someone who knows your day-to-day trivia. Someone who both calls you on your bullshit and puts up with your quirks…As your priorities change from romance to family, the so-called ‘deal breakers’ change. Some guys aren’t worldly, but they’d make great dads. Or you walk into a room and start talking to this person who is 5'4" and has an unfortunate nose, but he ‘gets’ you.”
See, to me, those examples are not examples of settling. They are examples of discovering that what you want in a partner grows and changes as you grow and change, as well it should, and being willing to compromise on things (I mean, height? c’mon!) that aren’t that important. Looking for someone who would be good to have a one-night stand with is much different than looking for someone who would be good to partner with for life – but don’t most people in their 30s and 40s realize that?
Gottlieb also feels that it’s better to be with SOMEONE, even if he doesn’t live up to your romantic ideal, than be alone (because, as she would say, no one can be your perfect romantic ideal anyway). That reminds me of when my sister and brother-in-law went on their honeymoon. They hadn’t traveled much together before, and they had a terrific time touring London and seeing the sights – so much so that at one point my sister exclaimed, “Wow! Traveling with you is so much better than traveling by myself!” At which point, my brother-in-law quipped, “Great – I’m better than nobody!” ;)
I also read Sara Lipka's interview with Gottlieb on the Atlantic Monthly web site (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200802u/gottlieb-interview). Interestingly, Gottlieb broke up with a serious boyfriend right before starting to go through the artifical insemination process to have a child on her own. In response to the question, "Feeling as you do now, what would you have done differently?" Gottlieb says,
"I would have considered dating guys I never gave a chance. Platonic guy-friends, or guys I met who asked me out but I turned them down, or guys I went on just one date with because I didn’t feel any chemistry or whatever I thought I was supposed to feel. I was looking for a spark when I should have been looking for a solid life partner. And some of those guys would have been really excellent life partners. They’re all married now, of course, because the guys always get married. Maybe it would have been nice to wake up with one of those guys every day and raise a family together. One in particular was much closer to the kind of person I’d want to marry than anybody I’d likely end up meeting now. "
I wonder if she's talking about the guy she broke up with to have a baby on her own?
By the way, Gottlieb got both a lucrative book deal AND a movie deal (!) out of this one article. If anyone out there is moved to offer The Dating Guru a book deal or a movie deal based on this blog, don't be shy -- I'd happily "settle" for either one. (I won't even insist that a gorgeous actress be cast as me!)
“In my formative years, romance was John Cusack and Ione Skye in 'Say Anything.' But when I think about marriage nowadays, my role models are the television characters Will and Grace, who, though Will was gay and his relationship with Grace was platonic, were one of the most romantic couples I can think of. What I long for in a marriage is that sense of having a partner in crime. Someone who knows your day-to-day trivia. Someone who both calls you on your bullshit and puts up with your quirks…As your priorities change from romance to family, the so-called ‘deal breakers’ change. Some guys aren’t worldly, but they’d make great dads. Or you walk into a room and start talking to this person who is 5'4" and has an unfortunate nose, but he ‘gets’ you.”
See, to me, those examples are not examples of settling. They are examples of discovering that what you want in a partner grows and changes as you grow and change, as well it should, and being willing to compromise on things (I mean, height? c’mon!) that aren’t that important. Looking for someone who would be good to have a one-night stand with is much different than looking for someone who would be good to partner with for life – but don’t most people in their 30s and 40s realize that?
Gottlieb also feels that it’s better to be with SOMEONE, even if he doesn’t live up to your romantic ideal, than be alone (because, as she would say, no one can be your perfect romantic ideal anyway). That reminds me of when my sister and brother-in-law went on their honeymoon. They hadn’t traveled much together before, and they had a terrific time touring London and seeing the sights – so much so that at one point my sister exclaimed, “Wow! Traveling with you is so much better than traveling by myself!” At which point, my brother-in-law quipped, “Great – I’m better than nobody!” ;)
I also read Sara Lipka's interview with Gottlieb on the Atlantic Monthly web site (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200802u/gottlieb-interview). Interestingly, Gottlieb broke up with a serious boyfriend right before starting to go through the artifical insemination process to have a child on her own. In response to the question, "Feeling as you do now, what would you have done differently?" Gottlieb says,
"I would have considered dating guys I never gave a chance. Platonic guy-friends, or guys I met who asked me out but I turned them down, or guys I went on just one date with because I didn’t feel any chemistry or whatever I thought I was supposed to feel. I was looking for a spark when I should have been looking for a solid life partner. And some of those guys would have been really excellent life partners. They’re all married now, of course, because the guys always get married. Maybe it would have been nice to wake up with one of those guys every day and raise a family together. One in particular was much closer to the kind of person I’d want to marry than anybody I’d likely end up meeting now. "
I wonder if she's talking about the guy she broke up with to have a baby on her own?
By the way, Gottlieb got both a lucrative book deal AND a movie deal (!) out of this one article. If anyone out there is moved to offer The Dating Guru a book deal or a movie deal based on this blog, don't be shy -- I'd happily "settle" for either one. (I won't even insist that a gorgeous actress be cast as me!)
April 20, 2008
Comment from a friend on Compromising vs. Settling
"What I think is interesting is that there were no articles from happily married women. I think most of them would say that they did not settle. All of the articles you read were from women who have not found the right man for themselves yet, so if they were to get married it would feel like, or in fact be, settling. I think when you find the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, and you are honest with yourself about what that actually means, there is no way you can feel like you are settling. You're just excited, hopeful, and have trust and faith that the other person feels the same way."
April 18, 2008
Compromising vs. "Settling"
Where do you draw the line between compromising -- something everyone has to do in any relationship -- and “settling,” or resigning yourself to a relationship that isn’t all you’d hoped for? On one hand, I’m a ton less hard on myself in my 30s than I was in my 20s, which has made me less critical and more forgiving of the faults of other people, including the people I date (difficult as it may be to believe from reading this blog ;). On the other hand, I also find myself thinking things like, “Well, I’ve waited this long to find someone – I might as well hold out for the perfect guy!”
Of course, the perfect guy, much like the perfect city or the perfect job, does not exist. But you can fall in love with someone, or something, in spite of its imperfections. For example, I moved to New York City in 2000 having lived in four different cities/towns in the previous five years (Roma, TX; Austin, TX; my hometown of Oakland, NJ; and Boston, MA), and I assumed that, like with the previous places I’d lived, I would stay for a year or two, then move on. I didn’t fall in love with New York at first sight. It took months to get the knack of pressing myself into a crowded subway car during rush hour without feeling like I’d faint from claustrophobia. Not being able to drive to a supermarket and load up on enough groceries to last a couple of weeks took some getting used to. My rent was high, and I wasn’t making that much money. But as I walked the streets of Manhattan during my lunch hour, I could feel the energy of the city pulsing around me, and after only a few months, I knew I had finally found the place I never wanted to leave -- and except for my year in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps a couple of years ago (when New York and I had a long-distance relationship), I never have.
Interestingly, I had the opposite experience when I’d moved to Boston the year before. After I got into Boston University’s creative writing program, I excitedly planned to fall in love with Boston and spend the rest of my life there. But then I arrived. I tried to like living in Boston, I really did. But I was always lost (Boston is NOT the place to live if you have no sense of direction), continually being disappointed by public transportation, and lonely. I’d been living there nine or ten months when I suddenly thought, why am I trying to force myself to like it here when my heart is just not in it? As soon as I got my master’s degree a couple months later, I fled to New York, only because I had three friends there and it was relatively close to my dad in NJ. It was never the city I expected to love – but that’s what ended up happening.
And so it is with dating. You can spend months, even years, with someone who is perfectly nice and who, on paper, has everything you’re looking for, yet you’re just not feeling it. Then someone who doesn’t match your vision of the ideal partner at all ambles into your life, and before you know it, you’re in love. It’s the furthest thing from an exact science.
What triggered all of this were several interesting essays on compromising vs. settling. First was an article on eHarmony’s web site titled “Do You Have Realistic Expectations?” It starts out with, “To date is to have standards. But expectations for your future flame must have compromising perimeters to allow for the unpredicted.” You can find the whole article at http://advice.eharmony.com/?page=articles/view&AID=1956&cid=2091&aid=41607 but it basically says that you shouldn’t rule out a good person who actually exists because you’re holding out for some impossible fantasy. However, the article doesn’t help you discern when you’ve crossed the line between “having standards” and being too choosy.
Intrigued, I then typed “is he the one or are you settling” into Google, which turned up this amazing article by Lori Gottlieb entitled “Marry Him! The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough,” which appeared in the March 2008 Atlantic Monthly. Go to http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200803/single-marry to read the whole article, which is unsettling, thought-provoking – and really, really funny. After years of search for Mr. Right, Gottlieb finally decided to have a baby on her own. Now she is the mother of a beautiful baby boy, still single, and her advice, as summed up in paragraph 6, is:
“Settle! That’s right. Don’t worry about passion or intense connection. Don’t nix a guy based on his annoying habit of yelling ‘Bravo!’ in movie theaters. Overlook his halitosis or abysmal sense of aesthetics. Because if you want to have the infrastructure in place to have a family, settling is the way to go. Based on my observations, in fact, settling will probably make you happier in the long run, since many of those who marry with great expectations become more disillusioned with each passing year. (It’s hard to maintain that level of zing when the conversation morphs into discussions about who’s changing the diapers or balancing the checkbook.)”
Trust her, she says – the man of your dreams is NOT out there, “because you dreamed him up.” Better to “settle” for someone who doesn’t completely rock your world than end up permanently single. The funniest part is paragraph 11, where Gottlieb points out that “what makes for a good marriage isn’t necessarily what makes for a good romantic relationship. Once you’re married, it’s not about whom you want to go on vacation with; it’s about whom you want to run a household with. Marriage isn’t a passion-fest; it’s more like a partnership formed to run a very small, mundane, and often boring nonprofit business. And I mean this in a good way.”
Marriage and family as a “very small, mundane, and often boring nonprofit business” – ha! I love it!
Her article, however, is definitely geared to thirty-something women who hear the incessant ticking of their biological clocks. She says once you and Mr. Good Enough start churning out babies, you’ll barely see each other anyway, so at that point, what difference did it make WHO you married? At least you can take turns watching the kids. And if, worst case scenario, you get divorced, at least you’ll get your weekends free when your kids are with their dad, plus child support – none of which you’ll get if you have a baby on your own. (She doesn’t take into account how extraordinarily expensive, time-consuming, and emotionally draining divorce can be, though – not to mention hard on the kids.) Since I don’t care if I ever have biological kids and I want to adopt older children, my situation is a little different – easier in some ways (much longer time frame to work with), harder in others (most guys either want to have biological kids or don’t want to have kids at all).
If you’d like to read single moms’ reactions to Gottlieb’s article, check out author and single mother Rachel Sarah’s blog at http://singlemomseeking.com/blog/2008/03/09/one-single-mom-says-that-you-should-settle-for-mr-good-enough/ Some of the comments noted that if Gottlieb had used “compromise” or some word other than “settle,” her article would have been a lot easier to agree with. Tellingly, some said that they were single moms precisely BECAUSE they had settled for their now ex-husbands – with whom they’d been miserable. As Barb (http://www.zenmothers.com/) noted in her comment, “It’s hard to do everything yourself and would love a break from being my kid’s short order cook and taxi driver every now and then, but I would rather be alone than pick a man just to have someone cover the husband duties.”
And finally, I also found an article by Joe Atkinson entitled “Are You Settling for Someone?” (http://www.revolutionhealth.com/healthy-living/womens-health/relationships/dating/settling) which quotes from a book by psychotherapist Mira Kirshenbaum called “Is He Mr. Right? Everything You Need to Know Before you Commit.” Kirshenbaum thinks that a healthy relationship needs to have the following five traits: “1) physical chemistry or affection; 2) real intimacy, or an ‘at-homeness’ with the other person; 3) fun, which she describes as ‘the glue of intimacy’; 4) safety, trust and security with the other person; and 5) mutual respect. To Kirshenbaum, settling is accepting a relationship in which one of these ‘five dimensions of chemistry’ is missing.”
What do you all think?
Of course, the perfect guy, much like the perfect city or the perfect job, does not exist. But you can fall in love with someone, or something, in spite of its imperfections. For example, I moved to New York City in 2000 having lived in four different cities/towns in the previous five years (Roma, TX; Austin, TX; my hometown of Oakland, NJ; and Boston, MA), and I assumed that, like with the previous places I’d lived, I would stay for a year or two, then move on. I didn’t fall in love with New York at first sight. It took months to get the knack of pressing myself into a crowded subway car during rush hour without feeling like I’d faint from claustrophobia. Not being able to drive to a supermarket and load up on enough groceries to last a couple of weeks took some getting used to. My rent was high, and I wasn’t making that much money. But as I walked the streets of Manhattan during my lunch hour, I could feel the energy of the city pulsing around me, and after only a few months, I knew I had finally found the place I never wanted to leave -- and except for my year in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps a couple of years ago (when New York and I had a long-distance relationship), I never have.
Interestingly, I had the opposite experience when I’d moved to Boston the year before. After I got into Boston University’s creative writing program, I excitedly planned to fall in love with Boston and spend the rest of my life there. But then I arrived. I tried to like living in Boston, I really did. But I was always lost (Boston is NOT the place to live if you have no sense of direction), continually being disappointed by public transportation, and lonely. I’d been living there nine or ten months when I suddenly thought, why am I trying to force myself to like it here when my heart is just not in it? As soon as I got my master’s degree a couple months later, I fled to New York, only because I had three friends there and it was relatively close to my dad in NJ. It was never the city I expected to love – but that’s what ended up happening.
And so it is with dating. You can spend months, even years, with someone who is perfectly nice and who, on paper, has everything you’re looking for, yet you’re just not feeling it. Then someone who doesn’t match your vision of the ideal partner at all ambles into your life, and before you know it, you’re in love. It’s the furthest thing from an exact science.
What triggered all of this were several interesting essays on compromising vs. settling. First was an article on eHarmony’s web site titled “Do You Have Realistic Expectations?” It starts out with, “To date is to have standards. But expectations for your future flame must have compromising perimeters to allow for the unpredicted.” You can find the whole article at http://advice.eharmony.com/?page=articles/view&AID=1956&cid=2091&aid=41607 but it basically says that you shouldn’t rule out a good person who actually exists because you’re holding out for some impossible fantasy. However, the article doesn’t help you discern when you’ve crossed the line between “having standards” and being too choosy.
Intrigued, I then typed “is he the one or are you settling” into Google, which turned up this amazing article by Lori Gottlieb entitled “Marry Him! The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough,” which appeared in the March 2008 Atlantic Monthly. Go to http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200803/single-marry to read the whole article, which is unsettling, thought-provoking – and really, really funny. After years of search for Mr. Right, Gottlieb finally decided to have a baby on her own. Now she is the mother of a beautiful baby boy, still single, and her advice, as summed up in paragraph 6, is:
“Settle! That’s right. Don’t worry about passion or intense connection. Don’t nix a guy based on his annoying habit of yelling ‘Bravo!’ in movie theaters. Overlook his halitosis or abysmal sense of aesthetics. Because if you want to have the infrastructure in place to have a family, settling is the way to go. Based on my observations, in fact, settling will probably make you happier in the long run, since many of those who marry with great expectations become more disillusioned with each passing year. (It’s hard to maintain that level of zing when the conversation morphs into discussions about who’s changing the diapers or balancing the checkbook.)”
Trust her, she says – the man of your dreams is NOT out there, “because you dreamed him up.” Better to “settle” for someone who doesn’t completely rock your world than end up permanently single. The funniest part is paragraph 11, where Gottlieb points out that “what makes for a good marriage isn’t necessarily what makes for a good romantic relationship. Once you’re married, it’s not about whom you want to go on vacation with; it’s about whom you want to run a household with. Marriage isn’t a passion-fest; it’s more like a partnership formed to run a very small, mundane, and often boring nonprofit business. And I mean this in a good way.”
Marriage and family as a “very small, mundane, and often boring nonprofit business” – ha! I love it!
Her article, however, is definitely geared to thirty-something women who hear the incessant ticking of their biological clocks. She says once you and Mr. Good Enough start churning out babies, you’ll barely see each other anyway, so at that point, what difference did it make WHO you married? At least you can take turns watching the kids. And if, worst case scenario, you get divorced, at least you’ll get your weekends free when your kids are with their dad, plus child support – none of which you’ll get if you have a baby on your own. (She doesn’t take into account how extraordinarily expensive, time-consuming, and emotionally draining divorce can be, though – not to mention hard on the kids.) Since I don’t care if I ever have biological kids and I want to adopt older children, my situation is a little different – easier in some ways (much longer time frame to work with), harder in others (most guys either want to have biological kids or don’t want to have kids at all).
If you’d like to read single moms’ reactions to Gottlieb’s article, check out author and single mother Rachel Sarah’s blog at http://singlemomseeking.com/blog/2008/03/09/one-single-mom-says-that-you-should-settle-for-mr-good-enough/ Some of the comments noted that if Gottlieb had used “compromise” or some word other than “settle,” her article would have been a lot easier to agree with. Tellingly, some said that they were single moms precisely BECAUSE they had settled for their now ex-husbands – with whom they’d been miserable. As Barb (http://www.zenmothers.com/) noted in her comment, “It’s hard to do everything yourself and would love a break from being my kid’s short order cook and taxi driver every now and then, but I would rather be alone than pick a man just to have someone cover the husband duties.”
And finally, I also found an article by Joe Atkinson entitled “Are You Settling for Someone?” (http://www.revolutionhealth.com/healthy-living/womens-health/relationships/dating/settling) which quotes from a book by psychotherapist Mira Kirshenbaum called “Is He Mr. Right? Everything You Need to Know Before you Commit.” Kirshenbaum thinks that a healthy relationship needs to have the following five traits: “1) physical chemistry or affection; 2) real intimacy, or an ‘at-homeness’ with the other person; 3) fun, which she describes as ‘the glue of intimacy’; 4) safety, trust and security with the other person; and 5) mutual respect. To Kirshenbaum, settling is accepting a relationship in which one of these ‘five dimensions of chemistry’ is missing.”
What do you all think?
March 21, 2008
Fidelity, or Fantasy?
As you may have heard, here in New York State we recently lost our (married) governor, Eliot Spitzer, when he resigned after it was discovered he’d spent up to $80,000 on high-priced prostitutes over the past few years. No sooner had our new governor, David Paterson, taken office when he and his wife held a news conference and admitted that during a rough patch in their marriage, around 1999 to 2001, they had both had affairs. “There were a number of women,” Governor Paterson said, including a state employee, though no one that he directly supervised.
You’ve gotta admire the new governor’s honesty, but all this makes you wonder…is ANYONE out there being monogamous? According to my up-to-the-minute internet research, anywhere from 17% of women and 25% of men (http://www.infidelity-etc.com/index.php/4) to 40% of women and 60% of men ((http://www.dearpeggy.com/affairs.html) have had an extramarital affair at some point. I also remember reading an article a few years ago which stated that in 10% of all U.S. families, the father is not the true biological father of at least one child in the family, due to the woman having an affair and never admitting to her husband that the child is not his. (The woman herself may not always know for sure.) Interestingly, the same article stated that statistic drops to 3% in Utah, because Mormon couples are more likely to be monogamous.
It’s enough to make you wish you were a swan, or some other beautiful animal that mates for life. Oh, except they don’t either, really, according to a March 18 article by Natalie Angier in the New York Times entitled “In Most Species, Faithfulness is a Fantasy (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/18/science/18angi.html?ref=science). A lot of animals partner up to cuddle, groom each other, breed, and raise young, but genetic testing shows that “anywhere from 10 to 70 percent will prove to have been sired by somebody other than the resident male.”
Apparently, the only guaranteed-monogamous animal is the Diplozoon paradoxum, which is a worm that makes its home in a fish’s gills (ew). To quote David P. Barash, a professor of psychology at the University of Washington in Seattle, “males and females meet each other as adolescents, and their bodies literally fuse together, whereupon they remain faithful until death. That’s the only species I know of in which there seems to be 100 percent monogamy.”
Geez. I think I’d like my body fused to someone else’s even less than dealing with their affair!
You’ve gotta admire the new governor’s honesty, but all this makes you wonder…is ANYONE out there being monogamous? According to my up-to-the-minute internet research, anywhere from 17% of women and 25% of men (http://www.infidelity-etc.com/index.php/4) to 40% of women and 60% of men ((http://www.dearpeggy.com/affairs.html) have had an extramarital affair at some point. I also remember reading an article a few years ago which stated that in 10% of all U.S. families, the father is not the true biological father of at least one child in the family, due to the woman having an affair and never admitting to her husband that the child is not his. (The woman herself may not always know for sure.) Interestingly, the same article stated that statistic drops to 3% in Utah, because Mormon couples are more likely to be monogamous.
It’s enough to make you wish you were a swan, or some other beautiful animal that mates for life. Oh, except they don’t either, really, according to a March 18 article by Natalie Angier in the New York Times entitled “In Most Species, Faithfulness is a Fantasy (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/18/science/18angi.html?ref=science). A lot of animals partner up to cuddle, groom each other, breed, and raise young, but genetic testing shows that “anywhere from 10 to 70 percent will prove to have been sired by somebody other than the resident male.”
Apparently, the only guaranteed-monogamous animal is the Diplozoon paradoxum, which is a worm that makes its home in a fish’s gills (ew). To quote David P. Barash, a professor of psychology at the University of Washington in Seattle, “males and females meet each other as adolescents, and their bodies literally fuse together, whereupon they remain faithful until death. That’s the only species I know of in which there seems to be 100 percent monogamy.”
Geez. I think I’d like my body fused to someone else’s even less than dealing with their affair!
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