Sadly, and to my horror, I am divorcing. This was a 20-year partnership. My husband is a good man, though he did travel 20 weeks a year for work. I am a 47-year-old woman whose commitment to monogamy, at the very end, came unglued. This turn of events was a surprise. I don’t generally even enjoy men; I had an entirely manageable life and planned to go to my grave taking with me, as I do most nights to my bed, a glass of merlot and a good book ....Or, who needs men, first? But, also, why marry anyway?
I can pick up our girls from school every day; I can feed them dinner and kiss their noses and tell them stories; I can take them to their doctor and dentist appointments; I can earn my half—sometimes more—of the money; I can pay the bills; I can refinance the house at the best possible interest rate; I can drive my husband to the airport; in his absence, I can sort his mail; I can be home to let the plumber in on Thursday between nine and three, and I can wait for the cable guy; I can make dinner conversation with any family member; I can ask friendly questions about anybody’s day; I can administer hugs as needed to children, adults, dogs, cats; I can empty the litter box; I can stir wet food into dry.
Which is to say I can work at a career and child care and joint homeownership and even platonic male-female friendship. However, in this cluttered forest of my 40s, what I cannot authentically reconjure is the ancient dream of brides, even with the Oprah fluffery of weekly “date nights,” when gauzy candlelight obscures the messy house, child talk is nixed and silky lingerie donned, so the two of you can look into each other’s eyes and feel that “spark” again. Do you see? Given my staggering working mother’s to-do list, I cannot take on yet another arduous home- and self-improvement project, that of rekindling our romance. Sobered by this failure as a mother—which is to say, my failure as a wife—I’ve since begun a journey of reading, thinking, and listening to what’s going on in other 21st-century American families. And along the way, I’ve begun to wonder, what with all the abject and swallowed misery: Why do we still insist on marriage? Sure, it made sense to agrarian families before 1900, when to farm the land, one needed two spouses, grandparents, and a raft of children. But now that we have white-collar work and washing machines, and our life expectancy has shot from 47 to 77, isn’t the idea of lifelong marriage obsolete?
Maybe Althouse has an answer for Sandra? Like love, maybe?
(Note: I skimmed the piece. If readers can find the passage where Loh admits she cheated on her husband cut and paste in it the comments...)
10 comments:
She tries to obfuscate, but it's there in the first paragraph:
"I would not be able to replace the romantic memory of my fellow transgressor with the more suitable image of my husband, which is what it would take in modern-therapy terms to knit our family’s domestic construct back together. In women’s-magazine parlance, I did not have the strength to “work on” falling in love again in my marriage."
Typical Modern American Woman.
The amazing thing is that they got the typical emasculated male they wanted and then they are stunned they aren't happy.
The whole article revolved around her and her friends. What is important in their lives? It sounds like their own happiness. They got their careers, the trophy husbands, the trophy kids, the therapists, and their material possessions. So, why aren't they happy? Most balanced people could explain, but it would fall on deaf ears.
What is her solution at the end, another social experiment doomed to make everyone miserable.
I think she has a point or two, but I remain a fan of marriage.
I've maintained here, many times, that marriage is changeable and seeks to be redefined every hundred years or so.
Had I power, I'd force a brutally honest sequel in ten years when she realizes that, while by no means pure, she traded in gold for pyrite.
To know what she is about all need do is take in the first few sentences of that ghastly prose of hers.
What contrived, pseudo-intellectual nonsense. What sophomoric, convoluted and preening cant--all to worthy of The Atlantic.
This sort of vapid and superficial simulation of eloquence is considered a clinical sign of pathological narcissism.
The whole thing could be distilled down to one sentence: It is all about me, but that stupid male just does not get it!
He is much better off to be rid of her.
Perforce, one of the central points of marriage is to grind away self-absorption though the care of those most dear. One's spouse and, most particularly, one's children become the chief concerns and one's duties toward them form one's true identity.
This is the true and real face of love in a marriage; "Romantic love" surely is not and for obvious reasons.
It is this love that binds a married couple together through the years and through the travail, and when it blossoms it resonates across the generations of a family.
It is their regard for others that we cherish in our forebears, not their love of self.
It might be the only real and vital love between the sexes.
Seems to me that it is not the case that this navel-gazing, "modern urban liberal woman" did not understand this, she just did not want any part of it, which is to say that she is not a "woman" at all. She is merely female.
One day this whole crop of feminists will be held in contempt by the larger world. The more awake of them will hold themselves in contempt as well.
What a disaster feminism has been to this society. It is no wonder that the Left has thrust this on us so.
Well, I've been married for 30 years and 30 days today, and it seems to me like a good and wise institution. Our children were legitimate -- and born much longer than nine months after our wedding date -- and they never had to worry about whether mom and dad would be staying together, or get shuttled between two parents separate houses, or wonder why their parents were fighting about child support payments.
Marriage has been a human tradition, in every society on earth, in every past culture of which we know, for one very simple reason: it works! It is the family unit which provides basic societal and economic stability.
But now, now that we've managed to have an institution that has worked throughout recorded history, some people think they need to fix it. We are so wise that we are just plain stupid.
Why is it that the only people who want to get married these days are homosexuals?
Maybe I am just a blubbering old softie in my forty-second year with my sole mate, but I think the broad has no concept of what marriage is.
She is totally self-centered, me, me, me. I suppose if I had married her we would not have made in twenty years. Her ass would have been on the street years ago.
Marriage is a bonding of partners with a willingness to give and take, here in my 71st year I find that there are times that I need to be cared for by someone who cares, and that is also a two way street.
I suppose this lady would be better off with a dog……..
Begging the question Donald: you say, why marry and answer (as one possibility) "Like love, maybe?"
But why should love necessarily lead to marriage?
With the corollary: why should gay love not lead to gay marriage?
For once, I'm in agreement. It's all about her and what she values, to the exclusion of much else. There's no doubt that the husband she no longer has is better off without her. (Of course, it's possible that she's better off without him, too. She seems to think so already, but we might too, if we read his blog post.)
Dana asks the right question though (for which I have no good answer.): "Why is it that the only people who want to get married these days are homosexuals?"
But then, when I read about the huge percentages of voter turnout in other countries, and then reflect on our own percentages, I wonder about that, too... Is it something about us, that we don't appreciate & take advantage of the good things we have, like marriage, and/or the ability to vote? (Yeah, I know they're not the same, really, but my reaction to each, is.)
I am entirely against the idea of liberals getting married. In fact, if one votes as a Democrat they should have free access to birth control and abortion services.
Yes. That's right. That's how far it's gone. I'd even give them free cigarettes if they want them.
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