I bought a friend a copy of Lori Gottlieb’s book Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough. Not because I believe in settling, but because I knew that she wanted to. She kept going out with all these guys who were perfect except… for one fatal flaw. And she’d wonder if she should stop caring about these things because she’s twenty-seven and is three children behind her classmates, and all she wants is to be married.
So yes, she’s definitely the target audience. I bought her the book.
“Guess what,” Gottlieb says. “There is no perfect man. Kind of how you’re not a perfect woman, so ditch that mile-long shopping list of pointless minutiae and find someone good enough. Then deal with it. Because at least you’ll be married.”
Well, Friend loved it. She kept reading passages aloud about how picky women are, their ridiculous demands, and how few things are really important in a marriage.
“You should read this when I’m done!” she enthused.
“Not a chance,” I replied. “You know I don’t want to settle.” You see, the premise of Lori’s book is that most of all, every woman wants to get married. It’s only a false sense of entitlement that prevents us from picking out the first non-psychotic y-x chromosome pair that strolls past.
And there are certainly many women, like Friend, who feel this way. Their goal is to Get Married. They just need to find someone suitable to do it with. Then they can relax into marital bliss and babies with an easy sigh, knowing they have secured the most important accessory of the rest of the their life.
There are even married people who agree with this. “I’m so glad I married young,” they smile blissfully. “I could not have handled being single this long.”
I usually gape at them in astonishment. Is this the well-adjusted, multi-interested, adventurous person I knew in high school who never had a bored moment in her life? Saying she couldn’t have handled being single? Then I decide that it must be like me saying I couldn’t have handled being married that young. We’re all happy with what life has handed us because we have no idea what the alternative is really like. That’s not a bad thing.
Still, it bugs me.
Because I’ve never felt that way.
I can see the appeal of a committed relationship and the joys of offspring (at least between years 1 and 12), but the tug of the institution of marriage itself has never been a desperate need that overrides my desire for independence or self-sufficiency. I’ve always felt rather alone in this way.
But the nice thing about Gottlieb’s book is the overwhelming negative reaction it’s gotten from lots of women. Some just don’t like being told that they’re picky. But some don’t like the idea of settling. Like me, they do not fear a future in which kindly relatives give them cats for their birthdays. At least, they don’t fear it more than they fear being institutionalize with someone they discover they have trouble respecting.
Now, I happen to agree with Gottlieb that disrespecting someone because they haven’t read Kafka or “aren’t romantic enough” is kind of dumb. But I would also like to point out that there are many happy marriages based on equally dumb points of attraction. A teacher in seminary bragged to us about a match she made between a rich, trophy-wife hunting man and a beautiful, gold-digging woman. “Maybe it seems shallow,” she laughed at her horrified, idealistic, not-yet-dating class. “But it works for them. So what does it matter?”
To which I say, exactly. And if you’d rather stay single than spend the rest of your life with someone who is ugly, or poor, unromantic, or disinterested in existential literature, well, that’s a deeply personal thing, and certainly your priority to make.
Just make sure that you are okay with that. Because otherwise you should probably settle.
Not me, though. I don’t believe in settling.
Bad for Shidduchim 
Funny. I always admit to being picky where men are concerned. However, maybe the book would help give a new insight in how we act in general? Nonetheless, settling is not an option, as long as the demands are not completely out there (learning most of the time and earning a lot of money just isn’t possible, now, is it?).
Well, I’m really glad that you found your guy and you didn’t settle. May you have many, many happy and productive years together.
Mazal Tov!
People in the shidduch industry (at least ones with some sechal) talk about singles going back and refining the wish list to include a small sub-list of must haves and nice haves. Then person assessing potential mate by making sure that s/ he has all or almost all of the must haves and most of the nice haves, since it impossible to find a 100% perfect mate, but at least with this approach one find some who s/he overall are happy.
Megan McArdle has a good review of the book in The Atlantic here: http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2010/04/reader-marry-him/39342/
I think this is a key sentence from the review:
Gottlieb offers some pretty persuasive evidence that unless you’re in a desperately unhappy marriage, you are better off being married, even if it’s not to your soul mate . . . and that marriage is hard, even if your spouse is your soul mate.
Mazal tov!!!!
Sounds like the book is not that useful for religious Jewish women. There are a lot of important items on my wish list I can’t give up if I want to raise good Jewish children according to halacha.
Nope, you don’t believe in settling.
Bad4, I’m curious – is there an age at which you would consider settling? I’ve always assumed that at some point in their 30’s, most people become open to it. Also, when I use the term settling, I mean agreeing to marry someone who’s a good match for you, but you just like him, and there aren’t really ‘sparks.’
AJ – Not sure. I started out that way. Then I realized I was being naive, after being dumped for that reason. I think I potentially could, but I don’t know if I would. Because, why settle?
Bad4, I don’t see why that would be naive. As long as you’re dating a guy with the same mindset (not expecting sparks & just liking each other),things could progress to marriage. That was my personal experience. Not saying it’s for everyone, but do you see that as a possibility anymore?
How do you define “settling”?
Let’s say you start dating seriously at age 21 and one of your requirements is that you only consider dating men between ages 22 and 26.
Fast forward to age 29. Now you have relaxed that requirement to a different, perhaps wider, age range.
Is that considered “settling”? Why or why not?
Why settle? I know for me, the reason would be because I would rather be married and have children than be alone for the rest of my life. As a guy, I also pretty much assume halacha requires this – men are chayav in pru urvu.
What kind of chiyuv is it? Because there are loads of Mitzvos asei that you will never fulfill.
just wondering- bad4- do you think that all women are expected to be dying to get married but men aren’t?
Also, why are you so afraid that you’ll have to give up your independence and self-sufficiency?
I read that book when it first came out. As far as I know Lori Gottlieb is still single or at least she was when she wrote that book.
I don’t think I know anyone who settled. They were all crazy about their fiances, or at least they were great actors and fooled me! I had one friend who used to tell me he was going to settle because it was more important. He almost got engaged to two girls who were disasters for him and I was not happy about it. Thank God they didn’t work out and then he did find someone who was perfect for him. And he tells me he was wrong! Now he tells me don’t settle, he found someone with everything plus more! So who knows…
Does anyone here know someone who “settled”?