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Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough
You have a fulfilling job, a great group of friends, the perfect apartment, and no shortage of dates. So what if you haven't found The One just yet. Surely he'll come along, right?
But what if he doesn't? Or even worse, what if he already has, but you just didn't realize it?
Suddenly finding herself 40 and single, Lori Gottlieb said the unthinkable in her March 2008 article in The Atlantic: Maybe she, and single women everywhere, needed to stop chasing the elusive Prince Charming and instead go for Mr. Good Enough.
Looking at her friends' happy marriages to good-enough guys who happen to be excellent husbands and fathers, Gottlieb declared it time to reevaluate what we really need in a partner. Her ideas created a firestorm of controversy from outlets like the Today show to The Washington Post, which wrote, "Given the perennial shortage of perfect men, Gottlieb's probably got a point", to Newsweek and NPR, which declared, "Lori Gottlieb didn't want to take her mother's advice to be less picky, but now that she's turned 40, she wonders if her mother is right." Women all over the world were talking. But while many people agreed that they should have more realistic expectations, what did that actually mean out in the real world, where Gottlieb and women like her were inexorably drawn to their "type"?
That's where Marry Him comes in.
By looking at everything from culture to biology, in Marry Him, Gottlieb frankly explores the dilemma that so many women today seem to face - how to reconcile the strong desire for a husband and family with a list of must-haves so long and complicated that many great guys get rejected out of the gate. Here Gottlieb shares her own journey in the quest for romantic fulfillment, and in the process gets wise guidance and surprising insights from marital researchers, matchmakers, dating coaches, behavioral economists, neuropsychologists, sociologists, couples therapists, divorce lawyers, and clergy - as well as single and married men and women, ranging in age from their 20s to their 60s.
Marry Him is an eye-opening, often funny, sometimes painful, and always truthful in-depth examination of the modern dating landscape, and ultimately, a provocative wake-up call about getting real about Mr. Right.
But what if he doesn't? Or even worse, what if he already has, but you just didn't realize it?
Suddenly finding herself 40 and single, Lori Gottlieb said the unthinkable in her March 2008 article in The Atlantic: Maybe she, and single women everywhere, needed to stop chasing the elusive Prince Charming and instead go for Mr. Good Enough.
Looking at her friends' happy marriages to good-enough guys who happen to be excellent husbands and fathers, Gottlieb declared it time to reevaluate what we really need in a partner. Her ideas created a firestorm of controversy from outlets like the Today show to The Washington Post, which wrote, "Given the perennial shortage of perfect men, Gottlieb's probably got a point", to Newsweek and NPR, which declared, "Lori Gottlieb didn't want to take her mother's advice to be less picky, but now that she's turned 40, she wonders if her mother is right." Women all over the world were talking. But while many people agreed that they should have more realistic expectations, what did that actually mean out in the real world, where Gottlieb and women like her were inexorably drawn to their "type"?
That's where Marry Him comes in.
By looking at everything from culture to biology, in Marry Him, Gottlieb frankly explores the dilemma that so many women today seem to face - how to reconcile the strong desire for a husband and family with a list of must-haves so long and complicated that many great guys get rejected out of the gate. Here Gottlieb shares her own journey in the quest for romantic fulfillment, and in the process gets wise guidance and surprising insights from marital researchers, matchmakers, dating coaches, behavioral economists, neuropsychologists, sociologists, couples therapists, divorce lawyers, and clergy - as well as single and married men and women, ranging in age from their 20s to their 60s.
Marry Him is an eye-opening, often funny, sometimes painful, and always truthful in-depth examination of the modern dating landscape, and ultimately, a provocative wake-up call about getting real about Mr. Right.
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First published January 1, 2010
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About the author
Lori Gottlieb
35 books32.1k followersLORI GOTTLIEB is a psychotherapist and New York Times bestselling author of MAYBE YOU SHOULD TALK TO SOMEONE, which has sold nearly two million copies and is currently being adapted as a television series. In addition to her clinical practice, she is co-host of the popular “DEAR THERAPISTS" PODCAST, which features real sessions with real people and offers actionable advice, and writes The Atlantic’s “Dear Therapist” advice column. She is a sought-after expert in media such as The Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, CNN, and NPR and her TED Talk was one of the Top 10 Most Watched of the Year.
She is the creator of the Maybe You Should Talk To Someone Workbook: A Toolkit for Editing Your Story and Changing Your Life and the Maybe You Should Talk To Someone Journal: 52 Weekly Sessions to Transform Your Life.
Learn more at LoriGottlieb.com or by following her on Instagram @lorigottlieb_author and Twitter @LoriGottlieb1.
She is the creator of the Maybe You Should Talk To Someone Workbook: A Toolkit for Editing Your Story and Changing Your Life and the Maybe You Should Talk To Someone Journal: 52 Weekly Sessions to Transform Your Life.
Learn more at LoriGottlieb.com or by following her on Instagram @lorigottlieb_author and Twitter @LoriGottlieb1.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 1,290 reviews
December 9, 2022
Update Aug. 2022 This is where I am now. Not marriage, but living together I think. My bf whom I am only 75% happy with wants me to come and live in the US and says he can facilitate that. We get on great, we share being artists and writers, but.... he is not exciting and our sex life rates on a GR scale 1.5, rounded down. But I'm not getting any younger. All my relationships last a year, year and a half, and maybe I should settle for Mr. Good Enough and find happiness in what we share together.
__________
I read one more chapter after DNF'ing the book. It was on a dating coach and percentages and realising that you (the woman over 35) are not only 'not all that', you are 'not very much at all'. The author is 5'2" and wants a man of 5'10"+ and the coach says why not move your limit down to 5'5" but she feels she couldn't possibly date a man that short. Only 15% of men are over 6' and 80% of women want one. She says her age range is 35 to 48. Then she doesn't like men say this, ask for that, have a motorbike or like audiobooks. So the coach eventually works out that she has only a 5% chance of meeting someone who meets all her requirements.
Factor in her religious requirements (they have to be the same religion as her with the same level of observance) and it turned out to be 0.1%. That is one man in ten thousand. Would she, for that man, should she meet him, fit his bill?
She was 41, a bad age for an older man who wants biological children, she's 41, men prefer women under 35 no matter what age they are, she has a child, men do not like single women with children. She's got OCD with placement of her items - they can't be touched, is indecisive about everything, can't cook, gets stressed out and explodes really easily (she admits to all of these) and so on.
Where does that leave me? I am full of off-putting flaws.
__________________
The whole book is terribly distressing because it is mistitled. The true title should be "Women are past their sell-by date as future mothers at 35: how to settle for a man who is divorced and already has children and pays alimony and whom you only have a few things in common, but at least he's willing to commit." If I had read that I wouldn't have got the book, I don't want to read about how I long missed my chance and now as far as men are concerned, I'm just invisible, undesirable, not worth bothering about.
She's talking about how dating agencies, matchmakers and the like say that a woman of 38 wanting a goodlooking man with a good job, tall and all his hair is going to have to downsize, because she's not the prize to attract an A+ man anymore. What a load of tosh.I'm on the verge of dnf'ing this book. I've dnf'd this book. Thank you, Malia your review made up my mind.
Speeddating at 41 The author pays a lot of money to go to an upscale speeddating evening. There are 10 women between early and late forties. There are only 6 men most in their 50s and 60s. The organisers said that men want younger women so they lie about their age and if they didn't let them in they would go out of business. So an expensive and wasted evening for all concerned, except the organisers.
Me at 48, husbands and my personality faults
"The Husband Store A new store has opened. A huband store! There’s a sign at the entrance: You may visit the husband store only once. There are six floors, and the value of the products increase on each successive floor. The shopper can choose any item from a particular floor, or go up to shop on the next floor, but she cannot go back down except to exit the building.
So, a woman goes into the store. On the first floor the sign on the door reads:
Floor I—Men Who Have Good Jobs. “That’s nice,” she thinks, “but I want more.” So she continues upward, where the sign reads:
Floor 2—Men Who Have Good Jobs And Love Kids. She’s intrigued, but continues to the third floor, where the sign reads:
Floor 3—Men Who Have Good Jobs, Love Kids, And Are Extremely Handsome.“Wow,” she thinks, but feels compelled to keep going.
Floor 4—Men Who Have Good Jobs, Love Kids, Are Extremely Handsome, And Help Equally With The Housework. “It can’t get better than this!” she exclaims. But then a voice inside her asks, “Or can it?” She goes up and reads the sign.
Floor 5—Men Who Have Good Jobs, Love Kids, Are Extremely Handsome, Help Equally With The Housework, And Have A Great Sense Of Humor. Having found what she’s looking for, she’s tempted to stay, but something propels her to the sixth floor, where the sign reads:
Floor 6—You Are Visitor 42,2i5,602 To This Floor. There Are No Men On This Floor. This Floor Only Exists To Prove That Women Are Impossible To Please. Thank You For Shopping At The Husband Store.
To avoid gender bias charges, the store’s owner opened a Wife Store right across the street.
The first floor has wives who Love Sex.
The second floor has wives who Love Sex and Are Kind.
The third floor has wives who Love Sex, Are Kind, and Like Sports.
The fourth, fifth, and sixth floors have never been visited." (The beginning of the book).
That woman is me to a T. I never used to be like that. My first husband was my teenage sweetheart and we were both artists and loved music and writing and books and wanted to escape Wales for London. We ended up as platonic friends. My second husband was a government official, a handsome man, in the top political family of the island. He loved writing, fishing and sex (in reverse order). I started to go to Florida and it was like men everywhere and coffee, lunch and dinner dates and I didn't have to settle.
All I did was be flattered and have fun and when I could have made a good relationship, could have settled for Mr Good Enough and we could have grown together as friends and partners, I stupidly didn't. The knight in gold armour on the proud white horse is Prince Charming, the Shrek version.
I need to change. The borders opened on 1st Dec. We've been locked down since March. I'm leaving after Christmas and I have three men to see and I have to stop this shit. I want to be in love, I want to be loved. I want a partner to hold hands with when we go out walking. Relationships are not jigsaws with ever piece fitting perfectly. I know this but cannot act like it. I know it is more important to be with a nice kind man with whom I get along and we laugh a lot and have sex a lot and travel independently every now and again.
This is not for anyone to read, but it's ok to do so. It's really written to remind myself where I am, the mistakes I've made. Because I'm determined to move forward. And hope that this book can help.
__________
I read one more chapter after DNF'ing the book. It was on a dating coach and percentages and realising that you (the woman over 35) are not only 'not all that', you are 'not very much at all'. The author is 5'2" and wants a man of 5'10"+ and the coach says why not move your limit down to 5'5" but she feels she couldn't possibly date a man that short. Only 15% of men are over 6' and 80% of women want one. She says her age range is 35 to 48. Then she doesn't like men say this, ask for that, have a motorbike or like audiobooks. So the coach eventually works out that she has only a 5% chance of meeting someone who meets all her requirements.
Factor in her religious requirements (they have to be the same religion as her with the same level of observance) and it turned out to be 0.1%. That is one man in ten thousand. Would she, for that man, should she meet him, fit his bill?
She was 41, a bad age for an older man who wants biological children, she's 41, men prefer women under 35 no matter what age they are, she has a child, men do not like single women with children. She's got OCD with placement of her items - they can't be touched, is indecisive about everything, can't cook, gets stressed out and explodes really easily (she admits to all of these) and so on.
Where does that leave me? I am full of off-putting flaws.
__________________
The whole book is terribly distressing because it is mistitled. The true title should be "Women are past their sell-by date as future mothers at 35: how to settle for a man who is divorced and already has children and pays alimony and whom you only have a few things in common, but at least he's willing to commit." If I had read that I wouldn't have got the book, I don't want to read about how I long missed my chance and now as far as men are concerned, I'm just invisible, undesirable, not worth bothering about.
She's talking about how dating agencies, matchmakers and the like say that a woman of 38 wanting a goodlooking man with a good job, tall and all his hair is going to have to downsize, because she's not the prize to attract an A+ man anymore. What a load of tosh.
Speeddating at 41 The author pays a lot of money to go to an upscale speeddating evening. There are 10 women between early and late forties. There are only 6 men most in their 50s and 60s. The organisers said that men want younger women so they lie about their age and if they didn't let them in they would go out of business. So an expensive and wasted evening for all concerned, except the organisers.
Me at 48, husbands and my personality faults
"The Husband Store A new store has opened. A huband store! There’s a sign at the entrance: You may visit the husband store only once. There are six floors, and the value of the products increase on each successive floor. The shopper can choose any item from a particular floor, or go up to shop on the next floor, but she cannot go back down except to exit the building.
So, a woman goes into the store. On the first floor the sign on the door reads:
Floor I—Men Who Have Good Jobs. “That’s nice,” she thinks, “but I want more.” So she continues upward, where the sign reads:
Floor 2—Men Who Have Good Jobs And Love Kids. She’s intrigued, but continues to the third floor, where the sign reads:
Floor 3—Men Who Have Good Jobs, Love Kids, And Are Extremely Handsome.“Wow,” she thinks, but feels compelled to keep going.
Floor 4—Men Who Have Good Jobs, Love Kids, Are Extremely Handsome, And Help Equally With The Housework. “It can’t get better than this!” she exclaims. But then a voice inside her asks, “Or can it?” She goes up and reads the sign.
Floor 5—Men Who Have Good Jobs, Love Kids, Are Extremely Handsome, Help Equally With The Housework, And Have A Great Sense Of Humor. Having found what she’s looking for, she’s tempted to stay, but something propels her to the sixth floor, where the sign reads:
Floor 6—You Are Visitor 42,2i5,602 To This Floor. There Are No Men On This Floor. This Floor Only Exists To Prove That Women Are Impossible To Please. Thank You For Shopping At The Husband Store.
To avoid gender bias charges, the store’s owner opened a Wife Store right across the street.
The first floor has wives who Love Sex.
The second floor has wives who Love Sex and Are Kind.
The third floor has wives who Love Sex, Are Kind, and Like Sports.
The fourth, fifth, and sixth floors have never been visited." (The beginning of the book).
That woman is me to a T. I never used to be like that. My first husband was my teenage sweetheart and we were both artists and loved music and writing and books and wanted to escape Wales for London. We ended up as platonic friends. My second husband was a government official, a handsome man, in the top political family of the island. He loved writing, fishing and sex (in reverse order). I started to go to Florida and it was like men everywhere and coffee, lunch and dinner dates and I didn't have to settle.
All I did was be flattered and have fun and when I could have made a good relationship, could have settled for Mr Good Enough and we could have grown together as friends and partners, I stupidly didn't. The knight in gold armour on the proud white horse is Prince Charming, the Shrek version.
I need to change. The borders opened on 1st Dec. We've been locked down since March. I'm leaving after Christmas and I have three men to see and I have to stop this shit. I want to be in love, I want to be loved. I want a partner to hold hands with when we go out walking. Relationships are not jigsaws with ever piece fitting perfectly. I know this but cannot act like it. I know it is more important to be with a nice kind man with whom I get along and we laugh a lot and have sex a lot and travel independently every now and again.
This is not for anyone to read, but it's ok to do so. It's really written to remind myself where I am, the mistakes I've made. Because I'm determined to move forward. And hope that this book can help.
November 1, 2023
I read this in 2013, having wanted to read it ever since it was published in 2010. I imagined it would form a Trifecta of Awesome with Elizabeth Gilbert's Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage and Wendy Plump's Vow: A Memoir of Marriage, both of which I enjoyed and found illuminating. Thing is, I was in a serious relationship 2010–2013, and I didn't want my boyfriend to notice I was reading this book, as he would have felt certain it was about him. (I always felt I was walking on razor blades around him. That feeling, and not this book, is why I broke up with him.) Anyway, about a month after we broke up and I moved out, I ran to this book. It turned out not to be about whatever I'd hoped to find.
I posted this review that has gotten—as of Halloween 2023—209 "likes." On Goodreads I've logged over 2,000 books I've read (cover-to-cover, over 21 years), and this is far and away my most-liked review. I don't understand it. Thank you all for being attracted to my rudeness, but: It is time for me to break up with this review. I wrote a couple essays (10-minute reads). The first is more focused on the book and is a revision of the review that used to be here. I did not name the book (but we know). The second focuses and expands on a brief personal anecdote that used to be embedded in the review that used to be here.
Meanwhile, look here: Real people come in different body shapes and sizes that different potential partners may find appealing or not. Real people answer ambiguously when asked if they want an open relationship. Real people get very excited about every new job and quit it before the end of the calendar year. Real people prefer certain TV shows and yell at you for changing the channel. Everyone has specific dating problems: Is the restaurant wheelchair-accessible? Will my date’s child like my neck tattoo of Ronald McDonald? Can I find an allergy pill strong enough to counter the 17 cats under their sofa? These are the sort of difficulties that real people face and so they are better illustrations of the meaning and limits of compromise in relationships. Real people have real relationships. Real people may also debate whether their high-class colleagues have unacceptably poor taste in martinis and thereby deny themselves a chance to form relationships at all—but, while those people are no less real, I'm less interested in hearing about them.
While I'm here: Are straight women really this obsessed with height? Half of the examples in the book were about men getting rejected at the starting gate because they are only two inches taller than the woman and not six inches taller, or because they don't make enough money or they spend too much time at work and they are not both prestigious and creative, or they don't dress well.
This book wasn't meant for me. That's OK. I don't know who it can help, and it's OK for me not to know or care about that. I turned to this book during a difficult gay breakup. My choice to intensely grapple with the book was poignantly about me and my breakup and not so much about the book. Books that I grapple with and don't click with are part of my growth. Rants that I rant don't have to remain online until death do me death. I'm aware that I'm limited. We can make astoundingly fascinating choices within our limitations. We can delete and rewrite our rants. I don't feel like I'm settling.
I posted this review that has gotten—as of Halloween 2023—209 "likes." On Goodreads I've logged over 2,000 books I've read (cover-to-cover, over 21 years), and this is far and away my most-liked review. I don't understand it. Thank you all for being attracted to my rudeness, but: It is time for me to break up with this review. I wrote a couple essays (10-minute reads). The first is more focused on the book and is a revision of the review that used to be here. I did not name the book (but we know). The second focuses and expands on a brief personal anecdote that used to be embedded in the review that used to be here.
Meanwhile, look here: Real people come in different body shapes and sizes that different potential partners may find appealing or not. Real people answer ambiguously when asked if they want an open relationship. Real people get very excited about every new job and quit it before the end of the calendar year. Real people prefer certain TV shows and yell at you for changing the channel. Everyone has specific dating problems: Is the restaurant wheelchair-accessible? Will my date’s child like my neck tattoo of Ronald McDonald? Can I find an allergy pill strong enough to counter the 17 cats under their sofa? These are the sort of difficulties that real people face and so they are better illustrations of the meaning and limits of compromise in relationships. Real people have real relationships. Real people may also debate whether their high-class colleagues have unacceptably poor taste in martinis and thereby deny themselves a chance to form relationships at all—but, while those people are no less real, I'm less interested in hearing about them.
While I'm here: Are straight women really this obsessed with height? Half of the examples in the book were about men getting rejected at the starting gate because they are only two inches taller than the woman and not six inches taller, or because they don't make enough money or they spend too much time at work and they are not both prestigious and creative, or they don't dress well.
This book wasn't meant for me. That's OK. I don't know who it can help, and it's OK for me not to know or care about that. I turned to this book during a difficult gay breakup. My choice to intensely grapple with the book was poignantly about me and my breakup and not so much about the book. Books that I grapple with and don't click with are part of my growth. Rants that I rant don't have to remain online until death do me death. I'm aware that I'm limited. We can make astoundingly fascinating choices within our limitations. We can delete and rewrite our rants. I don't feel like I'm settling.
January 30, 2020
Ever meet a couple where the woman is clearly and constantly annoyed with everything her husband/boyfriend does, to the point where she sighs and snipes at him and rolls her eyes so much that it makes everyone in the room uncomfortable with how miserable they are, and their whole relationship feels like one giant raw nerve that stings with every touch, and you can't help but wonder why this poor couple stayed together so long when the dislike between them is so thick you could cut it with a knife? How did she end up with him in the first place when she seems to actively hate, or, at best, condescendingly tolerate the man she's with? Does he only stay with her because he's too much of a loser to do better? What's going on with that relationship? That's a woman who settled, folks.
It's weird that women are scolded and harangued for being "picky" when statistics show that single, childless women tend to be happier in the long-term than married mothers. In other words, "settling" is not in a woman's best interest. Only low-quality men benefit when women settle because they get a woman to take care of them without having to make any effort to improve their physical appearance or make themselves more appealing to women. When women settle, they have to force themselves to enter into a physical relationship with an unattractive man and force themselves to spend the rest of their life with a man whose company they don't love. In other words, there is no benefit to women in settling. It's actually a grueling and pointless endeavor.
The only reason for a woman to marry in this day and age is for love and happiness, so if those qualities are not present in the relationship, there is no benefit to settling. Love cannot be forced. Attraction cannot be forced. Happiness cannot be forced.
This book treats a woman's desire to be sexually attracted to her sexual partner as somehow unreasonable, unrealistic, even immoral. Which is... insane. Of course women expect to be attracted to their partners. Are men ordered to settle for ugly women? Of course not. Men expect to be attracted to their wives, and wives should expect to be attracted to their husbands. This is all very simple, folks. If there aren't enough attractive men to go around in our society, well, that's a whole big pile of Not Your Problem. For women, studies show you're actually better off remaining single and dedicating yourself to friendship, career, charity, and high-quality experiences than settling if you want to be happy when you're older.
Don't settle, ladies. Lowering your expectations for a man may result in a wedding ring, but a ring doesn't necessarily result in long-term happiness. "Good enough" might be okay for the desperate and the lonely, but don't conflate those qualities with being single. And don't conflate marriage with happy companionship, because that doesn't necessarily work out either.
Settling is for those who are already unhappy, and expect to remain so for the rest of their lives.
"Mr. Good Enough" may be good enough for Mrs. Gottlieb, but he isn't good enough for me.
It's weird that women are scolded and harangued for being "picky" when statistics show that single, childless women tend to be happier in the long-term than married mothers. In other words, "settling" is not in a woman's best interest. Only low-quality men benefit when women settle because they get a woman to take care of them without having to make any effort to improve their physical appearance or make themselves more appealing to women. When women settle, they have to force themselves to enter into a physical relationship with an unattractive man and force themselves to spend the rest of their life with a man whose company they don't love. In other words, there is no benefit to women in settling. It's actually a grueling and pointless endeavor.
The only reason for a woman to marry in this day and age is for love and happiness, so if those qualities are not present in the relationship, there is no benefit to settling. Love cannot be forced. Attraction cannot be forced. Happiness cannot be forced.
This book treats a woman's desire to be sexually attracted to her sexual partner as somehow unreasonable, unrealistic, even immoral. Which is... insane. Of course women expect to be attracted to their partners. Are men ordered to settle for ugly women? Of course not. Men expect to be attracted to their wives, and wives should expect to be attracted to their husbands. This is all very simple, folks. If there aren't enough attractive men to go around in our society, well, that's a whole big pile of Not Your Problem. For women, studies show you're actually better off remaining single and dedicating yourself to friendship, career, charity, and high-quality experiences than settling if you want to be happy when you're older.
Don't settle, ladies. Lowering your expectations for a man may result in a wedding ring, but a ring doesn't necessarily result in long-term happiness. "Good enough" might be okay for the desperate and the lonely, but don't conflate those qualities with being single. And don't conflate marriage with happy companionship, because that doesn't necessarily work out either.
Settling is for those who are already unhappy, and expect to remain so for the rest of their lives.
"Mr. Good Enough" may be good enough for Mrs. Gottlieb, but he isn't good enough for me.
October 10, 2011
Quick review
There are many other things I should be doing, but I ended up getting hooked on this book: Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough. Why are so many eligible women–particularly in their 40s and up–still alone when they desperately want to be married? Lori Gottlieb, a 41-year-old single mother and journalist, aims to find out. What follows can be best described as a combination of Sex and the City, Dr. Phil, and Malcolm Gladwell. It is filled with anecdotes, tough love, and behavioral research. It is funny in parts, insightful, and very easy to read.
How you feel about this book will likely vary wildly depending on your age and gender. As a guy, I found it interesting and mostly true. As a young single woman, you might think it is hogwash and possibly infuriating. As a 40-year-old single woman, you might sing like it’s the Gospel. Still I think it’s a must read for any single women looking to get married. Even if you disagree with the book, it will at least get you thinking seriously about the topic, which is a good start.
Analysis
First, the bad news. The first half of Marry Him is entertaining and enlightening, but then it gets repetitive. The book could easily have been a hundred pages shorter. Some readers might also take issue with Gottlieb’s tone, neuroticism, and opinions. Fortunately, these have little bearing upon the validity of the book’s insights. While these insights are not particularly original, they are thought provoking nonetheless because they are presented in such a comprehensive manner.
Despite its provocative title, Marry Him is not about settling but about setting realistic, achievable goals. The underlying problem, as Gottlieb points out, is that women want it all. To complicate matters, some of them are what behavioral researchers call “maximizers,” meaning they always want “the best” and are willing to hold out for it. “So what?” you might ask. Many consumers behave this way, including men—take, for example, their love of electronic gadgets. Ah, but consumer goods don’t judge the buyers, and men are not constrained by the biological clock like women are. Life isn’t fair, but those are the rules. In reality, you cannot get everything that you want in life, but you can get one thing if you prioritize it. Women who end up alone often fail to prioritize marriage soon enough.
The secret to marriage is simple: it’s not about you; it’s about “us.” According to Gottlieb, women who cannot “get over themselves” or compromise their standards are the one that have difficulty getting married. To make matters worse, they are also looking for the wrong things. They know what they want, but it’s not necessarily what they need. Marriage is about building a team for the long haul. Who would you want to be stuck on a desert island with? Is he trustworthy, patient, and kind? These are the qualities that make marriages work, not his stats, looks, or hobbies. The fluffy stuff is certainly nice, but it also changes with time. Character is what endures. Unfortunately, in America, style too often trumps substance.
When building a team, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In relationships, people instinctively focus on similarities. That might be a mistake, Gottlieb suggests. Instead, they should be looking for complements. To better understand why, let’s look at a team sport. Take basketball, for example. If you pick all guards, who will rebound? If you pick players with similar styles, won’t they run into each other on the court and generally be ineffective? Individual stats are grossly overvalued in America. Suppose you could clone Michael Jordan—the basketball equivalent of a “10”—and create a whole team with them. It would be a disaster. No one would pass, and all of them would want to take the final shot!
As if all this wasn’t enough to contend with, many women set up additional filters to further restrict their selection pool. The book offers several insights on this topic, of which I’ll briefly mention three:
1. Some women choose to believe in “love at first sight” as the rule rather than the exception, yet any coach will tell you that team chemistry usually takes time to develop. You have to work at it; it’s not magic.
2. On a related note, perhaps there isn’t just one “soul mate” out there for you. There are many potential ones. Arguably, you create a soul mate by building shared experiences together. Gottlieb interviews a number of women in arranged marriages who offer support for this notion.
3. When it comes to dating, less is more. The problem with online dating is that there is too much information for women to nitpick. They end up toss out perfectly eligible guys on technicalities without ever meeting them in person. In one of the most entertaining parts of the book, Gottlieb hires a dating coach who attempts to break her “bad habits” so that she can get more out of online dating.
Final thoughts
I thought about writing a similar book many years ago. It was easy for me to see what was going on and what would likely happen in the end. Throw in a few interviews with women and scientists, and bam! I’d have a bestseller, right?
I’m glad that I didn’t write it for two reasons. First, no one would have read my book because I’m a guy and it’s all theoretical to me. Gottlieb’s personal anecdotes are what make Marry Him real and entertaining. Second, even if people did read it, I would still be haunted by the inescapable feeling that it was all for naught. Single women, forty and up, might agree with it; however, younger women are too busy dreaming to take it seriously.
Hey, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this book will do the trick. If you’re playing the Game of Love, read it. At worst, it will entertain you, enlighten you, and possibly enrage you for a few days. At best, it will make you seriously reevaluate your approach and possibly change your life. What have you got to lose?
There are many other things I should be doing, but I ended up getting hooked on this book: Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough. Why are so many eligible women–particularly in their 40s and up–still alone when they desperately want to be married? Lori Gottlieb, a 41-year-old single mother and journalist, aims to find out. What follows can be best described as a combination of Sex and the City, Dr. Phil, and Malcolm Gladwell. It is filled with anecdotes, tough love, and behavioral research. It is funny in parts, insightful, and very easy to read.
How you feel about this book will likely vary wildly depending on your age and gender. As a guy, I found it interesting and mostly true. As a young single woman, you might think it is hogwash and possibly infuriating. As a 40-year-old single woman, you might sing like it’s the Gospel. Still I think it’s a must read for any single women looking to get married. Even if you disagree with the book, it will at least get you thinking seriously about the topic, which is a good start.
Analysis
First, the bad news. The first half of Marry Him is entertaining and enlightening, but then it gets repetitive. The book could easily have been a hundred pages shorter. Some readers might also take issue with Gottlieb’s tone, neuroticism, and opinions. Fortunately, these have little bearing upon the validity of the book’s insights. While these insights are not particularly original, they are thought provoking nonetheless because they are presented in such a comprehensive manner.
Despite its provocative title, Marry Him is not about settling but about setting realistic, achievable goals. The underlying problem, as Gottlieb points out, is that women want it all. To complicate matters, some of them are what behavioral researchers call “maximizers,” meaning they always want “the best” and are willing to hold out for it. “So what?” you might ask. Many consumers behave this way, including men—take, for example, their love of electronic gadgets. Ah, but consumer goods don’t judge the buyers, and men are not constrained by the biological clock like women are. Life isn’t fair, but those are the rules. In reality, you cannot get everything that you want in life, but you can get one thing if you prioritize it. Women who end up alone often fail to prioritize marriage soon enough.
The secret to marriage is simple: it’s not about you; it’s about “us.” According to Gottlieb, women who cannot “get over themselves” or compromise their standards are the one that have difficulty getting married. To make matters worse, they are also looking for the wrong things. They know what they want, but it’s not necessarily what they need. Marriage is about building a team for the long haul. Who would you want to be stuck on a desert island with? Is he trustworthy, patient, and kind? These are the qualities that make marriages work, not his stats, looks, or hobbies. The fluffy stuff is certainly nice, but it also changes with time. Character is what endures. Unfortunately, in America, style too often trumps substance.
When building a team, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In relationships, people instinctively focus on similarities. That might be a mistake, Gottlieb suggests. Instead, they should be looking for complements. To better understand why, let’s look at a team sport. Take basketball, for example. If you pick all guards, who will rebound? If you pick players with similar styles, won’t they run into each other on the court and generally be ineffective? Individual stats are grossly overvalued in America. Suppose you could clone Michael Jordan—the basketball equivalent of a “10”—and create a whole team with them. It would be a disaster. No one would pass, and all of them would want to take the final shot!
As if all this wasn’t enough to contend with, many women set up additional filters to further restrict their selection pool. The book offers several insights on this topic, of which I’ll briefly mention three:
1. Some women choose to believe in “love at first sight” as the rule rather than the exception, yet any coach will tell you that team chemistry usually takes time to develop. You have to work at it; it’s not magic.
2. On a related note, perhaps there isn’t just one “soul mate” out there for you. There are many potential ones. Arguably, you create a soul mate by building shared experiences together. Gottlieb interviews a number of women in arranged marriages who offer support for this notion.
3. When it comes to dating, less is more. The problem with online dating is that there is too much information for women to nitpick. They end up toss out perfectly eligible guys on technicalities without ever meeting them in person. In one of the most entertaining parts of the book, Gottlieb hires a dating coach who attempts to break her “bad habits” so that she can get more out of online dating.
Final thoughts
I thought about writing a similar book many years ago. It was easy for me to see what was going on and what would likely happen in the end. Throw in a few interviews with women and scientists, and bam! I’d have a bestseller, right?
I’m glad that I didn’t write it for two reasons. First, no one would have read my book because I’m a guy and it’s all theoretical to me. Gottlieb’s personal anecdotes are what make Marry Him real and entertaining. Second, even if people did read it, I would still be haunted by the inescapable feeling that it was all for naught. Single women, forty and up, might agree with it; however, younger women are too busy dreaming to take it seriously.
Hey, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this book will do the trick. If you’re playing the Game of Love, read it. At worst, it will entertain you, enlighten you, and possibly enrage you for a few days. At best, it will make you seriously reevaluate your approach and possibly change your life. What have you got to lose?
January 19, 2011
If you are an extreme feminist, believe that marriage is about perfection, and cannot stand another person's point of view if it differs from your own, this book is not for you.
It's also not for you if you look down on people that are interested in getting married, being in a relationship or "don't want to go it alone". In fact, if you are that person, you wouldn't be reading this review.
However, if you fit into the following categories:
1. You think you are entitled to a perfect life / narcissistic because you are female and are single and wanting a relationship.
2. You feel that someday, your Prince Charming will come and keep turning down guys for trivial reasons (too short, balding, chews with his mouth open, etc), because you feel that you should hold out for some one better.
3. You expect your husband to give you immediate butterflies and sweep you off your feet for a life of romance, intrigue and mystery.
4. You see yourself creeping up in age / marketability as a potential wife and don't want to be 40+ and single.
5. Wondering if you should focus on compatibility or chemistry in a relationship.
6. Afraid of looking at a marriage as a domestic economical partnership because you believe that if it gets hard / "doesn't work out" / the "spark" leaves, you could just trade up for a better model.
Read this book.
I cannot stress to you how valuable this book is for reevaluating your relationship patterns, realizing that no, you're not special - you're a flawed human being in the world looking for another flawed human being that wants to get married and have a partnership, and - more importantly - understanding the difference between wants and needs.
Gottlieb's honesty, thought provoking interviews with match makers, marrieds, divorced, singles and her candid process of using herself as a guinea pig in implementing ideas is humbling and soul stirring. After reading "How Not to Stay Single: 10 Steps to a Great Relationship" by Nita Tucker, I became peaceful and unashamed in accepting myself as a 27 year old woman that wanted to be in a relationship and was interested in marriage. In reading "Marry Him", I realized how severe the extreme cases of "girl power", trading up, narcissistic individualism (as expressed in "Getting to I Do" by Dr. Pat Allen) and the overall current theme of entitlement sensibility based on possessing a vagina (I love Regena Thomashauer's "Mama Gena's School of Womanly Arts" - but, it's true) can ruin any realistic expectations of a comparable relationship.
Do you want someone that worships the ground you walk on like a broken in puppy? Or, do you want someone that will bring you warm tea in bed and take care of the children while you're sick in bed? Do you want someone that's a Type A personality that financially secure but basically lives at work? Or, do you want someone that will lie in your spot on the bed to warm it up for you so you have a warm place to lay before he rolls over to his side of the bed.
In short - do you want to forever date a boyfriend? Or, do you want a husband? And, if you do want a husband, what is the difference between settling and being realistic?
I couldn't have found a better book to read for the end of my self study into the psychology of marriage, relationships and husbandship / wifedom.
From the afterword, I gathered that an enterprising production company is developing this book into a movie. My only advice - don't screw it up and make it into another horrible "He's Just Not That Into You".
It's also not for you if you look down on people that are interested in getting married, being in a relationship or "don't want to go it alone". In fact, if you are that person, you wouldn't be reading this review.
However, if you fit into the following categories:
1. You think you are entitled to a perfect life / narcissistic because you are female and are single and wanting a relationship.
2. You feel that someday, your Prince Charming will come and keep turning down guys for trivial reasons (too short, balding, chews with his mouth open, etc), because you feel that you should hold out for some one better.
3. You expect your husband to give you immediate butterflies and sweep you off your feet for a life of romance, intrigue and mystery.
4. You see yourself creeping up in age / marketability as a potential wife and don't want to be 40+ and single.
5. Wondering if you should focus on compatibility or chemistry in a relationship.
6. Afraid of looking at a marriage as a domestic economical partnership because you believe that if it gets hard / "doesn't work out" / the "spark" leaves, you could just trade up for a better model.
Read this book.
I cannot stress to you how valuable this book is for reevaluating your relationship patterns, realizing that no, you're not special - you're a flawed human being in the world looking for another flawed human being that wants to get married and have a partnership, and - more importantly - understanding the difference between wants and needs.
Gottlieb's honesty, thought provoking interviews with match makers, marrieds, divorced, singles and her candid process of using herself as a guinea pig in implementing ideas is humbling and soul stirring. After reading "How Not to Stay Single: 10 Steps to a Great Relationship" by Nita Tucker, I became peaceful and unashamed in accepting myself as a 27 year old woman that wanted to be in a relationship and was interested in marriage. In reading "Marry Him", I realized how severe the extreme cases of "girl power", trading up, narcissistic individualism (as expressed in "Getting to I Do" by Dr. Pat Allen) and the overall current theme of entitlement sensibility based on possessing a vagina (I love Regena Thomashauer's "Mama Gena's School of Womanly Arts" - but, it's true) can ruin any realistic expectations of a comparable relationship.
Do you want someone that worships the ground you walk on like a broken in puppy? Or, do you want someone that will bring you warm tea in bed and take care of the children while you're sick in bed? Do you want someone that's a Type A personality that financially secure but basically lives at work? Or, do you want someone that will lie in your spot on the bed to warm it up for you so you have a warm place to lay before he rolls over to his side of the bed.
In short - do you want to forever date a boyfriend? Or, do you want a husband? And, if you do want a husband, what is the difference between settling and being realistic?
I couldn't have found a better book to read for the end of my self study into the psychology of marriage, relationships and husbandship / wifedom.
From the afterword, I gathered that an enterprising production company is developing this book into a movie. My only advice - don't screw it up and make it into another horrible "He's Just Not That Into You".
January 30, 2011
Are you single? Do you know a single guy? Is he nice? Does he have nice breath? That last one isn't as important. You need to run to him. Like leap into in his arms and marry him before someone else snatches him up. Because while you are waiting around for Mr. Perfect Hottie who does not exist Mr. Nice Guy is getting married and soon you are going to be left all alone. ALONE! And you will only have yourself to blame. Can you feel your eggs drying up now? Well they are!
This is the whole message of Lori Gottlieb's book. Yes, I agree with the whole idea that women need to be realistic in what they are looking for in a man. I agree that women should be open to dating different types of guys to get to know them. Of course don't just dump guys for superficial reasons. However, her scare tactics are beyond CRAZY!
Like seriously, I think we as women who are approaching our thirties, in our thirties, in our forties have scared ourselves enough. We don't need to read Ms. Gottlieb's book to realize that we need to reprioritize what we are looking for in a man. Most women smarten up around their late twenties. However, according to Lori most of the good men are already snatched up by then and the pickings are just going to get worse and worse.
However, she acts like most of these women are the ones turning men away. I don't know many men in their twenties who were fixing to get themselves hitched.
Obviously lots of people love this book and my friend even asked if we had read the same book. I felt like this book was just one big scare tactic and incredibly negative. If you are already jaded, this book will not help you. If I hadn't borrowed this book from my friend, I probably would've burned it.
This is the whole message of Lori Gottlieb's book. Yes, I agree with the whole idea that women need to be realistic in what they are looking for in a man. I agree that women should be open to dating different types of guys to get to know them. Of course don't just dump guys for superficial reasons. However, her scare tactics are beyond CRAZY!
Like seriously, I think we as women who are approaching our thirties, in our thirties, in our forties have scared ourselves enough. We don't need to read Ms. Gottlieb's book to realize that we need to reprioritize what we are looking for in a man. Most women smarten up around their late twenties. However, according to Lori most of the good men are already snatched up by then and the pickings are just going to get worse and worse.
However, she acts like most of these women are the ones turning men away. I don't know many men in their twenties who were fixing to get themselves hitched.
Obviously lots of people love this book and my friend even asked if we had read the same book. I felt like this book was just one big scare tactic and incredibly negative. If you are already jaded, this book will not help you. If I hadn't borrowed this book from my friend, I probably would've burned it.
August 19, 2020
Whewwwwwwwww this book is a LOT. Buckle the fuck up because there are so many things to say.
I started reading this book because I actually had some specific dating questions, and someone recommended this as a possibly-relevant read. Essentially, this book is about why some women are still single in their late 30's and 40's (because they're incredibly picky and won't date anyone below 5'10" for instance). I don't know any women like this, but apparently it's a huge problem nowadays. Having successfully fear-mongered me into reading the book, the author bullied me into thinking "Oh shit I'm a single 28 year old, I better count up and freeze these eggs."
The author, Lori Gottlieb, wrote a very recent bestseller "Maybe You Should Talk to Someone." This book (Marry Him) is 10 years old. If I read Marry Him first, I would've said "Oh hell no" when I saw Maybe You Should Talk to Someone on the charts. It seems like Gottlieb is a completely different person in Marry Him.
Let's start off with the good parts of this book. It is a very entertaining read because Gottlieb is a pretty good writer and storyteller. I also did get some good advice out of this book. Distilling through all the bullshit, the essential takeaway is: there is no such thing as a perfect partner, and there are some things that just matter way more than others. Things that matter: kindness, values, compatibility, empathy, communication. Things that don't matter: his height, whether he has hair, whether he wears bow-ties (this is straight from the book). I tended to agree with a lot of the takeaways. Especially important for many twenty-somethings is the fact that, being "in love" and getting those "butterfly" feelings isn't the end goal of marriage. A partnership is the longer, harder process of forming a life together that isn't always sexy and passionate.
Now onto the bad. Holy shit. There is an entire chapter about how feminism fucked up Gottlieb's outlook on dating. This is peak white woman feminism here. I have spent the past few months reading nuanced books on race from women of color, and now I see exactly what they mean when they complain about white feminism. According to this book, feminism is about "having it all," about powerful upper-middle class career women having the opportunity to make loads of money and have children and a beautiful family and a home. (This, in fact, is not what feminism is about.) Never mind the fact that it's hard for women to "have it all" because they still contribute the majority of unpaid labor. Never mind the fact that our abhorrent backwards policies do not give women the resources to have affordable child care and that we still do not have nationally mandated maternal leave. Gottlieb writes with such a narrow perspective on women it makes me wonder who her friends are.
She also writes multiple paragraphs about how miserable all women must be who are single in their thirties and forties. She dramatically laments how much of a waste of time it is to go on Girl's Nights to the bar and try to attract some men. I feel sorry for Gottlieb's friends because, damn, this girl HATES hanging out with her friends. She also happens to eviscerate some of them in this book for being picky bitches who will be single forever because it's their fault.
In Gottlieb's mind there are 2 types of men: (1) short, average, bald, kind, generous and (2) hot hunk players who will make the sparks fly but never call back. That's it. The book centers on how we should choose man #1 instead of #2. Conveniently ignoring that there are all types of people and that men cannot be distilled so easily into (1) good for you and (2) bad for you. Gottlieb, furthermore, wants us to accept the skewed demographics. She says, there are so many more single women in their late 30s and early 40s than men and that women no longer have the power. Now, why is that? I'm fairly certain that there are a statistically equal # of men and women in each age group. So how is it possible that there are SO many more single women in the late 30s than men?
That's right - you guessed it. The men tend to go for much younger women. Gottlieb will remind you of this often, and not once does she criticizes the societal structure of this arrangement. Not once does she criticize men for going for extremely young women. Instead, it is the woman's fault for not taking advantage of her "market value" in her twenties (yes this is from the book). Gottlieb fear mongers you into thinking that the only available men in their 40s and late 30s are psychologically fucked up, players, or poor.
Anyways, it was actually quite entertaining to read a book that is so backwards and old-school. I hardly ever hear anyone say such ridiculous things anymore, so it was honestly fun. I almost threw my iPad across my room many times, but then I decided to take this book as a satire. I wish the best of luck to Gottlieb and anyone else who is in this situation of being miserably single in their 30s and 40s. If anyone feels the need to get a good scare and motivate yourself back to redownloading Tinder, you should read this book.
I started reading this book because I actually had some specific dating questions, and someone recommended this as a possibly-relevant read. Essentially, this book is about why some women are still single in their late 30's and 40's (because they're incredibly picky and won't date anyone below 5'10" for instance). I don't know any women like this, but apparently it's a huge problem nowadays. Having successfully fear-mongered me into reading the book, the author bullied me into thinking "Oh shit I'm a single 28 year old, I better count up and freeze these eggs."
The author, Lori Gottlieb, wrote a very recent bestseller "Maybe You Should Talk to Someone." This book (Marry Him) is 10 years old. If I read Marry Him first, I would've said "Oh hell no" when I saw Maybe You Should Talk to Someone on the charts. It seems like Gottlieb is a completely different person in Marry Him.
Let's start off with the good parts of this book. It is a very entertaining read because Gottlieb is a pretty good writer and storyteller. I also did get some good advice out of this book. Distilling through all the bullshit, the essential takeaway is: there is no such thing as a perfect partner, and there are some things that just matter way more than others. Things that matter: kindness, values, compatibility, empathy, communication. Things that don't matter: his height, whether he has hair, whether he wears bow-ties (this is straight from the book). I tended to agree with a lot of the takeaways. Especially important for many twenty-somethings is the fact that, being "in love" and getting those "butterfly" feelings isn't the end goal of marriage. A partnership is the longer, harder process of forming a life together that isn't always sexy and passionate.
Now onto the bad. Holy shit. There is an entire chapter about how feminism fucked up Gottlieb's outlook on dating. This is peak white woman feminism here. I have spent the past few months reading nuanced books on race from women of color, and now I see exactly what they mean when they complain about white feminism. According to this book, feminism is about "having it all," about powerful upper-middle class career women having the opportunity to make loads of money and have children and a beautiful family and a home. (This, in fact, is not what feminism is about.) Never mind the fact that it's hard for women to "have it all" because they still contribute the majority of unpaid labor. Never mind the fact that our abhorrent backwards policies do not give women the resources to have affordable child care and that we still do not have nationally mandated maternal leave. Gottlieb writes with such a narrow perspective on women it makes me wonder who her friends are.
She also writes multiple paragraphs about how miserable all women must be who are single in their thirties and forties. She dramatically laments how much of a waste of time it is to go on Girl's Nights to the bar and try to attract some men. I feel sorry for Gottlieb's friends because, damn, this girl HATES hanging out with her friends. She also happens to eviscerate some of them in this book for being picky bitches who will be single forever because it's their fault.
In Gottlieb's mind there are 2 types of men: (1) short, average, bald, kind, generous and (2) hot hunk players who will make the sparks fly but never call back. That's it. The book centers on how we should choose man #1 instead of #2. Conveniently ignoring that there are all types of people and that men cannot be distilled so easily into (1) good for you and (2) bad for you. Gottlieb, furthermore, wants us to accept the skewed demographics. She says, there are so many more single women in their late 30s and early 40s than men and that women no longer have the power. Now, why is that? I'm fairly certain that there are a statistically equal # of men and women in each age group. So how is it possible that there are SO many more single women in the late 30s than men?
That's right - you guessed it. The men tend to go for much younger women. Gottlieb will remind you of this often, and not once does she criticizes the societal structure of this arrangement. Not once does she criticize men for going for extremely young women. Instead, it is the woman's fault for not taking advantage of her "market value" in her twenties (yes this is from the book). Gottlieb fear mongers you into thinking that the only available men in their 40s and late 30s are psychologically fucked up, players, or poor.
Anyways, it was actually quite entertaining to read a book that is so backwards and old-school. I hardly ever hear anyone say such ridiculous things anymore, so it was honestly fun. I almost threw my iPad across my room many times, but then I decided to take this book as a satire. I wish the best of luck to Gottlieb and anyone else who is in this situation of being miserably single in their 30s and 40s. If anyone feels the need to get a good scare and motivate yourself back to redownloading Tinder, you should read this book.
September 24, 2013
To be fair, I read about 1/3 of this book. It depressed me so much that I couldn't bear to finish it. After my friends had to listen to me complain, they finally convinced me to ditch the thing.
It's not that Gottlieb doesn't have a point about women being too picky (read: superficial) in choosing a partner, but I could have done without the fear-mongering. Every other paragraph was a reminder that after 30, dating becomes increasingly difficult, your single friends dwindle, and you're left all alone with no one in the world to care about you because you couldn't bother to marry that last guy you dated, and WHAT is WRONG with you?
I found the message very disheartening, and not at all helpful in feeling positive about dating and men in general.
It's not that Gottlieb doesn't have a point about women being too picky (read: superficial) in choosing a partner, but I could have done without the fear-mongering. Every other paragraph was a reminder that after 30, dating becomes increasingly difficult, your single friends dwindle, and you're left all alone with no one in the world to care about you because you couldn't bother to marry that last guy you dated, and WHAT is WRONG with you?
I found the message very disheartening, and not at all helpful in feeling positive about dating and men in general.
April 15, 2011
No, i'm only SORT of reading this book. If I come across it at the train station book nook I'll read it until the train comes.
Mostly it's annoying me! I just don't THINK like this. I know I'm 32 and all, but I'm not screaming about not being married. If it happens, it happens. I'll live my life until it does, as I do not feel incomplete or empty.
She lost me at that part where she's talking about Broadcast News which is a movie I HATE. I fail to see how that curly haired fellow was any better than that other dude. Both of them were jerks. But when that lady was the same way she didn't get a man or a family, but they got women and a family and i was unfair.
I read a bit of this yesterday and she was going on about how much feminism ruined her love life and I got distracted by Burned Away by Rain Fell Within which is a great song that makes me flap my arms and fingers because it's two sopranos singing over guitars and such and it's all things good and anyway if you didn't have feminism you'd pretty much be worse off.
This book annoys me. Why I keep reading it at the train station is a mystery.
I just can't identify with it. As a woman living in a one room apartment with a netflix account who is single, I just don't see why she thinks being single is such a horrible thing.
Could it be that I'm a hyper introvert? As a hyper introvert, I don't think I need crowds of people around me, or even one person with me to constantly define me. It's not to say that I would not mind having a boyfriend, it would be lovely, but I don't feel incomplete without one.
I get that she's not saying just marry anything male, but I don't think I like the message behind this book anyway.
Man, being single is NOT like a car accident. What is up with this broad?
Furthermore, you don't base stuff like this on television shows! Television shows HAVE to be full of people breaking up and dating the wrong people and dumping them because they snore or wear superhero underwear (Which I do, but it's not like anyone needs to know about it.) because it's more interesting to have people do that than stay in stable relationships unless it's a family show.
In real life you want things to be stable, boring, undramatic because ti's real life, but when you come home you want to watch a show that's different from your life.
Plus of COURSE Carrie went for Mr. Big over Aidan. Sure, Aidan is totally MY KIND OF DUDE (seriously, send Aidany dudes in my direction.) Aidan was meat and potatoes, sitting home watching television in his drawers while eating KFC, but CARRIE wasn't like that. It would have never worked out.
Sure, Mr. Big was a jerk, but again, IT'S A TELEVISION SHOW AND NOT REAL LIFE YOU SILLY BROAD!!! GAH!
And another thing, do you REALLY want a traditional marriage? Historically, traditional marriages have been awful for women.. No, I'd want something that is not so traditional.
Think swans.
Think BARN OWLS.
Now they know how to be together without the female having to give up everything just for some man.
I don't really think I'm the target audience for this book. Sure, I would not mind being in a nice relationship, but I just don't have that whole I NEED A MAN thing going, nor would I rule out a man over his name or liking gangsta rap.
So, no... I should stop reading this and I don't even really have it in my apartment.
OK. I just thought of one more thing. Sure, Carrie in Sex and the City dumped sweet awesome Aidan for Mr. Big, but what about Miranda and Charlotte? Charlotte wanted some white bread Waspy fellow and he turned out to have... problems, so she ended up with nice Baldy Harry. And Miranda ended up with Steve who had a rather annoying voice. So they sort of settled right?
You can't, as I said before use television shows as an example or your narrow circle of friends!
OK. I know I keep harping on this but the main thing bothering me, besides people who have been divorced writing how to be married books is HAS SHE TAKEN HER OWN ADVICE YET? I could see if she was married to a dude and she was like, yay! I'm so happy I married Harry instead of harping and messing with Ike or something. But she doesn't do that. She says do this, but she doesn't really seem to be doing it.
Maybe I should read more and find out if she did... but I'm not sure if she did so URG.
Mostly it's annoying me! I just don't THINK like this. I know I'm 32 and all, but I'm not screaming about not being married. If it happens, it happens. I'll live my life until it does, as I do not feel incomplete or empty.
She lost me at that part where she's talking about Broadcast News which is a movie I HATE. I fail to see how that curly haired fellow was any better than that other dude. Both of them were jerks. But when that lady was the same way she didn't get a man or a family, but they got women and a family and i was unfair.
I read a bit of this yesterday and she was going on about how much feminism ruined her love life and I got distracted by Burned Away by Rain Fell Within which is a great song that makes me flap my arms and fingers because it's two sopranos singing over guitars and such and it's all things good and anyway if you didn't have feminism you'd pretty much be worse off.
This book annoys me. Why I keep reading it at the train station is a mystery.
I just can't identify with it. As a woman living in a one room apartment with a netflix account who is single, I just don't see why she thinks being single is such a horrible thing.
Could it be that I'm a hyper introvert? As a hyper introvert, I don't think I need crowds of people around me, or even one person with me to constantly define me. It's not to say that I would not mind having a boyfriend, it would be lovely, but I don't feel incomplete without one.
I get that she's not saying just marry anything male, but I don't think I like the message behind this book anyway.
Man, being single is NOT like a car accident. What is up with this broad?
Furthermore, you don't base stuff like this on television shows! Television shows HAVE to be full of people breaking up and dating the wrong people and dumping them because they snore or wear superhero underwear (Which I do, but it's not like anyone needs to know about it.) because it's more interesting to have people do that than stay in stable relationships unless it's a family show.
In real life you want things to be stable, boring, undramatic because ti's real life, but when you come home you want to watch a show that's different from your life.
Plus of COURSE Carrie went for Mr. Big over Aidan. Sure, Aidan is totally MY KIND OF DUDE (seriously, send Aidany dudes in my direction.) Aidan was meat and potatoes, sitting home watching television in his drawers while eating KFC, but CARRIE wasn't like that. It would have never worked out.
Sure, Mr. Big was a jerk, but again, IT'S A TELEVISION SHOW AND NOT REAL LIFE YOU SILLY BROAD!!! GAH!
And another thing, do you REALLY want a traditional marriage? Historically, traditional marriages have been awful for women.. No, I'd want something that is not so traditional.
Think swans.
Think BARN OWLS.
Now they know how to be together without the female having to give up everything just for some man.
I don't really think I'm the target audience for this book. Sure, I would not mind being in a nice relationship, but I just don't have that whole I NEED A MAN thing going, nor would I rule out a man over his name or liking gangsta rap.
So, no... I should stop reading this and I don't even really have it in my apartment.
OK. I just thought of one more thing. Sure, Carrie in Sex and the City dumped sweet awesome Aidan for Mr. Big, but what about Miranda and Charlotte? Charlotte wanted some white bread Waspy fellow and he turned out to have... problems, so she ended up with nice Baldy Harry. And Miranda ended up with Steve who had a rather annoying voice. So they sort of settled right?
You can't, as I said before use television shows as an example or your narrow circle of friends!
OK. I know I keep harping on this but the main thing bothering me, besides people who have been divorced writing how to be married books is HAS SHE TAKEN HER OWN ADVICE YET? I could see if she was married to a dude and she was like, yay! I'm so happy I married Harry instead of harping and messing with Ike or something. But she doesn't do that. She says do this, but she doesn't really seem to be doing it.
Maybe I should read more and find out if she did... but I'm not sure if she did so URG.
June 16, 2010
I know how this sounds, but Marry Him is not a book on how to hook a man nor, as the title implies, a book about settling for any schlub off the street just because you don't want to end up alone. Instead, Gottlieb, a 41-year-old single mother (via artificial insemination), delves into the "whys" behind the growing number of single women in their late thirties and early forties who don't want to be single. She uses experiences from her own life and those of women she knows as well as interviews with dating and marriage experts to relay the lesson that she learns: many women write off perfectly good men because they are constantly looking for something that much better. And not better in terms of "what is better for them" but better in terms of more handsome; a less annoying laugh; a passionate love of birdwatching. You know, the things that, when it comes down to it, really don't matter in the big picture. Anyway, I won't explain the entire premise here, but I found this to be an extremely refreshing way of looking at a relationship, not to mention a much more realistic one that will provide me with a lot more happiness in my relationship than either (a) attempting to "fix" those things that I don't like (please read as "nitpicking my poor boyfriend to death") or (b) torturing myself with the idea that there is someone "better suited" for me (read as "someone who shares my adoration of punk music and handmade crafts"). Turns out I'm pretty happy just to realize that I have a guy who wants to make me happy, even if he doesn't want to watch Project Runway with me or would rather eat at Del Taco than Veggie Grill. And I have to thank Gottlieb for bringing me around to this idea now at 25 instead of learning it for myself in 20 years.
August 4, 2015
* 1/2
I don't really know where to start. My rating isn't some knee-jerk reaction to the stupidity of the title, but a reaction to how ridiculous AND poorly researched this book was. Yes, Gottlieb cites plenty of "studies" that look at marriage and happiness, but rarely do these studies have much to say about women specifically. And it also doles out some decent relationship advice (don't have unrealistic expectations of your partner, nobody's perfect, sometimes the best partners come in unexpected packages, blah blah)... but it was basically the same advice any reasonable married human would give someone with an out-of-touch vision of what marriage is. The vast majority of the book used anecdotes from the author's friends and other "successful women" about how they regretted breaking up with guys for 1.) dressing badly 2.) being bald 3.) saying 'awesome' or 'dude' too much 4.) not knowing enough about art 5.) liking sports too much 6.) bringing over an already used aromatherapy candle to comfort them while ill. I'm not kidding. All of this while claiming that if you're a single woman over 35 it's because you ARE too picky and it IS your fault. Seeing that I turn 35 tomorrow, but I've yet to dump a dude for any of the reasons cited above (oh shit! I said 'dude'), and the majority of the women quoted in this book make me want to stab myself in the eye with fork, I don't think I gained a lot of insight from this one.
I don't really know where to start. My rating isn't some knee-jerk reaction to the stupidity of the title, but a reaction to how ridiculous AND poorly researched this book was. Yes, Gottlieb cites plenty of "studies" that look at marriage and happiness, but rarely do these studies have much to say about women specifically. And it also doles out some decent relationship advice (don't have unrealistic expectations of your partner, nobody's perfect, sometimes the best partners come in unexpected packages, blah blah)... but it was basically the same advice any reasonable married human would give someone with an out-of-touch vision of what marriage is. The vast majority of the book used anecdotes from the author's friends and other "successful women" about how they regretted breaking up with guys for 1.) dressing badly 2.) being bald 3.) saying 'awesome' or 'dude' too much 4.) not knowing enough about art 5.) liking sports too much 6.) bringing over an already used aromatherapy candle to comfort them while ill. I'm not kidding. All of this while claiming that if you're a single woman over 35 it's because you ARE too picky and it IS your fault. Seeing that I turn 35 tomorrow, but I've yet to dump a dude for any of the reasons cited above (oh shit! I said 'dude'), and the majority of the women quoted in this book make me want to stab myself in the eye with fork, I don't think I gained a lot of insight from this one.
April 7, 2019
I bought both of Gottlieb's books at the same time because I was so excited to read the newest one. I hated it. So I read this one. Go figure. The topic was intriguing so I finished despite many many eyerolls. The book is mostly common sense and all the phenomena she alludes to have basic causes--evolution and biology! Women of every species are pickier because they have to make sure the guy sticks around when they get saddled with his eggs. Also, it's a bummer but our fertility window is also smaller. So a few women will miss the window. Sounds like the author did--but she was able to use technology to have a baby. Good for her--but then she goes on to blame feminism for this problem. Even though she clearly says that her gag factor was too high for men, she claims feminism made her do it. I want to give her argument her due--she's right--people (not just women) have overly romantic views of marriage. Marriage is not meant to fulfill all of your wildest fantasies and no man is perfect. Sure. Just get married, she says. Ok, but she doesn't really mean it because no one would just marry someone they were grossed out by and Gottlieb seems to be grossed out by most men. Like her other book, the author apparently got a book contract and wrote about the thing she was most concerned with at the moment and threw in some interviews with behavioral economists to make it legit and some anti-feminist rants to make some sales.
January 31, 2013
I can't believe I read the whole thing....
The book could be summed up in a single chapter. (Or... an Atlantic essay...?) Or with this sentence "Stop being superficial."
It's not that I don't think Lori Gottlieb has something of a point. I imagine that there is a small subset of women who are truly so picky that they judge guys as quickly as characters on Sex and the City, yet also do want a long-term life partnership. This small subset of women do need to hear that their pickiness is completely unrealistic and preventing them from finding the partnerships that they are seeking. But I also believe that the phenomenon is nowhere near as widespread of an issue as the author seems to think, though it is probably disproportionally prevalent in the subset of people who are single and never married at the age of 40 (which is really not that large of a group to pull from in the first place).
However, since I am under 30, and have been in a long-term partnership for nearing a decade, I realize that I am nowhere in the obvious audience for this book and simply couldn't understand the mindset of Gotlieb as she complains (and complains and complains) through every chapter about being alone. I was baffled that she needed so many relationship coaches, and professional matchmakers, and psychology professors, telling her the same thing over and over and over again and it still wouldn't sink in.
I was absolutely flabbergasted to hear the women profiled in the book being so picky about superficial physical characteristics (really, they wouldn't consider dating someone under 5'10"? Women care about that? They wouldn't date someone because he was bald? REALLY?). Perhaps in a way I prove her thesis correct, since I am not an overly picky person and happily committed to the first great guy who came along who was compatible with me (even though he is the same height as me and losing his hair). But that still didn't make me want to read the same whiny chapter rewritten 10 times.
Also, the author clearly doesn't know a thing about feminism if she conflates her snobbery and superficiality with feminism, i.e. How Feminism Ruined My Love Life. That chapter title alone made me want to throw this book in the dumpster.
In short, I would only recommend this book to a woman with insanely poor taste in dating partners, who is superficial and needs to be beaten over the head repeatedly in order to learn a simple lesson. For the rest of us, Lori Gottlieb's original essay in the Atlantic, from which this book originated, is quite more than enough on the subject.
The book could be summed up in a single chapter. (Or... an Atlantic essay...?) Or with this sentence "Stop being superficial."
It's not that I don't think Lori Gottlieb has something of a point. I imagine that there is a small subset of women who are truly so picky that they judge guys as quickly as characters on Sex and the City, yet also do want a long-term life partnership. This small subset of women do need to hear that their pickiness is completely unrealistic and preventing them from finding the partnerships that they are seeking. But I also believe that the phenomenon is nowhere near as widespread of an issue as the author seems to think, though it is probably disproportionally prevalent in the subset of people who are single and never married at the age of 40 (which is really not that large of a group to pull from in the first place).
However, since I am under 30, and have been in a long-term partnership for nearing a decade, I realize that I am nowhere in the obvious audience for this book and simply couldn't understand the mindset of Gotlieb as she complains (and complains and complains) through every chapter about being alone. I was baffled that she needed so many relationship coaches, and professional matchmakers, and psychology professors, telling her the same thing over and over and over again and it still wouldn't sink in.
I was absolutely flabbergasted to hear the women profiled in the book being so picky about superficial physical characteristics (really, they wouldn't consider dating someone under 5'10"? Women care about that? They wouldn't date someone because he was bald? REALLY?). Perhaps in a way I prove her thesis correct, since I am not an overly picky person and happily committed to the first great guy who came along who was compatible with me (even though he is the same height as me and losing his hair). But that still didn't make me want to read the same whiny chapter rewritten 10 times.
Also, the author clearly doesn't know a thing about feminism if she conflates her snobbery and superficiality with feminism, i.e. How Feminism Ruined My Love Life. That chapter title alone made me want to throw this book in the dumpster.
In short, I would only recommend this book to a woman with insanely poor taste in dating partners, who is superficial and needs to be beaten over the head repeatedly in order to learn a simple lesson. For the rest of us, Lori Gottlieb's original essay in the Atlantic, from which this book originated, is quite more than enough on the subject.
May 13, 2010
Caveat Reader: Writing this as a 28 year old, incredibly happily married male I am fairly certain this would be a painful read if you happen to be 33 year old, disillusioned, single female hoping to find love. Heck, I bet it'd be a difficult read if you want a guy (or girl) and feel lonely at 23... but my warning gets stronger the older you are.
Basically Gottlieb makes the case that it's not settling just because a guy doesn't match up with every point on your "deal-breaker" list. (Granted, the title "The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough" makes it seem like it IS settling... but I think she was just looking for a catchy title. It doesn't really help her argument at all.)
Just a few of the points she makes:
On people who say they can get their sexual needs outside of marriage, "In a Time/CNN poll cited in the article, 4 percent of women said what they wanted most from marriage was sex, while 75 percent said it was companionship. Can she get that need easily taken care of outside of marriage - on a daily basis, and for the rest of her life?"
As people get older, they keep their standards the same (waiting for Mr. Perfect) even though the guys are getting taken out of the running and taking themselves out of the running. (Think baldness.) It doesn't make sense.
Things that make a good date don't necessarily make a good marriage.
She also gives a lot of sound advice (that she got from dating coaches, Rabbis and Pastors, the founder of eHarmony etc...) I'm not going to repeat all that here when you could just go get the book from your library. (Or if you're really desperate or into buying books, the book store.)
If you're wondering why a 28 year old, happily married guy would read this book, my wife read it and passed it along. It was really affirming for my own marriage. Neither of us feel like we settled. (Although I secretly sometimes feel like she did. She is WAY too good for me.) But, I know that I'm not a perfect 10. Maybe a 7.4 thereabouts. I can't picture being with anybody else.
The only problem I had with the book is that she kept going over the same stuff again and again. (and again and again and again and again...)
Maybe she felt like the audience she was writing to wouldn't get it unless it was hammered into their skulls, but it seemed like she had too many anecdotes and not enough pages.
Basically Gottlieb makes the case that it's not settling just because a guy doesn't match up with every point on your "deal-breaker" list. (Granted, the title "The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough" makes it seem like it IS settling... but I think she was just looking for a catchy title. It doesn't really help her argument at all.)
Just a few of the points she makes:
On people who say they can get their sexual needs outside of marriage, "In a Time/CNN poll cited in the article, 4 percent of women said what they wanted most from marriage was sex, while 75 percent said it was companionship. Can she get that need easily taken care of outside of marriage - on a daily basis, and for the rest of her life?"
As people get older, they keep their standards the same (waiting for Mr. Perfect) even though the guys are getting taken out of the running and taking themselves out of the running. (Think baldness.) It doesn't make sense.
Things that make a good date don't necessarily make a good marriage.
She also gives a lot of sound advice (that she got from dating coaches, Rabbis and Pastors, the founder of eHarmony etc...) I'm not going to repeat all that here when you could just go get the book from your library. (Or if you're really desperate or into buying books, the book store.)
If you're wondering why a 28 year old, happily married guy would read this book, my wife read it and passed it along. It was really affirming for my own marriage. Neither of us feel like we settled. (Although I secretly sometimes feel like she did. She is WAY too good for me.) But, I know that I'm not a perfect 10. Maybe a 7.4 thereabouts. I can't picture being with anybody else.
The only problem I had with the book is that she kept going over the same stuff again and again. (and again and again and again and again...)
Maybe she felt like the audience she was writing to wouldn't get it unless it was hammered into their skulls, but it seemed like she had too many anecdotes and not enough pages.
Read
May 26, 2023I agree with the main idea of this book, and I like the author’s candor and, for lack of better words, rawness.
I did go into this, expecting to fall in love with it (because I did love one of her other books—Maybe You Should Talk to Someone), and I didn’t. It might have been because it felt unnecessarily drawn out and repetitive.
Perks? Lots of things and stories to learn from. Interesting research by people smarter than me. So… maybe not a flop?
I did go into this, expecting to fall in love with it (because I did love one of her other books—Maybe You Should Talk to Someone), and I didn’t. It might have been because it felt unnecessarily drawn out and repetitive.
Perks? Lots of things and stories to learn from. Interesting research by people smarter than me. So… maybe not a flop?
November 22, 2010
Extremely engrossing and fun to read. My husband picked it up and couldn't put it down. We were actually fighting over it!
I think a lot of people -- not just women, but men too -- could get something out of her advice. The overall premise is: don't wait for perfection. When you find a good person, someone with whom you share interests and goals for your life, don't reduce him to that one nit-picky habit of his that you find annoying. Don't chuck the relationship in search of The Perfect One. Chances are, he doesn't exist anyway, and you'll waste a lot of time and energy in the endless pursuit of perfection while you could be happy (enough) settling down and beginning life with A Good One.
I think a lot of people -- not just women, but men too -- could get something out of her advice. The overall premise is: don't wait for perfection. When you find a good person, someone with whom you share interests and goals for your life, don't reduce him to that one nit-picky habit of his that you find annoying. Don't chuck the relationship in search of The Perfect One. Chances are, he doesn't exist anyway, and you'll waste a lot of time and energy in the endless pursuit of perfection while you could be happy (enough) settling down and beginning life with A Good One.
July 27, 2011
Or . I don't know why I found this book as irritating and ridiculous as I did, but it might have something to do with the author's lack of awareness about her own sense of privilege. She suggests that women need to get over themselves and their laundry lists of desired traits in a partner and “settle” (no longer a bad word) for the "good enough" guy who might be right under their noses lest they end up over 40 and unmarried. While others have criticized Gottlieb for her desire to be married and to have a traditional family, I don't think she or any woman is somehow anti-feminist for wanting a “traditional family.” Rather, I am bothered that Gottlieb fails to acknowledge the privilege she shares with her over-40 and single compatriots who dismiss men for the most trivial reasons. This dilemma of ending up partnerless at 40 is not unique to middle and upper class white women. Many women of color end up partnerless not because of their own impossible standards and neuroses, but because of an unfavorable demographic realities. That said, I find it a little hard to be sympathetic to Gottlieb’s dilemma…
January 11, 2019
In summation: Don’t be so picky, the pool gets really thin after 40, and guys tend to happily marry because they don’t have such long lists of conditions as women while women end up accidentally alone waiting for a guy who doesn’t exist.
Just: Don’t be so picky.
The author does an excellent piece of reporting, finding the actual men that she and a group of friends chose not to marry back in the day, interviewing them, and then, the women who did marry them. She ties in research studies, expert interviews, her own experience with experimental mating strategies and her gut reactions to same. Her conclusion, after analyzing why women are prone to creating long, impossible to fulfill lists of criteria, is that the pool of available men shrinks after 40 (snapped up by more realistic women), and too many conditions can “list” you right out of the market. She makes suggestions to adjust this state of mind, and tries to take her own advice.
I strongly recommend this to any women in their 30’s who are hoping/planning/expecting to marry, “someday”, when the “right guy comes along”. READ THIS.
This was hilarious to read back to back with Chastened: The Unexpected Story of My Year without SexChastened, by a 30 year old woman with all the options in the world, spurning most of them. I was thinking the whole time, “Yeah, report back in a decade, how about.”
Well written, with an excellent balance of personal narrative and external analysis.
Just: Don’t be so picky.
The author does an excellent piece of reporting, finding the actual men that she and a group of friends chose not to marry back in the day, interviewing them, and then, the women who did marry them. She ties in research studies, expert interviews, her own experience with experimental mating strategies and her gut reactions to same. Her conclusion, after analyzing why women are prone to creating long, impossible to fulfill lists of criteria, is that the pool of available men shrinks after 40 (snapped up by more realistic women), and too many conditions can “list” you right out of the market. She makes suggestions to adjust this state of mind, and tries to take her own advice.
I strongly recommend this to any women in their 30’s who are hoping/planning/expecting to marry, “someday”, when the “right guy comes along”. READ THIS.
This was hilarious to read back to back with Chastened: The Unexpected Story of My Year without SexChastened, by a 30 year old woman with all the options in the world, spurning most of them. I was thinking the whole time, “Yeah, report back in a decade, how about.”
Well written, with an excellent balance of personal narrative and external analysis.
March 15, 2022
DNF at chapter 3.
This book was so disappointingly bad especially since I loved loved loved her book Maybe You Should Talk to Someone.
This was… not that.
First of all, the book starts off with the unnamed assumption that to be happy you need to have a husband and if you don’t have one you’ve failed life. This seems a bit like a projection of the author’s own life circumstances more than anything else.
Second, I think a book about why women should “settle” for men should talk about the sexist reasons that make it harder for women to find partners later in life. Off the top of my head I can think of research on:
- how older men prefer younger partners to ones their age
- how men are less likely to date a woman more successful than them
- how women are expected to do it all and that can be draining so why would they want to?
This book posits a bunch of anecdotal complaining about men versus women as insight when it really could have benefited from viewing relationships in the context of historical relationship dynamics as well as just people being people not ALL WOMEN or ALL MEN.
This book was so disappointingly bad especially since I loved loved loved her book Maybe You Should Talk to Someone.
This was… not that.
First of all, the book starts off with the unnamed assumption that to be happy you need to have a husband and if you don’t have one you’ve failed life. This seems a bit like a projection of the author’s own life circumstances more than anything else.
Second, I think a book about why women should “settle” for men should talk about the sexist reasons that make it harder for women to find partners later in life. Off the top of my head I can think of research on:
- how older men prefer younger partners to ones their age
- how men are less likely to date a woman more successful than them
- how women are expected to do it all and that can be draining so why would they want to?
This book posits a bunch of anecdotal complaining about men versus women as insight when it really could have benefited from viewing relationships in the context of historical relationship dynamics as well as just people being people not ALL WOMEN or ALL MEN.
October 2, 2010
Get over yourself!
That’s basically the advice that 41-year-old Lori Gottleib gives single women over 35. No other book I’ve read lately (or at least in the past 5 years) has made me so glad and grateful to be married.
Believe me, I’m not interested in dating anyone else but this book gave me a kick in the pants to stop complaining about my husband. I always thought I got a pretty good deal but now I’m realizing that by marrying young, I got a great deal.
Says Gottlieb: “What I didn’t realize when I chose to date only men who excited me from the get-go (without considering the practical side of things), is that what makes for a good marriage isn’t necessarily what makes for a good romantic relationship. According to my married friends, once you’re married, it’s not so much about who you want to go on a tropical vacation with; it’s about who you want to run a household with. Marriage isn’t a constant passion-fest; it’s more like a partnership formed to run a very small, mundane nonprofit business.”
Gottlieb is also a single mother by choice, having chosen artificial insemination because she wanted a kid far more than she wanted to “settle” with any of the men in her life. And from what she shared, some of the men she dated would have made terrible fathers. Gottleib’s Husband List of the qualities she needs in a husband is so long and so specific that you can’t help but realize that Gottlieb has been way too picky, esp. since she says she wants to get married, but won’t consider anyone under 5’5”.
This book was an easy-to-read mix of the author’s personal experience, case studies from friends and colleagues, professionals in the dating and marriage business and science. She reviews marriage expectations with people who divorced, people in arranged marriages, people who “settled” and are happy over it, and women who wouldn’t settle and are still alone.
This was an enjoyable book and one I’d love to give to my single friends, if only they wouldn’t be offended by it.
Read my full review at bookreviewsbyclare.blogspot.com
That’s basically the advice that 41-year-old Lori Gottleib gives single women over 35. No other book I’ve read lately (or at least in the past 5 years) has made me so glad and grateful to be married.
Believe me, I’m not interested in dating anyone else but this book gave me a kick in the pants to stop complaining about my husband. I always thought I got a pretty good deal but now I’m realizing that by marrying young, I got a great deal.
Says Gottlieb: “What I didn’t realize when I chose to date only men who excited me from the get-go (without considering the practical side of things), is that what makes for a good marriage isn’t necessarily what makes for a good romantic relationship. According to my married friends, once you’re married, it’s not so much about who you want to go on a tropical vacation with; it’s about who you want to run a household with. Marriage isn’t a constant passion-fest; it’s more like a partnership formed to run a very small, mundane nonprofit business.”
Gottlieb is also a single mother by choice, having chosen artificial insemination because she wanted a kid far more than she wanted to “settle” with any of the men in her life. And from what she shared, some of the men she dated would have made terrible fathers. Gottleib’s Husband List of the qualities she needs in a husband is so long and so specific that you can’t help but realize that Gottlieb has been way too picky, esp. since she says she wants to get married, but won’t consider anyone under 5’5”.
This book was an easy-to-read mix of the author’s personal experience, case studies from friends and colleagues, professionals in the dating and marriage business and science. She reviews marriage expectations with people who divorced, people in arranged marriages, people who “settled” and are happy over it, and women who wouldn’t settle and are still alone.
This was an enjoyable book and one I’d love to give to my single friends, if only they wouldn’t be offended by it.
Read my full review at bookreviewsbyclare.blogspot.com
February 2, 2020
I'm about 1/3 of the way in, having started reading purely out of morbid curiosity as a happily married woman who was lucky enough to meet my perfect partner aged 22. And there's no fucking way I'm reading any more of it.
My problems with it are, principally:
1. it's extremely whiny and clearly personal for the author. It's fine that she has regrets, but generalising from this and cherry-picking other anecdotal evidence is dumb. Which brings me to
2. it completely ignores the idea that some women may be ok with not getting married or having kids. Seriously - if I hadn't met anyone who enhanced my life as much as my partner does, I'd happily have taken on the role of mad spinster aunt with heaps of spare money and time. We do exist, even if Gottlieb thinks we're just in denial (and she claims to be a feminist lol)
3. it assumes that gender roles, re. for example sharing childcare and income, are innate, which is so problematic and plain WRONG I don't even know where to start (again, 'feminist' lmfao)
4. it repeats the same basic premise over and over. The female fertility window is narrow. If we want kids we may need to compromise. I didn't need 300 pages to tell me that.
Tl;dr - EUW. Sexist, poorly-researched garbage
My problems with it are, principally:
1. it's extremely whiny and clearly personal for the author. It's fine that she has regrets, but generalising from this and cherry-picking other anecdotal evidence is dumb. Which brings me to
2. it completely ignores the idea that some women may be ok with not getting married or having kids. Seriously - if I hadn't met anyone who enhanced my life as much as my partner does, I'd happily have taken on the role of mad spinster aunt with heaps of spare money and time. We do exist, even if Gottlieb thinks we're just in denial (and she claims to be a feminist lol)
3. it assumes that gender roles, re. for example sharing childcare and income, are innate, which is so problematic and plain WRONG I don't even know where to start (again, 'feminist' lmfao)
4. it repeats the same basic premise over and over. The female fertility window is narrow. If we want kids we may need to compromise. I didn't need 300 pages to tell me that.
Tl;dr - EUW. Sexist, poorly-researched garbage
March 25, 2013
I hesitated to write a review of this because I didn’t finish it, but considering how often other folks on GoodReads go ahead and do reviews, why not?
I listened to the audiobook of this, and listened to the first part, a little over an hour of 9 hours. It irritated the heck out of me. The author focuses on herself, while trying to make this a self help book – when she really didn’t even help herself, apparently. She talks about interviewing groups of women who dumped someone because of his bald spot or because of the way he ate, or whatever, and how they were looking for Mr. Tall Dark and Handsome instead of looking for those real traits that make a man marriage material. Next, she interviews some of the women who end up with the men who are less good-looking, and they talk about how happy they are that they looked past some guy’s unfortunate physical state and are now married to an amazing father and husband.
As someone who has never dreamed of Mr. Tall, Dark and Rich, or whatever, I still thought that this book might have something to offer. But what I found almost dangerous was this focus on looking at past partners through the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia. I can tell you that I didn’t want to date someone and list some annoying characteristic, but it almost always goes beyond that. While the portion of the book I read doesn’t exactly suggest going back to your old partners to rekindle the “flame,” I didn’t like that there seemed to be so much focus on “the one who got away.” Usually.. he got away for a reason, and whether or not you remember it, it was probably more than the fact that he didn’t have a full head of hair.
I decided I still wanted to give the book a chance—it did, after all, have some interesting reflections on how pop culture affects our romantic expectations. But when I started the second track of the audiobook, in which the author starts by saying “Feminism ruined my love life,” I just thought.. nope, I can’t do this. Maybe she had some sort of great argument, but I couldn’t imagine that what I was about to listen to would have made me anything but angry and irritated.
I listened to the audiobook of this, and listened to the first part, a little over an hour of 9 hours. It irritated the heck out of me. The author focuses on herself, while trying to make this a self help book – when she really didn’t even help herself, apparently. She talks about interviewing groups of women who dumped someone because of his bald spot or because of the way he ate, or whatever, and how they were looking for Mr. Tall Dark and Handsome instead of looking for those real traits that make a man marriage material. Next, she interviews some of the women who end up with the men who are less good-looking, and they talk about how happy they are that they looked past some guy’s unfortunate physical state and are now married to an amazing father and husband.
As someone who has never dreamed of Mr. Tall, Dark and Rich, or whatever, I still thought that this book might have something to offer. But what I found almost dangerous was this focus on looking at past partners through the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia. I can tell you that I didn’t want to date someone and list some annoying characteristic, but it almost always goes beyond that. While the portion of the book I read doesn’t exactly suggest going back to your old partners to rekindle the “flame,” I didn’t like that there seemed to be so much focus on “the one who got away.” Usually.. he got away for a reason, and whether or not you remember it, it was probably more than the fact that he didn’t have a full head of hair.
I decided I still wanted to give the book a chance—it did, after all, have some interesting reflections on how pop culture affects our romantic expectations. But when I started the second track of the audiobook, in which the author starts by saying “Feminism ruined my love life,” I just thought.. nope, I can’t do this. Maybe she had some sort of great argument, but I couldn’t imagine that what I was about to listen to would have made me anything but angry and irritated.
June 30, 2010
The author is 41 years old, never-been-married, and has a 2 year old child. She is back on the dating scene and is troubled by the fact that she hasn't met The One yet. Will she ever? Then she starts to question the validity of The One. This leads her onto a journey of self-discovery.
This is usually the kind of story that I like. However, I found the author to be so self-sabotaging that it infuriated me. She spends part of the book blaming feminism and the "I can have it all" syndrome for her pickiness and unwillingness to settle. Yes, I agree that the idea that women can have a high-powered career and a family is turning out to be a difficult, if not impossible proposition due to limited years of fertility (among many, many other things). However, she never put forth the idea that she COULDN'T get married earlier due to her career, just that she was literally never satisfied with the men she had. She was always looking for someone better. Nothing inherently in the idea of feminism is responsible for her vanity, selfishness, or her shallow and controlling nature. She has turned out to be her own worst enemy. It's hard to feel a lot of sympathy for such a character.
This is usually the kind of story that I like. However, I found the author to be so self-sabotaging that it infuriated me. She spends part of the book blaming feminism and the "I can have it all" syndrome for her pickiness and unwillingness to settle. Yes, I agree that the idea that women can have a high-powered career and a family is turning out to be a difficult, if not impossible proposition due to limited years of fertility (among many, many other things). However, she never put forth the idea that she COULDN'T get married earlier due to her career, just that she was literally never satisfied with the men she had. She was always looking for someone better. Nothing inherently in the idea of feminism is responsible for her vanity, selfishness, or her shallow and controlling nature. She has turned out to be her own worst enemy. It's hard to feel a lot of sympathy for such a character.
October 20, 2010
I have a story that goes along with this book, and it's too good to leave out! At the library where I work, a sweet little old man came up to me and recommended this book, which he had just finished. Of course I chuckled to myself, because it was so unexpected. He said more people should approach marriage this way, and he wished he had read it when he was a younger man. He then asked if I was married and what three qualities attracted me to my husband. I answered, his faith, his integrity, and the way he makes me laugh. My new library friend said this book would just be preaching to the choir but suggested I read it all the same.
It was an interesting perspective on how picky and entitled my generation of women tend to be when it comes to dating and marriage, especially with the endless possibilities made available through online dating sites. Of course, not all of us fit the bill! But Lori's experiences and conversations were eye-opening and a little depressing. If I learned anything from this book, it is to not take my husband for granted even though he's not perfect in every way!
It was an interesting perspective on how picky and entitled my generation of women tend to be when it comes to dating and marriage, especially with the endless possibilities made available through online dating sites. Of course, not all of us fit the bill! But Lori's experiences and conversations were eye-opening and a little depressing. If I learned anything from this book, it is to not take my husband for granted even though he's not perfect in every way!
October 11, 2023
Lori Gottlieb's Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough is mostly about managing expectations, which sounds dry but is actually hilarious and thoughtful. I especially loved reading the lists of expectations, sometimes implicit and sometimes explicit, Gottlieb and her girlfriends carried around with them, and I often read their complaints about men to others. Where do these unrealistically high expectations come from?
Gottlieb worries that they might stem from her feminist worldview. She reflects on her conversations with girlfriends and how they always validate each other’s obsessive pickiness about men. Although they think something like “that guy is on your level,” they say something like “you’re way out of his league” or something like "it makes total sense that you'd want someone more adventurous and predictable." Gottlieb later considers a scene in Sex in the City in which one character dumps a man who has stood by her through cancer so she can be true to her love of herself. Women in the audience cheered, which, upon reflection, Gottlieb finds less than admirable. Speaking generally, I envy the way my female friends validate each other, but perhaps its utility has limits. Then again, I notice that the older feminists in Daum’s Selfish Shallow and Self-Absorbed: On the Decision to Not Have Children consistently warn their younger peers that “you can’t have it all.” If feminism has changed from “you can’t have it all” to “you can have it all and deserve the best version of it all,” I wonder if it has changed in concert with other trends (commercialism, maybe?).
I didn’t want to get my hopes up that Gottlieb would consider the ideas of Dan Ariely (Predictably Irrational) and Barry Schwartz (The Paradox of Choice)—but she does! I was so happy when she summarized their theories and applied them to dating and went on to discuss hedonistic adaptation, evolutionary theory (but not obnoxiously), and money's influence on women's choices. At one point, Ariely reveals that he would need to earn an additional $40000/ year to become as attractive to women as a man one inch taller. There is also a lot of engaging participatory journalism, mostly consisting of Gottlieb’s interactions with matchmakers and dating coaches. I didn’t know these jobs were so common in North America, but they sound interesting.
And frustrating. The dating coach's job is to just stop Gottlieb from shredding every man she encounters. Even taking into account how much work can go into a date, I could not believe how difficult it was for her to consider meeting someone for coffee. I'd love to add Haidt's ideas about motivated reasoning to this work. In The Righteous Mind, Haidt argues that people mostly use reason to validate their impulsive reactions. Gottlieb is a master at impulsively dismissing men and then rationalizing that feeling. (Most of Marry Him's reviews on GR, imho, also seem to prove Haidt right—my own, naturally, is no exception.)
If our rational minds are simply validating our irrational impulses, how should we think about dating? First, mostly dismiss first impressions and broadly lower expectations, if only to make it possible to meet anyone. And we should definitely turn off the part of our brain that invents life stories about people based on their favourite film, height, or hair line (this last being my advice for others, of course). But that would be good advice for nearly all social interactions, which is why I recommended Marry Him to many of my friends, male or female, married or otherwise, many times before I had finished it.
Update 2021. The Vox Conversations podcast interviewed Logan Ury on broadly similar content in an episode entitled "The Science of Dating." It seems that the broad takeaways of Marry Him have mostly aged well.
Update 2023. My GF follows a dating coach on instagram, and almost all of her advice can be found in this book.
Gottlieb worries that they might stem from her feminist worldview. She reflects on her conversations with girlfriends and how they always validate each other’s obsessive pickiness about men. Although they think something like “that guy is on your level,” they say something like “you’re way out of his league” or something like "it makes total sense that you'd want someone more adventurous and predictable." Gottlieb later considers a scene in Sex in the City in which one character dumps a man who has stood by her through cancer so she can be true to her love of herself. Women in the audience cheered, which, upon reflection, Gottlieb finds less than admirable. Speaking generally, I envy the way my female friends validate each other, but perhaps its utility has limits. Then again, I notice that the older feminists in Daum’s Selfish Shallow and Self-Absorbed: On the Decision to Not Have Children consistently warn their younger peers that “you can’t have it all.” If feminism has changed from “you can’t have it all” to “you can have it all and deserve the best version of it all,” I wonder if it has changed in concert with other trends (commercialism, maybe?).
I didn’t want to get my hopes up that Gottlieb would consider the ideas of Dan Ariely (Predictably Irrational) and Barry Schwartz (The Paradox of Choice)—but she does! I was so happy when she summarized their theories and applied them to dating and went on to discuss hedonistic adaptation, evolutionary theory (but not obnoxiously), and money's influence on women's choices. At one point, Ariely reveals that he would need to earn an additional $40000/ year to become as attractive to women as a man one inch taller. There is also a lot of engaging participatory journalism, mostly consisting of Gottlieb’s interactions with matchmakers and dating coaches. I didn’t know these jobs were so common in North America, but they sound interesting.
And frustrating. The dating coach's job is to just stop Gottlieb from shredding every man she encounters. Even taking into account how much work can go into a date, I could not believe how difficult it was for her to consider meeting someone for coffee. I'd love to add Haidt's ideas about motivated reasoning to this work. In The Righteous Mind, Haidt argues that people mostly use reason to validate their impulsive reactions. Gottlieb is a master at impulsively dismissing men and then rationalizing that feeling. (Most of Marry Him's reviews on GR, imho, also seem to prove Haidt right—my own, naturally, is no exception.)
If our rational minds are simply validating our irrational impulses, how should we think about dating? First, mostly dismiss first impressions and broadly lower expectations, if only to make it possible to meet anyone. And we should definitely turn off the part of our brain that invents life stories about people based on their favourite film, height, or hair line (this last being my advice for others, of course). But that would be good advice for nearly all social interactions, which is why I recommended Marry Him to many of my friends, male or female, married or otherwise, many times before I had finished it.
Update 2021. The Vox Conversations podcast interviewed Logan Ury on broadly similar content in an episode entitled "The Science of Dating." It seems that the broad takeaways of Marry Him have mostly aged well.
Update 2023. My GF follows a dating coach on instagram, and almost all of her advice can be found in this book.
September 14, 2020
Fear mongering and misogynistic. Sexist. How was this written by a therapist? I wish I hadn't read this. It's been a year since I read this and own therapist STILL knows this simply as "The Book" when I need to refer to it because I can't get it out of my head. By the author's logic, single women over 30 are dead in the water when it comes to love. So you mean to tell me, that women who may have lost their partners, or maybe are trapped in an abusive or otherwise loveless relationship are just out of luck? That's the best they can hope for and they better make it work since they're not 20 anymore? I mean, how toxic and dangerous is that? WHO is the book possibly meant for? Maybe it's factually "true" that women's dating prospects thin as they age far more than men's do, but isn't that the work of sexism, misogyny and the screwed up patriarchal culture we live in? I won't and can't live my life in service of that narrative. I would rather live in whatever small way in service of changing that reality, not rolling over and accepting it. And it will only begin to change when books like this, that validate women as aging commodities stop getting published. Maybe it's "true" but so is discrimination based on race. These things are absolute realities in our culture but they need to be changed not accepted. This book MADE ME FEEL LIKE ABSOLUTE GARBAGE as a woman, and I worry about anyone like me who reads it, or any woman at all prone to questioning her value that happens to read it. DO NOT. It's dangerous and toxic and the author should be ashamed.
October 24, 2010
Here's the deal: the author was, until she started researching for this book, a disaster when it came to choosing who to go out on a date with. Actually, she's still a disaster for the bulk of the book. And now she's 41 and a single mom via artificial insemination. She hammers it in that a woman's stock as marriage material is highest when she's in her 20s, and early 30s, and greatly diminishes by the time she's 35. And then forget about it by the time she's hit 40. The author also hammers it in that when it comes to dating, women have a tendency to filter too much. Fine. But it's over 300 pages worth of "Sally thought Jim was boring, so she broke up with him to date Tom, whose personality was more fiery. By the time she realized that Tom was unpredictable and she really craved the stability Jim had to offer, Jim had moved on and was engaged."
The book's focus is on getting women to recalibrate what is important in a relationship. That's an important first step, but the book makes it seem that that's all that is necessary to sustain a relationship/marriage.
The book's focus is on getting women to recalibrate what is important in a relationship. That's an important first step, but the book makes it seem that that's all that is necessary to sustain a relationship/marriage.
March 21, 2012
I have read a lot of books about dating, but none of them have been as irritating as this one. The main assumption Gottlieb makes in the book is that single women who are unhappy being single are usually that way because, like she was in her twenties and thirties, they are so picky and wedded to their long list of qualities-a-mate-must-have that by the time they get over themselves, none of the men who are even simply "good enough" want them. Because they're old! They can't have kids! The only passage I liked in this book came at the end, when she talked to her rabbi about soul mates. He said that there are a number of people we could all be happy with, it just so happens that our souls develop differently with different people. Finally, more than 200 pages in, I got the only nugget of insight here. It was not worth the way this book made me grind my teeth.
April 8, 2021
This is instrumental in challenging the status quo and our existing outlook on marriage. We must be more mindful of the qualities we seek in a potential spouse, as well as being humble about how much we ourselves have to offer. Fortunately, Islam provides us with the physical and behavioral qualities we should prioritize in a spouse and encourages us to go against the artificial standards set by society.
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