DNC Funk the War Protest
Previous post

Hey guys, did you know your wives are dreaming of divorce?

Hey guys, did you know your wives are dreaming of divorce?

I am not an Oprah fan. I just want to get this out of the way now. I despise her show. I despise her magazine. And I hate that so many women are sucked in by her. I don’t understand why she’s such a phenomenon. And I don’t get why so many housewives idolize her. I really don’t get it.

Part of the reason is because of stuff like this. It didn’t surprise me in the least to see something like this being attributed to her. Not one little bit. Seeing as how I never watch her show, I couldn’t tell you why it doesn’t surprise me, just that it doesn’t.

Guys, did you know that your wives are dreaming of divorce? Girls, did you know that if you are happy with your marriage it means you are delusional? Well, guess what? One of Oprah’s harpies is here to show you all about how much marriage sucks! And, of course, in this particular case it’s all because the wife is wonderful and the husband is an inconsiderate doofus. Which, you know, is not normal at all for women to portray. I went ahead and emphasized my favorite parts.

I contemplate divorce every day. It tugs on my sleeve each morning when my husband, Will, greets me in his chipper, smug morning-person voice, because after 16 years of waking up together, he still hasn’t quite pieced out that I’m not viable before 10 a.m.

It puts two hands on my forehead and mercilessly presses when he blurts out the exact wrong thing (“Are you excited for your surprise party next Tuesday?”); when he lies to avoid the fight (“What do you mean I left our apartment door open? I never even knew our apartment had a door!”); when he buttons his shirt and jacket into the wrong buttonholes, collars and seams unaligned like a vertical game of dominoes, with possibly a scrap of shirttail zippered into his fly.

It flicks me, hard, just under the eye when, during a parent-teacher conference, he raises his arm high in the air, scratches his armpit, and then –then! — absently smells his fingers.

In retrospect, it was an excellent question, a question that I’ve asked myself from altar to present, both incessantly and occasionally. What am I doing here?

Don’t misunderstand: I would not, could not disparage my marriage (not on a train, not in the rain, not in a house, not with a mouse). After 192 months, Will and I remain if not happily married, then steadily so. Our marital state is Indiana, say, or Connecticut — some red areas, more blue. Less than bliss, better than disaster. We are arguably, to my wide-ish range of reference, Everycouple.

Nor is Will the Very Bad Man that I’ve made him out to be. Rather, like every other male I know, he is merely a Moderately Bad Man, the kind of man who will leave his longboat-sized shoes directly in the flow of our home’s traffic so that one day I’ll trip over them, break my neck, and die, after which he’ll walk home from the morgue, grief-stricken, take off his shoes with a heavy heart, and leave them in the center of the room until they kill the housekeeper. Everyman.

Still, beneath the thumpingly ordinary nature of our marriage — Everymarriage –runs the silent chyron of divorce. It’s the scarlet concept, the closely held contemplation of nearly every woman I know who has children who have been out of diapers for at least two years and a husband who won’t be in them for another 30. It’s the secret reverie of a demographic that freely discusses postpartum depression, eating disorders, and Ambien dependence (often all in the same sentence) with the plain candor of golden brown toast. In a let-it-all-hang-out culture, this is the given that stays tucked in.

Our mothers knew better than to ponder such questions, at least not out loud in front of God and the hairdresser. They deliberately waited to reach the last straw until their children were grown and the house was paid for. At 25, they were ladies with lady clothes and lady hairdos — bona fide adults, the astronauts’ wives. By 40, they were relics.

But we, we with our 21st-century access to youth captured in a gleaming Mason jar with a pinked square of gingham rubber-banded over the top, we are still visually tolerable if not downright irresistible when we’re 30 or 35 or 40. If you believe the fashion magazines — which I devoutly do — even 50- and 60-year-olds are (lick finger, touch to imaginary surface, make sizzle noise) pretty hot tickets.

We are also tickets with jobs and disposable income. If we jump ship now, we’re still attractive prospects who may have another shot at happiness. There’s just that tricky wicket of determining whether eternal comfort resides in the tried-and-true or whether the untried will be truer.

Our mothers, so old too young, believed that marriage was the best they could get. We, the children of mothers who settled (or were punished for not settling), wonder: Is this as good as it gets?

Our mothers feared being left alone. We crave time alone. Alone time is the new heroin.

Reasons and rationalizations abound and rebound. It doesn’t matter whether the infractions are big or small. At a certain point, we stop asking why and start asking how. How did it come to this? How much longer can I go on? When there are no hows left, the jig is up.

I recently stood by as a clothing designer, a mother in her 40s, announced to a group of women that she was divorcing her husband. The women’s faces flickered with curiosity, support, recognition, and — could it be? — yearning. Not a one of us suggested that she try harder to make it work. No voice murmured, “What a shame.”

Because it isn’t a shame. Divorce is no longer the shame that spits stain upon womanly merit. Conventional wisdom decrees that marriage takes work, but it doesn’t take work, it is work. It’s a job — intermittently fulfilling and annoying, with not enough vacation days. Divorce is a job too (with even fewer vacation days). It’s a matter of weighing your options.

To be sure, there will be throngs of angry women who will decry me for plunging a stake into the heart of holy matrimony. “My husband is my lifeline,” I’ve heard said (and that’s bad news for the aorta). “My husband and I never fight” is another marital chestnut — again, bad news (not to mention a big fat lie), since according to the experts, the strongest relationships are the ones in which people can continually agree to disagree. “My husband is my best friend,” others will aver.

No. Your husband is not your best friend. Your best friend is your best friend. If your husband were your best friend, what would that make your best friend — the dog? When a woman tells me that her husband is her best friend, what I hear is: I don’t really have any friends.

But if self-delusion is your particular poison, well, then that’s fine too. Just make sure that when you phone your life-order in, you say, “One self-delusion, please,” as opposed to “One perfect marriage.” Fantasy, as we all know, doesn’t deliver.

Because in the end, that’s basically what it’s all about: getting your order right. Our day comes down to choices — and it’s finally dawning on the long-term wives of the world that divorce may be the last-standing woman’s right to choose. We can admit that our marriages aren’t lambent, lyrical ice-dancing routines and still decide to push on together to the final flying sit spin. We also realize that divorce is an alternative that’s fully within reach, be it now or later or never. The more readily we acknowledge the solid utility of marriage (as one friend’s husband put it, “I’m essentially a checkbook and a sperm bank — but I’m okay with that!”), the more ably we can splinter the box of marital fantasy that makes us feel stuck, trapped, obliged. One eloquent swing of the ax and happiness is thrust firmly back into our own hands.

Maybe one day, marriage — like the human appendix, male nipples, or your pinky toes — will become a vestigial structure that will, in a millennium or two, be obsolete. Our great-great-great-grandchildren’s grandchildren will ask each other in passing, “Remember marriage? What was its function again? Was it that maladaptive organ that intermittently produced gastrointestinal antigens and sometimes got so inflamed that it painfully erupted?”

Yes. Yes it was.

Until that day of obsolescence, we can confront the dilemma and consider the choice a privilege. Once upon a time is the stuff of fairy tales. As for happily ever after — see appendix.

So, let’s see. Immediately after disparaging her marriage and humiliating her husband (if she’s dreaming of divorce, she’ll probably get her wish after this article), she claims that she would never, EVER disparage her marriage. And this is because her husband, like all men, naturally, is not a good person. He is a moderately bad person. Not evil, but surely not good.

Get that, guys? You all suck. None of you are good people. You may not be Hitler evil, but you definitely are bad.

And you old-fashioned women who stayed married your entire lives? She gets you. She understands, this Ellen chick, that none of those women actually loved their husbands and were happy in their marriage. She understands that they were all just settling for a life of married misery. They were all just afraid to be alone, and so they settled. They didn’t marry men they loved. They settled. How quaint. And you know, being married to the same man for your entire life is exactly the same thing as wearing the same eyeshadow every day. It’s that superficial.

Then there’s divorce. No one thinks twice about divorce anymore, not in this Ellen’s circle. It’s no big deal, and they’re all secretly wishing they could be divorced too, anyways. And saying that it’s a shame to be divorced? You’re just some throwback to the ancient time of the 1950s when people got married for life. And don’t you dare let yourself believe that your husband could possibly be your best friend, you deluded idiot. Your friends are your friends, and your husband is the asshole making your life miserable. Get it straight! Thankfully, marriage will be obsolete one day, or so this woman wishes.

Why is this such a great thing?

Because this woman is a miserable bitch, and she wants all other women to be just like her. If marriage doesn’t work for her, it can’t work for anybody. And that’s the way it is.

When it comes down to it, I don’t understand how these women stay married. I don’t get how they didn’t scare away every man who had the gall to so much as try to speak to them. I feel so bad for the poor men in her life: her husband, her sons (if she has any), her brothers, her father. How does one come about having such a negative view of all men?

Answer? It’s because she’s the problem. It isn’t her husband. It isn’t men and it isn’t marriage. Every time I read these articles, I see the same thing: a bitter, miserable woman who is filled with hate. And because she’s bitter, miserable, and hate-filled, she makes it her mission to bring everyone else down to her same level of misery. If she can’t be happy in marriage, no one can. And of course, the concept of a marriage actually requiring work and commitment is something that she eschews. Why? Because she’s wonderful and perfect and great, and her damn good-for-nothing inconsiderate husband is the one who needs work. Not her. Oh, no. To the writers of these kinds of articles, the problem is never them. It’s always men, and society, and marriage in general.

It’s good to know that Oprah and CNN want to promote this kind of crap. Hey, another “marriage is disposable” article! Guess what, people? If you aren’t 100% happy, 100% of the time, you know what you should do? Give up! Get rid of whatever is making you unhappy, pronto. Your goal in life is to do whatever makes you feel good. If it makes you feel good, do it. It doesn’t matter what the long-term repercussions are or how it affects the people in your life. If it makes you feel good, then that’s all that matters.

The sad thing is is that women like this Ellen character always portray themselves are strong and independent. But what is strong about what she — and other women like her — is advocating? Nothing. Sticking by your husband (and husbands, sticking by your wives) takes strength. It takes courage, and fortitude, and hard work, and of course, love. The unhappiness in Ellen’s life is unlikely due to her marriage. It’s because of her, but in today’s society the fault is never your own. There’s always someone to blame. It’s so much easier to constantly be fault-finding, to always be putting the blame on your spouse’s shoulders, rather than take a long look at yourself in the mirror. It’s so easy to trivialize marriage and to generalize all men as inconsiderate loafs. It’s so easy to expect your spouse to do all the giving and you all the taking. Is it any surprise that this woman’s group of friends were completely unresponsive to the divorce of one of their friends?

Keep in mind that this woman also had no qualms about using her husband’s name. Repeatedly. That alone should give you a frightening glimpse into her psyche. Much of her article speaks for itself, but I’m tired of women like this bitch speaking for the rest of us. And I’m tired of this viewpoint of marriage and men not only being seen as acceptable, but being marketed to millions of women around the world. It isn’t OK, and even if the majority of other women let harpies like these speak for them, I sure as hell won’t. And you know why not? It’s wrong. That entire article, like so many before them, is filled with nothing but hate and bitterness. And it smears men across the country and the world, and we should all be outraged about it.

If this woman wants to be a selfish and miserable hate-filled harpy, that’s her perogative. But for her to slander all men, and to trash all marriages (even good ones), is crossing the line. What’s worse is that O Magazine ran this article! Was there not an editor with any measure of sanity working for them? If she’s crazy, then she can be crazy. But expecting the rest of us to defer to her insanity is just ridiculous.

And for what it’s worth, it makes women look much worse than it does men. And I’m sure as hell not going to let her speak in my name.

On a tip from reader Kyle.

Written by

38 Comments
  • Mike43 says:

    When I was in the military, I saw the same thing. One of the ladies divorced, kept in contact with her friends, and the next thing we knew was another 5 divorced.

    When I look back at the people involved, I couldn’t believe it. Woman friends are dangerous to a marriage.

  • Mamba1-0 says:

    Thank you.
    Just out of curiosity, what ever happened to ladies who enjoyed and were proud of being ladies? Where did the wives who enjoyed being wives and were proud of their husbands go? Where did the mothers go who were proud of the child-rearing job they did and proud of the children they raised? I can remember when women were ladies and were not “subjects” or “property” of their husbands – but were their partners on a life-trip. Have the screaming shrew feminazis managed to beat all of that out of women? Are there any independent, strong women out there who haven’t been beaten down by their “liberated” “sisters”?

  • Instinct says:

    If I weren’t already very happily married (to a woman who IS my best friend)I would start chasing you like a cat chasing a feather toy

  • E. says:

    I liked the part about how women who claim their husband’s as their best friends “don’t really have a lot of friends.”

    Well gee, I sure wish I could have a passel of buds like this lady, ray of sunshine that she is, but I guess I’m stuck with the clever, funny, loving, emotionally stable guy I married.

    Pity me. He is my best friend. And he doesn’t bitch about me behind my back.

  • Rob Farrington says:

    My fiance is certainly my best friend and after my last marriage, I wouldn’t have started another romantic relationship under any other circumstances (we were friends first; I’d decided that I wasn’t ready for another relationship and didn’t know if I ever would be, but we became totally close very, very quickly).

    Yes, I occasionally do things like leave socks on the floor, but instead of complaining about it, she throws them at me in a playful way. And then there was the time when we tried to push each other into a fountain when we were in Charleston (I won…just!). In short, we love each other and even after being together for a while, we still know how to have fun.

    Yes, we have differences (we’re both conservative and love sci-fi, for instance, but I read horror novels whereas she enjoys Jane Austen).

    Stay close to each other emotionally, enjoy both the things you have in common with the other person, and the differences (I’ve agreed to read Jane Austen too, which will TOTALLY ruin my street cred *ahem*), and above all, DON’T continually judge the other person, and then disparage them before other people.

  • Emily Nelson says:

    I love my husband and I love being married. We’ve been married for seven years now. There are up days and down days but on the whole it’s great! I like my life better now than I ever did before.

    It’s definitely a two way street and requires a good deal of work but it keeps on getting better.

    It is despicable that the media perpetuate the myth of the shrewish, hate-filled virago as what women really are. Myrna Blyth wrote eloquently about this.

  • TomareUtsuZo says:

    Thank you, Miss Fiano. I enjoyed this one enough to share it with my baby sister who is getting married soon. She agrees with you.

    Now, if only I lived in Florida (or at least the South …)

  • Firehand says:

    And if this morons husband DARES to say anything about how HE feels about being described this way, trashed this way, it’ll just be one more proof that he’s not actually evil, but he IS ‘bad’. Because he’s causing her a problem. Hey, he’s supposed to have a sense of humor! He’s not supposed to mind being dumped on publicly.

  • Satanam in computatrum says:

    The real downside is that her husband will read this and probably not do anything – he’s got to be used to this attitude after 16 years. Doesn’t help that family courts guarantee him a raping if he does pursue divorce.

    Which shouldn’t deter him – this woman is the personification of the old comedian’s line, “You know why divorce is so expensive? Because it’s worth it!”

  • Jim says:

    Definitely one of your better posts. Shared it with the wife.

  • Max says:

    Ye gods. The woman who wrote this makes herself sound remarkably unlikeable. A stunning lack of insight. Is she actually looking to humiliate her husband into moving out, or just to humiliate him for sport and to follow the Religion of Oprah?

  • qwerty says:

    The fact that this letter was published in a magazine with wide female audience, is in itself an serious issue. No editor would dare publish this article, unless an appreciable amount of readers feel themselves in the position of the author.

  • slick says:

    #10 – you read my mind. The pathetic part is that the husband will probably do nothing about this. Any man with an ounce of dignity would immediately divorce this horrible woman. If he stays, then he deserves what he gets. He gets zero sympathy from me, because it’s not like this sick woman suddenly became a bitter c_nt. What bothers me isn’t so much that women like this exist, it’s that men will put up with so much in order to get laid once in a while. No thanks. Just not worth it. Also, from this point forward (recently divorced) one of the big red flags for any future relationship is the “gang of girlfriends”. When I read that in the online ads, I immediately go onto the next one. Choose: me -or- the gang of gals. I want a partner and best friend – not kept on the side, fulfilling a minor role in your life, to be used now and then. Bottom line: I’m sooooooooo tired of listening to whiny Western white women.

  • _Jon says:

    I want to point out that the author of the quoted article is ranting about her current man while she contemplates that it could be different with another man. She makes this comment:
    “If we jump ship now, we’re still attractive prospects who may have another shot at happiness.”
    I infer from this comment that she is thinking she can find another man after she divorces this one.
    Also, she mentioned that the “house is paid off”. That is a big clue that she thinks of her husband as an income source and that’s about it.
    As comedian Ron White once said (paraphrasing) ‘If you’ve been in a thousand relationships and they all suck, there is a common denominator – you!’

  • physics geek says:

    Thanks for writing about this, Cassy. Outside of my wife, and you and Rachel Lucas, I find this chick’s attitude far too common. Everything wrong in a relationship is obviously the man’s fault. After a string of failed boyfriends/husbands, you’d think that women like Ellen would finally realize the one commonality in all of those failures: her.

  • rjschwarz says:

    Looks like the soon to be divorced lady is really looking to nit-pick. I mean saying his comment “I didn’t know the apartment had a door” is a lie rather than an obviously unfunny joke just shows she’s grasping.

    Some women put the idea of the wedding and marriage on a pedestal so high that reality can’t help but fail to live up to the fantasy. I assume such people are destined to be remarried more than once searching for perfection. It’s sad they’ll leave a trail of heartbreak behind.

  • yo says:

    I didn’t read the article, but since you wrote it, I agree with everything you said.

  • I R A Darth Aggie says:

    And then you wonder why I’m not married?

  • Mark H says:

    This response deserves a far larger audience than the original article. Thank you for writing it!

  • Joe says:

    Here and at Rachel Lucas’s blog, people have suggested that Will (the husband) move out. I totally disagree. The best thing Will can do is write an article describing every little thing his wife does that drives him nuts including all the things she thinks are erotic, but aren’t. He should then exaggerate every behavior she hates until she leaves him. (Of course, in the meantime, he should restructure all his finances with a really good lawyer and then sue the shit out of her upon divorce.)

    On the other hand, he may be a complete weiner.

  • Loren says:

    A feminist whining about a relationship she’s in because it doesn’t meet her ideological purity standards. What a concept. And I do love that all the women who are complaining about their husbands are apparently free enough during the day that they can just sit around, have a tea and kvetch festival. Most women I know are working hard during the day, just like us guys.

    Btw Will should just sue for libel and divorce her. After all if he’s really that bad, then he shouldn’t be married to such a………..’pleasant’ woman.

  • This struck me as sad: ““I’m essentially a checkbook and a sperm bank — but I’m okay with that!””

    Wow…you’re really okay with that? What kind of a man are you?!? Never one I’d be attracted to for sure. I want a partner, not a checkbook. And thankfully that is what I have. A partner and a best friend. YES a best friend. Why wouldn’t I want my husband to be my best friend??? I spend the most time with him. I tell him all my thoughts (whether he likes it or not) and we share our lives with no secrets. Isn’t that what best friends are?

    I am so sick of all these man bashers. 🙁

    p.s. found you via Rachel Lucas. 🙂

  • Jason says:

    I really appreciate how this woman just insulted my mother. I guess that my mom must hate my brother and myself, and surely my father. Their 36 years of marriage must be a cover. This woman would probably also say that my mother’s conscious decision to stop working and stay home to raise her two boys was some attempt to have “alone time” away from her job responsibilities and husband, and not at all to help ensure that her sons would one day be a chef and third-year law student; my father helping make this decision by agreeing to take on more responsibility in the workplace and make more money must have been because he is a moderately bad guy, not because he understood the importance of his sons having a personal connection with their mother. No, no, mom surely hates all of us, and dad must be the devil incarnate. I guess that’s why both of my parents are my heroes, and have made the types of sacrifices in their lives so that my brother and I can be successful that I hope I can do one day for my own family.

    Of course, if this woman is right, I guess the idea of the family is probably a little outdated too… I’m glad that there are still some strong-willed ladies in this world who will stand up to this kind of bullshit. Thank you, Cassy!

    On a slightly related note: Cassy, will you marry me? 🙂

  • Stephen J. says:

    I disagreed with you a couple days ago about somebody bitching about teenage boys – but this, I’m with you 100% on.

    It’s one of the subtler and most dangerous manifestations of Pride – the devilish, mortally sinful kind – to assume that your personal experiences represent “the truth” of reality, and that everyone else’s experiences which happen to differ from yours or even outright contradict yours can be explained away as self-delusion.

    And you’re absolutely right, Cassy. The problem is that we have all fallen victim to a zeitgeist that insists we should be 100% happy, 100% of the time, and anything that interferes with that is something we have a perfect right to eliminate and that nobody else has any right to judge or criticize us for eliminating. Anybody who’s read Lewis’s essay “We Have No ‘Right To Happiness'” (God in the Dock) will recognize a lot of things here.

  • Kevin Donahoe says:

    As a Moderately Bad Man I can’t control myself I have to make the following comment: Ladies and gentlemen everywhere – Never, ever step in front of a car that is running and in Drive as Ellen did in her story. It doesn’t exonerate Mr. Ellen but even though she was empowered to cross in front of the car – would it have been so hard to cross behind it?

    If Mr. Ellen has been married to this harridan for so many years this article is probably no surprise. If he really wants to spotlight how small this woman is he should write an article explaining why he loves her and wants to be with her as their health fades.

  • KimWW says:

    Wow. This article really has me just flabberghasted. I really wish this woman were standing here next to me. I want to slap her across the face (not that I would.)
    So, she isn’t happy. I get that. I cannot see anything malicious in her husband’s behavior. He has a childish sense of humor and doesn’t pick up after himself. They don’t connect. Sure. It made me sad that she gets snappy when he says a chipper good morning to her before 10. (Plenty of wives wish their husband would be nice once in a while, no what the hour.)
    What makes me want to slap her is the assumption not only that other women are just like her but that if we do not feel the same way we are DELUDING OURSELVES! She has some balls on her, I must say! She has managed to insult just about everyone I love, and I never even met her. My husband is “moderately bad,” my parents settled for what they had to by society’s dictates, and I am delusional without any real friends,…Grrrr! HOW DARE SHE?!

    I am not a cursing sort, but … grrrrrr! The more I think about it the angrier I get.

    OK, I need to calm down. I am going to email my husband what I think of him, plan what I am going to cook for dinner, and how I am going to reward him afterwards for being so great he makes me crazy.

    It must be hard to understand that fairy tales are possible when you have locked yourself into a gosh-darned Greek tragedy.

  • Chris says:

    Cassy, I read your “Paging Men Everywhere: It’s Time to Man Up” article when it came out. I was tempted to comment and explain why some of us don’t bother. I didn’t because it seemed pointless. I thought it likely that until you could see why for yourself it couldn’t be explained to you.
    It appears Ellen Tien explained it better than I could have anyway. As Rachel Lewis put it, “‘Why don’t men want to commit/get married/settle down?’ Answer: because you hate them.”
    Now men might be able to take this as the hard knocks of life, but our one-sided legal system gives the Ellen Tiens of the world fearsome legal powers to destroy us on her word alone. And there isn’t a man in the world self-reliant or rugged enough to fight his way out of that.
    Cassy, women like you are a rare lot. And the Ellen Tiens are seemingly everywhere, and certainly in many of the marriages I’ve seen.
    Men can try to find the diamond in the dungheap, but the really is we won’t really know what we have for 10 or so years, which is 10 years too late.
    Anyway, your response to Tien is outstanding. Thanks for writing it.

  • Jourdan says:

    Cassy –

    I appreciate your good will here, but you are wrong. This woman is highly representative of modern American women. This is why an entertainer who makes her living by appealing to as many women as possible–and who is obviously very good at forming judgments as to what is likely to appeal to a good many women–feels perfectly comfortable in advancing this for her audience’s attention.

    She is not just some bitch ruining things for women or some stray malcontent. She is giving the majority view, the party line, the common view.

    Fortunately for the men of the generation behind me, they are beginning to see this and, so, not get married. I strongly advise, as both an attorney and a man, any man who reads this to never, ever get married.

    All you will get for your pains is financial ruin and mockery.

    Let the modern American bitch find something else to moan about.

  • Jay says:

    I just love the shear irrationality of this woman’s reasoning. She is unhappy with her marriage. Okay. Somehow she gets from there to concluding that all the other woman in the world today — no, all the other women who have ever lived — must also be unhappy about their marriages. And her evidence to back this up? Does she have statistics, quotes, even some anecdotes? No, quite the contrary.

    “In a let-it-all-hang-out culture, [divorce] is the given that stays tucked in.” That is, none of her friends actually talk about wanting divorces. But they all MUST want them, so this proves that they keep it secret for some reason!

    “Our mothers knew better than to ponder such questions, at least not out loud in front of God and the hairdresser.” Women of the previous generation said they wanted divorces much less often than this generation. That proves they were intimidated into silence!

    “When a woman tells me that her husband is her best friend, what I hear is: I don’t really have any friends.” Many women say that they are very happy about their marriages. Of course that is impossible, so these women must be lying or having delusions!

    Etc. Half the article (the quoted part above, anyway) consists of citing evidence that contradicts her thesis that all marriages are unhappy, and then dismissing it as impossible.

    It makes you wonder who it is who is really delusional.

    I come away from this article thinking, This woman is obviously insane, but the fact that she has to explain away so many happy marriages gives me hope for the present and future of marriage in America.

    Oh, by the way, her ramblings about there still being a chance of finding a better marriage despite the fact that she’s getting older: Lady, age is not your problem. I’ve met many pleasant, beautiful, and fun women in their 50s and 60s. I think the main problem you will face in finding another man is that you WROTE THIS ARTICLE. Hope that he doesn’t google your name before the first date.

  • Spoodles says:

    One almost tangential observation: The woman says “They were all just afraid to be alone, and so they settled.” I’m not settling, not at all. My husband is the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me. BUT yeah, I’m afraid to be alone. I worked in rest homes and nursing homes long enough to know what happens to people who grow old alone–especially the bitter ones who ended up that way on purpose. No matter how much money they accumulate because they didn’t have to pay for children to go to college, they are pitiful, unloved, and unprotected. They rely on the mercy of people who don’t even know them (and who actively avoid having to do too much dirty work) to feed, clothe, and medicate them. It’s no way to live, so yeah, I’m terrified of growing old alone, and I’m terrified for anyone who does. Getting and staying married does have its practical advantages, no matter how degrading this idiot may find the necessity to surround yourself with family. Those “friends” she’s so certain of having the love and devotion of are not going to be there berating the 20 year old janitor with an 85 IQ at the nursing home to clean the diarrhea from under the bed after you’ve overflown your depends. Your spouse and your children will. May God have mercy on this woman in her old age, because there is no way her husband and kids are going to be there by then.

  • Nmissi says:

    Why do women like this even get married?

    I’m divorced. It was the most horrible experience of my life, and certainly not one I’d ever be eager to inflict upon any of my friends. Whenever I have heard that someone is getting divorced, I do not look on them wistfully or with admiration. Instead, I flash back on the horror of my husband’s infidelity, the shame of telling people where he was, the pain of explaining to my sons why he was not here.

  • btenney says:

    Married Men get up and go to work everyday. More so than Singles. Why? Consider the alternative.

  • MarkyMark says:

    Cassy,

    This article is why I am NOT married! This article is why I have no intention of being married, either. If this is what I’m signing up for (and it is, since Oprah speaks for a majority of women), you can KEEP it! Meanwhile, I’ll keep my freedom, peace, sanity, and my life, thank you very much…

    MarkyMark

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Subscribe
Become a Victory Girl!

Are you interested in writing for Victory Girls? If you’d like to blog about politics and current events from a conservative POV, send us a writing sample here.
Ava Gardner
gisonboat
rovin_readhead