Posted on 03/30/2005 8:13:49 PM PST by paulat
Apparently it has.
I could sit in the room and gloat over my wonderful marriage.
Instead, I will write about it and publish it in the very paper that all my Mommy and Me friends read. That's better than mere gloating any day. Ha!
I could think about how our sex life - always vital, even torrid - is more exciting and imaginative now than it was when we first met. I could check my watch to see if I have time to stop at Good Vibrations to see if they have any exciting new toys.
Sex toys, now that's imaginative. If you need battery-operated orgasm aids, and it seems like you've run through a few of them, well...
This is what happened to me. My first marriage died because of it.
She is right that a good marriage is a good example for the children, but she's hardly the first to experience that blinding flash of the obvious.
I had two sets of grandparents that reached their 50th wedding anniversaries (one pair made it to their 60th). My mom and dad are going to celebrate their 50th in three years. I didn't need Ayelet to hand me the key to a lasting marriage. :D
Wrong attitude.
Ulysses is right.
"beloved wife?"
soulmate?
mate for life?
You don't know what you are talking about.
I guess I don't read the article the same way a lot of critics of this woman on this thread do.
Let me tell ya about "Mommy and me" and a neighborhood female kid worshiping culture that does exactly what the author of this article says it does.
Bunch women complaining about their husbands and taking offense that he's a healthy male.
I've seen it.
I have a book I read to my kids called "I Love You the Purplest". It's about a couple of boys who ask their mother which one she loves the best. Her answer is that she loves one child the purplest and the other child the bluest -- the point being that she loves each of them equally but differently.
I think the same thing applies to the love for my children vs. the love for my husband. Both are infinitely precious to me, but in completely different ways. I think that is as it should be.
I don't know anything about the author or her motivations in writing this piece - she may be just as cajungirl has described her. But as a general rule, any woman who doesn't put her husband ahead of her children (and vice versa) is 99% guaranteed to end up divorced and bitter at forty.
Florence King wrote a great column in National Review about ten years ago on this subject of "child worship" and how it has taken over in America and poisoned many formerly loving relationships. She had the dialogue of the offenders down pat too: "I'd do anything for those kids, you hear me? Anything!" The kids are going to move away and do all sorts of things you don't approve of - if you are too invested in them, that will crush you. My own mother was like this, and never recovered psychologically when my brother moved to England to attend graduate school, at the age of 26.
Trying to smother and live every second of their childrens' lives for them (which seems to be the norm in Soccer Mom-land these days) leads to intense resentment - happy parents who stay a little more interested in building their own lives together than they are in orchestrating their childrens' every move will produce well-adjusted adults in the long run. I think a hundred years ago this principle was common knowledge, but in this as in so many other social norms America has gotten way off track.
I've seen it too, though admittedly from a childless perspective.
I think most people "put their children first", especially women with very young children (that's instinct), but then there's a type who becomes a martyr to her children even when it isn't necessary.
Freezing out the husband makes it possible to tell themselves "I gave up EVERYTHING for my children" and that strokes their ego.
Same way gloating about her sex life and her great husband strokes the author's ego. Sorry, she does come off as a know-it-all even if I agree with her for the most part.
And, remembering that pride goeth before a fall, I'd be wary about making my personal bliss so damned public. They could be in bed five times a day and he could STILL leave her for another woman; wonder what she'd write about then?
You have to read the spoof of this, in the link in #89; it's a hoot.
That's what I was trying to say, but she said it better. Guess that's why Florence King gets paid for her writing, and I don't. :D
Thank you for the informational post, but I am a man. ;^)
I think this is an oversimplification of "love". Her attachment to him is the very best thing for them. All children will bask in the warmth of their parent's mutual true love. No child ever suffers for it. I think this woman has the proper states of affection for her family. She's a very very good mother and wife.
Dead on.
I agree...she is SO MUCH better than the rest of us....
I don't know about that.
It's pretty clear to me however from reading this article that she is currently missing her 12 step meetings.
Ulysses, I am definitely with you. My wife and I understand that our boys get a great sense of stability and confidence from seeing that my wife and I are first in each others eyes, as God is first even before us.
I agree. It's not that you love your spouse "more" so much as "differently" as I see it. If a woman fails her husband while raising kids, that INCREASES the chance for marital strife and divorce later. A healthy relationship (that includes but is not limited to a satisying sex life) is more beneficial to the kids than ignoring Dad while taking care of them.
Disclaimer: Currently I'm unmarried and childless.
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