SMART SINGLE WOMEN DESPAIR OF EVER FINDING TRUE LOVE (Dear Abby, reference to Maureen Dowd)

www.uexpress.com ^ | December 22, 2005 | Abigail Van Buren

[Sonny M]

DEAR ABBY: Several of my friends and I were bemoaning our status as single women in our late 20s/early 30s, and discussing an article we had read in The New York Times about how smart women are less likely to get married. We'd all like to find Mr. Wonderful and be married. But if we have to curtail our professional success, financial wherewithal and IQ to do it, how can a person even begin to do such a thing?

I have a feeling you'll say to be ourselves and it will all work out, but thus far it has NOT worked out, and we're starting to worry. Personally, I think we'd be better off to take jobs as "administrators" in a large company somewhere and hope for the best.

Help, Abby! What's the answer for smart, fun women who have their acts together? How can we best poise ourselves to find true love while being true to ourselves? -- LOSING FAITH IN FINDING MR. RIGHT

DEAR LOSING FAITH: The truth is, there are no guarantees that ANYONE (male or female) will land a mate. It isn't easy these days because people are commitment-phobic. And this applies to individuals at all economic and educational levels, not just you at the top. Pairing off is often a matter of luck and timing -- being in the right place at the right time.

Eligible members of both sexes can be found in places of common interest -- places that are intellectually rewarding, culturally stimulating, athletically challenging or financially advantageous. As to whether you should downgrade your job level in order to appear less "threatening," I guarantee that if you don't take financial care of yourselves while you can, you will regret it later. To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, you could fool some of the bachelors some of the time, but you couldn't fool all of them all of the time.

There are worse things than not finding Prince Charming, and one of them is spending your life pretending to be something you're not. So my advice is to stop reading defeatist newspaper and magazine articles. They'll only make you desperate, clingy and depressed -- and none of those traits is attractive to either sex.

DEAR ABBY: My husband and I recently had a baby. We chose a mature, Christian couple to be our child's godparents. However, my brother-in-law is infuriated over the fact that he's not the godparent. He has disowned my husband and wants nothing to do with us. Behavior such as this in the past is part of the reason he wasn't chosen. However, I need to know this: Did we have an obligation to choose him as a godparent? How should we handle his immaturity and controlling behavior? -- NEEDS TO KNOW IN OHIO

DEAR NEEDS TO KNOW: A godparent can either be a relative or a close friend, and you were not obligated to choose one over the other. Your brother-in-law may be hurt that he wasn't chosen, but his subsequent behavior has been so childish that it's apparent you made the right decision. The way to handle his immature and controlling behavior is to forgive him for it, and go on with your lives.

CONFIDENTIAL TO EDWARD PHILLIPS IN MINNEAPOLIS: Happy Birthday, baby brother! I hope you're enjoying your special day.

[JenB]

20 years older? That's pretty ridiculous. 18 and 40 is just... not workable, in today's enviroment. I can't imagine marrying a guy 20 years older than me. It makes less of a difference later, like if the woman's 30 and the guy is 50.

[Drammach]

I wonder if the differences between generations these days are as deep as they're painted.

I would think you're right on that issue..
I think one could find many successful women in history that married older men while still young..

Their older, established husband was more indulgent, less jealous, and encouraged intellectual pursuits, especially where he could take part in her education.. ( interests in which he had knowledge..)
She was probably his 2nd marriage/wife..( prior to say, 1900, loss of one's spouse was most often due to disease or accident, not divorce..)

By the time the husband died, the wife was now mature, children grown, and had gained an education of sorts..
In some instances, she was often well off financially as well..
Such women tended to gravitate toward literature, art, and occasionally, business.
I seem to recall at least one woman in (16th?) century europe that bred horses and had extensive land holdings..

There may something to be said for May - December marriages..

[John O]

In all fairness, in their upper twenties and thirties, it's only fact that they've had to get jobs... unless they were to remain in their parent's home by the phone until they married. That they've had some promotion in their work is not in itself a bad thing. :~D None said they were necessarily devoted to careers over family, one even wondering if they should step down to admin assistant somewhere (I think that's what the article meant) until they found a mate, because they bought, for a moment, that maybe it was their corner offices that were the problem. It's not.... not for most men.

Let me rephrase as I seem to have been misunderstood. Having a job or being successful does not disqualify a woman from being a wife. Holding that job or success as being more important than her husband and children does.

See post 218. This guy hits it out of the park. Deep down, for most men, myself included, marriage is about family and children. As stated previously on the thread, a woman's success is a non-issue. It doesn't matter if she is company president or if she is unemployed as long as she recognizes that her first and most important job is as wife and mother.

The impression I got from the original letter is that these women held their careers as worth more than their potential husbands.

[RosieCotton]

I served in the military (in a support capacity, before anyone gets their undies in a bunch). Didn't meet any guys my age who were Catholic there either, oddly enough. There were officers, but those were kinda off limits. ;-) The younger guys tended to be non-denominational types who bashed Catholicism any chance they got. I did a lot of learning in order to hold my side in an argument, but that's as far as that went...

When I've dreamed of being a wife and mother since I was a kid, it's really frustrating to be told that essentially if you didn't marry young, you're either a selfish feminist or a nutcase.

And yeah, I'm taking all this too personally. It's kinda hard not to sometimes.

[John O]

Well stated. For those men who are upset that women would have a good job, I gotta wonder what they expect us to do until they come along - sit at home eating bon-bons?

aboslutely not. We want our wives to be fit and industrious. See Proverbs 31.

I'd gladly give up even my dream job for a family...but I gotta pay the bills until then. ;-)

Which is the perfect attitude. I've always seen a woman's main career to be her family. These "corporate career women" are just men without the right equipment. They seem to have lost the ability or willingness to be wives and mothers first.

[IronJack]

a fellatious indicator of liberal attitudes

Freudian slip?

[HairOfTheDog]

The impression I got from the original letter is that these women held their careers as worth more than their potential husbands.

All they have are their jobs right now. They don't have husbands to talk about... That's the problem. :~D

It doesn't matter if she is company president or if she is unemployed as long as she recognizes that her first and most important job is as wife and mother.

To a man who wants her to be a mother, yes. I bring this up only because the important thing is not that the role of husband and wife is the same for everyone, but rather that the man and woman both want the same kind of life, if they can get it, and each other, regardless.

[John O]

I'm one of the few guys who would prefer a wife who works (though since I have my own business, I'd rather she works with me as a partner).

I actually wouldn't mind if she worked until the children come. Unfortunately I have a 5 year old daughter and am recently widowered so the children are already here.

I've heard that farmers tend to have the most stable marriages as they work together as a team. That is the ideal situation. While I didn't have my own business my wife was my partner in everything we did. There's just no other way.

[Atlas Sneezed]

So...what you're saying is, those of us who didn't have the foresight to marry a guy old enough to be our father when we were 19, we missed the boat?

---

No, but you now know what you are up against. Women at a disadvantage like that need to consider how to avoid disadvantaging themselves even more.

[najida]

Darlin',

See what I posted about not reading the FR "Wimmen R'Evil" threads.

They'd depress June Cleaver!

[John O]

Conservative, marriage-minded men who want to support families and stay-at-home wives are at least as thin on the ground as conservative women who want to be good wives and mothers who put family before career.

BTW, I am one. (or will be around June or so.)

[RosieCotton]

Heh...I know, I know! But they're the bug zapper and I'm the moth...

[dsc]

"It's your words, and you're trying to pass them off as hers."

Do you see any quotation marks around those words? It clear that this is my interpretation of her meaning. And it is an accurate one.

"there are many here who will pounce on that weakness like a wolf on an injured calf and call her a man hating bitch."

I've been here for a long time, and have yet to see any such thing.

"And yet, when I read their posts, I see the same insecurities, the same uncertainties, the same faults."

That would be odd, considering the differences between men and women.

"This "us" against "them" attitude is the problem. And if it's wrong for one sex, it's certainly wrong for the other."

The war between the sexes is eternal. The problem today is feminist attitudes that make it impossible to achieve a modus vivendi. Besides, men today may be forgiven for such an attitude, as all too many have a number of personal Pearl Harbors in their past.

[Graymatter]

I agree, the President probably has a rather high IQ.
He's not a gifted orator, but hey, if I went around making speeches nobody would ever call me Graymatter. Speech is not on any IQ test I ever took, and I've had a bundle of them.

When you look at what the man has accomplished so far, it's pretty clear he's got more upstairs than the standard uptown former frat boy they paint him to be.

[paulat]

[najida]

Look,
Any thread that has
Marriage
Women
Single
Divorce
Unhappy
etc in the title,

Walk away from the thread and don't look back.

[HairOfTheDog]

Well, that was a post that said nothing.

[dsc]

"There were officers, but those were kinda off limits."

But they're not now, are they?

"it's really frustrating to be told that essentially if you didn't marry young, you're either a selfish feminist or a nutcase."

I haven't seen anybody saying that.

"And yeah, I'm taking all this too personally. It's kinda hard not to sometimes."

Sometimes it's important to try.

[Atlas Sneezed]

20 years older? That's pretty ridiculous. 18 and 40 is just... not workable, in today's environment. I can't imagine marrying a guy 20 years older than me. It makes less of a difference later, like if the woman's 30 and the guy is 50.

---

I think 10-20 is a good range, and it assumes that the young gal is mature enough to be thinking about her future. 22-38 can work, although Mrs. B and I were 26-34 when we married after several years of acquaintance-courtship (we met before she started college and after I had finished all schooling.)

But this doesn't work with gals who have been brainwashed into thinking "we are all equals." She must be willing to learn and be guided by a good man who is older and wiser, and work at being a good wife. By age 30 she will be smarter and stronger than all her friends who took the feminist path, and who are wondering what they have to compromise to find a worthy mate.

[Palladin]

Maybe you should switch to Mormon or Lutheran. Those men are the marrying kind!