Posted on 09/27/2006 8:58:33 AM PDT by .cnI redruM
It could have been a chapter right out of the late Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique. Actually, it was an article in Glamour magazine earlier this summer, written by Kristin Armstrong, ex-wife of cyclist Lance Armstrong. In a piece titled “What I wish I had known about marriage,” Armstrong expresses regret over having lost herself in marriage by forgetting about her own needs and trying to be the perfect wife and mother. She cautions other women not to do the same.
Oprah identified so much with Armstrong’s message that she devoted an entire hour to it on her program — with Armstrong at her side. Oprah admits that it’s because of a fear of losing her own identity that she never got married, and she wants to join Armstrong in warning women about “the greatest conspiracy in modern history”: marriage.
Having been through a painful divorce myself, I agree with Armstrong that there’s something terribly wrong with our marriage culture. There is a conspiracy of sorts — but it’s not the one Armstrong suggests. She is certainly right that people don’t know what to expect when they marry. And society does encourage newly engaged women to focus on their wedding day and honeymoon rather than on marriage itself. Where Armstrong’s article falls short, however, is in how she defines the conspiracy.
Armstrong concludes that older women who have “been there, done that” fail to warn younger women that marriage “has the potential to erode the very fiber of your identity.” They don’t tell newly engaged women that “if you aren’t careful, [marriage] can tempt you to become a ‘yes woman’ and lure you into a pattern of pleasing that will turn you into someone you hardly recognize.” No doubt her heart is in the right place, and she has at least recognized that something is amiss in modern marriage. Unfortunately, her revelation isn’t revelatory. Today’s wives are not losing their identities in droves. Friedan hit that nerve some forty years ago, and the drum has been beaten to death; it is a danger that women today are quite alert to.
The real conspiracy — though I don’t believe the neglect is sinister, and thus perhaps “conspiracy” isn’t the word — is the silence about how hard marriage is. Not only does being married involve sacrifice that is sometimes overwhelming; it is also not, as we are taught, about being in love. It’s much more about practicality and usefulness than we wish it were.
Armstrong is wise to point out that women spend far too much time planning elaborate weddings and honeymoons. But rather than offer women concrete advice for what they should really be focusing on, she simply warns them about not giving up too much of themselves. This isn’t enough — for many women, it’s not even relevant, since they may not be pleasers by nature, as Armstrong apparently is, or was. What women should be doing during their engagements, instead of planning big parties, is talking with their fiancés about money, children, religion, sex, work, and the expectations they have of one another with respect to the division of labor in the household. As for the mental preparation, the single most important thing to understand is that love is not enough.
What concerns me the most about Armstrong and Oprah’s message is that their response to the sacrifices of marriage appears to be either divorce or avoiding marriage altogether. Rather than trying to help people deal with the reality of married life, they spent the entire hour of the show focused on how easily women fall prey to an institution that seeks to hold them down. I just can’t see how this would resonate with most women today, since we’re not only encouraged to carve out lives of our own, but are supported in our desire to be self-involved.
Modern women understand that marriage involves making sacrifices; they just don’t want to make them. They have a keen awareness that, as wives, they’re supposed to take care of their own needs throughout the journey. And lest they forget, they have plenty of women’s magazines to remind them. What may indeed be revelatory for today’s women is that they’re not the only individuals who make sacrifices in marriage. Men do as well.
Trying to find the right balance between giving to others and giving to ourselves is a tough thing. Many men have dreams of their own that are either put on the back burner or completely forgotten because of their responsibility to provide for their families. Take my husband, for instance. He is a writer, just as I am. Yet he cannot pursue his passion, because it is not generally the type of work that supports a family. I do not have this same burden. As a wife and full-time mother of two, I am able to pursue a writing career precisely because of my husband’s sacrifices. It is his financial contribution from a job that is not his first choice that allows me to do what I want with my life. Why do sacrifices like his so often go unexamined?
We would do better as a society to discuss the sacrifices involved in marriage on the part of both men and women. I agree that women are more susceptible to losing themselves in marriage due to their inherently giving nature. To warn against this is fine. But to belabor this point does a disservice to young women. Men could complain if they wanted to, but they don’t. Perhaps there’s something we can learn from their silence.
Women like Armstrong — who have suffered a great deal because of their poor choices — tend to displace their resentment onto society. Armstrong chose to marry a world-class cyclist; she was destined for a life of sacrifice that the average woman doesn’t experience. She may also have been doomed to fail at marriage, since she never wanted the life she got in the first place. As she writes about her single days, “I treasured my self-sufficiency so much that I scoffed at women who gave up their jobs, stayed home to take care of children or relied on men for anything.” Perhaps this attitude toward marriage and motherhood created a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you have no respect for such a life, and then find yourself becoming the very person you never wished to be, it’s unlikely you’ll find happiness.
This doesn’t mean that marriage is the enemy; it means there’s something wrong with our view of it. The real answer for Armstrong and Oprah will not be found in exposing a bogus conspiracy; it will be found only in their own ideas and expectations.
This is the punch line, right ? Any woman who's been dumped for a trophy wife or because of a man's "mid life crisis" is now laughing hysterically.
Your husband's job is riding a bicycle.
When's Oprah gonna have on the two McGreevy ex's?
I was planning on writing that when I came across your comment.
About time we read about men giving it all up for their families, instead of the normal man-bashing we see/hear/read on the daily talk shows, mag covers, etc. This wife knows what her husband still sacrifices (not unlike the above), and I constantly push him to not give it up.
The author makes a lot of sense, here.
I know a lot of guys, but I don't know a single one with a "trophy wife". I know a heck of a lot of men who are faithfully married and supporting their families, however.
Maybe I just run in the wrong crowd. How common is this "trophy wife" phenomenon, outside the salons of New York and Los Angeles?
I often wonder why marriage has seemed so EASY for my wife and me, considering how everyone else seems to say it so hard. I think it has something to do with the fact that neither of us is materialistic or obsessed with our careers, and we genuinely like each other's company even when we are just cleaning the kitchen or discussing the day.
And of course there has never been a woman who dumped her husband because of a midlife crisis. The only bad marriages are the ones where the man is such an a**h*** right? according to you? /SAR
************
Oprah's funny, isn't she?
It sure would be sweet to abandon the wife and kids, give up this lousy job, and move to Tahiti.....
But what kind of man would that make me??? Not much of one.
Gee, I guess my wife was VERY careful.. oh well..
The real conspiracy — though I don’t believe the neglect is sinister, and thus perhaps “conspiracy” isn’t the word — is the silence about how hard marriage is. Not only does being married involve sacrifice that is sometimes overwhelming; it is also not, as we are taught, about being in love. It’s much more about practicality and usefulness than we wish it
BINGO! This is it! I think that one of the worst things we do to little girls is sell them solely on the romantic aspects of marriage. I think most women come into marriage with far too rosy a picture in their head. Men, on the other hand, seem to kind of understand, which is why they most often get cold feet.
Many men have dreams of their own that are either put on the back burner or completely forgotten because of their responsibility to provide for their families.
Reminds me of a joke, which I am going to butcher here probably, but here it goes.
A womans real wish is to find that ONE man to fulfill her MANY fantasies. A man's real wish is to find MANY women to fulfill his ONE fantasy..
When this happens, I can't help but ask why the woman married the kind of impulsive man who would be inclined to dump her on a whim in the future.
I was talking with an old friend yesterday and I asked about her sons (she has 4 grown sons, mid thirties to mid twenties). Three of them can't find a good woman. The women they meet are (a) sluts, (b) ball busters, (c) refuse to commit and sneer at the very thought of being a wife and mother.
One of her boys became a Christian and he's having a somewhat better time but not much (he lives in Portland, OR, maybe that's why).
I'm not saying that her sons are perfect; but they are generally well-behaved, responsible, working, talented, and not bad looking. If they just added belief in God they'd be happier personally and better husband material. I think they have belief in God to some degree.
In fact, my friend has been doing her yearly visit to her her various sons and while at one of them, a couple of women friends were on the computer. They found a list of recommended virtues and habits for wives from the 1950s - such as "have a good dinner ready for your husband when he comes home from work", "look nice when he comes home from work", "don't complain if he has to work late" etc. The women were sneering at such repressive ideas.
Feminism is ruining a third generation.
And your life is sharing the limelight, the attention and "greatness by association".
What better ingredients can there be for a successful marriage?
< /sarc >
Oprah's show on this was an hour long and belabored the point, because it validates Oprah's life choices. It's like "see, I (Oprah) made the right decision by having a career and no husband or children". IMHO, it seems that Oprah has a deep-seated distrust of men, marriage and commitment. Also, IMHO, Oprah doesn't really understand the meaning of sacrifice. Real love requires sacrifice.
Mrs. Armstrong married the wrong man, that's all. Lance Armstrong is obviously into himself and his pursuits.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.