Marry Him: The Case For Settling For Mr. Good Enough (2010) - Plot & Excerpts
This book in the wrong hands would be horrible. While it offers perspective about realistic expectations for a potential husband, it also encourages settling for a man you aren't interested in merely because he isn't absolutely horrible for you. Putting aside the smaller things we tend to completely rule out men for is a good idea. But this book insinuates that if he doesn't beat you, demean you, or make you miserable the MAJORITY of the time, then you should marry him cause that's really all you should look for. In the right perspective, this book helps lower the unmeetable standards some women have about their future husbands. In the wrong perspective, this book lowers standards of women who already have low standards encouraging them to tie down any man willing to marry them cause according to this book "every day the potential pool of husbands gets smaller." A therapist friend actually suggested I read this. I did, to the bitter end. Though it wasn't particularly bitter. More like resigned.The book is an interesting analog to the Atlantic piece that came out this same year, 2010, from a woman who had achieved everything. She turned around her guidance to young women, saying that no, you can't be at the top of your professional field and a perfect mother and wife at the same time.What I liked about the Atlantic piece was that the writer didn't put herself out there as someone whose standards the world needed to meet. She wrote from the perspective of exhaustion and unhappiness. Chasing and achieving everything she once thought she needed to have hadn't panned out for her. And more importantly, hadn't panned out for her family. Lori Gottlieb writes from the perspective of someone whom the world has passed by. But not because she had her nose to the grindstone the whole time, like other writer. Gottlieb had her nose thrust up to the clouds the whole time.I have sympathy for Gottlieb. Really I do. But this book reads like a really long magazine piece. Which it is, essentially: that's what Gottlieb does for a living, and appears to do really well. She's been published all over the place. But hers isn't a story of transformation or discovery of something new that added to her perspective. Gottlieb's book is a lot more reporting than it is learning. At the end she's resigned to her mistakes and what they've cost her. But that's it. She presents herself as a cautionary tale and that's about it. Not super useful.
What do You think about Marry Him: The Case For Settling For Mr. Good Enough (2010)?
I read this book a few years ago, but was reminded of it today. It's both encouraging and sobering.
—Wispiwill
gave examples of excuses women used to turn down men in their 20s, and then their 30s.
—Panchie
Interesting, too long, but made the point without, I thought, being misogynist.
—accioval
