http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tracy-mcm ... 22088.htmlThis article came out last year and the woman who wrote it wasted no time writing a book filled with the same tripe. In addition to being insulting, shaming, and full of outdated ideas about what marriage should be built on, it's probably the worst advice I've read in a while. I can't believe there's a whole book of this.
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The deal is: most men just want to marry someone who is nice to them. I am the mother of a 13-year-old boy, which is like living with the single-cell protozoa version of a husband. Here's what my son wants out of life: macaroni and cheese, a video game, and Kim Kardashian. Have you ever seen Kim Kardashian angry? I didn't think so. You've seen Kim Kardashian smile, wiggle, and make a sex tape. Female anger terrifies men. I know it seems unfair that you have to work around a man's fear and insecurity in order to get married -- but actually, it's perfect, since working around a man's fear and insecurity is big part of what you'll be doing as a wife.
Because bottling up your anger to make sure your man feels like a masculine man is totally a great basis for marriage.
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When it comes to choosing a husband, only one thing really, truly matters: character. So it stands to reason that a man's character should be at the top of the list of things you are looking for, right? But if you're not married, I already know it isn't. Because if you were looking for a man of character, you would have found one by now. Men of character are, by definition, willing to commit.
Instead, you are looking for someone tall. Or rich. Or someone who knows what an Eames chair is. Unfortunately, this is not the thinking of a wife. This is the thinking of a teenaged girl. And men of character do not want to marry teenaged girls. Because teenage girls are never happy. And they never feel like cooking, either.
Or someone might not be married yet because, y'know, they ARE looking for a man of character. But that's not the big thing here, no, the big thing is those last two sentences there. "Teenaged girls are never happy" um, show me what kind of scientific research she's using to prove that. Sure, teenaged girls sometimes suffer from depression. But so do teenaged boys. And when I was a teenager, there were, in fact, occasions when I was happy. But about that last sentence "They never feel like cooking either." So the message here is men want happy wives that cook for them, so put on a smile and get in the kitchen.
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That's due in part to this thing called oxytocin -- a bonding hormone that is released when a woman a) nurses her baby and b) has an orgasm -- that will totally mess up your casual-sex game. It's why you can be f**k-buddying with some dude who isn't even all that great and the next thing you know, you're totally strung out on him. And you have no idea how it happened. Oxytocin, that's how it happened. And since nature can't discriminate between marriage material and Charlie Sheen, you're going to have to start being way more selective than you are right now.
I'm getting so tired of the oxytocin argument. It's the same bs used in arguments about female "need" to have children.
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If you're not married, chances are you think a lot about you. You think about your thighs, your outfits, your naso-labial folds. You think about your career, or if you don't have one, you think about doing yoga teacher training. Sometimes you think about how marrying a wealthy guy -- or at least a guy with a really, really good job -- would solve all your problems.
Howevs, a good wife, even a halfway decent one, does not spend most of her day thinking about herself. She has too much s**t to do, especially after having kids. This is why you see a lot of celebrity women getting husbands after they adopt. The kids put the woman on notice: Bitch, hello! It's not all about you anymore! After a year or two of thinking about someone other than herself, suddenly, Brad Pitt or Harrison Ford comes along and decides to significantly other her. Which is also to say -- if what you really want is a baby, go get you one. Your husband will be along shortly. Motherhood has a way of weeding out the lotharios.
I am personally insulted by this one. Because I happen to be someone who is going into yoga teacher training. I have been doing yoga for six years and I want to teach it. That is a perfectly legitimate career and I don't know what her issue with it is, but she could stand not to look down her nose at it.
Oh, and lets not forget her lovely more-than-suggestion that unmarried women should get pregnant to find a man.
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Alright, so that's the bad news. The good news is that I believe every woman who wants to can find a great partner. You're just going to need to get rid of the idea that marriage will make you happy. It won't. Once the initial high wears off, you'll just be you, except with twice as much laundry.
Because ultimately, marriage is not about getting something -- it's about giving it. Strangely, men understand this more than we do. Probably because for them marriage involves sacrificing their most treasured possession -- a free-agent penis -- and for us, it's the culmination of a princess fantasy so universal, it built Disneyland.
The bottom line is that marriage is just a long-term opportunity to practice loving someone even when they don't deserve it
Okay...so...marriage will make us unhappy, we will be doing everyone's laundry, (coupled with her heavy pushing toward the kitchen and having children to find a man) the sexism is palpable. Also, a man's biggest sacrifice is giving you his penis. Don't you feel special? You Disney Princess? *gag* I don't know about anyone else, but I'm sure as hell not going to marry someone who doesn't deserve it. For any reason. Sure, married couples argue from time to time. Par for the course of marriage. If I never expected to disagree with my husband at some point, then I wouldn't be ready to get married. But loving someone when they don't deserve it? That's a whole different ballpark. And she calls it the "opportunity" like it's a good thing. Like we should relish the idea of loving someone who doesn't deserve it.
This article came out last year, but someone put it on their facebook singing it's praises like it was the word of God. Gimme a break...