Should wives dump their husbands or vice-versa?
Marriage is a sacred institution. Before contemplating marriage, ask the Lord for a God-fearing, loving person; and you would not be wrong as to the choice of a lifelong partner, to see you through joys, triumphs, failures, miseries, in richer and for poorer.
Tbe marriage has to worked out by both partners, not single-handedly by either of the spouse. Separation or divorce should be allowed if a spouse is unfaithful, and they cannot remarry. (Mat 5:31)
More Wives Should Dump Their Husbands
Delia Lloyd
Contributor, Politics Daily
I've been thinking a lot about marriage lately. Or, more precisely: unhappy marriages. And I'm beginning to wonder if it isn't time for more women to -- as we say in politics -- "throw the bums out."
I got to thinking about this after my colleague, Melinda Henneberger, wrote a post last weekend about one of those marriages about which we know just a bit too much: Silda and Elliot Spitzer's. You may recall Spitzer as the former governor of New York who stepped down when it was revealed that he'd been patronizing a prostitution service. And you will certainly recall his wife, Silda, who stood next to him as he resigned in what has to go down in history as one of the most painful "stand by your man" performances of all time.
!
What Melinda zeroes in on is a quote attributed to Silda Spitzer in Peter Elkind's new book, "Rough Justice: The Rise and Fall of Elliot Spitzer." Referring to her husband's penchant for hookers, Mrs. Spitzer says: "The wife is supposed to take care of the sex. This is my failing. I wasn't adequate."
Take a moment to cringe. Please.
And when you're done, do some reflection. Because we all know plenty of Sildas, don't we, ladies? Strong, confident, loving female friends who dissolve into a pool of self-doubt and self-loathing when their husbands stray or simply fail to live up to their expectations.
There's my friend Sally, who kept wondering over and over whether -- if she'd just done one or two things differently -- her own errant husband might still be with her. Or my friend Jane, who acknowledged -- after her husband's affair -- that even though he'd wounded her deeply with his betrayal, "It's the best I'll ever do. I mean, look at me. I'm a middle-aged woman with four kids. Who's going to want me now?" Or my friend Sarah, whose marriage -- even without infidelity -- had gotten to the point where she couldn't stand for her husband to even touch her. But, as she confided to me once over a couple of drinks, "I just don't want to be that woman," by which she meant a divorced female. ("Just hold your nose and have sex with him," one friend advised.)
I'm not saying that all infidelities should end in divorce. Sh$! happens. People make mistakes. Monogamy is unnatural.
Nor am I saying, pace Sandra Tsing Loh, that marriage is just too hard. Or not worth the effort. I've been married for nearly 12 years and my husband and I work incredibly hard to keep it not just going, but happy.
I'm just saying that in my (sadly) quite extensive experience with all of these issues among my family and close friends, I find that many women, like Silda, take too much responsibility both for their failed marriages/infidelities etc. as well as for putting their marriages back together.
I think many of us look at the Silda Spitzers of the world and wish that they were more confident in their identities as women. Then they might measure their self-worth with something other than the staying power of their marriage. Or at least not take the blame for their husbands' shenanigans -- as Melinda said in her piece, when she suggested only half jokingly that she'd love to set Mrs. Spitzer up with someone else to give her a much needed boost of self-esteem.
Recovering her self-hood wouldn't hinge solely on finding someone else, of course. It would have to do with constructing a new narrative about herself that wasn't tied to this (failed) marriage. And that's really hard to do, especially when we all invest so much culturally in the institution of marriage.
Which is why I was so delighted to happen upon this essay in the New York Times' Modern Love column this past weekend by Katie Brandi. It's written by a woman who went into marriage thinking it could complete her. After a few years, she discovered that it didn't and that her best possibility for personal growth would actually come from divorce (even though she came to that conclusion when she was eight months pregnant.)
Hers is -- on the one hand -- a profoundly sad story, because it captures quite accurately how many women look to marriage as the final frontier (and then, once they realize that it isn't, stick with it anyway, even when it's far from adequate). But Brandi's essay is also a hopeful tale in that it reminds us that there are women who manage to rise out of that failure and reconstruct an identity for themselves. And then they move on, whether to someone else or to a new formulation of marriage that isn't about just muddling through and thinking "OK, this is far from great, but it's the best I'll ever do."
So I guess at the end of the day I really must disagree with Lori Gottlieb, who's recently made a name for herself with her new book, "Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough." Women shouldn't settle for mediocrity in their mates to avoid the perils of online dating in their 40s. Or cling to their husbands and/or blame themselves (affairs or not) when things go wrong. They need to assume some agency, even if that may sometimes end in divorce.
Which is why I'm so grateful to Ms. Brandi, although I don't know her. She reminds us that feminism really is about choice. And above all, about happiness.
Follow Delia on Twitter.
Marriage is a sacred institution. Before contemplating marriage, ask the Lord for a God-fearing, loving person; and you would not be wrong as to the choice of a lifelong partner, to see you through joys, triumphs, failures, miseries, in richer and for poorer.
Tbe marriage has to worked out by both partners, not single-handedly by either of the spouse. Separation or divorce should be allowed if a spouse is unfaithful, and they cannot remarry. (Mat 5:31)
More Wives Should Dump Their Husbands
Delia Lloyd
Contributor, Politics Daily
I've been thinking a lot about marriage lately. Or, more precisely: unhappy marriages. And I'm beginning to wonder if it isn't time for more women to -- as we say in politics -- "throw the bums out."
I got to thinking about this after my colleague, Melinda Henneberger, wrote a post last weekend about one of those marriages about which we know just a bit too much: Silda and Elliot Spitzer's. You may recall Spitzer as the former governor of New York who stepped down when it was revealed that he'd been patronizing a prostitution service. And you will certainly recall his wife, Silda, who stood next to him as he resigned in what has to go down in history as one of the most painful "stand by your man" performances of all time.
!
What Melinda zeroes in on is a quote attributed to Silda Spitzer in Peter Elkind's new book, "Rough Justice: The Rise and Fall of Elliot Spitzer." Referring to her husband's penchant for hookers, Mrs. Spitzer says: "The wife is supposed to take care of the sex. This is my failing. I wasn't adequate."
Take a moment to cringe. Please.
And when you're done, do some reflection. Because we all know plenty of Sildas, don't we, ladies? Strong, confident, loving female friends who dissolve into a pool of self-doubt and self-loathing when their husbands stray or simply fail to live up to their expectations.
There's my friend Sally, who kept wondering over and over whether -- if she'd just done one or two things differently -- her own errant husband might still be with her. Or my friend Jane, who acknowledged -- after her husband's affair -- that even though he'd wounded her deeply with his betrayal, "It's the best I'll ever do. I mean, look at me. I'm a middle-aged woman with four kids. Who's going to want me now?" Or my friend Sarah, whose marriage -- even without infidelity -- had gotten to the point where she couldn't stand for her husband to even touch her. But, as she confided to me once over a couple of drinks, "I just don't want to be that woman," by which she meant a divorced female. ("Just hold your nose and have sex with him," one friend advised.)
I'm not saying that all infidelities should end in divorce. Sh$! happens. People make mistakes. Monogamy is unnatural.
Nor am I saying, pace Sandra Tsing Loh, that marriage is just too hard. Or not worth the effort. I've been married for nearly 12 years and my husband and I work incredibly hard to keep it not just going, but happy.
I'm just saying that in my (sadly) quite extensive experience with all of these issues among my family and close friends, I find that many women, like Silda, take too much responsibility both for their failed marriages/infidelities etc. as well as for putting their marriages back together.
I think many of us look at the Silda Spitzers of the world and wish that they were more confident in their identities as women. Then they might measure their self-worth with something other than the staying power of their marriage. Or at least not take the blame for their husbands' shenanigans -- as Melinda said in her piece, when she suggested only half jokingly that she'd love to set Mrs. Spitzer up with someone else to give her a much needed boost of self-esteem.
Recovering her self-hood wouldn't hinge solely on finding someone else, of course. It would have to do with constructing a new narrative about herself that wasn't tied to this (failed) marriage. And that's really hard to do, especially when we all invest so much culturally in the institution of marriage.
Which is why I was so delighted to happen upon this essay in the New York Times' Modern Love column this past weekend by Katie Brandi. It's written by a woman who went into marriage thinking it could complete her. After a few years, she discovered that it didn't and that her best possibility for personal growth would actually come from divorce (even though she came to that conclusion when she was eight months pregnant.)
Hers is -- on the one hand -- a profoundly sad story, because it captures quite accurately how many women look to marriage as the final frontier (and then, once they realize that it isn't, stick with it anyway, even when it's far from adequate). But Brandi's essay is also a hopeful tale in that it reminds us that there are women who manage to rise out of that failure and reconstruct an identity for themselves. And then they move on, whether to someone else or to a new formulation of marriage that isn't about just muddling through and thinking "OK, this is far from great, but it's the best I'll ever do."
So I guess at the end of the day I really must disagree with Lori Gottlieb, who's recently made a name for herself with her new book, "Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough." Women shouldn't settle for mediocrity in their mates to avoid the perils of online dating in their 40s. Or cling to their husbands and/or blame themselves (affairs or not) when things go wrong. They need to assume some agency, even if that may sometimes end in divorce.
Which is why I'm so grateful to Ms. Brandi, although I don't know her. She reminds us that feminism really is about choice. And above all, about happiness.
Follow Delia on Twitter.
