Posted on 06/28/2009 2:36:20 PM PDT by dr_who
"The author is ending her marriage. Isn’t it time you did the same?” So The Atlantic provocatively introduces its July/August feature “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off.” It comes at a propitious moment. This seems to be the week for TMI — too much information. South Carolina governor Mark Sanford has told more, much more, than we needed to know about his mistress (how he met her, how their relationship ripened), his views on God’s laws, on the Appalachian Trail, and on forgiveness.
Why must wayward American public figures stage these auto autos-da-fé — these self-immolations on TV? Dignity, which arises from a proper sense of keeping private matters private, is a lost aspiration, apparently — along with so many other virtues, like dignity’s companion restraint. Yes, Sanford needed to apologize to the citizens of South Carolina for going AWOL. But as for the messy private details, a simple written statement that he was having marital issues would have sufficed. At least Mrs. Sanford showed some sound judgment by declining to pose next to her straying spouse as he fielded queries about his extramarital activities. But even her statement — and it goes without saying that she finds herself in this situation unwillingly — strayed into TMI. She told the world under what circumstances she would consider repairing their union: “I remain willing to forgive Mark completely for his indiscretions and to welcome him back, in time, if he continues to work toward reconciliation with a true spirit of humility and repentance.” That’s the sort of thing that should be communicated to one person only.
The Atlantic’s Sandra Tsing Loh — not content to cheat on her husband and file for divorce — compounded the betrayal by writing about it in cringe-inducing detail. Her account begins in the office of the couple’s marriage therapist, where Loh recounts the moment she decided she couldn’t “work” on her marriage despite having two young sons. “We cried, we rent our hair, we bewailed the fate of our children. And yet at the end of the day . . . I would not be able to replace the romantic memory of my fellow transgressor with the more suitable image of my husband, which is what it would take in modern-therapy terms to knit our family’s domestic construct back together.” Does the whole world need to know that? Do her children? Her children’s classmates?
But because Ms. Loh is a journalist, she cannot resist the urge to, in George Will’s term, “commit sociology.” Since her own divorce, she’s begun a “journey of reading, thinking, and listening to what’s going on in other 21st-century American families. And along the way, I’ve begun to wonder, what with all the abject and swallowed misery: Why do we still insist on marriage?” This, bear in mind, comes from the magazine that boldly declared “Dan Quayle Was Right” on its April 1993 cover.
Loh’s form of sociology is a sloppy one — a few quotes from pop psychology texts, a few examples from among her friends and acquaintances — and she is ready to declare that marriage itself is the problem. “To work, to parent, to housekeep, to be the ones who schedule ‘date night,’ only to be reprimanded in the home by male kitchen b———, and then, in the bedroom, to be ignored — it’s a bum deal.” How far we have come, sisters, from The Feminine Mystique, when Betty Freidan cried under the lash of domesticity. Today’s woman is apparently miserable because her husband is too much of a culinary perfectionist and too inadequate a lover. Maybe. But that’s one problem with playing a sociologist in magazines. It’s all impressions, not data.
Loh’s solutions range from the casually immoral (wives should take lovers without leaving the marriage) to the tribal “Let children between the ages of 1 and 5 be raised in a household of mothers and their female kin. Let the men/husbands/boyfriends come in once or twice a week to build shelves, prepare that bouillabaisse, or provide sex.”
There are no solutions to the problems Loh identifies. People will become dissatisfied with their spouses, and they will behave selfishly. But as countless real social scientists have shown — W. Bradford Wilcox, Sarah McLanahan, Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, and David Blankenhorn spring to mind — marriage remains the most secure arrangement in which to raise healthy children. It also conduces to adult happiness more than any other arrangement.
Ironically, for all her fulminating, Loh hints at the end of her piece that her own selfish quest ended unhappily. “Avoid marriage — or you too may suffer the emotional pain, the humiliation, and the logistical difficulty, not to mention the expense, of breaking up a long-term union at midlife for something as demonstrably fleeting as love.”
How about another solution that is only about 3,000 years old? How about avoiding adultery?
— Mona Charen is a nationally syndicated columnist. © 2009 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
One should not marry unless you are truly willing to make well-being of another person more important than your own happiness. One should not have children unless you are truly willing to make the well-being of your children more important than your own happiness.
...either that, or she has a screwed-up idea about what love is, going by her “modest proposal”.
Want a few nails to go with your cross?
I would disagree
One should not marry until one is prepared
to treat their partner's needs, hopes, and aspirations
As just as important as one's own
I suspect that, long term,
it is impossible to Love someone else more than One's Self
Love of others requires first Self Love
Love of Self can't be sustained without Loving Others
And none of this can be sustained without Loving God
or without He's Love for us
I dunno. Perhaps it’s an ideal that is not universally true, but happily married people often can’t be happy unless they’re assured of the well-being of their spouse/children. Might be some moments where everyone involved is at cross-purposes, but that’s regarded as the inevitable rough patch that is resolved either through the passage of time or axe murders.
Why, do you have your hammer ready? :)
Life is tedious by necessity, very true. Young adults at least wish not only for carnivals, but also coronations and fancy dress balls. Feed the ego.
Absolutely. And they lack the maturity to find out what real happiness is.
In my humble and limited experience...
Happiness is not something that is found or achieved,
It is a thing that finds one, while one is doing what needs to be done.
Happiness when pursued, will invariably deteriorate into thrill and obsessions
and from that, regret and emptiness.
It is better to drop the subject, and to live in Service, Honor, and Duty.
Happiness will come back to you, in time
I’ve been married 39 years. There have been happy times and frustrating times. The happy times are the time spent with the one who knows me better than anyone else ever has. Well, except God. :-)
In other words, she cheated on her husband and enjoyed it, so screw the kids and toss the marriage in the trash, time to move on the the next thrilling episode in the soap opera of her life. "Modern therapy" would have it no other way. Yes, she's a liberal all right.
The Wall Street Journal should hire Mona Charen to replace Peggy Noonan.
I’ll second that.
later reading...
Yeah, lololol, that's why hippy communes are alive and thriving and worked sooooo well. Right. I can't stop laughing.
She'll try this and inside 6 months she'll be writing to us more of the tortured details of her life. Jealousy when her kids prefer one of the other moms or one of the housemen rebuffs her affections. Tired of them leaving the cooking for her. She'll be writing that her commune way of life “To work, to parent, to housekeep, to be the ones who schedule ‘date night,’ only to be reprimanded in the home by (fe)male kitchen b———, and then, in the bedroom, to be ignored — it’s a bum deal.” She'll pack up her confused children and be on to the next social experiment. Not marriage, she's off that.
The new shame is having any shame for things that were once shameful.
Like adultery, cheating, lying. Yep, it's all the rage.
One, two, three uh!
My baby don't mess around
Because she loves me so
And this I know fo' sho'
But does she really wanna
But can't stand to see me
Walk out the do'
Don't try to fight the feelin'
Because the thought alone
is killing me right now
Thank God for mom and dad
For sticking two together
'Cause we don't know how
Hey ya [8X]
You think you've got it
Oh, you think you've got it
But got it just don't get it
When there's nothing at all
We get together
Oh, we get together
But seperate's always better
when there's feelings involved
If what they say is "Nothing is forever"
Then what makes, Then what makes, Then what makes
Then what makes, what makes, what makes, love the exception?
So why oh, why oh
Why oh, why oh, are we so in denial
When we know we not happy here?
Y'all don't wanna hear me you just wanna dance
Hey ya [3X]
Don't want to meet your daddy,
Hey ya
Just want you in my Caddy
Hey ya
Don't want to meet yo' mama
Hey ya
Just wan't to make you cumma
Hey ya
Oh I'm...
Hey ya
I'm just being honest, I'm just being honest
Hey, alright now
Alright now fellas
Yeah!
Now what's cooler than bein' cool?
Ice cold!
I can't hear ya'
I say what's cooler than bein' cool?
Ice cold!
Alright [15X]
Ok now ladies
Yeah!
And we gon' break this thing down in just a few seconds
Now don't have me break this thang down for nothin'
Now I wanna see y'all on your baddest behavior
Lend me some suga', I am your neighbor
Ah here we go!
Shake it, shake, shake it[3X]
Shake it, shake it, shake, shake it
Shake it like a Polaroid Picture,
Shake it, shake, shake it[2X]
Shake it, shake it, shake, shake it
Shake it like a Polaroid Picture
Now all Beyonce's and Lucy Lui-s
And baby dolls, get on the floor
You know what to do
You know I do
Hey Ya [8X+]
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