BOOK REVIEW and OPINION BY MISSY : "MARRY HIM" BY LORI GOTTLIEB

LORI GOTTLIEB never thought about the MISTRESS ALTERNATIVE when she wrote "MARRY HIM."

This is one of those books about how to get married that tells women that the reason they have not gotten married is that they are not realistic about men and marriage; they have given into feminism, or are too idealistic about who they can attract, they let good ones with minor flaws get away, or they suffer from too high self esteem. Shiiiiit! Once again we women are to blame when things don't go right in a relationship. Once again we are the ones who need to change to suit someone else's sensibility - not the men.

"Marry Him," is hilarious in parts and easily to relate to, and yet, I think single-mother-on-purpose Lori needs to consider becoming a mistress. She has made it this far without a husband, has had a child via a sperm bank (very liberated!) so why does she need a husband now? (She can easily borrow someone else's husband and have him part of the time, which is all the time she has to spare!)

Giving up perfectly good men in the hopes of doing better, the author and many of the women who spoke to her, found themselves in their early 40's and not desirable on the marriage market as their easy fertility time passed.

Apparently, 40-something men who want their own genes propagated want much younger women. (But 40-something women are very much desired by older men, many who have had families and have had careers and have the energy for another relationship!)

Apparently, Lori and friends may have deluded themselves at some point that they were OK without (rather traditional) men and marriage so they just said no when they had a chance at marriage. Or did they really ever have a chance to marry? I read about these "too picky" women who regretted letting someone they lived with or were involved with years ago "get away," but can't recall even one of them saying, "we were engaged to be married," or "he asked me to marry him." In other words they were unrealistic that they were in marriage bound relationships in the first place. The men who got away married someone else. Surprise!

MISTRESSES are excellent at coming to terms with the imperfection of men and relationships. We stay with who and what we have and give up what feels like the never ending search for a husband as well. We are practiced at love as a result.

If coming to terms with what your declining value in the marriage market was all it took to be married, many of us would be married, if not to the man who we love now, to someone else. Instead this ability to come to terms with what we have as mistresses helps us stay in the relationship we are in, because we suspect or know that WE PROBABLY CANNOT DO BETTER. (And sometimes a mistress does marry when she can do better!) We are not suffering from the low self esteem always suspected of us but neither are we suffering from "too high" self esteem that keeps some women yelling "NEXT!" as they wave on these perfectly good men !

When it comes to being in a LONG TERM COMMITTED RELATIONSHIP, there are men who are very particular about what woman they marry and propagate their genes with. Realistically, many wealthy men will only marry women who also come from wealth. A mistress who starts out as a nobody with nothing can become a somebody with something and it often takes a lot of self discipline to do so! Still, she may never be totally accepted in a wealthy man's social sphere because she was not born into it. Face it! Even outstanding beauty cannot make up for being born poor in some social spheres.

One of the ways of being realistic is to face ourselves, to come to terms with our looks, our bodies, our intelligence, talents, skills, but also our background and opportunities. Many of us are able to have a better man in our lives by being a mistress than if we marry. Many of us have outgrown the men who we were perhaps destined to marry; our neighborhood boys!

It is too easy to imagine that we can really go back there - into a box - when we have been thinking outside it. It is too easy to imagine (because we do not know that letting someone who was not for us in their time has resulted in our singleness or our mistresshood) that our life would be so much better if we had been willing to marry the boy next door who was perhaps our destiny, if we had not educated ourselves or sought careers, if we had not left home or had not moved hundreds of miles away independently. If if if...

Many mistresses don't just imagine it, they know that they are better off as mistresses than as wives, or that the opportunities this life style presents them are far greater than the life they would have had if they "settled." This is our compromise. Mistresses are also successful because they know that they must endeavor to have a life of their own, not totally dependent on a man. We cannot get lazy the way some wives get.

Personally, I think it is better to be devoted to one good man (does hearing that a man can keep a mistress and still be a good man startle you?) for years than it is to have platonic "fuck buddies," or endure several relationships that never even became mutually supportive!

Women who have married busy executives and entrepreneurs, who found themselves alone a lot, might be able to relate; It is never fun to wait around hoping for phone calls, visits, invitations, married or not, and I believe because mistresses are more realistic, they are those who do not wait, but get busy!

Missy


C Missy Rapport/Mistress Manifesto 2010 All Rights including International and Internet Rights Reserved.

MARRY HIM The Case For Settling for Mr. Good Enough is by Lori Gottlieb C 2010 and published by Dutton Books