I'm talking to you, 30-something woman who has been dating the same guy for a couple of years (or more)... who is anxious that her partner doesn't seem as eager as she is but is afraid to deliver an ultimatum for fear the answer will be "OK, bye."...
It's time to let go.... If you're in your 30s, both of you already pretty much know who you are. And after a couple of years, you also know whether this is someone you want to spend your life with. You're not going to get any new information by sticking around -- except "My God, I wasted five years on this man."
As you may guess from the prior paragraph, I speak from personal experience. I invested almost four years in an almost-great relationship that ended with me, shattered and tear-stained, deciding to pick up and move to Washington....
A sunk cost is, well, like a sunken ship: It's gone, and you cannot retrieve it, or you can only retrieve it at immense expense. The correct and rational way to deal with a sunk cost is to ignore it -- to make decisions without thinking about the money or time you've already invested....
I know, he's great, he's exactly what you wanted in a husband, breaking up a household and friend networks and the whole tidy life you've built as a couple is going to be shattering. And as someone who's been there, I agree: It will be shattering. All I can tell you is that it will be even worse if it happens two years from now.
February 14, 2015
"Happy Valentine's Day! Now Cut Your Losses."
Megan McArdle is pushing you to leave that guy who doesn't propose today.
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I am a regular McMegan reader, but I chuckle at footnotes on a marriage advice column :)
"The minute you settle for less than you deserve you get even less than you settled for." --Maureen Dowd
That's a stark choice only three years after being torn from the womb. It should come at age 50.
It saddens me deeply to know that every night across America women go to sleep on tear-stained pillows, never knowing the Love of Laslo.
With Laslo your pillows would not be stained. With tears, at least.
I wish all of you a pearl necklace.
I am Laslo.
Commitment from a man is costlier than it has ever been, with much higher risks and lower rewards compared to what can be had without any commitment or its risks. If I was a young(ish) man again I hope I would have sense enough to realize that I was living in a seller's market. Probably I wouldn't, though. It's only because of fools like me that the marriage rate isn't approaching zero.
I tell young guys to marry her because otherwise one day she will meet someone more willing and you will be left in the dust
Megan McArdle said:
"Yeah, I know. Patriarchy. But there you are."
Yeah, I know. Matrimony. But there you are.
She's right. I'll never understand why so many young women opt out of marriage. They aren't getting the best of the bargain without it.
It's annoying to read the apology running through this column for expressing the thoughts of a heterosexual female. Honestly. Is it impossible any longer to just write for the vast majority without anticipating the outrage of homos and feminists by deploying the apology like a cow catcher on a steam engine in every such discussion? The deflective apology as a feature of normal discourse is a white flag of surrender from people who probably never really opposed the one-note warriors of the offended legions to start with. We've been hectored into it. Apology in general, for more than one reason, is beginning to look dishonest and dishonorable.
If a supposedly equal relationship has reached a point at which one party feels free to issue ultimata to the other, the relationship has already come to it's end. In other words, that ship has sailed and is now sunk.
Better start swimming or you'll sink with those sunk costs.
So, it's either an "ultimatum" or "cutting your losses"?
With that kind of calculation going on in the background, why wouldn't a guy think twice whether she is really into him for the long haul? Especially with all the attendant legal and financial risks for the male.
After all, in this scenario it is the woman who wants to marry right NOW! And it's all his fault he's no synched-up?
Instead of ultimatums, how about a romantic proposal expressing your feelings for him -- not just marriage as your personal goal, but him -- that you believe should be motivating him to propose at this particular moment, because you're the one who chose this moment, all you feminists?
Interesting column, like most of her columns.
I especially liked the comment by the guy who met a girl who had already saved enough money to buy a house. And the guy who met his wife on a plane and she moved to his state to marry him.
I have no experience with women like that even at 77. I have a theory that the spending gene is on the X chromosome.
I never wanted to date someone who I couldn't envision as a potential spouse. And coasting along for years in a relationship without a clear idea of the game plan would be unfathomable. But I am an engineer so I guess that explains it.
Gee, EDH, does the rationality occurring "in the background" offend your sensibilities somehow? Women are supposed to be all gushy and romantic about it. But women's sentimentality does not mesh with men's rationality over the long haul. Both need to be thinking clearly.
My problem was all the ladies wanting to marry me after the first date. Laslo Problems.
I am Laslo.
The traditional view would be that it is dishonorable of the fellow not to propose marriage after a reasonable time. And, in a traditional situation, it would not necessarily be up to the woman to point this out, but the families involved, and their priest, etc.
A better functioning society is actually a society, not just a lot of individuals.
Michael K said...
"I have a theory that the spending gene is on the X chromosome."
Oh my god. I've been in a same-sex marriage for 5+ years and didn't even know it! Wait til the NYT gets wind of THIS.
Should'a put a ring on it.
I was present one time when a close friend of mine was given the ultimatum. I wasn't listening to the conversation, but was in the room. It was actually at a bar. He came over and told me what was going on. Then he decided to marry her. She's a great woman and he's very lucky to have her. They're a strong couple and have been together for about 20 years now. They have a teenage daughter who is doing well.
Carol said...
Gee, EDH, does the rationality occurring "in the background" offend your sensibilities somehow?
No, I addressed what background thoughts she ends up communicating to her partner, not her entire thought process about how she should react if she doesn't get the response she wants.
If she cannot express why she wants to marry him in terms of her feelings for him that is a huge red flag.
According to my wife of 40 years, women used to know when they were dating a man who was "the marrying kind" and when they weren't. She claims she knew I was the marrying kind from date #1 or #2.
Perhaps evolution is working in reverse if women have lost this capability.
An engagement ring buys the man some extra time with the sex, without too much of a financial investment.
Plus, girls would rather say their engagement was broken off, rather than that the guy just split: sounds classier and more dramatic that way.
I am Laslo
Remember, Meade, men have an X chromosome, too.
But only one.
Valentine's Day is pretty much the last day to propose and leave the bride a respectable amount of time to plan her June wedding. So it's not just a day, it's a year.
You know, a lot of this trouble and anxiety could be cleared up if the definitions of common law marriage were expanded. That would be an interesting and very conservative reform to claw back some of the lost virtues of the old social order. Common law marriage in the US is pretty toothless vs that in other countries.
Live together for a year or two, and de facto your legal status is married, should there be some dispute, and either party could bring an action for divorce. Joint tax filing also permitted, etc. Lot of details to sort out in structuring such a law, but it seems worth the effort.
The advantages of course are that it would force a more serious think on all parties before shacking up.
"Life is risky. There are no guarantees."
Gee..thanks Megan.
"There are other great guys out there who won't be ambivalent about marrying you"
Did GM have an element of this?
Hmmm...how does she include that on her Gantt chart?
I missed the advice for introspection with regard to whether the woman might be doing something to account for the "hesitance".
"it's not just a day, it's a year." One of the more predatory jewelers should use that phrase.
"Live together for a year or two, and de facto your legal status is married" Ah..and are you an individual rights/liberty proponent too? Or is this an attempt to substitute the state for...mutual consent? So "virtuous"...
All I Really Need to Know About Having A Successful Passionate Marriage I Learned by Repeating Kindergarten
Ladies: instead of delivering an "ultimatum," why not propose?
Sebastian,
That's "degrading"..and if taken up fully would require ring purchase. Boo.
I'm a conservative, not a libertarian. Individual rights aren't everything. Man is a social animal.
All of these things have consequences beyond the people directly involved.
"All of these things have consequences beyond the people directly involved."
And you could intrude on most anything based on that.
I can see abetter justification when protecting children..but not between legally competent adults. None of your business.
You have parents who have a right to expect grandchildren. You have the polis (take that as all levels of community) who expects the same. You have neighbors and other couples who expect a society of stable relations to avoid inducing temptations to break existing relations. That's a reason why we are in this mess to begin with.
We are social animals, it is in the very beginning of Aristotles' Politics, and all Western philosophy, even leaving out religion.
Individual vs society is a balance and a struggle of ancient pedigree.
"You have parents who have a right to expect grandchildren."
Oh...reallllly? Well..sure..they can "expect" anything. Far cry from default marriage...which is no guarantee of the other things you think are to be expected as well.
Why invest in children if the children will not themselves do the same ?
Who will want to struggle if the line ends one generation past ?
Parents most definitely can and should impise obligations on their children. The idea that they can't is a modern perversion.
Human societies aren't one-generation phenomena, they depend on the participants future orientation, beyond their own lives.
We each, personally, or our fears and pleasures anyway, don't amount to a hill of beans. We consist of our duties and obligations, and our best satisfaction should be that we have done our duty. Anything else is foolish vanity.
There are probablty some Sharia oriented cultures more suitable.
Confucius, Aristotle, Plato and Marcus Aurelius are most un-sharia.
So are Augustine and Thomas Aquinas.
Some education in philosophy and history won't hurt.
It's one thing to argue your points philosophically..imposing them legally is questionable to liberty..perverse indeed. Again..you justify a major intrusion by the state into the most initimate of relationships based on a "greater good" and your perceived damage to others. The authority might as well be completely unfettered based on that.
These rules were at one time enforced through penalties imposed legally or, otherwise or in addition, socially.
And a relaxed definition of common law marriage just recognizes an enlarged category of implied contracts. Enforcement of contracts is at the root of the Libertarian concept of government.
And recognition of family and social obligations undermines the totalitarian tendency to control everything through government. These obligations are part of the mediating institutions whose loss is among the complaints against big government.
Ah..so the "libertarian" approach is to impose one's philosophy on others by laws. Got it.
Say..why 1 year? How about 2 weeks? 2 nights? I mean..greater good and all..
Did that prompt you to pop the question?
Yes. No shared philosophy(ethics, etc) = no society.
A libertarianism without philosophy is nihilism. Extremist libertarians are nihilists, and inhuman. That's why Ayn Rand tried to create a basis for libertarian philosophy. Didn't work very well, but its telling she felt the need to try.
Ah...but how about it? 2 weeks before common law kicks in?
I don't know. These sorts of laws have arbitrary cutoffs from necessity. Why be 18 before being able to sign contracts? Why not 17 or 16 or 21?
The point is not the arbitrary period or cutoff, it is that there must be a cutoff to make an enforceable law.
Ok..you don't know..how about you drop the concept until you can justify the timeframe?
No, the timeframe is one of those things that would be derived in the process of making such a law, the same as any law of this nature. People will argue back and forth and such details will come out in deliberations. The length of a US Presidential term was not predetermined before people started working on the US constitution.
Personally I think a year of cohabitation is reasonable, before a woman can begin to enforce her rights. That's a big chunk (5-20% or more, depending on age) of her period of fertility.
"before a woman can begin to enforce her rights"
Ah..or HIS rights...
Not that these are "rights".
Contracts establish rights. Common law marriage of the sort I am suggesting is a form of implied contract.
Yes of course his rights as well.
Socially though the loss we are trying to avoid and the reason for the law in the first place, is her fertility.
If you say so. I suspect you would prefer illegalizing any and all pre-marital sex. Good luck with that.
Walter, I'm afraid your exchange with Mr. B.P. is a classic example of a battle of wits with an unarmed man. I'm sorry to tell you that you are the unarmed.
B.P. is arguing the merits of society and the necessity of both informal and formal "rules" in the continuance of the society. Implied is that the current parlous state of our own society is due to throwing out a good portion of our informal and formal rules. He does so having seemingly read and thought deeply about the subject.
You, on the other hand, don't seem to know much of anything except that no one has any responsibility to anything or anyone. Oh, and a tendency to throw around words like "libertarian" that you don't understand very well. When losing, you begin to make demands like "put a time limit on it or drop the concept". Pathetic.
Regardless of the merits, you come off as an idiot who rarely argues with anyone who disagrees with you.
twgin,
1 year, 3 months, 2 weeks?
Informal rules are one thing. I'm simply against folks like you two deciding to impose formal legalities into others relationships. Both adult parties have agency, let them determine their own timetable. If he claims his time-frame arbitrary, I think it fair to press him on how he decides where wants to draw these lines. You are free to resort to name calling..doesn't advance your position, which is pretty suspect.
Why an ultimatum? Just end it if you want to get married. Start dating other people. He's just not that into you. (Wasn't that a semi-recent cultural catchphrase?)
"B.P. is arguing the merits of society and the necessity of both informal and formal "rules" in the continuance of the society."
Well, no, actually, he is suggesting that his preferences should be enacted into law. He obviously has not given any thought at all to the question of how that law will function. Are you going to force him to marry her, or force her to stop fucking him? In either case, how?
Thought deeply my ass. He makes the elementary but near-universal mistake of supposing that laws will necessarily be obeyed.
Sorry for the confusing comment. Deleted.
Seeking marriage for its own sake has value, and I wonder greatly at those who think this is dishonorable in some way. Mutual support through hard times, the nurture and protection of children, reflection of mutual devotion and kindness - how are these bad things?
This is usually a forum of adults who have seen a few things in life. Are many here secretly valuing romantic fervor over all else, but disguising it from themselves?
I am at this moment in an ill-considered argument with someone in Megan's comments section who thinks "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?" is an argument against marriage. And who seemingly can't think of any reason to marry unless one is religious.
I don't really know what to say to that sort of mindset.
No man in their right mind would get married today. Not getting a vasectomy is really a stupid idea the way things are set up.
If women want men to marry them the rules for no fault divorce, child support, and alimony need to be adjusted drastically.
It is a fact that fewer marriages correlate with more poor persons who expect financial support from the government. That results in more political pressure to find there is an implied contract for the government to take the role of a husband. So the choice is, do you want the laws to encourage an increase in husbands or an increase in EBT cards/food stamp recipients?
Why an ultimatum? Just end it if you want to get married. Start dating other people. He's just not that into you. (Wasn't that a semi-recent cultural catchphrase?)
Agreed also if you get engaged because your future spouse issues an ultimatum and you give in – that’s a pretty good sign of what kind of marriage you’re going to be in for.
From comments:
"I was in a relationship with a guy for four years, made the marry-me-or-I'm-out ultimatum and believe it or not the guy actually came through and married me. About 2 1/2 years into the marriage I realized he didn't want to be married (the signs were there but I ignored them until I just couldn't ignore them any longer), so I left him."
As with Megan's article, the guy's side of things unexplored. she saw "signs". I'd like to know what he saw.
Except... when did Megan McCardle have her baby?
See, she sets up this advice (which really is the old "withholding sex" strategy) and advises women in their 30s to follow it, because of their ticking fertility clocks.
She points out guys, gays, or those not interested in becoming parents, need not listen, because women have a special biological cycle that peaks early.
She goes on to tell us how she got out of a "going nowhere" relationship in New York, relocated to DC where her "dance card was full", and then used the ultimatum successfully on the man who is now her husband.
So Megan... where's the baby that you set this strategy into motion to produce? Am I missing something? I thought the whole point she was pushing is that women who want babies have to ditch deadend relationships earlier than others, if they want to successfully reproduce...
She's at least 40 now. Is she secretly a mom, or did I miss the point of her whole argument? Why rush it, and give the guy an ultimatum, if you weren't planning to reproduce and didn't have to worry about your dwindling egg supply, as her whole argument is premised upon?
jaed said...
I am at this moment in an ill-considered argument with someone in Megan's comments section who thinks "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?" is an argument against marriage. And who seemingly can't think of any reason to marry unless one is religious. I don't really know what to say to that sort of mindset.
--------------
Make like a cow, and kick him upside the head?
Mary,
In this exploration of her marriage, surprisingly no reference to child bearing.
"http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/07/why-marriage/22233/
buwaya,
"Personally I think a year of cohabitation is reasonable, before a woman can begin to enforce her rights. [emphasis added]"
Holy cow, that is one heck of a tell.
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