One Guy Who Should Not Marry

He wrote in to Dear Abby.

SENSITIVE GUY, MILWAUKEE wrote:

(First of all, you know there is a problem if he signed his letter that way.)

I am a 24-year-old male who has been in a relationship with a great woman, "Hayley," for three years.

Strike one! 21 is too young to get into a long-term relationship. He should have spent this time (aside from establishing himself professionally) dating different women to learn as much as possible about what he likes and doesn’t like and the kind of woman with whom he interacts best.

She has excellent qualities, a good job, she's super loving and would be a wonderful wife someday.

Great. But this guy's terminology makes me think we was raised without a father, and is suffering as a result.

My family loves Hayley -- but my buddies don't, and it is causing me to have mixed feelings.

Maybe your friends can see something you don't. Or maybe you've surrounded yourself with jerks for friends (and your friends tend to be a reflection on you, by the way).

Some days I love her, but on others I want to break up. Then I think of how fantastic our lives would be together. It's weird, because Hayley doesn't change her personality -- it's totally my issue.

Clearly, you aren't ready to be in a long-term relationship, and you probably stunted your growth by getting into this one at age 21. I would guess that it is his first relationship - that she's the only girl who ever paid attention to him.

I'm scared that if I break up with her it could be the worst mistake of my life, and I'll regret it.

If she is really as great and stable as you say she is, then she deserves someone better than you, and you should stop being selfish and stop wasting her time. If you are "meant to be" it will happen whether you break up now or not. People do get back together, after all.

Dear Abby gets it right when she replies:

Hayley may make a wonderful wife someday, but from your letter, YOU are nowhere near ready for marriage. Mature love doesn't blow hot and cold, and the feelings you finally experience for the woman you marry won't be dictated by the impression she makes on your buddies.

If Haley is mature, she will thank this guy for his honesty if he levels with her and breaks it off, and will take steps to distance herself from him, evaluate why she got into and stayed in a relationship with him in the first place, and add what she's learned from this experience to her decision making process, hopefully avoiding making some of the same mistakes again.

Or, if she is immature or insecure, she could plead with him to "redeem" the relationship, pressuring him to propose marriage (with the help of his family), get involved in planning the big party so much that she doesn't have to deal with the problems in the relationship, and marry the guy. Soon after that, they will likely start arguing a lot over the time he spends with his buddies. She might intentionally get pregnant, thinking that will help get things to her liking. That cycle may repeat any number of times, and then she may or may not divorce him.

Hopefully, Haley will go the first route.

New Magazine Targets Successful Singles

Alana Semuels of the Los Angeles Times reports on a new magazine for unmarried people.

Now this 65-year-old divorcé is trying to help other unmarried people embrace their lifestyle and shed the stereotype that they're lonely bachelors or cat-loving old maids.

There are some men and women like that. There are people who are unhappily unmarried. There are people who are unhappily married. And yes, there are people who are happily married. Some people are happy people, whether they are unmarried or married. Some people are miserable either way (and should not subject someone else to themselves).

A serial entrepreneur, Wright recently launched Singular, a Los Angeles magazine for singles that doles out advice, travel suggestions and profiles of unmarried people who travel to Tonga, collect vintage sex manuals and play polo when not performing acupuncture.

It is a lot easier to travel and buy stuff when you're not supporting other people (aside from taxes), and your not accountable to anyone for your free time (save God).

Call it a reflection of our times -- or a response to them -- Wright's new enterprise might strike a chord with the growing number of Americans who choose to marry later or not at all. About 42% of people over the age of 18 are single, according to the Census Bureau, and the proportion of one-person households increased to 26% in 2005 from 17% in 1970.

Even people who want to marry should wait until after 25. There are a lot of people between the ages of 18 and 25. People are also living long as divorced or widowed. That contibutes to the number of "singles".

The magazine, which launched in September, comes at a time when the stigma around staying single is disappearing, said David Popenoe, director of the National Marriage Project.

There's nothing inherently wrong with being unmarried.

Some Smug Marrieds, as fictional character Bridget Jones calls them, didn't get the memo. They still barrage singles with questions about why they haven't married and suggestions about how to find a date, said Bella DePaulo, a social scientist and author of "Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After."

Which is wrong. If you're happily married, live like it, and your unmarried friends who also want to be happily married will ask you for your advice or help if they want it. Those who don't want to marry don't need you tell them otherwise, any more than they should tell you how to become unmarried.

"We're creating a community of people who want to have their best life now," Calvert said from a plush red chair in the airy Westside living room that serves as the magazine's headquarters. She lives upstairs, with her parrot and three cats.

Three cats? Hmmm. While it may not be a problem to have that many cats, more often then not I say there's a "cat cycle"… someone is lonely, so they get a cat. That automatically reduces the number of people who would partner with them, which may, in turn, prompt the acquisition of another cat. So on and so forth. If you are an umarried woman, and want to get married, and have the impulse to add a third or fourth cat to your home, let it pass. Instead, think about what you are doing that is keeping you from attracting and keeping the right spouse.

Still, the website highlights the strange paradox of gathering singles together. While Singular emphasizes the idea that romantic relationships are not essential for happiness, it also facilitates dating and meet-ups.

Are you saying that the magazine has a financial interest in keeping reader single? Perhaps. In which case, I would be wary of partnering advice from it. But it could still be useful to unmarried people, because finding a partner is not their sole interest, or perhaps an interest of theirs at all.

A few matchmakers even crashed the party to find potential clients.

"Everybody wants love, attention and affection," said one matchmaker, Dianne Bennett, who runs millionaires-matchmaker.com. "People do want relationships."

Bennett has a financial interest in her assertion. Some people cant get those things without giving up being unmarried. Some people value their freedom more than those things.

It Doesn't Have to Be Intercourse to Be Cheating

Sally Law has a piece (so to speak) at LiveScience.com about what is and isn't "cheating" with a generation raised post-Clinton/Lewinsky.

In 2005, the federal government released a study that found more than 50 percent of American teenagers had engaged in oral sex; furthermore, they considered oral sex a less-significant substitution for intercourse.

While it doesn't carry the risk of pregnancy, it is enough to spread STDs and cause emotional bonding. There are also women who do try to get pregnant by transferring fluids from one location to another.

A recent study conducted by the University of Northern Iowa and Pennsylvania State University finds that undergraduates in relationships hold their significant others to a stricter definition of sex than they hold themselves.

Geography can also have something to do with it. For example, some American women don't "count" sexual activity they engage in while in Mexico. Or at a bachelorette party.

"Men believe that when women have sex it is not just a pleasure-seeking behavior but an emotional experience, so it is very threatening," Donin says. "And I believe that on some very basic level, men still see women as their property."

No more than women see men as their property or see themselves as entitled to the earnings of a man.

All of this makes the future of relationships seem pretty dismal - which, according to The New York Times, isn't a problem, as relationships are becoming a thing of the past, anyway.

The more generations raised without both their mother and father actually raising them instead of both working full time outside of the home, the less we'll have people who can related to each other well. Also, men have been portrayed as the enemy of women for so long. Finally, we're a society that thinks we have a right to slaughter our own offspring for our own, often selfish, reasons. Those things don’t bode well for relationships.

"Hooking up is a casual sexual encounter with no expectation of future emotional commitment. Think of it as a one-night stand with someone you know," writes Charles M. Blow in a Dec. 13 article. "Under [this] new model, you hook up a few times and, if you really like the person, you might consider going on a date."

That's what the woman might be thinking, but a true male player will simply move on to other women once a woman he's seeing starts making demands of his money and non-sexual time.

Just don't hook up behind your boyfriend's back. That's cheating. Maybe.

Sheesh. I understand that people make promises to each other, and that when someone specifically says they are going to be monogamous with their partner, they are breaking their word if they aren’t. But really – what is the big deal about breaking your word if you are already fornicating? Fornicating isn't wrong, but breaking your word is? Why be faithful to another flawed human being when you aren't faithful to God? Why respect someone else when you don’t respect yourself? If were talking the "rules of the world", the mistake comes in promising to be monogamous in the first place. Players should never promise such a thing. They can let her delude herself into thinking they are monogamous.

The healthiest thing, though, is to save sex for marriage. And yes, for these purposes, any contact with each other's genitals or anal cavity is sex. Even in Cancun. Even at a bachelorette party in Cancun.

My Letter to Dr. Laura

Okay, here is pretty much what I wrote to Dr. Laura, and what she read on the air today (Wednesday 12/10) to start her first hour and go on a long rant for the rest of the opening segment. I say "pretty much" because there might be slight variations in the actual letter, since I had only saved part of the text in my computer and added the intro and conclusion that she read on the air when I pasted the meat of the letter to her e-mail window, and might have done some insignificant edits.


I got an unsolicited e-mail from a childcare provider in my city. Here's my reply:

I don't know you. You may be the best in your business. But you can't replace my child's mother.

One of the main reasons I got married was so that a stranger would not raise my child. My wife takes care of our child, thank you very much. Sure, it means we don't have a tiny bit more of income (after the higher taxes and other expenses we'd have to pay), but I figure my little girl is best with her own mother. My wife is an R.N. Now she has just two patients.

Some people would call me lucky because I can afford to have my wife take care of our child and home. But it wasn't luck. It was a lot of hard work and patience. There were a lot of things I didn't buy along the way, a lot of drinks I didn't gulp, I lot of vacations I didn't take. I didn't make babies out of wedlock. I didn't shack up. I didn't marry the wrong person just to take a relationship "to the next level". I stayed unmarried and childless until I found the right woman - a woman who also lived within her means. Then I married her. Before getting her pregnant.

In the mean time, I didn't get drunk, I didn't do drugs, I didn't gamble away my money. I didn't buy stuff I couldn't afford. I drove cars that weren't sexy. I worked at a job starting in high school, I completed college, I ended up working a full time job, a part-time job, and a freelance gig for five years before dropping the part-time job.

My wife finished college in four years despite significant challenges and then workedher butt off and was very careful with her money. She didn't make babies. She waitedto find the right man to be her husband.

Sure, we owe it all to God. God could take it all away tomorrow.

But it isn't luck.

And we don't use day orphanages. Thank God.

Thanks Dr. Laura. Thanks for helping me so see how blessed I am to have a loving wife who is my girlfriend and who is her kid's mom.

I am my kid's dad.

OMG!!! Dr. Laura Read My Letter On-Air

Just a few moments ago, Dr. Laura read my e-mailed letter on-air to open her show. If she places it on her website, I will link to it. Otherwise, I will past the text here later.

That was quite a rush.

I have had something I wrote read on a top-rated national radio program before, but this time, I was actually listening. Better yet, my wife was listening (the letter was largely about her) and she called me to express her excitement.

Second Notice on Your Vehicle's Factory Warranty

I'm impressed.

Somebody out there is so concerned that the factory warranty on my vehicle may be expiring, that they've taken the trouble to track down a mobile phone number I never gave the dealer or the factory, to repeatedly call me from different phone numbers in different area codes with a recording warning me that this is the second notice that the warranty may be expiring.

Mind you, I've never heard nor seen the first notice to this mythical expiration of the factory warranty on my "vehicle". But they sure are persistent in calling me with the second notice... over and over and over again.

I thought I was special, until I found out that these friendly recorded voices were cheating on me by calling others with the same message, too.

Oh well... at least I have my friend in Nigeria, whose millions of dollars will console me once I get them transferred to me. And my British Lottery winnings.

A Reminder of Why Caution is Needed

Here’s a reminder of one reason why people should be extremely cautious about relationships, especially marriage. AP medical writer Lindsey Tanner reports that one in five young adults has a personality disorder. (To steal a joke from a comic, if four of your friends are normal, then it is you.)

Almost one in five young American adults has a personality disorder that interferes with everyday life, and even more abuse alcohol or drugs, researchers reported Monday in the most extensive study of its kind.

The disorders include problems such as obsessive or compulsive tendencies and anti-social behavior that can sometimes lead to violence. The study also found that fewer than 25 percent of college-aged Americans with mental problems get treatment.

And even if they do get treatment, it doesn’t mean they’ll stick with treatment or that it will be effective, or without significant negative side effects.

One expert said personality disorders may be overdiagnosed.

Certainly a possibility, but then if their brain was subjected to unnecessary psychotropic drugs while it was developing, then that is a problem in and of itself.

But others said the results were not surprising since previous, less rigorous evidence has suggested mental problems are common on college campuses and elsewhere.

And that’s just the staff! Heh.

Counting substance abuse, the study found that nearly half of young people surveyed have some sort of psychiatric condition, including students and non-students.

Personality disorders were the second most common problem behind drug or alcohol abuse as a single category. The disorders include obsessive, anti-social and paranoid behaviors that are not mere quirks but actually interfere with ordinary functioning.

Happy dating, everyone!

I notice that the article did not report a gender discrepancy or parity. I wonder.

I know I'm risking the ire of many commenters and fellow bloggers - because these people get difficult when you suggest that they may... get difficult - but unless you want a lot of unnecessary drama and difficulty in your life, I would suggest never committing to anyone until you've been around them enough and in a variety of situations to be sure they don't have a problem like this that is a negative factor in their life, or it will be a problem in your life, too. This is one reason why I now suggest that before marrying, couples visit their doctors with each other, including any mental health professionals, and discuss past and existing problems openly. Please consider that a lot of these problems may be passed down to offspring. If you really think that these people are entitled to a relationship, ease your conscience by realizing that there are other people in the world who can provide them with one. There's no reason you should feel obligated to share your body, your heart, your bed, your home, your money, or your credit with someone with a personality disorder.