Thoughts on the NRO Essay “Advice For Incels” by Kevin D. Williamson

Thoughts on the NRO Essay “Advice For Incels” by Kevin D. Williamson

About me and this blog:

If you are new to my blog: I have been a conservative my entire life. I’ve never voted Democrat. I was a Republican until a few years ago. I am no longer in any political party.

I sometimes critique secular, left wing feminists on my blog (such as but not limited to (Link): this post and (Link): this one), but there are times when I believe other conservatives get feminists wrong, and feminists are actually correct on some issues.

I was brought up in a traditional values, conservative, Christian family where my parents brought me to Southern Baptist churches as I was growing up, where I was taught to believe in gender complementarianism, which I did for many years, until I finally realized how (Link): wrong and sexist complementarianism is.

Because I grew up as a complementarian, I am quite familiar with what they think and why they think as they do.

My current religious beliefs are somewhat “up in the air,” as I am waffling between being agnostic, (or a deist), and the Christian faith. (Note: I am not an atheist.)

I am by no means anti- Nuclear Family, anti- motherhood, or anti- marriage, though I do posit that many to most conservatives – especially the religious ones – have gone to un-biblical lengths and have turned the Nuclear Family, marriage, natalism, and motherhood and fatherhood into idols which is wrong of them.

— end introduction to me and this blog —

I saw a link to this essay go through my Twitter feed today:

(Link): Advice for Incels by Kevin D. Williamson

On one level, this essay – “Advice for Incels” was okay.

However, I think that while the guy who wrote it has his heart in the right place, I think he gets a lot of things wrong and is naive about how Baptist and conservative Protestant and evangelical churches are for adult singles.

I’ve spent the last several years on this blog covering these topics – I’d encourage Williamson and anyone who read his NRO piece to read the books  (Link): “Singled Out” by Field and Colon and  “Quitting Church” by Christian author Julia Duin for even more information.

Advertisements

Men in China and India Can’t Find Wives Because 71 Million Girls Were Killed in Abortion or Infanticide

Men in China and India Can’t Find Wives Because 71 Million Girls Were Killed in Abortion or Infanticide

Excerpts:

May 2018

The gender imbalance in China and Asia is wreaking social chaos. And the Washington Post’s worldview won’t let it admit the real cause of the problem.

Twenty-one-year-old Li Defu is hard at work, building a house in rural China. While American men his age spend their free time gaming with friends, Li knows he has no time to waste. Without this house, he may never find a wife.

As Li told the Washington Post in a story titled “Too Many Men,” “At the moment there aren’t any girls my age around. I am building this new house in preparation, in case I find someone.”

But even with a nice house to attract a bride, there’s no guarantee that Li will ever find one. The reason: There are 34 million fewer Chinese women than men. Indian men share this demographic nightmare: There are 37 million fewer women than men in India.

What’s the cause of this huge gender imbalance?

Well, reading the Post, you could be forgiven not coming to the obvious conclusion: Seventy million unborn baby girls were aborted—killed in the womb simply because they were female.

Who Are “Incels” (Involuntary Celibates)? Behind the Misogynistic Ideology That Inspired The Toronto Suspect by T. Merrigan

Who Are “Incels”? Behind the Misogynistic Ideology That Inspired The Toronto Suspect

Much farther below, in this post: link to an article hosted on The Lily, about Alex Minassian, who was apparently influenced by online “incel” (women-hating) groups.

I’ve actually already done a post or two about these misogynists before, such as (Link): this one – they refer to themselves as “Involuntary Celibates” and blame women for their problems and lives, rather than taking responsibility for themselves. (They also like to live in a fantasy world where women have lives so much easier than men, and, women are supposedly to blame for the problems of men.)

These bitter men exude hatred of women but then have the audacity to bleat on Reddit threads and elsewhere that “women don’t like nice guys,” and they cannot comprehend how it is no woman wants to date or have sex with a “nice guy” (who is actually a big, sexist, woman-hating jerk) such as themselves.

It’s no mystery – well, not to the rest of us.

One problem of posting about these sexist douche canoes is that they will at times want to leave a comment under any posts you make about them.

According to some of these articles I’ve read about Incels, they celebrate every time an Incel kills women. If Incels kill all the women, there won’t be any women for them to have a chance of having sex with – they’d have to have sex with other men.

Other than being immoral, killing women is counter-productive to their goals of having sex with a real living woman. But I guess not only do they lack in looks, incels also aren’t very intelligent.

Get Thee a Flawed Wife – A Letter of Encouragement—and Realism—to Christian Men Considering Marriage by Lore Ferguson Wilbert

Get Thee a Flawed Wife – A Letter of Encouragement—and Realism—to Christian Men Considering Marriage. by Lore Ferguson Wilbert

Overall, I’d say that the following essay is okay – not great, but okay – but I do differ somewhat from the author’s discussion about the “complementarity” of marriage. I do not believe that “men are from mars and women are from venus,” which the author seems to be implying. The author must be a gender complementarian. I am not.

(Link): Get Thee a Flawed Wife – A letter of encouragement—and realism—to Christian men considering marriage. by Lore Ferguson Wilbert

Excerpts:

…. My husband and I value marriage and singleness, so sometimes we end up encouraging our brothers toward a life of undistracted devotion for as long as they’re able and for the good of the kingdom.

But we also at times nudge one of our friends toward asking a girl out, help them process a break-up, or encourage one of them to more seriously consider the possibility of marriage with a “mere friend.” From the guys considering a relationship, we often hear refrains of hesitance: “Will we be good ministry partners?” or “Will she make a good pastor’s wife?” or “Will we be stronger as a couple than we are apart?”

For them and many other Christian young men, delayed marriage is common. The reasons are complicated and include (Link): unrealistic expectations, lack of confidence, (Link): a desire for financial security, aversion to commitment, general immaturity, or more simply, the inability to find or keep a compatible partner.

The Dating Project: A Documentary Movie About Singleness and Dating

The Dating Project: A Documentary Movie About Singleness and Dating

I saw one of the movie-makers for The Dating Project interviewed, and she says that this movie is promoting the idea that people start dating again.

The focus is on younger people, but I see this problem among folks over the age of 30 as well. If you are 30 or older now (as of April 2018) and grew up in a conservative Christian family or church, you were probably taught (and still taught) a bunch of dating concepts and ideas that have actually kept you single (see this post as an example).

I am over the age of 40 and have never married. I was engaged in my late 20s to my early 30s but broke up with my fiance. I have always wanted to be married, but I never found the right person.

As far as I could tell in seeing the interview with the woman film-maker of this dating movie, the assumption seems to be that being single is “second best” or weird.

Let me just say, as I’ve said many times on this blog, that on the one hand, while there is nothing wrong with being married or wanting to get married, that there is also nothing wrong with being single, and it is wrong to (Link): to denigrate singleness to promote marriage.

I’d like my desire for marriage to be respected, but at the same time, so long as I remain single, (Link): I’d also like myself and my singlehood status to be respected, not jeered, mocked, or put down by conservatives, who frequently shake their index fingers in the faces of singles like myself, and who write fear-mongering articles about how supposedly single life is so much more horrible than married life (see anything written by (Link): Bradford Wilcox or (Link): Mark Regnerus), all because they are worried about declining marriage rates.

I want to be married one day, and I don’t appreciate Christians telling me that my desire for marriage is “an idol” (for it is not), but I also do not appreciate Christians or secular talking heads on television news stations shaming singles for being single and for making singleness sound as though it’s a disease one should be ashamed of having.

Many times, conservatives (of which I am one) assume, quite wrongly, that any one who is single past the age of 30 is single deliberately. Especially if one is a single female past age 30, Christian talking heads will write blog posts or opine on television news programs that such women must have put career over marriage, or they are harpies who hate men – but this is usually not the case.

As a right wing (conservative) woman who always desired marriage, I find myself single by circumstance, not due to choice. I did not put career above dating or marriage, and so on and so forth. I find such assumptions, which are often held by other conservatives and by many Christians, deeply insulting and ask my fellow conservatives to stop making such assumptions.

The Dating Project Movie

Here are some links to articles about The Dating Project movie (a movie which I’ve only read a little bit about, I have not seen it yet):

(Link):

(Link):  From hook-ups to romance, ‘The Dating Project’ explores the one thing we all want

(Link):  BC Professor Says Traditional Dating Has Deteriorated 

(Link):  Dating 101: Film takes aim at America’s hookup culture and the death of courtship

Excerpts:

The shock of reading Laura Sessions Stepp’s 2007 book, “Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both,” hadn’t worn off when I was offered the opportunity to view an advanced screening of “The Dating Project,” a film about modern relationships that will be released nationwide—for one night only—on April 17. Both are a wake-up call for Americans, many of whom are in the dark about how dramatically dating has changed.

So dramatically, in fact, that it no longer exists. Dating is officially dead.

Pastor Greg Laurie’s Promotion of Equally Yoked Rule in Regards to Marriage Plays Role in Why So Many Christian Women Remain Single Over a Life Time

Pastor Greg Laurie’s Promotion of Equally Yoked Rule in Regards to Marriage Plays Role in Why So Many Christian Women Remain Single Over a Life Time

I’ve done more than one post on this blog high-lighting and explaining how and why the Christian insistence on the “equally yoked” rule in regards to marriage leaves many marriage-minded Christian single women single over a life time.

If you are a Christian single woman who wants to marry,  take it from me, who was once a very committed Christian who was “relying on the Lord” for a husband (and yes, I even tried dating sites at one time), you have to take marriage where you can find it, even if that means marrying a Non-Christian.

There are simply not as many single Christian men as there are women, and the Christian single men who exist may (Link): not be marriage material, to under-state things.

You really have to look at a man’s character, not what religious label he slaps on to himself. An atheist man, or a Jewish man, or a guy who practices Wicca, or what have you, may treat you better than a guy who says he’s a Christian and who also attends church regularly.

(Link): Greg Laurie Tells Christian Woman in Long-Term Relationship With Nonbeliever: ‘Break Up With Him!’

April 2018

Pastor Greg Laurie of Harvest Christian Fellowship in California recently advised a Christian woman who’s in a long-term relationship with a nonbeliever that she should break up with him.

Why Being Single Sucks: What No One Wants to Talk About, by B. Smith

Why Being Single Sucks: What No One Wants to Talk About, by B. Smith

This article discusses how sometimes the single life can be lonely. The author is writing from a secular perspective.

I’ve said on this blog in years past that if Christians did their job properly, Christian singles would have their companionship needs met by the church, but Christians are too focused on meeting the needs of Married Couples and droning on about the importance of The Nuclear Family to give any thought to adults who remain single past the age of 25 or 30.

If Christians were doing their jobs properly, they’d be helping those singles who want marriage to get married – by hosting social events geared towards single adults, by asking their single friends if they could fix them up on dates.

Christians could also provide platonic companionship by inviting single adults over for dinner or out to the movies, but married couples usually don’t want single adults in the mix, sometimes because they don’t like “odd numbers” around the dinner table and the paranoia of Christians who believe in the moronic “Billy Graham Rule.”

Christian singles are left to their own devices as to how to seek out companionship. Most churches simply do not care to meet the needs of singles, but will tell them the church is not for them,  that the church does not exist to help single adults get their needs met.

Originally spotted this on Melanie Notkin’s Twitter:

(Link): Why Being Single Sucks: What No One Wants to Talk About

Excerpts:

We often celebrate the power and pleasures of the single life, but skim over one of its harshest realities: loneliness

….In 1981, 26 percent of Canadians aged 25 to 29 were unmarried. In 2016 (the last yearcensus numbers were gathered), that number skyrocketed to 57 percent. During that time, the percentage of unmarried women in their early 30s jumped from 10 to 34 percent.

Tim Challies Needs to Shut His Pie Hole about Many Things, but Especially About Dating, Marriage, Singleness, and Now, Equally Yoked

Tim Challies Needs to Shut His Pie Hole about Many Things, but Especially About Dating, Marriage, Singleness, and Now, Equally Yoked

Tim Challies is the doofus Christian blogger, speaker, and book author who has actually said garbage in the past such as “even fornicators are virgins now” (yeah, (Link): he really said that).

Also bear in mind:

(Link): Tim Challies, Who Is Fine With Single Adults Fornicating, Is Not Okay With Fake Sex on TV, As Portrayed by Married Actors

(Link):  Christians (such as Tim Challies and his wife) Want to Hold Adulterers Accountable but Give Adult Single Fornicators a Pass

Furthermore, Challies is so vested in his belief of “Christian gender complementarianism,” he doesn’t care that its “male headship” doctrine leads to domestic violence against women and often leads to pressuring women to staying in abusive marriages; you can read more about that here:

(Link, to “Internet Monk” site): Stuck With Their Noses In the Text

Challies is more interested in women obeying the “male headship” and female subordination articles of faith that comprise gender complementarianism than he is in the safety and well-being of women.

As such, if you are a single woman, do you REALLY want to take any sort of relationship advice from this kind of person who does not value YOU as a person?

I would hope not.

See this:

(Link):  Consider The Source: Christians Who Give Singles Dating Advice Also Regularly Coach Wives to Stay in Abusive Marriages

Here is the link to the Tim Challies “Equally Yoked” article on Christian Post site (with more remarks by me below the excerpts):

(Link): Tim Challies Warns Christians the ‘Bible Is Very Clear’ Not to Marry Unbelievers

Here are excerpts from that page:

“The Bible makes it very, very clear that a Christian can only marry another Christian. You may not marry somebody who is an unbeliever. You should not marry somebody for whom you’re not certain whether they’re a believer or not. So absolutely, the first thing is, is this person a believer in Jesus Christ? Do we share faith?” Challies advised Thursday in part two of his message on Christian dating.

My Thoughts Regarding the Article The Hard Truth About Mr. Right by Joy Beth Smith

My Thoughts Regarding the Article The Hard Truth About Mr. Right by Joy Beth Smith

This was an article or a series of excerpts by some up and coming book about singleness. Here are some of my thoughts about it.

(Link):  The Hard Truth About Mr. Right by Joy Beth Smith

A few points where I agree with the article: yes, as one gets older (assuming one wants marriage), one feels more and more pressure, and it gets stressful or sad to see one’s peers getting married off while one is still single. Yes, dating can be horrible and exhausting.

I get the feeling that Ms. Smith is in her 20s or 30s, and her article (or book) is perhaps aimed at younger singles.

I’m in between the ages of 45 and 50  myself presently, so maybe I’m older than her target demographic.  I was engaged to a guy from my late 20s into my early 30s and broke things off with him, but I have never been married.

I’m not sure if my age matters or not, but my age might mean that I’m able to spot wonky thinking in this article that a younger single may be blind to.

Woman on 700 Club Claims God Told Her To Marry Bearded Guy

Woman on 700 Club Claims God Told Her To Marry Bearded Guy

I pretty much detest this Christian view that, “God sent me a spouse!”

And wouldn’t you know that just a few days ago on “700 Club” there was a story on there on (Link): their Valentine’s Day (February 14, 2018) episode (at least I’m fairly sure it aired on Valentine’s Day, though I could be wrong on that) where this woman said she broke up with this dude, and she said she “felt the LORD” telling her to do so, that he “had something better” for her.

What’s worse than seeing these stories, or having a Christian show broadcast such stories, is for them to do so on Valentine’s Day, which may be a difficult day for some singles to get through.

Man Sues ‘Luxury’ Dating Service After Shelling Out $71K Per Date

(Link): Man Sues ‘Luxury’ Dating Service After Shelling Out $71K Per Date

By Kathianne Boniello

Jan 21, 2018

A Manhattan man who hired a “luxury” dating service to help him find love instead found a money pit, a lawsuit claims.

The Washington, DC-based matchmaker Taylor Francois-Bodine says she helps the lovelorn “accelerate” their hunt for romance with her “luxury experience” and claims her clientele includes “senators, congress people, ambassadors, well-known sports figures, industry leaders, CEOs and Fortune 500 executives.”

Dating Is A Cess Pool and Other Lessons I’m Learning by Joy Beth Smith

Dating Is A Cess Pool and Other Lessons I’m Learning by Joy Beth Smith

(Link): Dating Is A Cess Pool and Other Lessons I’m Learning by Joy Beth Smith

Jan 17, 2018

by Joy Beth Smith

There is nothing wrong with you!

Dear Single Ladies,

There is nothing wrong with you!

Every Wednesday leading up to that Holiday- Beginning- With- A- V- That- Shall- Not- Be- Named — inspirational, hilarious, and ridiculously-relatable Christian Post contributor Joy Beth Smith is offering a fresh perspective on flying solo, in a 5-part series, based on her upcoming book Party of One: Truth, Longing, and the Subtle Art of Singleness (available for pre-order now, and wherever books are sold on Feb. 6).
This week… Dating Is a Cesspool, and Other Lessons I’m Learning.

---

“The purpose of dating is marriage.” I remember sitting at a conference and hearing the youth pastor, with thickly gelled hair and fervor in his eyes, say this. Heads nodded along, offering up their own silent amens.

These affirmations only spurred him on:

“And I don’t understand why our young people are dating folks that they can’t see themselves marrying. If you know that you want to head to the altar, you don’t take a detour. You take the most direct route, and that means pursuing godly girls and godly guys who you can picture the rest of your life with.”

I was hanging onto every word he said.

After all, it sounds good, right? If there’s a shortcut, you take it. If the purpose of dating is marriage, you only date people you can see yourself marrying.

There’s a lot that makes sense here, but the practical application of this philosophy has left me (and other wonderful, beautiful women like me) painfully single for the last two decades.

Joanne The Widow Lady Wants to Know Why God Didn’t Answer Her Prayer to Keep her Husband With Her

Joanne The Widow Lady Wants to Know Why God Didn’t Answer Her Prayer to Keep her Husband With Her

Several months ago, the viewer question segment of the 700 Club’s show was called “Bring It On,” but for whatever the reason, they changed the name of the segment to “Your Questions, Honest Answers.”

On today’s (January 3, 2018) program, a woman named Joanne wrote Pat Robertson with this question (video below). I will type up a transcript of her letter (which was read aloud by the lady co-host) and then I will opine about the letter below the transcript:

Viewer Question Transcript:

My husband and I were happily married for 37 years. Every single night I prayed to God thanking him for my husband and the life we had together.

I asked God to never take him from me, for I had hoped that we would grow old together.

Then one day out of nowhere, my husband was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor. I was devastated and I felt like my sincere prayer must not have meant anything to God.

The Creepy, Sad, and Weird Love Life of Actor Tom Cruise

The Creepy, Sad, and Weird Love Life of Actor Tom Cruise

If you’re a singleton who sometimes reads my blog, and you’re fed up with being single (because you’d like to marry but haven’t been able to find the right person), this 2012 article from Vanity Fair might cheer you up.

Rest assured that your love life (or life as a single) cannot possibly be AS BAD or bizarre as Cruise’s.

There is a link way down the page to a Vanity Fair magazine article about how Tom Cruise’s church “auditions” women to be his girlfriends or wives.

Before I get a bunch of haters and get to the VF link: I don’t hate Tom Cruise, though he does come across as sounding like a weirdo, insensitive, and just as, or almost, self-absorbed as my ex fiance, in the Vanity Fair article I’m featuring farther below.

I don’t even know as I care so much that he’s into Scientology.

I only remark on Scientology in so far as it reminds me of the Protestant, Baptist, sort of evangelical Christianity I was raised in, in regards to the stupid and confining views on dating and marriage.

I read this Vanity Fair article about Cruise the other day, and it relates to a few of the subjects I blog about on here at times.

Single Mom Writes to Ask Amy: She’s Into Her Best Friend, But He’s Using Her

It sounds to me as though this guy is stringing her along, and she’d be better off without him.

It’s the second letter on this page:

DEAR AMY: I am a single mom. I’m in love with my best friend. He means more to me than anything, but the one thing he can’t give up is his freedom of being single. He loves me, but wants his cake and to eat it, too.

When I try to move on and date other people, he pulls me back into thinking that he wants to be with me.

I love him so much that I keep letting him play with my heart.

I am having a hard time trying to be “friends with benefits” because I have such strong feelings for him. His family loves me, his daughter loves me and my kids love him and his family.

We’ve been doing this for almost two years. I practically live there when my kids are not with me. I am afraid of letting him go. I’m afraid I won’t find someone like him. What should I do?

(Signed), Confused Heart

 

Fewer People Are Getting Married – And That’s A Good Thing by J. Wright

Fewer People Are Getting Married – And That’s A Good Thing by J. Wright

If you are new to my blog, I’d like to inform you that I am a conservative, a right winger.

I am not against “the family unit” or against marriage, but, I have noticed that a lot of other conservatives have disparaged singleness and have elevated marriage (as well as parenting and natalism) in to false idols they worship.

So, I’m not against marriage, babies, or the nuclear family, but I am opposed to the over-emphasis upon those things by my fellow conservatives.

(Link): Fewer People Are Getting Married – And That’s A Good Thing by J. Wright

Excerpts:

In a week full of terrible things, the Wall Street Journal published an essay entitled  (Link): “Cheap Sex and the Decline of Marriage” that pondered, “Why is marriage in retreat among young Americans? Because it is now much easier for men to find sexual satisfaction outside marriage.”

“Women: They’re Destroying Everything with Their Sluttery” is, I suppose, kind of a fun theory for an article if your readers hate women.

But the notion that unmarried young people are having an unprecedented amount of sex is without basis in fact. Studies from the (Link): Archives of Sexual Behavior indicate that extramarital sex is actually on the decline. Baby boomers are estimated to have 11 average sexual partners over their lifetimes, while millennials are expected to have only eight.

It stands to reason that women as well as men are having less cheap and easy sex.

Oh, well.

Is There Such A Thing As Being Single For Too Long? by M. Del Russo

Is There Such A Thing As Being Single For Too Long? by M. Del Russo

(Link): Is There Such A Thing As Being Single For Too Long? by M. Del Russo

Excerpts:

I was recently on a first date when the guy I was with asked when my last serious relationship was.

It’s a fairly typical first date question, so I answered truthfully: My most recent boyfriend and I ended things a little over three years ago. “Wow, that’s a long time,” he replied. I was seriously taken aback.

…Is there such a thing as being single for too long?

The Rhetoric of Singleness Blog – Links, Comments, Thoughts

The Rhetoric of Singleness Blog

Warning: I discovered through further reading that the author of the blog is a complementarian. I disagree with complementarianism; more on that below.

Had I known from the start she is a complementarian, I may not have started composing this post. I am leery of pointing anyone to a complementarian resource, but here we are.

---

As of today, I see only a small number of posts on the The Rhetoric of Singleness blog, dating from April 2017, and this blog appears to be from a Christian perspective – but then, her blog does not display a list or pull down menu of all her posts.

Even though the blog looks to be on hiatus, I’ll link to it on the off chance the blogger resumes writing again.

The person behind this blog says she’s single, in her 30s, and has yet to marry but would like to.

(Link): The Rhetoric of Singleness Blog – main page

Some of the only posts I am seeing on this blog include:

(Link): Pursuing Marriage

In that “Pursuing Marriage” post, she says she is a believer in gender complementarianism.

For example, here’s part of what she writes:

So, what options does that leave me, a woman with a complementary view of gender roles, of pursuing marriage? I know for some women who see no options left to them there is a strong temptation to bitterness, resentment, and to denigrate our single brothers who are called by God to the leadership role in the pursuit of marriage.

// end excerpt

Oh no. I (Link): used to be a complementarian myself but ditched it by my mid 30s.

I heard all the same stuff from conservative Christians growing up, as this other blogger likely did, such as, how (Link): men are supposed to be the heads in marriages, God supposedly created women pretty much to exist (Link): only to wait on men, and so on.

(And I remained a conservative, even after I realized that complementarianism is false and actually quite sexist – it doesn’t just teach that men and women “complement” one another but that there should be a male hierarchy, of men ruling over women.

Contrary to what complementarians would have you believe, abandoning gender complementarianism will not turn you into a left wing, abortion-supporting, man-hating feminist. I am still right wing, even after leaving complementarianism.)

I am no longer a complementarian, but can pin point complementarianism, among a few other things, as being (Link): one reason as to why I am in my 40s and never got married.

Advice Letter – 41 Year Old Never Married Woman To Marry Twice Divorced Guy, Her Mom Worried

Advice Letter – 41 Year Old Never Married Woman To Marry Twice Divorced Guy, Her Mom Worried

Oh. All sorts of bad things going on here. I’m not a supporter of May-December relationships.

Then you have the fact that this dear lady so sick and tired of being single, she’s willing to marry the first man who has a pulse who shows interest, even though he sounds not only too old for her, but possibly like a user. Red flags all over this.

I also have to say this is a switch – before on this blog, I have copied in letters from parents who are freaked out or disappointed that their adult child is age 30, 40, or older and hasn’t married yet, so the parent is begging the kid to marry anyone, just marry.

(Link): Hax Advice Column

DEAR CAROLYN: My smart, successful and never-been-married 41-year-old daughter has recently become engaged to a twice-divorced man whom she has nothing in common with except a desire to not be alone anymore.

I am worried she is his “retirement plan,” as he can’t wait to retire early from his job and live the expat lifestyle with her overseas. They have only known each other for a year, and six months of that have been long-distance.

My daughter complains he won’t stop seeing his “ex-girlfriend/best friend” who lives in the same apartment complex as him — on a different continent — and it is making her insecure.

How do I support my daughter? They have a 13-year age gap, and I just want her to slow down and think carefully about what she is getting herself into. Wanting to “check the marriage box” off your to-do list is not a reason to rush into this.

(Signed), Just Want Her to Slow Down

Dear Just:

You say: “I love you and worry about your safety.”

She will hear: “My mother thinks I can’t take care of myself.”

You say: “You barely know this man and are rushing into marriage for the sake of it.”

She will hear: “My mother thinks ‘single and 41’ = desperate and pathetic.”

You say: “He can’t wait to use you to retire early.”

She will hear: “My own mother thinks a man can’t like me for anything but my money.”

You say: “He’s obviously still seeing his ex, right under your nose.”

She will hear: “My mother thinks I’m an idiot.”

You have a message problem, one that stems from the even bigger problem of trying to be a parent to someone who is 20 years into being an adult.

(read more here)

---

Related Posts:

(Link):   Avoid Dating Divorced Guys Who Are Dating on the Rebound – and Icky May December Relationships

(Link):  Pat Robertson Says 44 Year old Never Married Woman Who Wants Marriage is “Desperate”

(Link):  Mom Is Ashamed of 30-Something Daughters Who’ve Never Been Married or Dated

(Link):  Dad Buys Full-Page $900 Newspaper Ad Seeking a Wife for His 48 Year Old, Never Married Son

(Link):  Idiot Assumes His 44 Year Old Sister Is A Lesbian Because She’s Never Been Married

(Link):  Never-Married Men Over 40: Date-able or Debate-able?

(Link):  How Sorry Do We Feel for the Lonesome Single Bachelors of New York? by T. Moore (never married men in their 40s talk about being tired of being single)

(Link):  Singles Shaming Mother: Her Sons are in their 30s, Great Guys, But She’s Freaking Because They’re Not Married (letter to Hax columnist)

(Link):  Creepy, wrong, immature and pathetic: older men chasing after much younger women

(Link):  Decent Secular Relationship Advice: How to Pick Your Life Partner

(Link):   Mom Is Ashamed of 30-Something Daughters Who’ve Never Been Married or Dated

(Link): My Parents Excluded Me When I Was Single — Now They’re Doing It to My Sister (Ask Amy Column)

(Link): Thirty Year Old Woman Kills Herself Due to Being Single and Childless – Churches contribute to this by either Ignoring adult singles or shaming them for being single and childless

(Link): I’m 45, Single And Childless. No, There’s Nothing ‘Wrong’ With Me. by M Notkin

(Link):  Grieving widow doesn’t need to start dating in order to heal (letter from advice column) 

(Link): Guy So Depressed Over Being Single He Cut Off His Own Penis (article)

(Link): Otherhood – An overlooked demographic – the Childless and Childfree Women and Singles Especially Women Who Had Hoped to Marry and Have Kids But Never Met Mr. Right (links)

(Link):  Are Single People the Lepers of Today’s Church? by Gina Dalfonzo

(Link): Typical Incorrect Conservative Christian Assumption: If you want marriage bad enough, Mr. Right will magically appear

 

Author Claims Andrea Tantaros’ Book About How Feminism ‘Made Women Miserable’ Was Ghostwritten by a Man

Author Claims Andrea Tantaros’ Book About How Feminism ‘Made Women Miserable’ Was Ghostwritten by a Man

Judge Won’t Let Andrea Tantaros Keep Secret Her Feminism Book Was Ghostwritten By Man

I wrote a review (or critique) of this book a few months ago. In my review, I noted it was a variation on the old conservative saw to blame feminism for why single women are having a difficult time getting dates or getting married.

I disagree. I lived life as a June Cleaver house-wife type (meaning, though I was single, I very docile, passive, sweet, ladylike) for decades, and I never got married.

Being a conservative ideal of a woman is not a guarantee you’re going to get dates or get married, so my fellow conservatives can kindly stop promoting that view.

So, as it turns out, a man – yes, a man – wrote the “anti feminist” book with Tantaros’ name on it, telling women if they want to get a man and keep one, to ditch their independence, their agency, and behave like doormats.

(Link):  Judge Will Not Allow Former Fox News Host to Conceal Identity of Her Feminism-Bashing Book’s Male Ghostwriter

(Link): Author Claims Andrea Tantaros’ Book About How Feminism ‘Made Women Miserable” Was Ghostwritten by a Man

Excerpts

Former Fox News starlet Andrea Tantaros made a name of herself in the conservative echelons of cable news punditry by (Link): blaming feminists for everything from the decline of marriage to statutory rape.

So when her book Tied Up in Knots: How Getting What We Wanted Made Women Miserable was released last year it seemed par for the course that she would dedicate hundreds of pages to how she— a capable, self-sufficient, feminine anti-feminist— was so much better off than her feminist counterparts.