In generations past, there was far less talk about “compatibility” and finding the ideal soul-mate. Today we are looking for someone who accepts us as we are and fulfills our desires, and this creates an unrealistic set of expectations that frustrates both the searchers and the searched for.
In John Tierney’s classic humor article “Picky, Picky, Picky” he tries nobly to get us to laugh at the impossible situation our culture has put us in. He recounts many of the reasons his single friends told him they had given up on their recent relationships:
“She mispronounced ”˜Goethe.’”
“How could I take him seriously after seeing The Road Less Traveled on his bookshelf?”
“If she would just lose seven pounds.”
“Sure, he’s a partner, but it’s not a big firm. And he wears those short black socks.”
“Well, it started out great … beautiful face, great body, nice smile. Everything was going fine””until she turned around.” He paused ominously and shook his head. ”… She had dirty elbows.”
In other words, some people in our culture want too much out of a marriage partner. They do not see marriage as two flawed people coming together to create a space of stability, love and consolation, a “haven in a heartless world,” as Christopher Lasch describes it. Rather, they are looking for someone who will accept them as they are, complement their abilities and fulfill their sexual and emotional desires. This will indeed require a woman who is “a novelist/astronaut with a background in fashion modeling,” and the equivalent in a man. A marriage based not on self-denial but on self-fulfillment will require a low- or no-maintenance partner who meets your needs while making almost no claims on you. Simply put””today people are asking far too much in the marriage partner.
Maybe it’s because I hang out with a lot of Christians — though some of my friends are self-avowed pagans and/or materialists — but I don’t know anyone, either male or female, who is rejecting marriage for those trivial reasons.
Maybe Tim Keller is referring to a very small segment of society? I don’t know.
It *is* true that many of my friends are not married [neither am I] but I see some different trends in the lack of marriage by some.
— a pervasive sense of horror over the marriages they have seen; at all costs they don’t want to have a “re-do” of those marriages — it’s just not worth the pain and trauma. Those of you who have vaguely stable and worthwhile marriages where the spouses are thriving and growing together — be very grateful and thank God and recognize that you are being watched intently as to how you both are treated and how you treat your spouse
— marriage as an institution is no longer honored, in large part because of the way those who are or were married have treated the institution; once one recognizes that even those within the marriages don’t value marriage, why would others wish to leap in?
— a sense that there is a shrinking pool of marriage material from both sexes, due in large part to the total collapse of the family in the US; honestly, once you weed out the mentally ill and incredibly unstable people, you’re left with a much smaller pool of applicants!
We are now on the third and fourth generation of adults who weren’t parented or in a stable family unit. They are *seriously* lacking in the most basic of life and relationship skills. Some of them manage to hold down a job — barely — but that’s an accomplishment.
I think that folks in their 60s and older really *really* don’t understand what is now *common* amongst people from Generation X on downward. Due to some strange vagaries in my life and interests, I get to be friends with folks in the Y and Millennial categories, and it’s a wasteland.
It’s not that these *people* are “wastelands.” It’s that the pool as a whole looks like wreckage from Robinson Crusoe’s ship.
Well said, Sarah, and spot on! I think, though, that marrieds in their 50s and older don’t understand the situation.
Perhaps it sounds selfish but in my age group — 40s — my friends and I are self-sufficient and loathe to take the risk of someone throwing a wrench into our working machine. It’s not a matter of give and take, which is what we would expect in a relationship, it’s that there are too many damaged individuals who feel entitled to take but won’t give or even compromise. It can take a while to discover this about a person and, by that time, damage has already been done. And so we say, “no thanks!”
When you get to a certain age, it’s so very true that you get set in your ways and really don’t see the need to adjust to someone else. If you’re happy and content on your own then the only thing that could possibly make you happier or more content is to have a relationship with someone entirely compatible with your life and interests. Older people do seem to meet new companions while pursuing hobbies and activities that they enjoy. If a good marriage results, wonderful! If not, that’s fine, too!
[blockquote]A marriage based not on self-denial but on self-fulfillment will require a low- or no-maintenance partner who meets your needs while making almost no claims on you.[/blockquote]
Such people do themselves and their prospective slightly-imperfect mates a mercy by staying single for the trivial reasons they cook up.