Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough

by Lori Gottlieb

Book Overview

Lori Gottlieb discusses "Marry Him" in a video on "The Atlantic" website.You have a fulfilling job, a great group of friends, the perfect apartment, and no shortage of dates. So what if you haven't found The One just yet. Surely he'll come along, right? But what if he doesn't? Or even worse, what if he already has, but you just didn't realize it? Suddenly finding herself forty and single, Lori Gottlieb said the unthinkable in her March 2008 article...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0525951512
• ISBN13: 9780525951513
• Release Date: February 2010
• Publisher: Dutton Books
• Length: 322 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.5" x 10.0"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

A must buy for every woman!!!!

It was the concept of the book that drew me in then after 5 pages I was hooked! This book gave me a 360 outlook on dating and also so much needed reality checks! I’ve been following the authors works ever since (:

Very insightful book. Every woman should read this.

I love this book. Before this book came out, I was having doubts about my husband (I am 33 years old, and he 36 years old - we've been married for 6 years). I was secretly wishing he was more handsome, sexier, more this, more that. The list goes on. What did not help the situation was my catty, single girlfriends (who couldn't find dates themselves) who would egg me on to "Dump your husband! Who needs a man these days? GIRL POWAH!" I am ashamed to admit that for a while, I was influenced by these girls -- girls who I thought were my friends. I was thisclose to getting a divorce from my husband, thinking that I could find someone sexier/hotter/handsomer out there. Then I read this book, and the author, Lori Gottlieb, truly hit the nail on the head. I realize now how sweet, devoted, kind, hard-working and -- (gasp) handsome my husband is. I almost cried while reading the book because I saw myself in many of the examples Ms. Gottlieb wrote in there -- how cruel and selfish I have been. Now I am proud to say, after a major attitude adjustment on my part, our marriage has never been better. My husband and I spend wonderful time together -- making dinner, watching movies, going out to the bowling alley, juggling mundane chores just like everyone else on the planet, etc. He's no Brad Pitt, but so what? Neither am I (the female equivalent of Brad, I mean). But he has the qualities that make an AMAZING life mate, a partner, a lover. I am no longer constantly checking over my shoulder "to see if there is a better guy out there." No, I am 120% done with that. And it IS a liberating feeling. My husband and I are incredibly happy together now. We just talked about starting a family, and we are stoked about what the future can bring! As for those catty, single girlfriends? I cut them out of my life. I don't have room in my life for people like that. And last I heard -- they're still miserably single and getting together for girls' night out complaining why they can't find men. I want to tell them, "You reap what you sow." This book was truly a wake-up call for me.

this book just saved my relationship

Aside from being such an entertaining read, this book just killed any lingering doubts I had about marrying my fiance. I'm 30, and I'm engaged to a wonderful 38-year-old accountant who happens to be quite boring. He also comes with a bit of baggage -- a 4-year-old son from a previous relationship (not marriage). However he and his ex have joint custody, so we do get decent couple time and he doesn't pay child support, plus I have a great relationship with his son. Anyway, this book made me realize how close I was to making a huge mistake. My guy meets all of my needs (we share similar values, he's financially responsible, he's a good father, and he doesn't have a problem with me engaging in activities I enjoy even if he's not necessarily interested in doing them with me) and many of my wants (he's tall and athletic, we have amazing physical chemistry, he's affectionate, he never stonewalls during an argument, he's a good cook, and he's way better than me when it comes to cleaning the house !) But for the longest time I doubted whether it would work out because I didn't feel like he's intellectually curious enough. I'm a writer, and I read everything I can get my hands on just for the sake of learning new things. My fiance is rarely interested in learning about anything that doesn't have a practical application. He's also a homebody, while I prefer to be out there doing things. He's just a quiet guy with simple needs. But whenever we're together, I always feel a sense of calm, peace, and comfort, even if it's just sitting side-by-side on on the couch while he's watching a basketball game and I'm reading a book. But after reading this book, I felt so much better about my choice to "settle" (this statement might sound ridiculous now that I've listed my fiance's good qualities, but you'd be amazed at how many women think they deserve nothing less than perfect). So if you're a woman who wants to get married (this book isn't for women who don't want to get married), read this book. The title's very provocative, but "settling" the way the author defines it doesn't so much refer to marrying anyone just to beat your biological clock. It's about getting rid of that sense of entitlement so you can focus on what matters in a marriage partner before you run out of options that actually meet any semblance of reasonable criteria.

A Life Changing Must Read!

I noticed a review for this book in a recent issue of "O" Magazine and was intrigued...I thought it might be something my 22-year-old daughter should read. After purchasing the book, I devoured it in a few days. Lori's information is spot-on and highly useful. After listening to my daughter's "list" of the things she wants in a husband and saying repeatedly, "I would rather be alone than settle someday", the content in the book hit a nerve. I have always told her that she is never going to find the perfect man, as marriage is a series of compromises and that the "spark" is made way too important when you consider the long haul of a marriage. Listening to her say that "boring" is the most awful trait a guy can have, she has even insinuated that her beloved father is "not exciting enough!" Ouch! I quickly remind her that he has way, way more sustaining important qualities than the "exciting" men, who often do not want a long-term relationship! I will say that reading this book has made me very, very appreciative of my steady, reliable, sweet husband of 29 years. I am fortunate to have had the good sense to realize at age 21 that he was great husband material and would make a wonderful life companion and he has. I was relieved to read in Lori's book that similar goals are far more important and similar interests, something I think that today's young women focus on too much. A person does not have to be your mirror image to make a good spouse, but you do need to find someone who shares your basic values and wants the same things out of life. Lori's book is amazing and I am recommending it to my friends to get for their daughters and for my single friends. Every single woman should read this and re-evauluate what is truly important when looking for a spouse. Run to your bookstore and get this book, as it will be life-changing for anyone who reads it. For singles, it will make you stop and think twice about that "boring" guy who you might not feel "fireworks" with but who calls when he says he will...for married women, it will make you thankful you have someone who is steady and there for you. A win-win situation, in my opinion!

Most helpful dating book I've ever read

After reading several singles books that encouraged me to work on myself, ask friends why things weren't working out for me, and to keep my standards high, I decided to give this one a chance. Thank god I did. It turns out just one thing is separating me from finding a supportive, loving partner -- my unrealistic sense of entitlement. I was raised with a mother who told me I was beautiful and only deserved the most textbook Mr. Right. So for most of my dating life, I've discarded dozens of guys for not immediately making me go all starry eyed. Gottlieb doesn't encourage us to discount the importance of attraction or connection. Her book just teaches us to remember in our fast-paced world that sometimes both of those things can grow or cultivate over time rather than a half hour cup of coffee. Many of us settle for the instant pleasure of a Hostess cupcake rather than waiting for a seven-course meal. In a society that touts instant gratification, she reminds us to let things marinate and bloom into something we would have otherwise missed. Ultimately, it's not a book that argues for settling as much as accepting men's humanity and flaws. And really, don't we hope they'd do the same for us? And doesn't that sort of acceptance lead to a deeper, longer lasting love? Through extensive research and insight (and yes, her own mistakes), Gottlieb takes the reader through a cognitive retraining of sorts. She debunks the double standard women hold toward men when it comes to expectations and forces us to confront, again, our sense of entitlement. The exercise is both confidence building and reassuring. It's not too late for me. It's not too late for any of us. I discussed the book with a friend who's getting married in May. She instantly told me, "Remember, I wasn't attracted to Mike at all when we first started dating. Now there's no one I'd rather be with." And then I realized it was my line of thinking that was keeping me single -- not a lack of wonderful partners. Since reading the book, I joined an online dating site where I'm meeting with men of all types -- not just the textbook hotties. And so far, my heart just feels more open and ready to make a real connection instead of spending the entire date looking for what's wrong with the guy. Now instead of feeling like I can't find anyone like me, I feel like every guy I meet could be the one. And that's the real gift of Gottlieb's book -- it makes you more open to actually finding a loving partner and enables you to date from a place of abundance as opposed to a place of desperation.

Looking at this objectively...

In reading the blurbs that led into the review section, one struck me in particular: "In business, 'good enough' is often 'very good'. So why should we expect and demand perfection in dating and marriage?". This perspective strikes the nail on the head when it comes to Lori's book. But I would say it a different way and it behooves me to point out that I work on Wall Street so my comments are colored by an objective, clinical and analytic mindset. Much of life, as Lori's well crafted material suggests, is an optimization problem, not a maximization problem. It's not realistic to expect all of your desired outcomes to be maximized, but rather you have to decide the constraints and relative weightings that form the "good enough" solution for you. For those of you that may work in analytic fields, you know that solving a large optimization problem requires many compute cycles so it's much harder for women who, as Lori points out, have 300 evaluation variables compared to the 3 that men have, but they can get there none the less. It's also reminiscent of the aphorism that parents often tell their children, that you can be anything you want to be if you try hard enough. The truth of the matter is that you can be anything you want to be, but only within your constraints, otherwise we would have thousands of Michael Jordans playing basketball and in spite of the ambition of kids on playgrounds the world over, the number of Michael Jordans in the world is still an extremely small number. This `maximal vs. optimal' is a subject that I have thought about often and talked about with friends, especially female, who are trying to address this for themselves. I am grateful to Lori for writing this excellent book that lays this all out in a way that readers will understand and appreciate so they can chart a course to their own "good enough" solution.