I have to emphasize the stand-out sentence that Laura wrote: “This is a serious project, similar to earning a Ph.D.”

I have tried over and over again to make my younger sisters, who are 18 and 20, understand this, but they just don’t quite believe me. The role of “Wife and Mother” has been so completely disregarded by society that unless you’re in it and you mean it, you aren’t likely to realize how much work it is going to take to do it right, and by then it’s almost too late. STUDY. And like Laura says, the best place to find everything, from material to study and grow from, to support from on high (you’ll NEED that), is the Church.

I would recommend the writings of the saints, both male and female, and also a particular devotion to Our Lady. When the world raises (or rather buries) women to think they are men, it takes this Epitome of Femininity, our Mother, to re-raise us correctly. I am highly suspicious, in fact, of any woman that thinks she can undergo this change without the Virgin Mary. There is a lack of humility and therefore a lack of sincerity in anyone that would deny this Woman her right to mother us, just as there is in a person that denies God his role as Creator.

Making use of blogs like TTH and What Women Never Hear is a great idea. Suddenly Laura Wood and “Sir Guy,” as he goes by, are our Professors, and we are able to ask questions and find direction.

You lament the concept that “men only want one thing.” While that is a lie that our society has shamelessly exploited, the untwisted sister of it is a valuable truth. Men want that one thing more than almost anything else. This is true, and this is exactly why you cannot give it to them until you have secured for yourself EVERYTHING you deserve from him. It is your only real weapon against a man’s dominant spirit. Once you’re conquered, it’s over. He’s not going to try any harder to please you then he has had to in the past. He is not going to respect you. He is not going to take any more interest in getting to know who you are and what you like outside the bedroom. And your reactions to these things will likely destroy your relationship, or at the very least, they will make it a miserable one for many years.

This scares young women today, and rightfully so. It seems like it would be impossible to compete with the hundreds of women who are “putting out” if you’re not going to. You’ll just have to take our word for it. You CAN compete. You can compete and come out with the best man around when it’s all said and done, and he will be devoted to you, not just committed. You want to be a little queen with a faithful king, as all women do, and this is the surest way.

Take everything Laura said and make a check list. Learn how to be happy and content. Check. Learn how to be filled with gratitude. Check. Learn how to make your appearance a priority. Check. Make habits of all these good things and more, and you will be such a catch that men will be competing for your affections. Start a gratitude journal and write about only positive things that make you happy (idea courtesy of “Sir Guy”).

I hope you will succeed. Every victory in the truth is precious to God, and takes more effect than one would ever expect. Be patient. “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you all the treasures of your heart”- Psalm 37:4.

Laura writes:

Excellent.

I’m glad you mentioned Sir Guy at What Women Never Hear because he has a lot of valuable advice.

And thank you for mentioning the Epitome of Femininity. She is the morning star, the gate of heaven and the house of gold.  My heart runneths over with love for this most precious advocate and Mystical Rose.

A Grateful Reader writes:

Mrs. Wood made good suggestions for your reader “going mad.” I feel great sympathy for that reader, having once been in her shoes and would like to address her.

Some of those important actions suggested by Mrs. Wood, such as coming into The Church and withdrawing (somewhat or entirely, depending upon your duty to the person) from nihilistic friends and relations, generally take a long time, and thus, I would recommend that you endeavor to find a guide, an older woman with children, perhaps a homeschooling mother, to help you along. You might help her by tutoring her children and begin to speak to her of your concerns. Finding a community of like-minded people is more difficult. I have found but a handful of friends who are traditional mothers and homemakers and none of them live in my neighborhood. I live in a major American city and also earned a doctorate and was not religious before starting a family.

Other suggestions that I have for you might speed your way into finding a mate or finding a guide toward that end.

Obtain a copy of the lecture series or the book True Friendship, availble through Catholic Courses. The author and lecturer, Dr. John Cuddeback, discusses the three types of friendships that people have: friendship of pleasure, friendship of utility, and true friendship. Then you can begin to determine how you can become a true friend and thus find true friends. Ultimately, you should find a husband who will strive to become your true friend.

Consider frequenting places where you might meet good, decent men, such as lectures organized by conservative colleges (Christendom [VA], St. Thomas More [NH], Ave Maria [FL], Thomas Aquinas [CA]) or other groups (the Walsingham Society the Rockford Institute [IL], the Orthosphere meetings [NY], the Chesterton Society [NJ], the Mencken Club [Baltimore, MD], The C. S. Lewis Society). Physics departments are usually full of twenty-something male graduate students as are seminaries, but only in the Orthodox seminaries (not in the Catholic) are the men seeking wives.

Most life-altering for you will be to begin to attend a Latin Mass Catholic church or a Byzantine-Rites Catholic church, or an Orthodox church, just to taste the flavor of traditional liturgy. Find out about their bible studies and lectures and begin to attend those.  I highly recommend listening to the free, downloadable lectures from the library of The Institute for Catholic Culture. Visit a monastery. Go on a tour sponsored by a traditionalist Christian group.

Wear a dress most of the time, keep your hair in a feminine style, get rid of your television, spend little time on the Internet, and read old books. Cook and invite old people to dinner. Learn how to pray. Spend more time with homemakers with children. And receive what the wise (like Mrs. Wood) have to offer. You have already taken the hardest step: you have opened your eyes.

Laura writes:

More excellent advice. Thank you.

You wrote:

Cook and invite old people to dinner.

This is so wise. I remember how much I benefited from being with old people when I was in my twenties (as I still do). It was like tuning an instrument (myself) and putting the keys back in proper harmony.

Texanne writes:

Regarding your comment, “And I also wonder whether the female reader hasn’t actually rejected some pretty nice men in the past:”

There is no shortage of “nice” men.  What is needed is heroes!

On meeting a nice person, it takes a while to discern whether he/she actually believes anything, or what that belief might be, but discerning is crucial.  Niceness implies politeness, and even empathy.  But without boundaries of belief in truth, so many nice people are easily moved by pure emotion, and thus easy targets for manipulation by selective anecdotes and images, by ideologies — in particular, notions of “fairness” and “equality.”  They are easily confused and convinced by the manipulation of language and categories.  Nice people are often more likely to make themselves unobjectionable to others than to seek truth that might make them unpopular.

While getting to know a nice man, this woman should be asking herself, “How does this man determine what is good?  Can I trust his judgment? Would he protect me and save me?  Who is his model for fatherhood?”

At the same time, she should be reflecting on her own beliefs, asking herself, “How should I be — so as to be worthy and supportive of such a hero?”

Rod Dreher recently posted about the importance of beliefs in this regard.

Laura writes:

Very good. You are absolutely right.

AUGUST 10

Lucy writes:

I wonder if I might offer myself as an example of a parallel madness.

Like many conservative, religious women, I was trained to see vocation as the one worthy aim of life, and to see career as the work of feminists, and therefore evil. So, confident in this belief, buoyed up by the kind of advice left by your readers, I eschewed career, kept my hair long, wore skirts, attended traditional liturgies and philosophy courses, and smiled at the weddings of friends and the baptisms of their children, knowing that it was only a matter of time before my own dream was fulfilled and my secret longing to send a man to work with his own packed lunch could be daily enacted and shamelessly enjoyed. I prayed, I scrubbed the parish candlesticks, I catechised children, I cooked for my chaplains, and closed my ears to the voices of non-religious friends, who told me that I needed to escape this way of thinking, stop wanting children so much, and start focusing on career.

The result? Nothing. Doing the Unfeminist Thing has not only yielded nothing in terms of vocation, but has left me fifteen years behind everyone else in terms of supporting myself financially; I cannot even afford to rent by myself, let alone own my own home. Had I invested the past fifteen years in meaningful (and better paid) work, I might at least have had this level of security and satisfaction in daily life. I can assure you that conservative behaviour and thought guarantees nothing by way of security or happiness; when I read your reader’s letter and other readers’ responses, I broke down in tears at the memory of so much misplaced trust, wasted hope and lost time. (I have discovered that, when it comes to breaking hearts, religious and non-religious boyfriends are identical. That a man calls himself a traditionalist does not mean that he will not molest you; that he prays the Rosary doesn’t mean he doesn’t have two other girlfriends at the same time.)

I know I am not the only woman in my position. Other friends, having done likewise, find themselves forced, in their forties, to move back home with their parents, because they cannot afford to rent on the incomes which they have, because they too spent their twenties and thirties believing it was their duty to prepare for domesticity rather than for financial independence. They were once so full of hope and determination; now, they describe themselves as ‘jaded’, ‘confused’ and ‘trying to come to terms with how life has turned out.’

I do believe that it was right to assure your young reader that her desires were normal, because they are normal. It is not right, however, to train young women to believe that the longed-for vocation is next-to inevitable and contingent only upon certain conservative patterns of behaviour and thought. It is true that a surly face or a bitter soul is unlikely to be loved; it is not true that a smiling face and a sweet soul will necessarily be loved. Some people are wanted and some are not, and there is nothing that the unwanted souls can do about this other than offer it up and pray for the gift of forgiveness of those whose advice led them to this.

Laura writes:

I am sympathetic to your disappointment and unhappiness. I am sure this is just a phase and that you will find a new lease on life. I sincerely wish you the very best, but I must point out that you have misread what was stated here.

I never advocated that the young reader avoid all paid work or even said that she shouldn’t have a career while unmarried. As I said in my comment, I didn’t know whether she has a job, and I wasn’t able to address that issue. In fact, I specifically wrote to the reader before I posted my response to her and asked about her job situation because I wanted to address that issue too, but she declined to respond.

None of the advice given here ruled out the possibility of employment. There is nothing wrong with a young woman taking reasonable steps to enter some field that does not require so much of her time and energy that she is unable to do other things or to leave when married. Women have traditionally worked as teachers, nurses, administrative assistants, but there are other careers that one can enter in one’s early or late twenties if marriage is not already on the table and leave if one has a family. Feminism advocates career as a form of identity and self-fulfillment that is higher than all else and demands that women enter traditionally male fields and expect to work while they are married and have children.

So you are complaining about things that have never been said here. It seems, however, that you were told by others that you absolutely must not do anything that smacked of careerism and must avoid all paid employment — not a risky thing to do if you have family committed to supporting you over the long haul, but is risky if you will someday be on your own. I agree that view is extreme.

You write:

So, confident in this belief, buoyed up by the kind of advice left by your readers, I eschewed career, kept my hair long, wore skirts, attended traditional liturgies and philosophy courses, and smiled at the weddings of friends and the baptisms of their children, knowing that it was only a matter of time before my own dream was fulfilled and my secret longing to send a man to work with his own packed lunch could be daily enacted and shamelessly enjoyed. I prayed, I scrubbed the parish candlesticks, I catechised children, I cooked for my chaplains, and closed my ears to the voices of non-religious friends, who told me that I needed to escape this way of thinking, stop wanting children so much, and start focusing on career.

A woman is naive if she thinks she is absolutely guaranteed of a husband. May I suggest that you are also very naive if you think all this was a waste of time? Not only should prayer, philosophy courses, cooking for chaplains and other selfless work have benefited you personally, but it obviously benefited others. Go out into the world, my dear, and you will find what true selfishness and shallowness are and what a hole they burn in the soul. I envy the time you have spent doing these things. If you die tomorrow, all that you have done will send you into the arms of the angels — that is, if you don’t become resentful and bitter first.

I assume you are about 35 years old. That is still very young. Even if you are 40, you have many options. There are many possible careers or jobs you could pursue. The economy stinks, and that’s a serious problem. If you can afford it, I would seek an unpaid internship at a company first and hope to get hired. There are options and for someone who has a full intellectual life as you do, a job is just a way to earn a living, not the essence of one’s being. I know people who have changed course in their fifties and sixties (as well as found spouses). Also the fact that you haven’t experienced marriage and children has its benefits. You can be free of the problems and hardships associated with both. Having marriage and children is not like winning the lottery. They involve sacrifice and often a great deal of suffering. (I think of the mother walking down my street one day, the tears running down her cheeks and her eyes wild with grief, after her son had murdered a neighbor. Is there anything worse? Is there any greater hell on this earth?) Many people would envy your freedom, which is all the more precious because it is not the result of selfishness.

Yes, not every woman will find a man. I would not advocate that a woman spend 15 years of her life in volunteer work if she is not rich. In general though, for those who don’t find a husband, there is more to life. Emily Dickinson had no husband, children or job. Many of her friends died and her father was hard to live with, but she radiated love and had a full intellectual life. A sweet, loving temperament is always a precious possession and a gift to others. Again, how sad that you view the children and chaplains whom you loved during this time as burdens and drags on your self-fulfillment. You say,

[I]t is not true that a smiling face and a sweet soul will necessarily be loved.

Really? I have never known anyone who truly possessed this sweetness who was not loved and cherished by others. Do you have nieces and nephews?

You write:

I have discovered that, when it comes to breaking hearts, religious and non-religious boyfriends are identical.

But it doesn’t seem you have you had a great deal of experience with non-religious men, so I wonder how you come to this conclusion. Nevertheless, I agree, one will not necessarily find a husband at church.

Laura adds:

By the way, where I live, any woman who has good references and who likes children can earn enough to support herself very comfortably by being a nanny. (A single woman doesn’t need to own a house, which can be a real burden.) There is also a huge demand for women to care for the old in their homes and some people prefer those who are not employed by the major agencies, who tend to come from foreign cultures. One can do these things and live a full life in one’s spare time without the hassles and commitments of major careers. (However, neither of these jobs will bring one into contact with many men. See below.) Many careers demand everything. Sure, they may allow you to make enough to take fancy vacations, but for most of the year, you are an indentured servant with no free time or spare energy except perhaps to collapse on a sofa Friday night and fall asleep while watching a bad movie, which reminds me that one reason movies are so bad is that exhausted people will watch anything.

Laura continues:

Lucy’s comment reminds me of the plight of women who want to stay home with their children and have every intention of staying home, but can’t because of absolute financial necessity. The problem in these cases is not the model or ideal of domesticity, but the inability to achieve it. And the important thing is that such a woman supports this worthy ideal and doesn’t seek to undermine it. She has done the best for her children even if she absolutely must work to put food on the table because her intentions are good, and right intentions create a certain moral tone that affects everything.

The ideal of the traditional family is not something that ensures happiness. Far from it. It requires sacrifice at differing levels. The pathway is littered, sad to say, with casualties. Some sacrifice more than others and some are even reasonably defined as martyrs for the cause. And I sincerely mean that. Those who have unhappy marriages to miserable spouses must sacrifice their happiness to refuse divorce. Men in dreadful jobs must stick with them to support their families. Women who have diverse talents must limit the fulfillment of these talents to serve their homes. And give up lots of money to do it. And women who find no spouses after years of searching make sacrifices in not having done other more lucrative things in the meantime. But then every model of living has its victims. Feminism has many more victims, however, —  think, for example, of the men who have been deprived of their families after divorce, a great injustice — and feminism is pitted against the welfare of the young, as well as against the very foundations of civilization. The moral tone I mentioned, when it goes bad, corrupts the foundations of thought.

Rita Jane responds to the original posting:

I’m 24 and have been married for three years, but if God forbid, my husband died tomorrow, this is what I’d do to find a new husband. It’s the advice I’d give a young woman looking for a marriage partner too. I just got laid off but have been almost continuously employed since finishing college. I have no special qualifications; just a liberal arts degree.

1. Condense my belongings down and move back in with my parents to save money. They’d be happy to have me, and it’s less lonely that way as well.

2. Find a job in a male dominated field. [Laura writes: Terrific advice!] Your ability to find a marriage partner is going to be based in large part on how many eligible young men you meet, since meeting many men raises the odds you’ll find a good one you “click” with. You are much better being an entry-level assistant in a science, construction or tech firm (male dominated) than in a travel agency or school (female dominated). Many men in tech fields earn good salaries that could support a wife and kids. It would behoove you to meet as many men near your own age as possible. I’m not saying you need to be an engineer, but engineering firms have secretaries, graphic designers, marketing departments, and a host of other needs for non-engineers.

3. Bank a high percentage of your salary. When I lived with my parents I gave them a few hundred a month to cover my food and some utilities, and I helped around the house. I made sure to save most of the remainder. If you never marry, this will set you up for your future. If you do marry, even $5,000 in savings is a huge boon.

4. Take up a male-dominated hobby, college clases, volunteering gig or second job in a field that leans conservative. Does your local gun shop or shooting range need someone to help with customers? Does your local national park have a volunteer group that helps pick up debris on the trails? Is there a nearby preppers group whose meetings you could attend? Could you take some night classes in computer programming? Perhaps join a local fishing, boating, investing, video game or birdwatching club? Does your local internet cafe need a weekend receptionist? Is there a young Republicans group somewhere? I love my knitting group and volunteering at the botanical garden, but I’ve never met a young man there. You don’t need to be aggressively masculine, but a sweet, friendly, helpful girl will be well received. If you’re single and childless, you have enough free time to work and volunteer. [More great advice!]

5. Survey the churches that match your religious inclinations in your area, and pick the one with as many young people as possible. Young married people have single friends, in addition to any single parishioners that you may meet. Attend regularly, and involve yourself in parish life.

6. This may or may not be acceptable to you, so feel free to disregard it. Consider men who are less desirable in the dating market. My husband is very traditional, very kind, and very hardworking. He’s also of Chinese descent. Men like him are routinely ignored by many Asian girls (who prefer white boys) and white women. He was very happy to date and marry me, and he’s from a traditional culture. As a bonus, I live in a traditional Chinese community that accepts me and will accept our children and help raise them with good, old-fashioned values. (There are some other mixed couples; we’re accepted because I assimilated to their traditional norms and don’t act like a normal Western woman.) Seek out men who are stigmatized by mainstream American dating culture–the shy, the nerdy, the withdrawn, the less attractive. They are much more grateful to a halfway-pretty girl who notices them and will be more wiling to marry than someone with more options open to him.

Laura writes:

All the things Lucy has done — catechizing children, feeding chaplains, polishing candlesticks — while good in and of themselves, do not bring a woman into contact with single men. They are not enough, and she has indeed been misled if she was given to think that these things were enough to find a man or that being in the company of the religious and leading the life of a quasi-nun guarantees a traditional family life. A job as a secretary in a physics department or an engineering firm or a shooting range provides many potential opportunities. A woman must go where men are to find them.

Laura adds:

Since I do not know anyone who encourages daughters who do not wish to be religious sisters to stay home for many years on end, polishing candlesticks and teaching religious classes, I was perhaps unprepared to respond well to Lucy. I would say a real injustice has been done to her if she has been discouraged from going out into the world at all. Some people are meant for the monastic life and others are not.

Lisa writes:

Lucy wrote, “[I]t is not true that a smiling face and a sweet soul will necessarily be loved.” Sad but true, just as there are lots of innocent murder victims. People too often don’t even see others these days, let alone pause long enough to assess and appreciate their qualities. As Don Colacho said, “Today, whoever does not shout is neither heard nor understood.”

Laura writes:

It is true that in certain contexts, a gentle soul is utterly disregarded. I remember once working in an office where there was a  sweet, shy girl who was not very sophisticated though she was smart enough. She was ignored by all the super-smart, witty Ivy League graduates around her. Once we all went to the beach together, and standing by the ocean, she broke down in tears to me and said how she felt like nothing. It was heartbreaking. She was not resentful, only stating the truth. But in so many places this girl’s gentleness would not have been overlooked.

Rita Jane writes:

Far-right Protestant movements sometimes discourage women from ever holding paid employment outside the home or attending higher education. This works well if you marry by about age 25. But there are a lot of girls still keeping house for their parents at 30 or 35, which I find sad. I know families with several daughters like this, whose odds of ever having a husband and home of their own are steadily diminishing. Because these families often don’t even attend churches, preferring to home-church with a couple likeminded families, the odds of these girls ever meeting someone marriageable are very, very slim. I have wondered if this is happening with the Duggar girls–their eldest girl is now 23 and they have several other adult daughters as well, and there’s been no progress on marrying any of them off. Vision Forum affiliated people often behave this way. Perhaps Lucy is from such a group? [Laura writes: I got the impression that she is Catholic.]

I think Orthodox Jews do this best. Girls work after finishing high school or college until they marry in an appropriate field, and sometimes for a bit after. The community puts a lot of effort into ensuring that young men and women get matched up until they find someone compatible, with the end result that at a ten year high school reunion, 95% or more of the girls will be married. It is a very effective system.

Laura writes:

Homes like those Rita Jane describes in her first paragraph above are what my grandmother called “schools for spinsters.”

Joe A. writes:

Lucy, I know plenty of attractive, highly-educated “career women” who never married or who were past realistic child-bearing years by the time they found “The One.”

Do not despair.  Your decision to do it “old school” is not to blame.

Men today, especially in your GenY cohort, are on a marriage strike, so you’ve got to work hard to improve your odds.

Rita Jane’s advice is correct:  GO WHERE THE MEN ARE.

(What was that 60s film with that wonderful Patsy Cline theme song, “Where the Boys Are”?  By the way, if you look closely at the opening credits– or perhaps it was the sequel – you’ll catch a glimpse of my father’s ship, U.S.S. Independence on her second Med cruise. And yes, the stars came aboard for a USO tour, along with Grace Kelly and her new husband.)

The kind of man who wants a traditional woman is working hard at some thankless job wondering what went wrong in his life, too.  He’s not out prowling the bars playing PUA.  While I respect the collective advice here, they are somewhat out-of-the-loop and frankly, the Catholic church is not the place to meet eligible men (I am obviously not Catholic). [Laura writes: I never suggested the original female reader go to Church to meet men and also told Lucy it was not a particularly good place to meet men. One of the first things I told the anonymous reader in my initial comment was, “try to meet as many new people as possible,” and other readers said similar things. I don’t see what’s “out-of-the-loop” about that. Also, it seems there was something wrong with Lucy’s going “old school” if  it kept her from doing anything outside church. However, the issue of marrying within one’s faith is another consideration. And if she is Catholic, she must marry within her faith or marry a man who agrees to raise the children Catholic. That said, I agree with your other points.]   But there are plenty of wholesome ways to meet men who are.

Just think of a manly sport or pastime you can tolerate and do it!  Clubs exist for hiking, firearms, ham radio, cars, ballroom dancing, fishing, BBQ, golf and on and on.  Each of them are chock full of available men killing time wondering where the “keepers” are.

If you hang out in one of these more than a few weeks your problem will be deciding which suitor to marry, not reconciling yourself to scrubbing the floors of the rectory the rest of your Old Maid’s life.

Trust me on this, Lucy.  Been there, done that.

Karen I. writes:

In my area, there are a handful of gyms, or “fitness clubs” that eligible single, professional men attend. I’d advise “Going Mad” to see if she can find out if there is such a gym in her area. The gyms in my area that the good guys go to charge a bit more, have personal trainers, use top of the line equipment and offer classes. The most eligible men aren’t at the cheap chain gyms, which are nothing more than pickup joints, or the Y, which is for families, but they are at the fitness clubs. Many go straight from work to the fitness club, where they spend a couple of hours. A woman does not have to go lift weights to meet men at a gym. She could just use the treadmill and go for a good walk, or try a pilates or yoga class. [Laura writes: That might work if she doesn’t have to wear Spandex or dress immodestly, which is doubtful, but I don’t recommend yoga.]

I know you meant well when you advised “Going Mad” to distance herself from her family. If “Going Mad” were to do that without enough resources to fall back on, like a good paying job, I know from experience that she could face huge emotional and even financial penalties, as many young people rely on their families to help with all kinds of expenses starting out. It also does not look good to young men from stable families (the kind she may most want to attract) to be coming from what could be perceived as a dysfunctional situation if she chooses to put a lot of distance between herself and her family. [Laura writes: Good advice, but just to clarify, I said, “Neglect your family and friends,” not cut them off entirely. I don’t advise that except in extreme cases.] I also think it can be very easy to get so caught up in the family aspect that valuable time and energy could be wasted as families don’t usually take rejection easily. I would advise “Going Mad” to detach herself without totally separating from her family. She might be better off seeing the good in her family, such as their support in whatever way they provide it, and overlooking the bad to some extent. She is no doubt intelligent enough to reject their outlook internally without outwardly doing something drastic and she can take bigger steps to distance herself, if necessary, when she is more established. The world can be very cruel to young women who don’t give the impression of having a family to protect them.

AUGUST 12, 2013

Mary writes:

I just re-read Lucy’s post. As someone who was once in her position (I married late, mid-thirties) and felt those feelings, but also as a mother, it hurts to read her words. Others have posted good advice so I won’t try to improve upon it but will just add a few thoughts that occurred to me while reading her post.

I would like her to understand that following a career path would not have guaranteed her anything in the way of a husband, so she should not hold the people who advised her accountable for her situation. The world today simply doesn’t support marriage the way it should. I was out there in the world as a single working girl for years and most of the girls I knew were compromising: they were being strung along, or they were living with their boyfriends, or having affairs with married men; and even though I watched wistfully as one or two of them married super guys and talked about all they kids they would have, well, some of them are now divorced. It’s bad out there. This is hard to understand unless you have experienced it, but Lucy is lucky she hasn’t. She has missed nothing. The temptations are tremendous and there are virtually no good examples to follow. I’m guessing the people advising Lucy were trying to spare her contact with this side of life.

If I read her words correctly, she once loved someone who betrayed her by having two other girlfriends besides her. The type of guy who is so charismatic that he can attract and hold three women at once is a type to run from fast, however tempted one is. I didn’t find someone until I completely let go of my preconceived ideas about the perfect mate and started considering, rather than looks, physique, personality, sex appeal, and even the famous “chemistry”, the qualities I wanted in someone (think Jane Austen). I started dating against type and was quickly cured of the bad boy syndrome. I think you find someone to build a life with – someone with shared values, who is hard-working and humorous and definitely holy – and you build that life. And you are good to each other – love grows so beautifully from true devotion. Graces abound in holy matrimony and those get you through the rough times. My sister also married an old friend, as did three of my women friends, all of whom were trying to find dates for a guy friend and in the nick of time realized they wanted him for themselves. By the way, there is no shame in late marriage – most of the ones I know of are quite wonderful, actually.

I want to add that I think the idea of “independence” is overrated. Multiple generations have lived under one roof since the beginning of time. It’s one thing to be spoiled and lazy and pampered and avoiding adulthood by living at home; quite another to do it for companionship, support, protection and to ease financial burdens. Keep in mind how many souls have been lost by buying into a life of single “independence”, by having no reason to say no to the guy who wants in after a date, knowing no one else is home. I would tell Lucy and her friends there is no shame in it whatsoever and to ignore/avoid anyone toxic enough to tell them it is – the shame is theirs.

Gratitude, as others have mentioned, is invaluable. It cannot be emphasized strongly enough: be appreciative of your blessings, because everyone has something to be thankful for, even if it is simply good health on a sunny day. Don’t look backward in bitterness or forward in fear. God has a plan for you. Keep your life busy and full and your eyes open but make your life a good one, marriage or not, and you will be satisfied and at peace in God’s grace.

 Laura writes:

Mary wrote:

I didn’t find someone until I completely let go of my preconceived ideas about the perfect mate and started considering, rather than looks, physique, personality, sex appeal, and even the famous “chemistry”, the qualities I wanted in someone (think Jane Austen). I started dating against type and was quickly cured of the bad boy syndrome.

This is one of the negative consequences of feminism. Women don’t get to this stage until their thirties as opposed to their early twenties. Many decent men are ignored when they are young and forming their careers.