Marry Him

The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough

By: Lori Gottlieb

Narrated by: Brittany Pressley

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 in The Atlantic: Maybe she and single women everywhere, needed to stop chasing the elusive Prince Charming and instead go for Mr. Good Enough.

Looking at her friends' happy marriages to good enough guys who happen to be excellent husbands and fathers, Gottlieb declared it time to reevaluate what we really need in a partner. Her ideas created a firestorm of controversy from outlets like the Today show to The Washington Post, which wrote, "Given the perennial shortage of perfect men, Gottlieb's probably got a point," to Newsweek and NPR, which declared, "Lori Gottlieb didn't want to take her mother's advice to be less picky, but now that she's turned forty, she wonders if her mother is right." Women all over the world were talking. But while many people agreed that they should have more realistic expectations, what did that actually mean out in the real world, where Gottlieb and women like her were inexorably drawn to their "type"?

That's where Marry Him comes in.

By looking at everything from culture to biology, in Marry Him Gottlieb frankly explores the dilemma that so many women today seem to face--how to reconcile the strong desire for a husband and family with a list of must-haves so long and complicated that many great guys get rejected out of the gate. Here Gottlieb shares her own journey in the quest for romantic fulfillment, and in the process gets wise guidance and surprising insights from marital researchers, matchmakers, dating coaches, behavioral economists, neuropsychologists, sociologists, couples therapists, divorce lawyers, and clergy--as well as single and married men and women, ranging in age from their twenties to their sixties.

Marry Him is an eye-opening, often funny, sometimes painful, and always truthful in-depth examination of the modern dating landscape, and ultimately, a provocative wake-up call about getting real about Mr. Right.

All women need to listen to this book

I found a lot of good pearls in this book. I am a divorced mother of 3 boys. I think there is something in this book for every woman!

A rude awakening for women

As a single woman in my 40’s, this book completely explained why I have approached dating all wrong. If I had read this in my 20’s, I’d have not passed on the myriad of good men that I did over the years. As a self proclaimed feminist, I now realize that feminism is not helping women when it comes to dating. At all.

Redundant

The message was ok. A different way of looking at a few things if you are more set in certain ways or closed minded. It is redundant in writing. Could have shortened or added different material.

Read it at the right time

My mindset was already beginning to shift, but I struggled to deal with all the emotions that brought. I wondered if it was “okay” for me to do that.
This book felt like a big sister that told me about her experience.. and reassured me that my new ideas were totally normal and that she had gone through the same thing..

Golden nuggets throughout

I selfishly bought this book, as a man, to see how well I stacked ranked against the kind of men that women were looking for. I’m a huge person of self growth, and in the last 10 years of my life have become more self-aware of things that I need to work on to make myself a better human being. That being said, if I can take away how to become a better human being, that someone would want to date, women should be able to take away things that they need to do to put themselves in better position for the kind of men they truly want and need.