5 Questions with Lori Gottlieb

I am thrilled to have the author of Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough here today to answer some questions! I recently reviewed Lori Gottlieb’s book, and am thrilled she agreed to share more about the creation of the book with us.  Welcome, Ms. Gottlieb!

Dr. S.: “Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough” is a catchy title, but I didn’t think the title was truly reflective of the book’s message. What were some alternate titles? Something else you wish it were called?Screen shot 2013-03-26 at 3.19.07 PM

L.G.: Unfortunately, I didn’t get to choose the title, and I so wish that it accurately reflected the hopeful message of the book, which is about how to find lasting, passionate love.  The book has absolutely nothing to do with lowering one’s standards or “settling.”  In fact, the book is about having very high standards — extremely high standards — but having high standards about the things that matter for long-term, happy marriages, and letting go of the trivial things that don’t.  In Marry Him, I talk to experts who study relationships and marriage from different perspectives — psychologists, behavioral economists, sociologists, neurobiologists, matchmakers, historians, couples counselors, dating coaches, you name it — then I write about their findings and try them out myself, like a dating guinea pig.  What matters for lasting love?  What doesn’t?  Why do we often pick partners who seem fantastic when we first meet them only to discover that they aren’t right for us — and how might we have seen this more clearly from the beginning?  How can we be more conscious about choosing great partners, especially when we’re young enough to have the most available options?  How do our cultural messages about expectations for love sometimes lead us to make decisions that won’t necessarily make us happy?  What does “true love” really mean?  What keeps people in love?

Dr. S.: Your book doesn’t have a traditional happy ending.  Was it tough (in either your mind, or the mind of your publisher) to end the book without a big wedding?

L.G.: I think it has a very happy ending, and a real happy ending.  I talk about this in Marry Him, but the “traditional” happy endings we often see in movies involve that final wedding scene, and then we just assume that this couple that has been bickering for the past 90 minutes will go on to be compatible and happy for the rest of their lives.  Look at Hollywood marriages — they don’t tend to end up that way.

As I say in the book, I’ve never dreamed about my wedding. I would dream about being happily married:  Who’s the guy?  What is our daily life like?  What is it like to grow old with this person, to share life’s great adventures with this person, to create a memorable history together, to raise children together, to run a household together, to bring out the best in each other while accepting the worst in each other, to witness each other’s great pleasures in life and be there for each other’s difficult failures or disappointments, to make each other laugh and continue to surprise each other even as time goes on, to know somebody that well over decades and be known that well in turn?  Marriage is a very rich, complex, challenging experience; it’s not about the big wedding day and who do you want to go to Tahiti with for the week.

Anyone can have a wedding.  Marry Him is about finding the right person to go through life with.  One expert in the book says, “There’s no perfect partner; there’s the perfect partner for you.”  So the happy endings in the book are all the stories of the women who used the tools in Marry Him to find to find their perfect partner.  And for me, the happy ending was that while I learned these lessons much later than I would have liked to — my point in the book is that young women will save themselves a lot of heartache and have a much easier time finding love if they learn these lessons early on — I did, finally, learn them.  At the end of the book, I acknowledged that it would be far more challenging to date in my forties than it had been to date in my twenties and thirties (a reality that women need to be aware of), but I also felt that I had a much better chance of meeting the right person now that I’d gained this insight.  I suppose if I were to write a post-script to the book, I’d let readers know that, eventually, I did meet somebody great.  And if I’d dated the way I had before researching and writing Marry Him, I might have missed out on the opportunity to be with this person whom I’m so lucky to have in my life on a daily basis.  But in the book, I follow several women on their dating journeys, and for the ones who take the advice and really examine their old patterns, their endings are very happy, too.

Dr. S.: If you were to give relationship/marriage/commitment advice to a young woman just entering the dating pool, what would be your #1 piece of advice?

I wish it were that easy, that I could give the magic answer and poof — that’s how you find love!  I think that all of the advice in Marry Him needs to be taken together to really help people get clear and to realize that they have far more control over how their dating lives are going than they think.  That said, if I had to pick one general idea, it would be that many people treat dating like ordering a  meal at a restaurant. They want to order up a person a la carte: I’ll take a little of this, more of that, less of the other, and please leave the annoying habit or less-than-ideal physical feature on the side.  But a person comes as he or she comes.  There are “no substitutions” at this restaurant.  It’s not your partner’s job to be everything you want at all times.  That’s impossible.  One expert in the book said to me, “Lori, instead of making a list of all the things you want in a guy, I want you make a list of everything a guy would have to put up with, in order to spend his life with you.”  Our girlfriends are always telling us how fabulous we are, and while we all have many appealing qualities, we’re also as flawed as the next person.  That exercise — writing down what a guy would have to compromise on if he wanted to spend his life with me — really made me see things differently!

Dr. S.: What are you working on these days? Any new books we can look forward to?

I’m working on a piece for The Atlantic about sex in marriage!  I also have a private practice and do relationship consulting at www.lorigottliebtherapy.com.
Dr. S.:  One of the things I often write about in my blog is stress management. We all know that yoga and meditation are great, but I am more interested in unique and creative methods of stress management.  What do you do to relieve stress?

This might sound corny, but I do in life what I suggest people do in Marry Him.  I focus on the important things that I’m grateful for and I let the small things go.  I don’t mean that I’m a Pollyanna.  It’s more that when life’s challenges present themselves — and they always will — I remember that I have all kinds of choices. I can choose to be stressed over minor things or I can choose to put my energy elsewhere.   It’s completely up to me how I react to a particular situation, big or small.  It’s really about having perspective — am I running from the bears and about to be devoured, or is this just disappointing (and the disappointment will pass) or a nuisance that I’ll have to deal with temporarily?  It doesn’t take the stress away completely, but it does make things feel far less overwhelming than they would be if I didn’t slow myself down, access my more objective self, and see the situation for what it is.  I find that having that kind of perspective makes daily life so much more relaxing.

To learn more about Lori Gottlieb, check out her website. To order Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough, or read some of her other work, click here. Thanks again!

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

Screen shot 2013-03-08 at 12.16.01 PM

How funny to be reviewing Lori Gottlieb’s book: Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough the day after posting this article on avoiding affairs.  I’m sure there is some deep-seated psychological meaning behind that.  Instead of focusing on my psyche, however, I will turn my attention to Ms. Gottlieb’s book.  Here goes:

I want to start by saying that I consider Ms. Gottlieb a colleague after working with her on this article in the New York Times about therapists and marketing.  In addition to being a fine author and journalist, she is also a therapist herself.  She recently told me that she particularly enjoys working with couples.  Check out her site here.

As for the book, apparently it made a splash when it was released a couple of years ago.  And it isn’t hard to tell why: the title is quite an attention grabber.  Unfortunately, I’m not sure the title is consistent with the book, as it isn’t actually about “settling” – as in marrying someone you don’t like, find irritating, or aren’t attracted to.  Instead, it’s a fun-to-read description on Ms. Gottlieb’s own journey in the dating world.

In the book, Ms. Gottlieb is candid about what it’s like to date in all ages and stages of life (with kids and without, never married and divorced, as a 20-something, and as a 40-something).  As someone who married young, it was a real eye-opener for me to read about the realities of the dating pool past college.  I particularly enjoyed the commentary made by some of the older women she interviewed.  Reading their perspectives on what women experience, put up with, and expect now – versus when they were dating – is one of the highlights of the book.

I did find myself feeling frustrated by the entitled attitude of some of the younger women included in the book.  These are women who expect perfection, devotion, loyalty, and passion from the men they are interested in – yet seem to have no appreciation for what they should, do, or can bring to the relationship.  Fairness, equality and compromise don’t seem to be concepts these women understand.  No wonder their relationships don’t ever seem to work out.

For added perspective, I had my mom read the book.  Here are some of her comments:

In regards to having an attitude of entitlement in romantic partners:

I devoured the book even though I didn’t personally relate to it at all.  I am always shocked at how entitled some people think they are – it must be a difficult way to live life because it seems it would be challenging to maintain friendships, jobs, and relationships when all you can focus on is “what’s in it for me”.

In regards to making a list of desirable qualities in a mate (something Ms. Gottlieb does in the beginning of the book):

I can’t imagine making a list of “wants” in a husband and actually sticking to it.  It’s a good idea to list life goals, vacations you want to go on, clothes you need, etc. – putting those constraints on a human being is beyond my comprehension.  Besides, when you meet a person as a potential husband – that person will likely be quite different after several years of marriage.  The book was fascinating reading.

After finishing the book, I was left with a desire to make a list of my own.  Not of the qualities I would want in a mate, but the qualities that might make me a good mate myself.  I wonder which would be longer?

Thanks, Lori Gottlieb, for introducing me to your book! Click here to buy Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough.

 

Avoiding Affairs: Tips for Keeping Your Pants On

Screen shot 2013-03-07 at 2.39.38 PM

The other day I read this OUTSTANDING article on how to avoid affairs by a super couples and family psychologist, Dr. David Palmiter.  I have never seen an article like it! I love his candor and forthright advice on avoiding affairs.  Seriously, it is worth checking out.

Among his 10 tips, I especially liked the following:

Tip #2: “Throw water on the spark. If you start feeling titillation towards another person do something to kill that. Putting some distance between you is always a good idea (e.g., stop having contact, make sure you are never alone together, don’t complain about your spouse to this person or encourage the same from him or her, avoid mixing contact with substance use).” 

I love this! So simple to say, hard to do in some cases, but right on the money in terms of affair avoidance advice.  Sometimes the most simple actions are the more effective.

Tip #8: “Reflect on what the pain from divorce is like.  Engaging an affair significantly increases the likelihood of a divorce and few human experiences are more stressful or painful than that.”

Divorce is unavoidable at times, avoidable at others – but the subsequent pain is always there.  Particularly when children are involved.  Best to think twice, three times, then over and over again before starting an affair.

And my favorite, Tip #1: “Be humble. Realize that an affair can happen to anybody.”

Nobody gets married thinking they will have affairs and get divorced, yet it happens everyday.  Not taking our partners and our relationships for granted is something for all of us to keep in mind.

To read the rest of Dr. Palmiter’s tips for avoiding affairs, check out his Blog for Hectic Parents.

 

Making Time with Friends a Priority

Friends are good medicine.  And when I say “friend” I mean a real, live, true friend.  Not a Facebook friend, or a virtual friend, or someone who calls us a friend but is really trying to sell us something.

I have been reminded of the importance of friends and mental health several times recently.  Once while reading Dr. Deborah Serani’s book Living with Depression, in which she recommends both “staying connected to social support” and “avoiding toxic people” as part of an overall plan for managing depression.  I was also reminded of the good medicine friends can be while spending time with a dear, longtime friend the other day.

Your friends might not look like these guys, but they can be good for your mental health anyway!

Your friends might not look like these guys, but they can be good for your mental health anyway!

The problem is, many of us don’t make time to spend with the friends we have, and don’t invest in new relationships.  It’s easy to get distracted with the other priorities in life: family commitments, work, exercise, household chores, etc.  As we enter into the new year, I wonder how our lives might be improved by placing a priority on our friendships?  Perhaps making a goal to spend purely social, fun time with a friend once a month, or once a quarter even would be a good start.

And what about those of us who don’t have friends, or don’t have the types of friendships we would like? Perhaps this is the year to make relationship-building a priority.  Take a risk and talk to new people, engage in a new activity, or re-kindle an old relationship that has faded away.

Working toward good mental health can mean lots of things – focusing on friendships can be a free and fun way to do it.

A Romantic Lunch Date

Most folks who have been in a romantic relationship lasting more than a year or two are looking for ways to keep things exciting, fresh, and romantic.  I had forgotten about this old post of mine until I saw some excerpts pop up on rockinmarriage.com.  I think I had some good ideas for squeezing in a quick romantic lunch with your sweetie.  Thanks for sharing my post, rockinmarriage!  And thanks for reminding us that “Having a romantic lunch date can feel much more illicit and adventurous and it also reduces some of the stress of trying to find time and make arrangements for a date night.”

rockinmarriage.com on 9/14/12

Do Your Friends Add Up?

Photo by NBC

A friend of mine was recently telling me about a tough time she had been having for the last several months. She told me about her stressors with some health issues, some financial concerns she and her partner were having, and the annoyance she was feeling about her poorly-behaved dog.  After she explained all these ailments, she noted that as bad as those were, her “friends” were even worse.

“You wouldn’t believe how they drain me!” she said.  “I realized that far too many of my friends take and take from me, and I never get anything back!”  She explained that on her journey back towards mental health, she forced herself to take stock of her relationships, assigning each person a point value. Negative values were assigned to those who made her feel bad, unhappy, or poorly about herself.  Positive values were assigned to those who helped her feel more like the person she wanted to be (kind, strong, loving, intelligent).

Now, it may sound a little harsh, scoring your friends on what they add or subtract from your life, but I love her idea.  Too often we hang onto relationships we wish would be better, hope would be closer, or feel desperate to change.  And I’m not just talking about romantic relationships – more often these are friendships with old high school friends, a neighbor, or a parent of a child’s friend.

No relationship is perfect, but one that drains for a long period of time can be downright damaging.  Maybe it’s time to take stock of the people in your life and see how they add up?

A Picture Perfect Marriage

We can’t all have a wedding like this, but luckily it’s not the flowers or custom made dress that makes a happy marriage
Photo: Summit

Ahhh…wedding season.  It is upon us – and I love it.  I love the flowers, the white dress, the dancing, the cake, the cake, the cake.  But as my colleague Dr. Angela Lodono-McConnell over at Your Mind. Your Body. writes, there is more to a happy marriage than a clever proposal and Pinterest-worthy reception.

After attending many weddings as a guest and a worker (I used to be a waitress at a wedding venue) I can tell you the one ingredient that makes the most picture perfect wedding: a loving, happy couple.  It’s not the food, the open bar, the flowers, or the handmade place cards that ensure your guests have a super time.  It’s the amount of love and fun coming from the couple.

The cool news is, these are also important ingredients in a successful marriage.  A sense of fun, optimistic happiness, and an outpouring of affection (physical, verbal, etc) are key elements to staying married, not just an evening of fun with family and friends.

Taming Tween Tantrums

I was recently asked to be a part of this article on dealing with tantrums in tweenagers over at mom.me.  This was a new site to me, and it seems pretty cool – with lots of good info.  I got to participate in the discussion with one of my favorite psychologists, Dr. David Palmiter whose blog and book (Working Parents, Thriving Families) are some of my favorites. (In fact, if you check out the reviews of the book here, you will see mine in the list!)

Anyway, when Alison Bell contacted me about doing a story on tween tantrums – rather than the typical toddler tantrums – I thought she was brilliant!  So many parents struggle with this issue, and most of us think we are alone.  Clearly, we are not.  Many kids ages 7-12 have tantrums, and the article offers super solutions for parents.  My faves? “Catch Them Early” and “One-on-One Time.”

Thanks for including me, mom.me!

Motherhood: Taking Care of Ourselves So We Can Take Care of Our Kids

Welcome to Moms’ Month on Dr. Stephanie! This month I will be featuring guest posts from some awesome moms around the country.  They will be sharing tips, tricks, and funny stories about motherhood.  This will be a fun celebration – thanks for joining us!  Today’s author is Katie Dupont.  Welcome, Katie! 

Hi!  I’m Katie Dupont and I am a busy and happy personal trainer in San Antonio, Texas and mother of five; Ivy, 17, Karsten, 8, Kamden, 6, Sophie, 4 and Olivia, 9 months.

When asked what we want most for our kids, inevitably their true happiness in life makes the list.  But how do we teach it?  It seems these days we do so (or think we do so) by over-parenting them to it.  Always putting options before them, giving them seemingly unlimited paths to choose.  Are we really giving them the tools to seek out their own paths?  Are we pursuing happiness for ourselves as an example?

A few years ago, I had one of the hardest easy decisions to make.  I was in an abusive, destructive marriage with a man who craftily kept it from my children’s eyes, but I resigned myself to it because I told myself my kids’ security and happiness were the most important things.  What I was failing to recognize was that the eggshells on which they watched me walk were the antithesis of happiness and security for any of us.  I put on my big girl panties and left after 14 years.  As scary as that was, my children have learned a valuable lesson.  Happiness doesn’t happen to us; we must seek it out for ourselves.  I know now that I’m a more complete person for myself and for them.  Their boat was temporarily rocked but not capsized.  Since then, I met and married the love of my life and we added a final arrow to the quiver.  And when my 8 year old son sees the two of us hug and kiss, something he never saw his dad and I do, his proclamation is always the same….”Another happy ending!” What more could a mother want to hear?

Motherhood and Materialism: Babies R Us Might Have Us All Fooled

Welcome to Moms’ Month on Dr. Stephanie! This month I will be featuring guest posts from some awesome moms around the country.  They will be sharing tips, tricks, and funny stories about motherhood.  This will be a fun celebration – thanks for joining us!  Today’s author is Lori D’Angelo.  Welcome, Lori!

Hi! I’m Lori D’Angelo and I am a fiction writer. I live in Virginia with my husband, son, dogs, and cat. Click here to read one of my recent short stories.

In the months before we had our child, I remember walking into Babies R Us and feeling very, very stressed.  What was all this stuff? And did we need it?  I had been reading parenting mags and baby books and online advice and felt that oh, yes, we did. Could we live without a changing table? Oh no, we could not.

But the problem was I got pregnant in graduate school and was looking for a job. Just paying monthly bills was a struggle. The other problem was that we lived in a house not a mega-mansion.

In the three years since my son was born, I’ve learned that we could live without a lot of that stuff. Due to the generosity of friends and relatives, we did get a lot of that stuff. But some of it we didn’t really need. Some of it, no one really needs. For example, a video baby monitor is really not a necessity. Nor, actually, in the house we live in now, is a baby monitor at all because our son’s room is right across from the master bedroom. So, if he cries, we hear him. Many things, like a crib mobile, are only going to be able to keep up for a short time. So, it’s okay if you don’t actually put one up at all.

Some things about our society, the ease of getting information quickly or the availability of a million latte flavors, are really great—especially on a day when you didn’t get much sleep. But some things really are a money drain. Just because something’s available to us doesn’t mean we have to have it. The joy, the pure joy of a hug from your child, is not at all dependent on whether or not he has a matching crib set.  So don’t let yourself get caught up in the designer parent rat race. You can be a good parent—regardless of whether you have a top of the line stroller and a $300 diaper bag.