Is it “settling” to marry someone with an imperfection or two, or who isn’t quite 100% compatible with your personality? Is some sort of platonic Will and Grace partnership the best you can hope for? I think most married couples would tell her she is quite mistaken.

I appreciate the article you reference because it is an attempt to look at the nuanced expectations we have and evaluate how important they are to the whole.
I think every marriage is totally different since it is defined by two different souls–in a unique concoction.

One-sided loyalty is worthless in a partnership. This is what is meant by “committment” and “settling.” In order to have the best marriage, you really have to know yourself and what is most important to you, and then think about whether you could give up some of those things for someone else. Sometime in any marriage you are bound to have to reconsider your own dreams, in order to show genuine love for your partner. “In sickness and health, for richer or poorer…” We need to find out what is most important to our partner.

Mutual giving makes any relationship beautiful but it is meaningless without mutual taking too. If one partner is always taking, I could not call it marriage–it is slow parasitic death.

Just for the record–some of the most lonely people I know are married. Getting involved in other people’s lives is the best cure–especially if you run into someone with similar dreams and pastimes! ..And dare to share yourself. I think we all have to constantly balance ourselves to keep going…

I didn’t see getting married as “settling” AND I don’t believe in the 1 true love thing. My husband and I are compatible in many ways, but my main requirements, while fairly obtainable were absolute. I think they would have remained that way no matter how old I got. I absolutely required that my spouse be kind and have the ability to consider other people’s feelings. I also could not voluntarily live with a man who had substance abuse problems and my husband neither drinks, nor takes any drug stronger than an asprin.

I also hated dating and lacked the maturity to do it responsibly. I partly got married to save myself, but that’s an unrelated issue.

I don’t think it’s ever a good idea to settle in some areas. If a guy is intelligent and funny and well off and a complete jerk- I don’t see the point. A dull marriage might be better than none, but being single is a good deal better than being stuck in a truly bad marriage.

The author believes things would have been easier for her had she married and calls her friends out for complaining about their marriages. I think this is just a continuing of her unrealistic ideals regarding marriage.

Being married is not easy. She may think that an extra income and a helping hand with children and household chores would come along with marriage. This is not necessarily true. If your spouse travels for work or never leaves his/her office or becomes disabled or plain refuses to earn a living you lose these benefits. These are not super rare occurances. I know multiple women in each situation and have been in one myself. Additionally, as modern and civilized as they claim to be, most men still don’t even think about housework or cooking or any of the messy parts of child-rearing; they’re just things that somehow get done when they’re not looking. (This is not to say men are exclusively a burden in marriage as plenty of women turn out to be lazy as hell or to lead you down the stereotypical route into huge debt… or both.)

Anyway, my point being: In my opinion, if you want to be married then it’s ridiculous to wait for some magical destined thing that probably doesn’t even exist (and I definitely know that you will find varying degrees of physical chemistry with different people, but I also know that it usually, if not always fades and isn’t a very smart thing to base your decisions on), but it’s also very important to have genuine love for the person you marry. Some people might seem like they’d make a good partner, they may be tidy and interesting enough and bring in good money, but if you don’t love them enough to take care of (and clean up after) them when they’re sick and support them when they can’t bring up their end- in anything- and to accept them when they react very differently to tragedy or stress than you do, and to be willing to compromise on some very important issues then you should not be marrying them. You’ll either be miserable for life or more likely, your marriage is not going to last.

*Disclaimer: my marriage is not perfect and has had lots of problems, some of them have been huge. Maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about, but the article linked to does strike me as a little immature and short sighted.