Lori Gottlieb has written what can only be described as a soul-baring essay about her regrets over never having married. Highly recommended reading, though many "liberated" women may have a difficult time acknowledging what Gottlieb has to say about her own misspent 20s and 30s.
Of course, we’d be loath to admit it in this day and age, but ask any soul-baring 40-year-old single heterosexual woman what she most longs for in life, and she probably won’t tell you it’s a better career or a smaller waistline or a bigger apartment. Most likely, she’ll say that what she really wants is a husband (and, by extension, a child).
To the outside world, of course, we still call ourselves feminists and insist—vehemently, even—that we’re independent and self-sufficient and don’t believe in any of that damsel-in-distress stuff, but in reality, we aren’t fish who can do without a bicycle, we’re women who want a traditional family.
Why loath to admit it? The reality is that for most of us, men and women alike, need to partner up to get through life. Friends and relatives are wonderful, of course, but there is nothing that can take the place of a committed spouse.
It’s a little hard to read Ms. Gottlieb’s acknowledgment that she now realizes that she’s aging, lonely, and the proximate cause is her own choices in life. It’s very personal and valuable for that reason. There are many truths to be found in her article, some of which can be generalized to apply to our own lives so that, while our circumstances are very different, it could be possible to learn from her admitted mistakes.
Personally, my own decision to follow Jesus Christ came after a painful experience and the realization that the self-defined values I’d rigidly sought to live up to were ultimately worthless. The truth is that, like Lori Gottlieb, I’d simply become old enough to recognize that self-deception is the ultimate lie.
Loath to admit it? No, more like embarrassed at have been wrong for so long.