As a woman who’s been happily married for four decades to a man my friends consider a prince (and my family considers a saint), I am often asked for marriage advice from younger women, especially regarding the age-old question of “How Can I Get Him To Propose/Marry Me/Set A Date?” Rather than sharing smug advice, this commentary offers more pragmatic perspectives.
First, I’m acknowledging that during the Valentine’s Day vortex engulfing us this week, it’s all but impossible for the engagement-eager (and the proposal-procrastinating) to avoid those questions. The manic marketing machine – promoting egregiously expensive roses, beribboned boxes of chocolates, and diamond engagement rings – is bombarding us all.
As a former manic marketer myself, I respect all for whom the phrase “labor of love” is a literal description of their livelihoods, while they assert that “all you need is love.” At the risk of smashing all that schmalz to smithereens, however, I wonder if anxious young lovers – regardless of gender or sexual persuasion – would benefit from hearing a more contemporary tune, like Miley Cyrus’s “Flowers.”
“Flowers,” which has topped pop music charts for more than a year, garnered Cyrus her first Grammy ever – for Best Record. When she performed the song during the Grammy telecast this month, even Taylor, and Oprah, and Meryl, danced and sang along, “I can buy myself flowers, write my name in the sand, talk to myself for hours, say things you don’t understand.”
So, instead of advice, I pose some blunt questions, focused on this: “How Sure Are You That He (or She) Is Really ‘The One’?” For example:
- How kind is s/he – not just to you, but to their family, and your family, and to children?
- Have you had an honest discussion – non-threatened and non-threatening – with your significant other, about why marriage is important to you?
- Are you compatible relative to upbringing, values, personality, lifestyles, career?
- Do you both have realistic expectations about finances?
- Does your partner handle their share of household responsibilities – without acting as if they’ve performed a heroic service?
- Have you both discussed and agreed about children – especially childcare responsibilities?
Also: Can you picture your significant other taking charge if you have a serious health scare or have to be rushed to an emergency room? Can you picture them taking care of your physical hygiene and psychological needs if you become incapacitated? Can you picture yourself taking care of them that way, as well?
If all this seems a buzzkill too bleak for Valentine’s week, let me be clear: I am all for love and love for all. I love swapping stories with other long-married friends, about what they did for love – and still do. Like the guy who had no interest in going to college, before he fell in love with a woman earning her degree, who convinced him to earn his degree as well. Two decades of marriage later, they are both enjoying retirement after longstanding careers filled with significant accomplishments.
Or, the couple whose blossoming love story had more plot twists than a rowdy romcom, until the woman left for Paris without her boyfriend, leaving him to ponder – a lot. Twenty-five years into their marriage, she still has the nine-page handwritten love letter he sent her.
One more: the husband of a good friend sends her, on every wedding anniversary, roses for each year they’ve been married. In January, three dozen bursting blooms graced their Facebook photo.
As for Bob, the love of my life, we dated for more than a year before we even discussed marriage. Prior to meeting him – via a blind date during which we both decided we were comically mismatched – I had dated several men I thought I could marry. Not one of them was as loving, supportive, trustworthy, intelligent, or as fun as Bob.
A marriage like ours, built on mutual love, respect, and admiration, is difficult enough, but a marriage that occurs because one of the parties has explicitly pined for a proposal, or practically issued an ultimatum to set a wedding date, is an uncertain proposition at best.
This Valentine’s Day, I hope all those who are in love have their dreams fulfilled. For the disappointed romantics out there, I hope they find solace in the lyrics, as well as the melody, of “Flowers.”
“I can buy myself flowers
Write my name in the sand
Talk to myself for hours
Say things you don’t understand
I can take myself dancing
And I can hold my own hand…”
I hope they sing the anthem out loud, and that it reaffirms their self-worth and their self-sufficiency. Perhaps then, instead of yearning, for The One Who Won’t Commit, they’ll see the truth in the last line: “Yeah, I can love me better than you can.”
