February 10, 2023 • 17 mins
A listener knows she wants to get married and have children—but she hasn’t found the right guy yet. She wonders if she should marry a man she considers to be more of a friend. Dr. Saltz provides some down-to-earth advice.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
These are challenging times, but you don't have to navigate
them alone. Welcome to how can I help? I'm doctor
Gale Saltz. I'm a clinical Associate Professor of psychiatry at
the New York Presbyterian Hospital, a psychoanalyst, and best selling author,
and I'm here every week to answer your most pressing questions,
(00:26):
hopefully with understanding, insight and advice. The institution of marriage
predates recorded history. For most millennia, marriage has been governed
by something quite basic, a need to procreate to ensure
a man that a child born from his union with
(00:49):
a woman was genetically and legally his entering into an
exclusive relationship guaranteed this fact. So access to women was institutionalized.
With each civilization, the institution of marriage has taken on
new or different traditions. In ancient Rome or Greece, a
(01:14):
woman whose father dies without male heirs could be forced
to marry her nearest male relative, even if she has
to divorce her husband first. Also, same sex unions were celebrated.
Marriages during the Middle Ages were arranged, sometimes as early
(01:35):
as birth. Marriage was used to ensure treaties between different
royal families, nobles and heirs of fiefdoms. Sixteenth century marriages
became a dual requirement of the state and for the
first time the church. In the United States, misgange nation laws,
(02:02):
first introduced in the late seventeenth century in the slave
holding colonies of Virginia in sixteen ninety one and in
Maryland in sixteen ninety two, lasted until nineteen sixty seven.
In nineteen ninety six, the Defense of Marriage Act explicitly
defined marriage for the purposes of federal law as between
(02:25):
a man and a woman, and of course today we
know that marriage is defined between two people who love
each other, a man and a woman, or people of
the same sex, depending on where you're living. With centuries
of regulation and interference by the state and church, is
(02:47):
there any wonder why marriage continues to be challenging today.
For example, couples marrying for the first time as recently
this past decade have had a pro stimately a fifty
percent chance of divorcing. Since about two thousand and eleven
(03:07):
or twelve, divorce rates have slowly dropped, and they are
now at a lower rate than they have been in
almost the last fifty years. But the rate at which
people are marrying to begin with, has also dropped. Recent
studies have shown that millennials are choosing to wait longer
(03:30):
to get married and staying married longer, and this is
the main driver in the decline of both marriage and
divorce rates in the United States Americans. So called marriage
divide is actually only widening. College educated and economically better
(03:54):
off Americans are more likely to marry and stay married,
but working class US and poor Americans base more family
instability and higher levels of singleness. For Americans in the
top third income bracket, sixty four percent are in an
intact marriage, meaning they have only married once and are
(04:18):
still in their first marriage. In contrast, only twenty four
of Americans in the lower third income bracket are in
an intact marriage. Economics influences who gets married, who stays married,
and even the stability of the marriage itself. Those who
(04:42):
stay married have a distinct economic advantage over those who don't,
and divorce costs the household money as much as sixty
percent for each person, putting both separated people at an
economic disadvantage. In today's economy. This marriage gap is aligned
(05:04):
with an economic gap. In nineteen sixty two thirds or
sixty eight percent of all twenty somethings were married, but
in two thousand and eight just twenty eight percent were married.
Different cultural and racial groups have different influences on marriage statistics.
(05:27):
In his book is Marriage for White People, Stamford law
professor Ralph Richard Banks shows why seventy percent of African
American women are unmarried. Yet, despite these growing uncertainties, in
many surveys, Americans are more upbeat about the future of
marriage and family, sixty seven percent saying they are optimistic
(05:52):
than about the future of the country's educational system, in
which only fifty percent say they feel optimistic, and more
are optimistic than its economic system saying they're optimistic, or
its morals and ethics and only saying they feel optimistic
about that. So with that, right after the break, we'll
(06:16):
get to my listeners question. Welcome back. Let's get to
my listeners question and see how can I help, Dear
doctor Saltz. I am thirty two and not married. I
(06:41):
would like to have children and I would like to
get married, but I have not met the right person yet.
I am currently seeing someone who is a nice guy,
but unfortunately I don't feel crazy about it. He is
just fine and okay. And I'm not feeling like he's
(07:01):
the one for me. He, on the other hand, has
expressed he really likes me. Actually, he's expressed he even
loves me. I feel like my clock is ticking and
I'm torn, and I'm wondering if I should really just
settle for this man to marry and have a family with.
How can I decide the best thing to do for
(07:23):
myself in this circumstance. Generally speaking, just settling for someone
anyone in order to get married and have children doesn't
bode well for the longevity of the marriage. And while
I certainly understand the desire to find a life partner
for marriage and the desire to have a partner to
(07:45):
have children with the end of a marriage is really
very gut wrenching for both people you, your partner and
for any children you may have. Heading into to a marriage,
there is not a guarantee even when you do feel
crazy about your partner. There are some non sexy things
(08:10):
that are important in thinking about the longevity of a partnership.
There are things like do you two have similar enough values,
similar enough morals? Are you in fact compatible when it
comes to big life decisions like your basic life goals,
how you spend and how you save those styles, how
(08:35):
to raise children, even about religious issues. Also in there,
do you actually really respect each other? And do you
actually really like each other? Are you sexually attracted to
each other? For the most part, these things add up
(08:56):
to really loving each other, which is not same as
lusting or what you're describing more of a roommate or
friendship only relationship. It's not to say that someone can't
make the decision to marry and raise children with someone
they feel purely platonic towards, but this does mean giving
(09:18):
up something in a life partnership, something many people find
matters to them in the long run, a sexual element.
But in order to do something like this, both parties
really need to be honest with each other and themselves
that this is in fact what they are doing. When
(09:40):
it is one sided, eventually resentment will build and the
relationship will deteriorate. So the question back to you is
is there something about this current relationship that makes it
just okay? Could you work to deepen the intimacy and
feel more connected and excited about this man. To do this,
(10:05):
you need to have a host of more vulnerable and
open and honest conversations about all the things that matter
to you and see where you both fall out on
these various issues. Closeness and affinity may provide more growth
of closeness or more distance over time, but whichever way
(10:30):
it goes, it could answer your question on this particular man,
you bring up the anxiety of your biological clock ticking,
and it's understandable as many women start to feel this
as they move through their thirties without a partner. I
would suggest to you that it is not unreasonable to
(10:51):
consider egg harpsting as a mode of keeping the door
open for you to have a baby later and take
the pressure off of marrying anyone due to your clock. Today,
eggs can be frozen with the same stability as embryos,
which means you can do this on your own, and
then at some point, if you feel you've met Mr Wright,
(11:15):
you can do IVF with him to have a baby,
or if you don't marry. You should also consider that
it's possible and frankly, very reasonable to just have a
baby on your own if that's very important to you.
Sperm donation makes it possible to have your own child
(11:36):
when you want to, when the time is right for you.
Children of single parents who can afford to do this
do very well in life, and likely better than growing
up in a tumultuous and full of discord bad marriage. Freezing,
eggs and IVF, however, do cost money, so it is
(12:01):
a matter actually of what you can afford. You also
can decide to simply get a sperm donor to help
you become pregnant without egg freezing, if you want to
do this in the next few years and not feel
that marriage is a prerequisite to becoming a parent. But really,
(12:22):
at age thirty two, you do have years before you
need to panic about your eggs at all. Marriage is
a big decision, not one to wander into with meth
feelings about your partner. Marriage is hard. There will be
tough times, challenges, and starting from a point of feeling
(12:44):
lukewarm at best can make it very difficult to get
through those tough times. I would suggest you try really
rocking the boat now rocket in the direction of finding
out more if there can be a there there with
this guy. Often lukewarm feelings come from there being more
(13:06):
emotional distance or disconnect, then would create real intimacy. If
you push for more and nothing more develops, this may
not be your person. If there is no sexual attraction,
it's not likely to grow a whole lot better after marriage.
(13:26):
If you keep feeling like two ships passing in the night,
you really may be sparing both of you a good
deal of paying down the road by letting him find
someone who is crazy about him, and you by giving
yourself the chance to find real love. I hope that
was helpful. There are several crucial ideas to keep in
(13:51):
mind that help couples have happier marriages. Not surprisingly, at
the top of the list is communication skills. Those in
happy marriages often report feeling understood by their partners and
find it easier to share their feelings with one another,
especially when their partner doesn't use put downs. Partners in
(14:16):
happy marriages are six times more likely than others to
agree that they are satisfied with how they talk to
one another. Happy couples report that they feel understood by
their partners and can share their feelings, especially during a disagreement.
Listening is crucial to a happy marriage since it's more
(14:39):
about trying to understand one another instead of spending energy
on judging one another, and conflicts when handled in a
healthy way can benefit a relationship and help couples come
to a resolution. A vast majority of happy couples feel
that they are creative when handling differences between one another.
(15:02):
Because conflict is inevitable in human relationships, there will always
be differences between people, sometimes leading to disagreements, but most
happy couples feel their conflicts get resolved and disagreements are
less about placing blame and more about finding common ground,
(15:23):
and as a result, similar conflict resolution skills are of
the utmost importance in a strong and happy relationship. Next
up is couple flexibility. Flexibility refers to how often couples
are able to change. Flexibility helps couples to manage the
(15:45):
daily stressors that come along and maintain an openness to
changing regardless of what they're used to in their cultural norms.
Partners in a happy relationship are willing to move away
from more traditional roles and a just as needed when
it comes to things like running errands, completing household chores,
(16:08):
and cooking. Couples are happier and more satisfied when household
chores are divided between the two partners, and they report
that they aren't as concerned about who is doing more
of the share of the daily tasks, but instead work
to maintain an equal relationship. And then there is closeness.
(16:33):
You feel close to your partner when you are emotionally
connected to them. Closeness also includes a balance of together
time and separate time. Happy couples who feel emotionally connected
are open to asking for help from one another and
do enjoy spending time with one another and in choosing
(16:58):
a partner. Happy holes tend to have compatible personalities. They
report having personalities that complement one another. They build on
each other's strengths and address differences creatively to work together
for the best interest of the marriage. When couples share
(17:20):
goals for the relationship and not just them individual selves,
they do tend to forge a stronger bond. Do you
have a problem I can help with? If so, email
me yet how can I help? At Seneca women dot Com,
all centers remain anonymous and listen every Friday to how
(17:41):
can I help with me? Doctor Gale's Salts
These are challenging times, but you don't have to navigate
them alone. Welcome to how can I help? I'm doctor
Gale Saltz. I'm a clinical Associate Professor of psychiatry at
the New York Presbyterian Hospital, a psychoanalyst, and best selling author,
and I'm here every week to answer your most pressing questions,
(00:26):
hopefully with understanding, insight and advice. The institution of marriage
predates recorded history. For most millennia, marriage has been governed
by something quite basic, a need to procreate to ensure
a man that a child born from his union with
(00:49):
a woman was genetically and legally his entering into an
exclusive relationship guaranteed this fact. So access to women was institutionalized.
With each civilization, the institution of marriage has taken on
new or different traditions. In ancient Rome or Greece, a
(01:14):
woman whose father dies without male heirs could be forced
to marry her nearest male relative, even if she has
to divorce her husband first. Also, same sex unions were celebrated.
Marriages during the Middle Ages were arranged, sometimes as early
(01:35):
as birth. Marriage was used to ensure treaties between different
royal families, nobles and heirs of fiefdoms. Sixteenth century marriages
became a dual requirement of the state and for the
first time the church. In the United States, misgange nation laws,
(02:02):
first introduced in the late seventeenth century in the slave
holding colonies of Virginia in sixteen ninety one and in
Maryland in sixteen ninety two, lasted until nineteen sixty seven.
In nineteen ninety six, the Defense of Marriage Act explicitly
defined marriage for the purposes of federal law as between
(02:25):
a man and a woman, and of course today we
know that marriage is defined between two people who love
each other, a man and a woman, or people of
the same sex, depending on where you're living. With centuries
of regulation and interference by the state and church, is
(02:47):
there any wonder why marriage continues to be challenging today.
For example, couples marrying for the first time as recently
this past decade have had a pro stimately a fifty
percent chance of divorcing. Since about two thousand and eleven
(03:07):
or twelve, divorce rates have slowly dropped, and they are
now at a lower rate than they have been in
almost the last fifty years. But the rate at which
people are marrying to begin with, has also dropped. Recent
studies have shown that millennials are choosing to wait longer
(03:30):
to get married and staying married longer, and this is
the main driver in the decline of both marriage and
divorce rates in the United States Americans. So called marriage
divide is actually only widening. College educated and economically better
(03:54):
off Americans are more likely to marry and stay married,
but working class US and poor Americans base more family
instability and higher levels of singleness. For Americans in the
top third income bracket, sixty four percent are in an
intact marriage, meaning they have only married once and are
(04:18):
still in their first marriage. In contrast, only twenty four
of Americans in the lower third income bracket are in
an intact marriage. Economics influences who gets married, who stays married,
and even the stability of the marriage itself. Those who
(04:42):
stay married have a distinct economic advantage over those who don't,
and divorce costs the household money as much as sixty
percent for each person, putting both separated people at an
economic disadvantage. In today's economy. This marriage gap is aligned
(05:04):
with an economic gap. In nineteen sixty two thirds or
sixty eight percent of all twenty somethings were married, but
in two thousand and eight just twenty eight percent were married.
Different cultural and racial groups have different influences on marriage statistics.
(05:27):
In his book is Marriage for White People, Stamford law
professor Ralph Richard Banks shows why seventy percent of African
American women are unmarried. Yet, despite these growing uncertainties, in
many surveys, Americans are more upbeat about the future of
marriage and family, sixty seven percent saying they are optimistic
(05:52):
than about the future of the country's educational system, in
which only fifty percent say they feel optimistic, and more
are optimistic than its economic system saying they're optimistic, or
its morals and ethics and only saying they feel optimistic
about that. So with that, right after the break, we'll
(06:16):
get to my listeners question. Welcome back. Let's get to
my listeners question and see how can I help, Dear
doctor Saltz. I am thirty two and not married. I
(06:41):
would like to have children and I would like to
get married, but I have not met the right person yet.
I am currently seeing someone who is a nice guy,
but unfortunately I don't feel crazy about it. He is
just fine and okay. And I'm not feeling like he's
(07:01):
the one for me. He, on the other hand, has
expressed he really likes me. Actually, he's expressed he even
loves me. I feel like my clock is ticking and
I'm torn, and I'm wondering if I should really just
settle for this man to marry and have a family with.
How can I decide the best thing to do for
(07:23):
myself in this circumstance. Generally speaking, just settling for someone
anyone in order to get married and have children doesn't
bode well for the longevity of the marriage. And while
I certainly understand the desire to find a life partner
for marriage and the desire to have a partner to
(07:45):
have children with the end of a marriage is really
very gut wrenching for both people you, your partner and
for any children you may have. Heading into to a marriage,
there is not a guarantee even when you do feel
crazy about your partner. There are some non sexy things
(08:10):
that are important in thinking about the longevity of a partnership.
There are things like do you two have similar enough values,
similar enough morals? Are you in fact compatible when it
comes to big life decisions like your basic life goals,
how you spend and how you save those styles, how
(08:35):
to raise children, even about religious issues. Also in there,
do you actually really respect each other? And do you
actually really like each other? Are you sexually attracted to
each other? For the most part, these things add up
(08:56):
to really loving each other, which is not same as
lusting or what you're describing more of a roommate or
friendship only relationship. It's not to say that someone can't
make the decision to marry and raise children with someone
they feel purely platonic towards, but this does mean giving
(09:18):
up something in a life partnership, something many people find
matters to them in the long run, a sexual element.
But in order to do something like this, both parties
really need to be honest with each other and themselves
that this is in fact what they are doing. When
(09:40):
it is one sided, eventually resentment will build and the
relationship will deteriorate. So the question back to you is
is there something about this current relationship that makes it
just okay? Could you work to deepen the intimacy and
feel more connected and excited about this man. To do this,
(10:05):
you need to have a host of more vulnerable and
open and honest conversations about all the things that matter
to you and see where you both fall out on
these various issues. Closeness and affinity may provide more growth
of closeness or more distance over time, but whichever way
(10:30):
it goes, it could answer your question on this particular man,
you bring up the anxiety of your biological clock ticking,
and it's understandable as many women start to feel this
as they move through their thirties without a partner. I
would suggest to you that it is not unreasonable to
(10:51):
consider egg harpsting as a mode of keeping the door
open for you to have a baby later and take
the pressure off of marrying anyone due to your clock. Today,
eggs can be frozen with the same stability as embryos,
which means you can do this on your own, and
then at some point, if you feel you've met Mr Wright,
(11:15):
you can do IVF with him to have a baby,
or if you don't marry. You should also consider that
it's possible and frankly, very reasonable to just have a
baby on your own if that's very important to you.
Sperm donation makes it possible to have your own child
(11:36):
when you want to, when the time is right for you.
Children of single parents who can afford to do this
do very well in life, and likely better than growing
up in a tumultuous and full of discord bad marriage. Freezing,
eggs and IVF, however, do cost money, so it is
(12:01):
a matter actually of what you can afford. You also
can decide to simply get a sperm donor to help
you become pregnant without egg freezing, if you want to
do this in the next few years and not feel
that marriage is a prerequisite to becoming a parent. But really,
(12:22):
at age thirty two, you do have years before you
need to panic about your eggs at all. Marriage is
a big decision, not one to wander into with meth
feelings about your partner. Marriage is hard. There will be
tough times, challenges, and starting from a point of feeling
(12:44):
lukewarm at best can make it very difficult to get
through those tough times. I would suggest you try really
rocking the boat now rocket in the direction of finding
out more if there can be a there there with
this guy. Often lukewarm feelings come from there being more
(13:06):
emotional distance or disconnect, then would create real intimacy. If
you push for more and nothing more develops, this may
not be your person. If there is no sexual attraction,
it's not likely to grow a whole lot better after marriage.
(13:26):
If you keep feeling like two ships passing in the night,
you really may be sparing both of you a good
deal of paying down the road by letting him find
someone who is crazy about him, and you by giving
yourself the chance to find real love. I hope that
was helpful. There are several crucial ideas to keep in
(13:51):
mind that help couples have happier marriages. Not surprisingly, at
the top of the list is communication skills. Those in
happy marriages often report feeling understood by their partners and
find it easier to share their feelings with one another,
especially when their partner doesn't use put downs. Partners in
(14:16):
happy marriages are six times more likely than others to
agree that they are satisfied with how they talk to
one another. Happy couples report that they feel understood by
their partners and can share their feelings, especially during a disagreement.
Listening is crucial to a happy marriage since it's more
(14:39):
about trying to understand one another instead of spending energy
on judging one another, and conflicts when handled in a
healthy way can benefit a relationship and help couples come
to a resolution. A vast majority of happy couples feel
that they are creative when handling differences between one another.
(15:02):
Because conflict is inevitable in human relationships, there will always
be differences between people, sometimes leading to disagreements, but most
happy couples feel their conflicts get resolved and disagreements are
less about placing blame and more about finding common ground,
(15:23):
and as a result, similar conflict resolution skills are of
the utmost importance in a strong and happy relationship. Next
up is couple flexibility. Flexibility refers to how often couples
are able to change. Flexibility helps couples to manage the
(15:45):
daily stressors that come along and maintain an openness to
changing regardless of what they're used to in their cultural norms.
Partners in a happy relationship are willing to move away
from more traditional roles and a just as needed when
it comes to things like running errands, completing household chores,
(16:08):
and cooking. Couples are happier and more satisfied when household
chores are divided between the two partners, and they report
that they aren't as concerned about who is doing more
of the share of the daily tasks, but instead work
to maintain an equal relationship. And then there is closeness.
(16:33):
You feel close to your partner when you are emotionally
connected to them. Closeness also includes a balance of together
time and separate time. Happy couples who feel emotionally connected
are open to asking for help from one another and
do enjoy spending time with one another and in choosing
(16:58):
a partner. Happy holes tend to have compatible personalities. They
report having personalities that complement one another. They build on
each other's strengths and address differences creatively to work together
for the best interest of the marriage. When couples share
(17:20):
goals for the relationship and not just them individual selves,
they do tend to forge a stronger bond. Do you
have a problem I can help with? If so, email
me yet how can I help? At Seneca women dot Com,
all centers remain anonymous and listen every Friday to how
(17:41):
can I help with me? Doctor Gale's Salts
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