Whether we realize it or not, this consumerist expectation gets attached to just about everything we get involved in, including marriage. When you view marriage as a product or commodity, you are trying to make it define you in some way. You are saying, “I expect marriage to make me look better, to make me feel better, to make me happier, right now

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Myself and people my age have been trained under the illusion that we can effectively eliminate any and all friction from our lives. We can work from home, Amazon prime everything we need, swipe through a limitless array of mediocre dates, text our therapist, and have a person go to the grocery store for us when we don’t feel like it, all while con... See more

FROM ROLE MATE TO SOUL MATE For thousands of years, most marriages were in Stage I—survival-focused. After World War II, marriages increasingly flirted with Stage II—a self-fulfillment focus. In Stage I, most couples were role mates: the woman raised the children and the man raised the money. In Stage II, couples increasingly desired to be soul mat

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In some corners of the Internet there’s a fascination with traditionalism, and criticism of the ways the openness and optionality of modernity have left people feeling lost. I’ve always felt like, look, I could never be a traditionalist, because I don’t want to give birth to five kids without anesthesia and spend half of my day cleaning up around t... See more