Mr Good Enough: The case for choosing a Real Man over holding out for Mr Perfect

“You should look for a chemistry that’s a six or seven and a compatibility that’s a nine,”

So one of the things I tell young couples is that they need to be open to the fact that they will work differently from each other and from the families they grew up in, and that they have to respect that, and listen to that. In dating, people break up over these things and they miss the opportunity to really get to know the other person. They dism

relationship, outline specific objectives on various dimensions (family, fiscal, leisure, career), generate his and her job descriptions, and decide on compensation and benefits. A

Marriage isn’t a constant passion-fest; it’s more like a partnership formed to run a very small, mundane nonprofit business. And that, they say, can be really, really nice. Having a solid, like-minded teammate in life is pleasurable in its own way, and for most people, it’s certainly better than not having one at all.

To attract the kind of person you have in your mind, you have to be that kind of person. It’s not that all the guys you dated weren’t good enough for you. People need to realize that they bring their own selves into the equation.”

Amato found that these adult children had a low tolerance for problems in a relationship. They grew up believing that if the flame was going out, the solution wasn’t to rekindle it, but to find another spark.

Marriage is about small acts of kindness that bond you over a lifetime. It’s quietly romantic. He makes her tea. She goes to the doctor appointment with him. They listen to each other’s daily trivia. They put up with each other’s quirks. They’re there for each other.

“Nothing serious was going on,” Amato said. “Their marriages weren’t perfect, but they were pretty good. Two years later, they were divorced. These couples were happy enough, but wanted something more.” When the couples in Amato’s study were asked why they got divorced, they’d say things like, “We were drifting apart—it’s not like when we first got

values were more important than shared interests,