According with a 2019 report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, men with full-time employment work on average 8.3

In her 2010 book Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough, Lori Gottlieb interviews several married women, as well as psychologists, matchmakers, and relationship experts in an attempt to understand if there’s really no good men out there anymore, or if women are just too picky.,For those who don’t enjoy querying old-fashioned SQL language, LINQPad is the best option to query databases using a modern programming language called LINQ (you can use SQL as well). LINQPad provides an opportunity to try out code lines and test snippets or programs. You can also take advantage of output formatting, optional autocompletion, and integrated debugging.,It’s not a surprise that many women get married only to discover their spouse can’t be their best friend, lover, therapist, cheerleader, and household co-manager all at once. Even the best of men are only human, and sadly, some women discover this truth when it is already too late.,Now, women are more educated to identify even the more subtle forms of emotional and psychological abuse, and more empowered to get out of those kinds of bad marriages sooner rather than later.,Couples like the one my grandmother witnessed are becoming increasingly rarer, thankfully. Women used to endure a lot of abuse in the past (physical and emotional) because divorce was either not an option legally speaking, or it was too taboo to even contemplate. Marriage was final, and if being abused was what being married was like, than that’s what being married was like, end of story.,And yes, most of those expectations do come from women, the same women who think a man who truly loves them will read their minds, and know exactly what to do and what to say in every situation as if life were no more than a script.,Why is it that popular culture depicts women as marriage-minded, but at the same time, women seem to be the ones who are quitting marriage in droves? What is it about marriage that disappoints women so deeply?,“Dori Schwartz, a divorce mediator and coach says, ‘Today’s modern woman is more unlikely to put up with infidelity. Once the honeymoon period is over, some men drastically change their behavior from romantic to controlling and emotionally abusive. Unfortunately, this happens in many marriages, and women don’t want to take it anymore.’”,On the other hand, women’s health doesn’t improve significally with marriage. In fact, women’s health is much more tied to the quality of the marriage. While even bad marriages seem to benefit men, women’s health suffers a bigger impact than men’s if the marriage is bad.,Many years ago, my grandmother attended a 70-year wedding anniversary party. The couple were in their 90’s. They smiled as they cut the cake together, and took pictures with their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.,In defense of the the picky women argument, one advice stands out: single women expect too much of marriage. A few twice-married women interviewed for the book sound the alarm: while they don’t necessarily regret asking for a divorce from their first husbands, getting married for a second time required a dose of humility, and made them recognize that, in retrospect, their first husbands weren’t really that bad. They admit they probably could have stayed married had they realized that at the time. The men these women married next aren’t perfect either. According to their own testimonial, they had to learn to tolerate imperfection in order to stay married the second time around.,While I’d be the first to remind anyone that correlation doesn’t imply causation, as someone who’s deeply interested in studying human relationships, and as a woman who’s been married and asked for a divorce, I can’t help but speculate.,While Lori Gottlieb’s book is a cautionary tale against unreasonable female expectations, sometimes it is women’s very realistic expectations not being met that shatters all hope for a good marriage.,Here’s a statistic that will shock absolutely no one: “On average, men worked longer hours outside the home, yet even in families where women worked equivalent or longer hours and earned higher salaries they still took on more household responsibilities.”,In decades past, a good marriage was one in which both spouses consistently respected each other, had a somewhat active sex life, hit milestones together (buy a house, have children, retire), and didn’t cause each other serious physical harm. Now, a good marriage is expected to provide emotional support, intellectual stimulation, companionship, best-friend level camaraderie, an endless source of laugher and joy, and an exciting — never boring — sex life.