Newsletter
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Love and Dating
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“Financial Infidelity” Isn’t Cheating
29 Jan 2012 by Dalma / No Comments
Not long ago, The New York Times reported a list of “money disorders” linked to our economy. Overspending. Underspending (hoarding); serial borrowing (we all know what that is); financial enabling (too much money forked over to adult kids); and so forth. Stars like Wynona Judd (overspending), admitted to once buying too many cars and Harleys, but doesn’t anymore.
But “financial infidelity” caught my eye: “Cheating on a spouse by spending and lying about it.”
Oh dear: Is that a disorder? If I told my spouse what, say, a new ski helmet costs (which I won’t buy, but still, mine is a little shaky on my head), he’d wonder about my sanity, not to mention the new goggles required to fit over that ski helmet. I repeat: I’m not doing it, so don’t call Richard and tell him I’m cheating on him).
Who reports back to a spouse what she spends? Unless you’re married to a guy who knows–really knows– retail, what woman in her right mind tells her spouse, over a pizza, “Darling, guess what? The bag our daughter wants has been reduced to a $125 from $450.”? Most men I know don’t see $125 as a bargain for anything but a new bicycle, but most girls have peer pressure going on that, whether we like it or not, means something to them. (My stepdaughter and I joke that while we happily wear faux Uggs bought from Costco, what we we get her daughter Emily are the real ones. Why? Because she wouldn’t be caught dead in ours.) Does a man who hasn’t bought a shirt for himself since the Vietnam war know what a nice dress shirt costs? (I tear off tags when I buy my husband clothes, even on final sale, financially unfaithul wretch that I am. Otherwise he wouldn’t wear them. And we wouldn’t be able to return them. And he’d wear nothing other than the Michigan sweatshirt our grandson Adam gave him when he went off to college, the one that’s now permanently stained with coffee, red wine, and chicken grease.
I mean look, I’m all for codifying emotional problems—like Grief, for instance—the newest prospective disorder on the DSM’s to-do list. Yes, let’s give more support and counseling to those who feel they’re supposed to be up-and-at- ‘em after that one-year mark we traditionally allow for mourning! But private spending is not a disorder, unless of course you’re Bernie Madoff.. If it’s not hurting anybody, back off and pay for it and stop naming names. And just for fun, ask any cosmetics, jewelry, clothing or bedding store salesperson the number of ways women divide their purchases among credit cards, cash, debit cards and gift certificates. I’ve done that before, and it’s a field of its own, this Byzantine divvying process: As one saleswoman at Bed Bath and Beyond told me, “Hey, it’s the only way to get decent towels and sheets.” Who wants to report back on one’s genius cost-cutting savvy every time she purchases soaps and books? Being discreet, in retail as in love, isn’t deceit. It’s called privacy. If we decide to call it infidelity, then most every woman I know is a harlot.
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WATCH OUT FOR LOVE’S CHANGING LANDSCAPE!
23 Jan 2012 by Dalma / No Comments
Right after the new year and just before Valentine’s Day, I always like to get the feel of what’s going on with love and marriage across the nation, and to make a few predictions for the coming year. Here they are: Love in 2012.
1. Everyone of all ages will be dating like mad. An unprecedented 110-million singles in America means that they—not married people–now make up the majority of households. And they’re dating! Millions of adults of all ages—30s through 70s–are between marriages, against marrying, or on the way to remarriages.
2. We will become increasinglystarry-eyed about marriage, even as we become increasingly disenchanted, skittish and cynical about it. It is a psychological fact that we long for, and idealize,institutions that promise safety and security. The military. The church. Marriage. Anything that was once reliable but is now increasingly fragile, and even endangered, is a prime target for our nostalgia. I predict that, even as we divorce more often. sooner and more bitterly, we will increasingly long for the “good old days” when marriage lasted forever. Because it so rarely does.
3. We will see online dating sites scrambling to nail down love’s chemistry. Although attraction cannot be predicted, we will continue to try to predict it. Dating sites, already promising characterological compatibility, will scramble to try to promise sexual compatibility. When a computerized program can guarantee great chemistry, I’ll be the first to let you know.
4. Men will accuse women of acting increasingly the way women have always accused men of acting: Reluctant to commit; eager for more “space,” less eager for sexual exclusivity. As women become increasingly self-sufficient financially—and less needy of men for purely financial reasons– their demand for emotionally fulfilling relationships will increase. Men, not used to not being needed, and not always skilled at intimacy, will feel increasingly overwhelmed by women’s demands, and increasingly baffled that women are willing to walk when their demands aren’t met.
5. More couples will cite social media as the reason for their breakup. Already, Facebook and Twitter are implicated in 20 percent of divorce petitions. (More, in England: A recent study puts it at 30 percent.) In 2009, Facebook was cited in one out of every five divorces in the US, and the number 1 online source of divorce evidence, according to the American Academy of Divorce Lawyers. A combination of inappropriate messages to the opposite sex, nasty comments posted about separated spouses, and Facebook “friends” reporting spouses’ behavior, is causing a great deal of havoc…and there’s no let-up in sight.
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Prenups
07 Nov 2011 by Dalma / No Comments
A woman who appeared on my cable show not long ago revealed, when I announced that fifty percent of all American women will live with or marry a man with children, the following (familiar, alas) story.
She’s close to retirement and has been saving for years. Her adult son doesn’t need money, so her small stash supports the household she shares with her boyfriend of five years, a twice-divorced man whose money mostly goes to his two young children by his second wife. My guest agreed to this arrangement, feeling strongly that his children should be his first priority, and that they could manage their household expenses together.. BUT, she says, “in this protracted downturn, none of his money goes to our household; it all goes to his (second) ex-wife’s. I’m wondering where to draw the line. He does, after all, live here. He did, after all, make a financial commitment, albeit a small one, to our life together.”
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Ambivalence
03 Nov 2011 by Dalma / No Comments
A group of young men were complaining to me the other night about their live-in girlfriends. “In three months, my fiancée has been home nine nights out of sixty-two,” Elliott said. “The other nights she’s playing tennis, learning French, seeing her friends.”
“That’s terrific,” I said.
“What’s so terrific? I never see her.”
So I got to thinking about the difference between a man’s desire for more “space” and a woman’s. We ‘ll readily call his “commitmentphobia,” “intimacy problems” and “terror of dependence.” We (make that I) champion hers as “autonomy,” “independence” and “growth.” I think it’s because for so long, a man’s “I need more space,” was a creepy code phrase for “I’m outtahere.” A woman, though, tends to mean that she needs more independence, more room for growth and self-expansion within the relationship.
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Sexy Parents, Sanctimonious Kids
28 Sep 2011 by Dalma / 2 Comments
I wrote a long time ago, in response to the fact that so many women were leaving their marriages: “In the past 25 years women have bloomed. How can we still be talking about fitting modern wives back into an ancient institution, rather than enlarging an ancient institution to make room for modern wives?” I said this on television shows, much to the horror of many hosts, who got so mad that women were leaving (and not men, as I suppose they thought was better). that they blamed me for writing about it.
Well they must be really mad now, because America isn’t even a married culture anymore. That picture of ourselves talk-show hosts and politicians and so many others insist on—the happily married American couple–is a very nice picture, but it has little to do with us in the US. No, as I’ve said a million times, we’re now a dating culture. What’s more, the Pew Research Center points out that nearly four-in-ten survey respondents in the 2010 Census said they believed that marriage is becoming obsolete.
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