why we wrote this book

As unmarried women approach their 30s, there seems to be a weird social stigma that causes them to question their prospects of marriage. Most of this is brought upon them by the media, which continually displays the over 30 unmarried female as a woman in the throes of desperation, attempting to complete her life by getting married. Meanwhile, the unmarried, over 30 male is portrayed as a strong, independent, financially and emotionally secure man, harassed by dozens of anxiety ridden women embarking upon some sort of feeding frenzy. Reality TV shows and sitcoms prove this point: Friends, The Adventures of Old Christine and The Bachelor. We saw The Bachelor as the last straw in a series of media genres that exalts manhood and portrays women as weepy, back-stabbing, nail biting bitches willing to break any rule, dig graves in which they can bury their self respect and self worth, as long as they win that guy . . . denigrating women to competitive fiends, vying for society’s ultimate prize: marriage. Ironically, and far too often, it’s the male who is the least mature and who exhibits the least responsibility in early marriages.

Both of us share a similar marriage/divorce timeline: married in our mid 20s and divorced in our early 30s. We also realized, as we looked at our unmarried friends, that many of them were enjoying their youth without boundaries, contracts, or time constraints. They were experiencing varying relationships, traveling alone (always a great adventure), establishing professions, and generally enjoying being themselves without the guilt associated with pursuing these individual desires apart from some contract another person holds over their heads. We came to the same conclusion: in most cases, marriage before 30 is a mistake.

Unaware of this mutual realization, we both began testing this conclusion in conversations with our friends, acquaintances, clients, and about anyone who’d listen. We both got the same response: almost every person we’d discussed this with (both married and unmarried) agreed that in the modern world, one should wait. (We were not surprised to find that well over 300 survey participants also endorsed this idea.)

That’s about the time we came together and began doing some research. What we found, shocked us: books galore on how to find the right guy; how to magically woo him into marriage and live happily ever after: How to Get Married After 35: A User’s Guide to Getting to the Altar; Find a Husband After 35: Using What I learned at Harvard Business School and so on. No wonder The Bachelor was so popular. It fed perfectly into this mindset of insecurity the unmarried woman faces in our society. Surprisingly, there was no counterpoint to this genre inviting women to delay marriage and to hell with the social stigma that might accompany that decision.

We both distinctly remember the moment we first discussed the idea. The pause was more than pregnant, and almost at the same time we both asked the question we’d probably been avoiding for some time: What would our lives have been like if we hadn’t given up almost 10 years to relationships that we now could see were doomed from the start?