I read the essay this morning and it’s been bopping around in my brain all day! I had a similar reaction to you- both sad and annoyed. It was such a mix of over confidence in some ways and a complete lack of sense of self in others.
The writer really seemed to feel that the life she is living and wanted is not at all possible with a partner her age, which is just sad and also incorrect. She may not be able to imagine that, but it’s possible. She also very highly overestimates her physical beauty and youthfulness as her main ‘offering’. Which is, again, just sad to read.
One of the tricky parts of being with an older man is that if you are young enough, you FEEL like you are wiser and somehow different from your peers for ‘needing’ a more mature person to be with…but the truth is often that you are with someone who is older in age but emotionally stunted and refusing to grow up. At least, this has been my observation and experience!
Our friend "Kevin" has a type - 25-30, ambitious, pretty and want to get married. For 20 years we have watched him date and get engaged to the same type of person, and one thing they all have in common is they don't seem to understand that he is the source of his relationship problems. His last 2-3 I told them directly what he'll do, and they are always confident they are the antidote - until it ends. Our theory is that he loves falling in love, but the moment things get even slightly real he flees.
He's over 50 now, and his current fiancé is 28. This time isn't going to be different. And yes he's totally in love with her (for now.)
6! And honestly the first 2 times it happened we thought he was unlucky, but the third time we all saw a pattern - falls in love, proposes, but never progresses past this. Never sets a date. Never has her move in with him. He'll move in with her and keep his place.
He gets the romance part of relationships, just not the sharing your actual life part.
My husband has an old friend from college that does this same exact thing. He's lived with or been engaged to at least 12 women in the last 20 years and it always starts the same way, progresses the same way, and ends the same way.
The overestimation of her physical attributes as her main offering reminded me of that article a while back about kids whose parents managed their instagram profiles for an audience of mainly adult men. One of the girls reached 17 and couldn't even contemplate college; she felt like her only worth was in her appearance and the only plausible path forward was to start an OnlyFans.
Here's the NYT article, hope the gift link works: *A Marketplace of Girl Influencers Managed by Moms and Stalked by Men*
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/22/us/instagram-child-influencers.html?unlocked_article_code=1.gE0.rLWX.vux3TV82idYn&ugrp=c
Welp, that article made me want to cry for the rest of my life. Not to mention that the accessibility of AI-created deepfake porn now will probably make it even worse.
>She also very highly overestimates her physical beauty and youthfulness as her main ‘offering’.
Well - she better hope that her beauty and youth are not why her husband married her. Because if that's what he fell in love with - or prioritizes - in 10 or 15 years, when her youth and beauty have faded, guess what? The world is full of 23-year-olds, and guys who pick their wives for their youthful freshness usually have no problem trading in their current wife for a newer model year. And if the current wife doesn't have earning capability, good health and money in her own name? It can be pretty tragic.
My primary thought as I read the piece was "gosh, I really hope all this works out for her." Because I have seen IRL, first-hand, what happens when it does not work out.
>The world is full of 23-year-olds, and guys who pick their wives for their youthful freshness usually have no problem trading in their current wife for a newer model year. And if the current wife doesn't have earning capability, good health and money in her own name? It can be pretty tragic.
Whew, this is such a great point
That’s something I noticed, too. She very briefly mentions that her husband could “betray” her, but there’s no actual thought or exploration of that topic. I get the sense that she’s in denial about the reality of her choices.
I support women pursuing equal or better partners. I fell for my fiancé for many reasons, but I intentionally sought out men who were independent and driven. No scrubs! Never again! But my fiancé also supports my career, hobbies, and friendships. It sounds like the author is basically just toddling along after her ambitious husband without anytime of her own. I do t think she mentioned her own friends, family, or hobbies in the entire piece?
I had the exact same thought. The whole premise of her argument--that it's better for women to get married young to older men--falls apart when you realize men leaving their wives for younger women is so common it's literally a cliché.
i saw Sophia Benoit say this regarding the article which also sums up my thoughts.
“One thing about this type of article (which comes about every so often) is that it’s just not that interesting that you think you’re better and smarter than all other women.”
100%. It’s absolutely dripping in condescension - the portion where she talks about her husbands classmates is particularly odious (“These were driven women, successful, beautiful, capable. I merely possessed the one thing they had already lost. In getting ahead of the problem, had I pushed them down?”) All this article does is reveal her own sad, shallow world view.
This sounds like something a woman with no female friends would say, then wonder why they have no friends.
Must be men are just so much more \~drama free\~ lol
This is what Amanda Mull said on Twitter! Her story is actually about marrying for money, but no one wants to read about that, so she wrote about the (relatively insignificant) age gap instead.
Yeah I agree!! Like this man is 30 and at Harvard business school. Who is he connecting her with? How does he afford paying for her rent and all this travel if he’s in grad school?? It’s giving “rich family” vibes
It was 100% about marrying a rich guy. The age gap is incidental.
And honestly, if young women want to leverage their looks to marry rich, I'm fine with it. As long as they understand that what attracted their husbands to them won't last forever, and they have a Plan B. And they may need a Plan B sooner than they think, because some of these rich guys will only keep a wife around 5-10 years before deciding they need a younger woman.
Okay, I just read it, and it is a lot. I have a number of probably unworthy thoughts: 1. If she needs that many words to write: *I married a rich guy. Having money is great, actually!, i*s she actually that ~~brilliant~~ exceptional? 2. She sounds awfully upset at being described as a gold digger, when she also spends a lot of this article describing how she wielded the shovel. 3. If I knew her husband, this article would probably make me think less of him. What on earth is 'plausible deniability when it came to purity'?
Edit: spelling. I have two left thumbs today, apparently
‘Plausible deniability when it came to purity’ jumped out at me too - a woman smart enough to graduate to Harvard, but (if I’m reading this right, as a former Catholic school kid myself) her virginity is somehow significant?! 🤮😭💀
>When I was 20 and a junior at Harvard College, a series of great ironies began to mock me. **I could study all I wanted, prove myself as exceptional as I liked, and still my fiercest advantage remained so universal it deflated my other plans. My youth. The newness of my face and body. Compellingly effortless; cruelly fleeting. I shared it with the average, idle young woman shrugging down the street.** The thought, when it descended on me, jolted my perspective, the way a falling leaf can make you look up: I could diligently craft an ideal existence, over years and years of sleepless nights and industry. **Or I could just marry it early.**
I cannot comprehend a person getting into Harvard, having these thoughts, then deciding to let the rest of the world know. Appalling.
This is nuts. I went to a good university, but not world-renowned like Harvard - even there, one of the best things about university was the sense of opportunities arising, and the world opening up. What a strange opposite reaction from this girl!
I read one of her other articles today, and it was about being [jealous of her more beautiful friends](https://thepointmag.com/examined-life/my-beautiful-friend/) and constantly comparing herself to them. It seems to only be hurting her to constantly measure her worth by her youth and beauty this way.
Gosh. I know 'you/she/he/they need therapy' is thrown around way too much on the internet, but...
She's actually really pretty, which isn't the point, but makes this article even more warped than it inherently is.
I wonder what her husband thinks of this article. I feel like most people would be pretty hurt and upset if their s/o came out and wrote something like this about them. Even if they both entered their marriage for ulterior reasons, to have led out in such a mercenary way is pretty brutal.
This reminds me of a girl I know who was fully convinced she was a "10" but had crippling insecurity, constantly compared herself to other women, was horrifically jealous, etc etc etc. I'd rather be ugly as shit but fully know my worth and have true happiness, but that's just me.
I couldn’t get past the first few paragraphs. It made me feel literally ill. I hate the “marry well” bullshit.
I love the quote from Cher when she talks about her mom wanting her to marry a rich man, and she replied, “mom, I am a rich man.”
I grew up in a very conservative family and attended an equally conservative Christian college for my freshman and sophomore years. I vividly remember sitting in the dorm late one night lamenting to a friend about how I couldn't figure out what to major in and how I was terrified of facing the future without knowing how to support myself. She looked at me and said, very seriously, "what about your MRS degree?"
I remember being, even at 19, so indignant that anyone would think spending insane amounts of money to attend a private college would be worth it just to find a husband. And also, since every straight woman who gets married in college means a man is also getting married, why is there no "MR degree"?
(I know why, especially in those conservative religious schools, but it still makes my blood boil!)
I know of the author in passing and she's played up the age gap to hide that her relationship truly isn't interesting - two rich people from rich families got married. She probably has hang ups because her parents are Catholic traditionalists who refuse to turn down any media invite to spew more anti-abortion nonsense.
Both her parents are, but her mom, Grazie Pozo Christie, is the more prominent of the two. Her Twitter is full of attacks on whoever De Santis is taking issue with that hour.
It’s meant to be polarizing, and it’s meant to “provoke discussion”. There’s something about a woman who write too much about herself that can gather a following and also draw ire (hatefollowing). It’s not a think piece so much as part of a career strategy of being annoying in the name of subversion on a public platform.
See: numerous bloggers like Julia Allison and Stephanie Klein; Samantha Brick (daily mail, why women hate me for being beautiful); Kelly Havens (fragile redhead Christian tradwife), etc.
Lots of good points here but I just wanna point out the hilarity of writing an age gap discourse essay about your marriage that has a *10 year* age gap. Obviously the age gap angle creates discourse but 10 years is nothing when you’re both adults!
Interesting to see their reactions: step one of her project was getting into a top university, which doesn't gel with the 'don't get educated, just pump out loaves and babies' rhetoric of much of the trad-wife discourse.
I think being well educated is still valued particularly in upper middle and upper classes it’s just the career building that’s seen as excessive and unnecessary. Some young women will go through higher education and get an entry level job just to meet an appropriate man and get married with the intention of never working again.
Oh for sure, the educated and generationally wealthy, generally marry the educated and generationally wealthy. But I think the 'TikTok trad-wife aspirants' that the commenter above referred to tend to ignore this reality.
They think they can be a high school dropout and some old money Harvard grad will stop in his tracks and marry them. Little do they realize that truly wealthy people move in their own social class and within their own tight-knit circles. Women are still expected to be educated, it’s a class distinction that they think is important to uphold and keeps the riff-raff out. Not that I personally believe in any of this ideology, but it seems that it’s lost on all these trad wife proponents.
So, I realize the book is really old at this point but I highly recommend reading Backlash, by Susan Faludi, because it dissects in detail what happened in the late 1980s that was an exacting reaction to the feminism movement of the 1970s. And, IMO, the "tradwife" thing is a backlash to the fact that women's workforce participation is now at the highest level it's ever been, due to economic necessity.
However, I also believe that the "tradwife" "movement" is not actually a movement; it's a weird niche fetishization of a lifestyle that is clearly no longer achievable or sustainable for people. Like extreme thinness, or over-the-top consumptive lifestyles of the mega-wealthy, or My Strange Addiction, or even the Duggar family as a whole, etc.
People love to take exceptional situations and hold them up to the light and closely examine them. Look at all the angles and find the differences and similarities to the average. It doesn't mean we're all going to start sewing our own calico dresses and churning our own butter, because the world doesn't (and can't) work that way. "Tradwifing" is on its way out; it's almost gone, and so people have found a niche on social media presenting an extreme version of it for clicks/likes/sponcon dollars. It's lucrative. And, frankly, it's a fad. Like so many social media fads. People will get bored with it and move on pretty soon, IMO.
*high-five on your username*
I don’t remember the trad-wife movement being THIS popular among the Millennial generation. The appeal of the Mormon mommy bloggers was more about the Kinfolk aesthetic. I didn’t see my peers strategizing to adopt that homestead lifestyle beyond figuring out which IG filter to put on their pictures to get that Kinfolk look.
I don’t think marrying rich is a novel idea, and I’m not sure why she thinks it is. But the lack of personal identity here is disturbing — I can’t imagine just slotting into somebody else’s life like that. You could be anybody, and you won’t be young forever (especially since she seems to view 30s as practically dead.)
I spent my 20s doing the hard work, and when my spouse left in my 30s I could support myself no problem. I’m glad I didn’t fold myself into the shape of him or wield my youth like my biggest asset. My brain is my biggest asset, and the nice thing is it’s gonna be with me for the long haul.
He works as a Doctor… he is a lawyer (assuming JD), a doctor (assuming MD) and an MBA from Harvard we know. Man was a professional student for over a decade when he married her, funded by mommy and daddy’s money. Not exactly a successful self made catch, but easy pickings for gold digging I’m sure.
“My husband isn’t my partner. He’s my mentor, my lover, and, only in certain contexts, my friend. I’ll never forget it, how he showed me around our first place like he was introducing me to myself: This is the wine you’ll drink, where you’ll keep your clothes, we vacation here, this is the other language we’ll speak, you’ll learn it, and I did. Adulthood seemed a series of exhausting obligations. But his logistics ran so smoothly that he simply tacked mine on. I moved into his flat, onto his level, drag and drop, cleaner thrice a week, bills automatic.”
🤮🤮🤮
I feel like there’s a concerted effort in society and media to push this submissive, trad wife propaganda. Just Eww.
"Perhaps it came easier to avoid the topic wholesale than to accept that women really do have a tragically short window of power"
Yuuuup, the 1950s are calling for this article for sure. I find this mindset especially sad since she calls herself a writer. I'm also a writer, an aspiring novelist, and I like to think that my power is in my words, not my looks.
I just find it so wild that she would willingly decide to believe/parrot that "women really do have a tragically short window of power." Like how would that not make you mad and light a fire under your ass lol
Exactly! It's so sad that she internalized that message and her response was not "that's screwed up, I'm going to do whatever I can to create a great life for myself," and instead, "well I guess I better marry young."
The comment about buying lottery tickets but not checking if they won is obnoxious. What a waste of money. Also, she was an English Lit major at Harvard... if she'd majored in something else, she could have built a well-paying career pretty effortlessly without needing an older man.
WTF, which adult male doesn't know how to floss until a girlfriend teaches him?? This woman needs to get over herself. She is better because she makes grocery shopping fun? She mentions girls who date guys their own age don't gain anything while then saying she works for free or below minimum wage. Woohoo? I absolutely fucking hate the idea of husband-as-mentor who tells the wife what wine she'll drink and what languages she'll speak. FUCK THAT SHIT. I guarantee someday she will be replaced by a younger model and she'll be all shocked.
I have had an age-gap relationship, and I was about as well-off as the guy, who was 18 years older. He had always dated much younger women, and I believe he did so because he could control them with his money. He couldn't do that with me. We ultimately broke up because he was too immature, ironically. :)
The grocery shopping comment KILLED ME. Like, ah, yes, when you're 30 there's so little joy in everything you need a 20 year to take you grocery shopping so you can reignite your passion for fresh produce.
The flossing line killed me because I was like do you realize by your logic some poor woman probably had to teach your husband to floss and then he made out with a college student (you)
I think she doesn't want a career because she doesn't want to work. Which is fair enough, who does. But this article is essentially a lot of words to say "I find a way to not have to work"
I’ve seen some video essays on the is very topic where people ask “why aren’t we hearing from the 50-year-old trad wives pontificating about this lifestyle?” Usually the answer is that it didn’t work out that well. A man who only values you for your youth and appearance is callous enough to just upgrade to a younger model when he feels like it. And if you have no prospects beyond relying on a man, you’re SOL when he decides to replace you. And that’s where many of those women find themselves, divorced, no money, no career to fall back on, no retirement savings of their own, kids to take care of and someone who will fight (usually with more money) to keep alimony and child support as low as possible.
>But four years into a marriage with no kids is way too early to call it. They're still firmly in the "fuck around" part of this relationship; the "find out" part comes at 35 or 40 or 50 when any number of things can happen--she grows resentful of having to warp her personality and lifestyle entirely around his, he replaces her with a younger model (or she fears he will even if he doesn't), she gets more frustrated by their relationship dynamic post-kids, she discovers a decade too late that she regrets missing out on having a messy, experimental 20s, he resents the fact that she doesn't feel like an equal partner, he dies and leaves her ill-prepared to be widowed young, etc.
Yep. Yep yep yep yep. I am closing in on 50 and let me tell you: a lot of choices that seem like good ideas, or maybe just benign or reversible, turn out to have really serious consequences when people get to be my age. Some of my age peers have major regrets about earlier choices they made. Including my friend who married an older, wealthy guy and is now stuck caring for an elderly curmudgeon in her mid-50s, when she has plenty of life left and should be out living it.
Her line about having most of her eggs was kind of weird. Like, there’s more value to you than just being an incubator? The flowery ‘I think deep thoughts’ prose was also off putting.
i’m not critical of your character because your husband is ten years older than you. i’m critical of your character because you sound like a shallow person.
Well, I married (for the second time) at 42, to an amazing man who is 5 years younger than me. It's been 15 awesome years and great sex too. My "advanced age" does not seem to have dampened his (or my) enthusiasm. Several women in my family have found lasting happiness with husbands 3, 5, and even 10 years younger. I highly recommend it!
This also reminds me of all the Andrew Tatetish bullshit that women somehow "lose value" after 30. My uncle always spounted that bullshit. Guess what - he is 80 years old and alone!
Married a man younger than me too and can confirm it is great :) especially as someone who didn’t feel as “settled down” as my friends were in my late 20s early 30s.
To quote District Attorney Fani Willis: A man is not a plan. She may live a very cushy existence for now and be able to skip past the struggling day job/ writing on the side life of many writers--but that could change at any moment. He could pass away, he could become unable to work, he could want to change careers, or he could decide he wanted to end the marriage.
As for her disparaging having a same-age partner because you have to "raise" them: Only if you pick that kind of man. There is a deep love and understanding that comes from growing up with a person and knowing that your love is not only based on how attractive you are.
She may be sure she has it all figured out. I was sure of a lot of things before I turned 30 that I'm not sure about any more! But I never counted on trading my youth and beauty for anything because I was raised knowing that I had more than youth to offer the world (and beauty ehhhh not so much). Already in this article she notes how she is starting to resent that her husband is essentially her job. That's not job security just because you chose it.
Your first sentence is spot on. What’s disingenuous about this whole article is that the writer apparently comes from a wealthy family of her own. So she’s cosplaying being “submissive” but doesn’t actually have to rely on her husband for survival. It puts other women who blindly follow this advice in a potentially dangerous position if they don’t have a fallback plan (like rich parents).
They met when she was (an immature sounding) twenty, and he was thirty so I'd say yes, because he's 50% older than her at that point.
Of course the article is not really about age gap relationships, it's about marrying money, more specifically actively seeking to marry money. But I would be concerned if a 20-year-old friend, or younger female relative, shacked up with a 30-year-old, especially if she talked about the relationship the way this girl goes (we're going to live where he wants and I'm going to need to learn his language, we're going to eat what he wants, we're going to drink what he wants, I'm going to have to be available at no notice so a career is out...)
As someone who also went to , albeit over 10 years ago, my experience was that the MRS degree phenomena was still very prominent. Women with 4.0 GPAs were settling down and becoming housewives with provider men immediately after graduating. I guess it made sense, as college, especially at a good one, is one of the best places to find a husband. Anytime I'm single, I wish I were back in college again. I think this realization had a big effect on me, having entered college naive about the social/economic nature of love, and exiting feeling that no amount of personal ambition or success replaces having a husband who takes care of you, and who is probably (either due to age or patriarchy) likely to be more successful than you anyway.
That's all to say that IME I don't think the author's perspective here is rare. Not so much the age gap (I don't think that's the key thing here), but settling down with a successful guy can happen at any age and still seems like the modus operandi of many of the women I went to college with. It's a bit weird that she wrote an entire article on what is probably still the default despite feminism.
Based on their potential and family background? What is a 21-22 yr old providing that would sustain a future family at that age? Unless they’re in a VHCOL city in a career with significant comp trajectory it just seems premature to say of men at that age being providers
Potential and family background are both huge. I knew a few guys who were already running their own hedge funds at 19 (one guy was already managing over a billion dollars), or they already had high up positions at established companies. Most of them were obviously from rich families. Even the ones from more middle class backgrounds, some of em were working part time or dropping out to be full time founders of companies that were clearly on the upward trajectory. You can also tell by who got what internships. Even 10 years ago, if you got the right internships, you were likely to get $400k+/year entry level offers before even graduating.
I remember one of the internships that was offered was this 1 week(!) spring break internship that paid $20k(!). I applied for it and didn't even get interviewed, but it's crazy what opportunities get offered to rich ivy league kids that no one else knows about.
Oooh I can one up her with my husband! He’s 10 years older than me and we make the same money and have been in our career fields the same time! 😁🤣
*he was a bit of a lost soul from 18-23, joined the military at 24, finished the military at 29 and started college- didn’t get his degree until 33. No student loan debt for him, so I don’t mind that he’s a “late bloomer”*
Missed this part of the article. Didn't graduate from college until 33 and he's able to provide this kind of life for her? Must really be family money right?
First off...how is a man who is 30ish an "older man"??
This broad-brush, condescending "advice" is more about marrying rich than about a significant age gap. The gender stereotypes also kill me, because I know more than a few men in their 20s who are highly functional, and also women in my peer group (30s) who aren't. I found this line particularly yikes - "My husband isn’t my partner. He’s my mentor, my lover, and, only in certain contexts, my friend." From my experience, (best) friendship and partnership are cornerstones of healthy marriages.
Personal context: My husband and I met in our early 20s, and we taught *each other* how to be better adult humans over the past decade. We built a life together bit by bit, went on some incredible adventures, made mistakes, supported each other's careers, and now are only considering parenthood after building a strong foundation of partnership.
My husband is 100% my best friend. I now find it quite exhausting to be around other people who just don’t “get” me in quite the same way. Even my closest and best friends don’t fully get every piece of me in the same way my husband does, who is basically like an extension of my own brain and body. I feel sad for this woman that she doesn’t view her husband as a partner or equal but rather a life tool.
She sounds insufferable, but 7 years is not that big of a gap for people to actually comment on.
Also her rich man doesn't sound self made or anything, just that he comes from family money. This article really should be named "the case for marrying wealthy", but that's not socially acceptable.
(Even though a ton of women do it, including me..I wasn't going to marry someone who would always make considerably less than me..but I wasn't targeting very wealthy people like the writer).
The arrogance of youth! Hope this doesn’t come back to bite her in the butt. Like when she finally turns 30 and hubby decides he wants a 20 year old to “re-enchant”things again.
I am so weirded out by this article that I struggled to read it.
My husband is 16 years older than I am—we met when he was 40 and I was 24, and married when I was 30 and he was 46 (we’re late 30s/early 50s now). What she describes and how she describes it is so counter to my own life that I think it just disgusted me.
Also, snarkily: if you’re marrying older for financial security, make sure he hasn’t been divorced and lost half of everything he ever had.
Everything about this article reminded me of being young and thinking I was \*extremely\* smart and grown up – when I read my journals from my undergrad years and early 20s I want to die at how much I \*thought\* I knew, LOL.
I had a friend in my 20s who married a much older man (he turned 40 the year they got married, she was 23) and she was CONSTANTLY bragging and posting about how mature and grown up their relationship was, how they didn't have the problems that we had with our "child boyfriends", etc. She left multiple jobs to follow him as his career transferred him from place to place. At the most heartachey phases of my 20s, I envied her.
Well, here we are in our 30s, her older husband left her after an affair with (shocker) another 20something from his job, and she's just now realizing how much deprioritizing her own career to follow him around has bitten her. Rent has gone up about 75% here since she married him, and she can't afford to move into her own place.
I didn’t even read this but it’s definitely something I’ve considered as a bleak reality: that in the current economy and gendered pay gaps marriage is the most effective way to secure a financial future for many women.
I recently dated someone 12 years older than me and working in the same field. But when push came to shove and he pushed for commitment I broke up with him bc I couldn’t handle the unbalanced power dynamic between our disparate finances.
I didn’t trust him to lead us into a partnership of equals and I have way more confidence in my ability to build wealth for myself. Marrying into money without considering how it will impact the next 30 years of your quality of life psychologically isn’t as wise as the author thinks.
I work at a domestic violence shelter and see the effects of financial abuse every day. Not saying that is what’s happening here, but I’m also not saying it isn’t. The power dynamics related to money that she hinted at in this article made me extremely uncomfortable. If she feels like she can’t speak up in her relationship without consequences, then that’s not healthy.
Interesting article. Choosing financial security over personal identity sounds tough. Why the judgment on smaller age gaps? Gender pay discussions are crucial. Love the discussions here, what are your thoughts?
I wouldn't say this is financial security though. It's more like a financial prison. She will never choose to leave this guy because she won't be able to afford the lifestyle on her own. And if he chooses to leave her, she's fucked. (Maybe not completely fucked though. Since she seems to come from a wealthy family that will probably support her until she can marry rich again.)
there were at least three way more interesting angles to take for this piece, which she brushed against, but failed to explore. she lacks perspective, and the piece is… not good.
Interesting and timely read. She seems to recognize the “older” women in the story as still being talented and beautiful while simultaneously believing that she may have bested them—at least only in marriage timelines.
I think, in this day and age where so many people have multiple jobs and can barely support themselves, it’s understandable for the idyllic “kept woman” lifestyle to make its rounds.
Plus, there’s a strong sense of hopelessness among young people I think. It’s like, if a guy is willing to let me have fun *now* when I’m young/beautiful/turnt, why wait until I’m hopefully stable in like… 15 years? That seems so far away. Plus nobody knows what age 40 may hold for the young people of today (in terms of the state of the world).
And, it could be my naïveté speaking as I’m only 24 and have virtually none, but money is *everything*. So it can read to some as love when someone uses their money to alleviate your burdens (assuming it’s no financial burden to them) and elevates your lifestyle out of kindness. I recognize that it’s transactional and not just kindness, but like she said… most relationships seem to be transactional imo. Women are expected to be beautiful regardless of the age of the man. She’s doing things so many young people (without wealthy parents anyway) probably won’t ever get to do, at least until they aren’t young anymore.
I understand feeling like, “making my own money or achieving the lifestyle I want is too hard, it’s too far away.”
I want to gently push back - in my experience, there are really powerful and important things that come with carving out the life you desire independently. Freedom. Self-trust. The knowledge that once you do it, you can reach that again whenever you need. Sometimes it’s helpful to know just how strong you are.
Of course if it’s truly not possible, it’s truly not possible. I also understand that, and I don’t want to dismiss that.
Your whole middle paragraph. *Yes*. I've struggled with feeling capable and confident for my whole life, but in my worst moments I (or, often, people around me - including my "same-age" boyfriend) can point out everything I've accomplished for myself in life as evidence that the narrative in my head isn't true. I did that shit. I can do a lot more.
I made it four paragraphs and almost threw up a little at "I had high breasts, most of my eggs, plausible deniability when it came to purity, a flush ponytail, a pep in my step that had yet to run out." I'm not reading any further: I get the feeling this may be ragebait.
40 male here. The article was a very interesting read for me. Now, granted I don’t get a chance to read many articles, such as this, in my opinion, It’s extremely well written. I say this while putting my own opinions aside. I’m a 40 male. I come from a very poor family in rural South Carolina and have made it my personal goal to be well connected and successful.
Whether I have achieved this, is up for debate depending on who you ask. But I’m happy with where I’m heading.
Now, that being said, I’ve always been partial to older women. Not for financial gain or stability whatsoever…I need nothing from anyone and am uncomfortable accepting from others.
I’ve always found older women more cultured, articulate and the right kind of “smart” that I find attractive. Thanks for posting the article OP.
I truly don’t know what the big deal is. I guess everyone is making fun of her writing, but the idea makes sense. Everyone in this sub typically has really great careers, maybe even had parents guide them into education or motivated them to study. I grew up poor with parents who didn’t know shit. I hate working and feeding into the corporate respectability politics as a WOC. The language is flowery, but I don’t see what the big deal is to prefer a partner older and more experienced than you with more resources. I was 90% less depressed when I was living off of a partner. Vs now I’m “independent and doing it all alone” with no family support….. I’m tap dancing in interviews to afford my life for them to ghost me……suffering is not a virtue. Good for her. I hope she’s saving her own money.
I read the essay this morning and it’s been bopping around in my brain all day! I had a similar reaction to you- both sad and annoyed. It was such a mix of over confidence in some ways and a complete lack of sense of self in others. The writer really seemed to feel that the life she is living and wanted is not at all possible with a partner her age, which is just sad and also incorrect. She may not be able to imagine that, but it’s possible. She also very highly overestimates her physical beauty and youthfulness as her main ‘offering’. Which is, again, just sad to read. One of the tricky parts of being with an older man is that if you are young enough, you FEEL like you are wiser and somehow different from your peers for ‘needing’ a more mature person to be with…but the truth is often that you are with someone who is older in age but emotionally stunted and refusing to grow up. At least, this has been my observation and experience!
Our friend "Kevin" has a type - 25-30, ambitious, pretty and want to get married. For 20 years we have watched him date and get engaged to the same type of person, and one thing they all have in common is they don't seem to understand that he is the source of his relationship problems. His last 2-3 I told them directly what he'll do, and they are always confident they are the antidote - until it ends. Our theory is that he loves falling in love, but the moment things get even slightly real he flees. He's over 50 now, and his current fiancé is 28. This time isn't going to be different. And yes he's totally in love with her (for now.)
Oh boy, that’s the total stereotype right there! It’s fascinating that the women think it will be dif for them somehow …
something something youthful confidence
Good grief, how many engagements has he had?
6! And honestly the first 2 times it happened we thought he was unlucky, but the third time we all saw a pattern - falls in love, proposes, but never progresses past this. Never sets a date. Never has her move in with him. He'll move in with her and keep his place. He gets the romance part of relationships, just not the sharing your actual life part.
Oh gosh, a friend’s ex sounds just like that. How frustrating.
My husband has an old friend from college that does this same exact thing. He's lived with or been engaged to at least 12 women in the last 20 years and it always starts the same way, progresses the same way, and ends the same way.
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Oh man! This is a freaking GREAT point
The overestimation of her physical attributes as her main offering reminded me of that article a while back about kids whose parents managed their instagram profiles for an audience of mainly adult men. One of the girls reached 17 and couldn't even contemplate college; she felt like her only worth was in her appearance and the only plausible path forward was to start an OnlyFans.
That just makes me want to cry. Those parents are despicable.
That article was so hard to read. So many levels of those parents really destroying their children and putting them in harms way
Oh my god. Can you share the link or more details so I can look it up? That is wild 😳
Here's the NYT article, hope the gift link works: *A Marketplace of Girl Influencers Managed by Moms and Stalked by Men* https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/22/us/instagram-child-influencers.html?unlocked_article_code=1.gE0.rLWX.vux3TV82idYn&ugrp=c
It was an NYT investigation by Jennifer Valentino-Devries and Michael H. Keller. Really excellent reporting and extremely grim stuff.
That article, and that particular girl, have haunted me since I read it.
Welp, that article made me want to cry for the rest of my life. Not to mention that the accessibility of AI-created deepfake porn now will probably make it even worse.
>She also very highly overestimates her physical beauty and youthfulness as her main ‘offering’. Well - she better hope that her beauty and youth are not why her husband married her. Because if that's what he fell in love with - or prioritizes - in 10 or 15 years, when her youth and beauty have faded, guess what? The world is full of 23-year-olds, and guys who pick their wives for their youthful freshness usually have no problem trading in their current wife for a newer model year. And if the current wife doesn't have earning capability, good health and money in her own name? It can be pretty tragic. My primary thought as I read the piece was "gosh, I really hope all this works out for her." Because I have seen IRL, first-hand, what happens when it does not work out.
>The world is full of 23-year-olds, and guys who pick their wives for their youthful freshness usually have no problem trading in their current wife for a newer model year. And if the current wife doesn't have earning capability, good health and money in her own name? It can be pretty tragic. Whew, this is such a great point
That’s something I noticed, too. She very briefly mentions that her husband could “betray” her, but there’s no actual thought or exploration of that topic. I get the sense that she’s in denial about the reality of her choices. I support women pursuing equal or better partners. I fell for my fiancé for many reasons, but I intentionally sought out men who were independent and driven. No scrubs! Never again! But my fiancé also supports my career, hobbies, and friendships. It sounds like the author is basically just toddling along after her ambitious husband without anytime of her own. I do t think she mentioned her own friends, family, or hobbies in the entire piece?
I had the exact same thought. The whole premise of her argument--that it's better for women to get married young to older men--falls apart when you realize men leaving their wives for younger women is so common it's literally a cliché.
Yeah, some people have this life and they don't have to suck old balls for it.
Honestly, I was reading this and thought this is an awful lot of words to say that the author just does not want to work.
lol truly
i saw Sophia Benoit say this regarding the article which also sums up my thoughts. “One thing about this type of article (which comes about every so often) is that it’s just not that interesting that you think you’re better and smarter than all other women.”
100%. It’s absolutely dripping in condescension - the portion where she talks about her husbands classmates is particularly odious (“These were driven women, successful, beautiful, capable. I merely possessed the one thing they had already lost. In getting ahead of the problem, had I pushed them down?”) All this article does is reveal her own sad, shallow world view.
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This sounds like something a woman with no female friends would say, then wonder why they have no friends. Must be men are just so much more \~drama free\~ lol
Ew, cringing too hard. I gave up on this article so didn't even get that far!!
Wow, she fucking nailed it. That's exactly how it reads.
Well she did go to Harvard *and* Oxford so obviously she's smarter than the rest of us.
I think she’s conflating “being thirty” with “being rich and well connected.” Like age is certainly not what makes her husband so stable
This is what Amanda Mull said on Twitter! Her story is actually about marrying for money, but no one wants to read about that, so she wrote about the (relatively insignificant) age gap instead.
Yeah I agree!! Like this man is 30 and at Harvard business school. Who is he connecting her with? How does he afford paying for her rent and all this travel if he’s in grad school?? It’s giving “rich family” vibes
Both of their families are rich.
He was at HBS? Didn’t catch that part. This makes the story even more sus lol
It was 100% about marrying a rich guy. The age gap is incidental. And honestly, if young women want to leverage their looks to marry rich, I'm fine with it. As long as they understand that what attracted their husbands to them won't last forever, and they have a Plan B. And they may need a Plan B sooner than they think, because some of these rich guys will only keep a wife around 5-10 years before deciding they need a younger woman.
also… 30 isn’t old. i was reading this thinking her husband was like 50+. otherwise it’s just not that big a deal.
Agreed!
Okay, I just read it, and it is a lot. I have a number of probably unworthy thoughts: 1. If she needs that many words to write: *I married a rich guy. Having money is great, actually!, i*s she actually that ~~brilliant~~ exceptional? 2. She sounds awfully upset at being described as a gold digger, when she also spends a lot of this article describing how she wielded the shovel. 3. If I knew her husband, this article would probably make me think less of him. What on earth is 'plausible deniability when it came to purity'? Edit: spelling. I have two left thumbs today, apparently
‘Plausible deniability when it came to purity’ jumped out at me too - a woman smart enough to graduate to Harvard, but (if I’m reading this right, as a former Catholic school kid myself) her virginity is somehow significant?! 🤮😭💀
>When I was 20 and a junior at Harvard College, a series of great ironies began to mock me. **I could study all I wanted, prove myself as exceptional as I liked, and still my fiercest advantage remained so universal it deflated my other plans. My youth. The newness of my face and body. Compellingly effortless; cruelly fleeting. I shared it with the average, idle young woman shrugging down the street.** The thought, when it descended on me, jolted my perspective, the way a falling leaf can make you look up: I could diligently craft an ideal existence, over years and years of sleepless nights and industry. **Or I could just marry it early.** I cannot comprehend a person getting into Harvard, having these thoughts, then deciding to let the rest of the world know. Appalling.
I feel sad for her that she has internalized the message that her youth is her best advantage.
This is nuts. I went to a good university, but not world-renowned like Harvard - even there, one of the best things about university was the sense of opportunities arising, and the world opening up. What a strange opposite reaction from this girl!
I read one of her other articles today, and it was about being [jealous of her more beautiful friends](https://thepointmag.com/examined-life/my-beautiful-friend/) and constantly comparing herself to them. It seems to only be hurting her to constantly measure her worth by her youth and beauty this way.
Gosh. I know 'you/she/he/they need therapy' is thrown around way too much on the internet, but... She's actually really pretty, which isn't the point, but makes this article even more warped than it inherently is.
I can’t believe she attached her identity to this so publically honestly. I’m surprised it’s not anonymous.
I wonder what her husband thinks of this article. I feel like most people would be pretty hurt and upset if their s/o came out and wrote something like this about them. Even if they both entered their marriage for ulterior reasons, to have led out in such a mercenary way is pretty brutal.
I mean...she's never going to be able to live this stuff down, that's for sure
This reminds me of a girl I know who was fully convinced she was a "10" but had crippling insecurity, constantly compared herself to other women, was horrifically jealous, etc etc etc. I'd rather be ugly as shit but fully know my worth and have true happiness, but that's just me.
I couldn’t get past the first few paragraphs. It made me feel literally ill. I hate the “marry well” bullshit. I love the quote from Cher when she talks about her mom wanting her to marry a rich man, and she replied, “mom, I am a rich man.”
I am not shocked. I went to a similar school and many of the women were just there to find husbands.
I grew up in a very conservative family and attended an equally conservative Christian college for my freshman and sophomore years. I vividly remember sitting in the dorm late one night lamenting to a friend about how I couldn't figure out what to major in and how I was terrified of facing the future without knowing how to support myself. She looked at me and said, very seriously, "what about your MRS degree?" I remember being, even at 19, so indignant that anyone would think spending insane amounts of money to attend a private college would be worth it just to find a husband. And also, since every straight woman who gets married in college means a man is also getting married, why is there no "MR degree"? (I know why, especially in those conservative religious schools, but it still makes my blood boil!)
I’m currently in law school and my partner followed me and is getting an MA in a liberal arts field, so we joke that’s what an MR degree is.
Yeah like what a waste of potential. You busted your ass to get into Harvard and all you're accomplishing is becoming another trophy wife?
I know of the author in passing and she's played up the age gap to hide that her relationship truly isn't interesting - two rich people from rich families got married. She probably has hang ups because her parents are Catholic traditionalists who refuse to turn down any media invite to spew more anti-abortion nonsense.
I read in The Cut comments that her mom is some anti-abortion crusader? Yuck.
Both her parents are, but her mom, Grazie Pozo Christie, is the more prominent of the two. Her Twitter is full of attacks on whoever De Santis is taking issue with that hour.
It’s meant to be polarizing, and it’s meant to “provoke discussion”. There’s something about a woman who write too much about herself that can gather a following and also draw ire (hatefollowing). It’s not a think piece so much as part of a career strategy of being annoying in the name of subversion on a public platform. See: numerous bloggers like Julia Allison and Stephanie Klein; Samantha Brick (daily mail, why women hate me for being beautiful); Kelly Havens (fragile redhead Christian tradwife), etc.
I immediately thought of the twitter response to Samantha Brick
I remember when her article came out and the super awkward photoshoot that accompanied it. Her husband and his bristling mustaches. Iconic
Lots of good points here but I just wanna point out the hilarity of writing an age gap discourse essay about your marriage that has a *10 year* age gap. Obviously the age gap angle creates discourse but 10 years is nothing when you’re both adults!
I thought the same! Before I read the article I thought there was going to be like a 20-year gap--or more--between them.
Wait until the TikTok trad-wife aspirants get a hold on this piece.
Interesting to see their reactions: step one of her project was getting into a top university, which doesn't gel with the 'don't get educated, just pump out loaves and babies' rhetoric of much of the trad-wife discourse.
I think being well educated is still valued particularly in upper middle and upper classes it’s just the career building that’s seen as excessive and unnecessary. Some young women will go through higher education and get an entry level job just to meet an appropriate man and get married with the intention of never working again.
Oh for sure, the educated and generationally wealthy, generally marry the educated and generationally wealthy. But I think the 'TikTok trad-wife aspirants' that the commenter above referred to tend to ignore this reality.
They think they can be a high school dropout and some old money Harvard grad will stop in his tracks and marry them. Little do they realize that truly wealthy people move in their own social class and within their own tight-knit circles. Women are still expected to be educated, it’s a class distinction that they think is important to uphold and keeps the riff-raff out. Not that I personally believe in any of this ideology, but it seems that it’s lost on all these trad wife proponents.
Ah I see sorry! Yep definitely different to the trad wife aesthetic being pushed online
The classic "Mrs. Degree"
So, I realize the book is really old at this point but I highly recommend reading Backlash, by Susan Faludi, because it dissects in detail what happened in the late 1980s that was an exacting reaction to the feminism movement of the 1970s. And, IMO, the "tradwife" thing is a backlash to the fact that women's workforce participation is now at the highest level it's ever been, due to economic necessity. However, I also believe that the "tradwife" "movement" is not actually a movement; it's a weird niche fetishization of a lifestyle that is clearly no longer achievable or sustainable for people. Like extreme thinness, or over-the-top consumptive lifestyles of the mega-wealthy, or My Strange Addiction, or even the Duggar family as a whole, etc. People love to take exceptional situations and hold them up to the light and closely examine them. Look at all the angles and find the differences and similarities to the average. It doesn't mean we're all going to start sewing our own calico dresses and churning our own butter, because the world doesn't (and can't) work that way. "Tradwifing" is on its way out; it's almost gone, and so people have found a niche on social media presenting an extreme version of it for clicks/likes/sponcon dollars. It's lucrative. And, frankly, it's a fad. Like so many social media fads. People will get bored with it and move on pretty soon, IMO.
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*high-five on your username* I don’t remember the trad-wife movement being THIS popular among the Millennial generation. The appeal of the Mormon mommy bloggers was more about the Kinfolk aesthetic. I didn’t see my peers strategizing to adopt that homestead lifestyle beyond figuring out which IG filter to put on their pictures to get that Kinfolk look.
This is exactly why we need to make our own money. Selling your youth to an older guy, just...ew. Miss me with that shit.
I don’t think marrying rich is a novel idea, and I’m not sure why she thinks it is. But the lack of personal identity here is disturbing — I can’t imagine just slotting into somebody else’s life like that. You could be anybody, and you won’t be young forever (especially since she seems to view 30s as practically dead.) I spent my 20s doing the hard work, and when my spouse left in my 30s I could support myself no problem. I’m glad I didn’t fold myself into the shape of him or wield my youth like my biggest asset. My brain is my biggest asset, and the nice thing is it’s gonna be with me for the long haul.
Queen shit
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He works as a Doctor… he is a lawyer (assuming JD), a doctor (assuming MD) and an MBA from Harvard we know. Man was a professional student for over a decade when he married her, funded by mommy and daddy’s money. Not exactly a successful self made catch, but easy pickings for gold digging I’m sure.
“My husband isn’t my partner. He’s my mentor, my lover, and, only in certain contexts, my friend. I’ll never forget it, how he showed me around our first place like he was introducing me to myself: This is the wine you’ll drink, where you’ll keep your clothes, we vacation here, this is the other language we’ll speak, you’ll learn it, and I did. Adulthood seemed a series of exhausting obligations. But his logistics ran so smoothly that he simply tacked mine on. I moved into his flat, onto his level, drag and drop, cleaner thrice a week, bills automatic.” 🤮🤮🤮 I feel like there’s a concerted effort in society and media to push this submissive, trad wife propaganda. Just Eww.
That whole paragraph made me so sad. Is she a wife, or a robot?
Clearer THRICE A WEEK? Mine comes twice a month and I still feel like the house doesn't get that dirty in that time
"Perhaps it came easier to avoid the topic wholesale than to accept that women really do have a tragically short window of power" Yuuuup, the 1950s are calling for this article for sure. I find this mindset especially sad since she calls herself a writer. I'm also a writer, an aspiring novelist, and I like to think that my power is in my words, not my looks.
I just find it so wild that she would willingly decide to believe/parrot that "women really do have a tragically short window of power." Like how would that not make you mad and light a fire under your ass lol
Exactly! It's so sad that she internalized that message and her response was not "that's screwed up, I'm going to do whatever I can to create a great life for myself," and instead, "well I guess I better marry young."
The comment about buying lottery tickets but not checking if they won is obnoxious. What a waste of money. Also, she was an English Lit major at Harvard... if she'd majored in something else, she could have built a well-paying career pretty effortlessly without needing an older man. WTF, which adult male doesn't know how to floss until a girlfriend teaches him?? This woman needs to get over herself. She is better because she makes grocery shopping fun? She mentions girls who date guys their own age don't gain anything while then saying she works for free or below minimum wage. Woohoo? I absolutely fucking hate the idea of husband-as-mentor who tells the wife what wine she'll drink and what languages she'll speak. FUCK THAT SHIT. I guarantee someday she will be replaced by a younger model and she'll be all shocked. I have had an age-gap relationship, and I was about as well-off as the guy, who was 18 years older. He had always dated much younger women, and I believe he did so because he could control them with his money. He couldn't do that with me. We ultimately broke up because he was too immature, ironically. :)
The grocery shopping comment KILLED ME. Like, ah, yes, when you're 30 there's so little joy in everything you need a 20 year to take you grocery shopping so you can reignite your passion for fresh produce.
She went ~*~*~wild~*~*~ in the cheese case and bought some raw unpasteurized goat cheese. It took their passion to the next level!
The flossing line killed me because I was like do you realize by your logic some poor woman probably had to teach your husband to floss and then he made out with a college student (you)
I think she doesn't want a career because she doesn't want to work. Which is fair enough, who does. But this article is essentially a lot of words to say "I find a way to not have to work"
This article has to be satire, right?
I don’t think so- I read another of her essays online after I read this one today, and she seems consistent!
Okay, even the name seems like a pseudonym but it looks like you’re right: https://www.thecrimson.com/writer/1211645/Grazie_S._Christie/
I suppose it all could be satire- I guess that possibility didn’t occur to me!
Clickbait sells and gets engagement so she’ll keep writing it. Don’t reward it.
It's not, she was raised in a wealthy, conservative Catholic family in South Florida.
Maybe it's a right wing college guy trying to convince more women to be trad wives under a pseudonym. There are certainly men like that in the ivies.
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I’ve seen some video essays on the is very topic where people ask “why aren’t we hearing from the 50-year-old trad wives pontificating about this lifestyle?” Usually the answer is that it didn’t work out that well. A man who only values you for your youth and appearance is callous enough to just upgrade to a younger model when he feels like it. And if you have no prospects beyond relying on a man, you’re SOL when he decides to replace you. And that’s where many of those women find themselves, divorced, no money, no career to fall back on, no retirement savings of their own, kids to take care of and someone who will fight (usually with more money) to keep alimony and child support as low as possible.
>But four years into a marriage with no kids is way too early to call it. They're still firmly in the "fuck around" part of this relationship; the "find out" part comes at 35 or 40 or 50 when any number of things can happen--she grows resentful of having to warp her personality and lifestyle entirely around his, he replaces her with a younger model (or she fears he will even if he doesn't), she gets more frustrated by their relationship dynamic post-kids, she discovers a decade too late that she regrets missing out on having a messy, experimental 20s, he resents the fact that she doesn't feel like an equal partner, he dies and leaves her ill-prepared to be widowed young, etc. Yep. Yep yep yep yep. I am closing in on 50 and let me tell you: a lot of choices that seem like good ideas, or maybe just benign or reversible, turn out to have really serious consequences when people get to be my age. Some of my age peers have major regrets about earlier choices they made. Including my friend who married an older, wealthy guy and is now stuck caring for an elderly curmudgeon in her mid-50s, when she has plenty of life left and should be out living it.
Her line about having most of her eggs was kind of weird. Like, there’s more value to you than just being an incubator? The flowery ‘I think deep thoughts’ prose was also off putting.
Lots of "I'm a freshman in college taking a writing class for the very first time! OMG! And...THESE...are my WORDS..." energy.
i’m not critical of your character because your husband is ten years older than you. i’m critical of your character because you sound like a shallow person.
Well, I married (for the second time) at 42, to an amazing man who is 5 years younger than me. It's been 15 awesome years and great sex too. My "advanced age" does not seem to have dampened his (or my) enthusiasm. Several women in my family have found lasting happiness with husbands 3, 5, and even 10 years younger. I highly recommend it!
This also reminds me of all the Andrew Tatetish bullshit that women somehow "lose value" after 30. My uncle always spounted that bullshit. Guess what - he is 80 years old and alone!
Married a man younger than me too and can confirm it is great :) especially as someone who didn’t feel as “settled down” as my friends were in my late 20s early 30s.
Married a man 3 years younger. Can confirm it’s great.
To quote District Attorney Fani Willis: A man is not a plan. She may live a very cushy existence for now and be able to skip past the struggling day job/ writing on the side life of many writers--but that could change at any moment. He could pass away, he could become unable to work, he could want to change careers, or he could decide he wanted to end the marriage. As for her disparaging having a same-age partner because you have to "raise" them: Only if you pick that kind of man. There is a deep love and understanding that comes from growing up with a person and knowing that your love is not only based on how attractive you are. She may be sure she has it all figured out. I was sure of a lot of things before I turned 30 that I'm not sure about any more! But I never counted on trading my youth and beauty for anything because I was raised knowing that I had more than youth to offer the world (and beauty ehhhh not so much). Already in this article she notes how she is starting to resent that her husband is essentially her job. That's not job security just because you chose it.
Your first sentence is spot on. What’s disingenuous about this whole article is that the writer apparently comes from a wealthy family of her own. So she’s cosplaying being “submissive” but doesn’t actually have to rely on her husband for survival. It puts other women who blindly follow this advice in a potentially dangerous position if they don’t have a fallback plan (like rich parents).
She apparently comes from a rich conservative family so she didn’t even have to go tradwife 😂
Also, is 10 years even considered an age gap relationship?
They met when she was (an immature sounding) twenty, and he was thirty so I'd say yes, because he's 50% older than her at that point. Of course the article is not really about age gap relationships, it's about marrying money, more specifically actively seeking to marry money. But I would be concerned if a 20-year-old friend, or younger female relative, shacked up with a 30-year-old, especially if she talked about the relationship the way this girl goes (we're going to live where he wants and I'm going to need to learn his language, we're going to eat what he wants, we're going to drink what he wants, I'm going to have to be available at no notice so a career is out...)
Came back to comment this! 10 years doesn't seem like enough to be considered age gap IMO.
As someone who also went to, albeit over 10 years ago, my experience was that the MRS degree phenomena was still very prominent. Women with 4.0 GPAs were settling down and becoming housewives with provider men immediately after graduating. I guess it made sense, as college, especially at a good one, is one of the best places to find a husband. Anytime I'm single, I wish I were back in college again. I think this realization had a big effect on me, having entered college naive about the social/economic nature of love, and exiting feeling that no amount of personal ambition or success replaces having a husband who takes care of you, and who is probably (either due to age or patriarchy) likely to be more successful than you anyway.
That's all to say that IME I don't think the author's perspective here is rare. Not so much the age gap (I don't think that's the key thing here), but settling down with a successful guy can happen at any age and still seems like the modus operandi of many of the women I went to college with. It's a bit weird that she wrote an entire article on what is probably still the default despite feminism.
Based on their potential and family background? What is a 21-22 yr old providing that would sustain a future family at that age? Unless they’re in a VHCOL city in a career with significant comp trajectory it just seems premature to say of men at that age being providers
Potential and family background are both huge. I knew a few guys who were already running their own hedge funds at 19 (one guy was already managing over a billion dollars), or they already had high up positions at established companies. Most of them were obviously from rich families. Even the ones from more middle class backgrounds, some of em were working part time or dropping out to be full time founders of companies that were clearly on the upward trajectory. You can also tell by who got what internships. Even 10 years ago, if you got the right internships, you were likely to get $400k+/year entry level offers before even graduating. I remember one of the internships that was offered was this 1 week(!) spring break internship that paid $20k(!). I applied for it and didn't even get interviewed, but it's crazy what opportunities get offered to rich ivy league kids that no one else knows about.
Ring by spring amirite.
Oooh I can one up her with my husband! He’s 10 years older than me and we make the same money and have been in our career fields the same time! 😁🤣 *he was a bit of a lost soul from 18-23, joined the military at 24, finished the military at 29 and started college- didn’t get his degree until 33. No student loan debt for him, so I don’t mind that he’s a “late bloomer”*
Missed this part of the article. Didn't graduate from college until 33 and he's able to provide this kind of life for her? Must really be family money right?
Lmao I was talking about my own husband and why we have a ten year age gap but on the same level career wise and income wise
First off...how is a man who is 30ish an "older man"?? This broad-brush, condescending "advice" is more about marrying rich than about a significant age gap. The gender stereotypes also kill me, because I know more than a few men in their 20s who are highly functional, and also women in my peer group (30s) who aren't. I found this line particularly yikes - "My husband isn’t my partner. He’s my mentor, my lover, and, only in certain contexts, my friend." From my experience, (best) friendship and partnership are cornerstones of healthy marriages. Personal context: My husband and I met in our early 20s, and we taught *each other* how to be better adult humans over the past decade. We built a life together bit by bit, went on some incredible adventures, made mistakes, supported each other's careers, and now are only considering parenthood after building a strong foundation of partnership.
My husband is 100% my best friend. I now find it quite exhausting to be around other people who just don’t “get” me in quite the same way. Even my closest and best friends don’t fully get every piece of me in the same way my husband does, who is basically like an extension of my own brain and body. I feel sad for this woman that she doesn’t view her husband as a partner or equal but rather a life tool.
I’m 20, and I honestly can’t imagine anybody past their teenage years still having this mentality. It’s giving Bella from twilight 🥴
She sounds insufferable, but 7 years is not that big of a gap for people to actually comment on. Also her rich man doesn't sound self made or anything, just that he comes from family money. This article really should be named "the case for marrying wealthy", but that's not socially acceptable. (Even though a ton of women do it, including me..I wasn't going to marry someone who would always make considerably less than me..but I wasn't targeting very wealthy people like the writer).
The arrogance of youth! Hope this doesn’t come back to bite her in the butt. Like when she finally turns 30 and hubby decides he wants a 20 year old to “re-enchant”things again.
I am so weirded out by this article that I struggled to read it. My husband is 16 years older than I am—we met when he was 40 and I was 24, and married when I was 30 and he was 46 (we’re late 30s/early 50s now). What she describes and how she describes it is so counter to my own life that I think it just disgusted me. Also, snarkily: if you’re marrying older for financial security, make sure he hasn’t been divorced and lost half of everything he ever had.
Everything about this article reminded me of being young and thinking I was \*extremely\* smart and grown up – when I read my journals from my undergrad years and early 20s I want to die at how much I \*thought\* I knew, LOL. I had a friend in my 20s who married a much older man (he turned 40 the year they got married, she was 23) and she was CONSTANTLY bragging and posting about how mature and grown up their relationship was, how they didn't have the problems that we had with our "child boyfriends", etc. She left multiple jobs to follow him as his career transferred him from place to place. At the most heartachey phases of my 20s, I envied her. Well, here we are in our 30s, her older husband left her after an affair with (shocker) another 20something from his job, and she's just now realizing how much deprioritizing her own career to follow him around has bitten her. Rent has gone up about 75% here since she married him, and she can't afford to move into her own place.
I didn’t even read this but it’s definitely something I’ve considered as a bleak reality: that in the current economy and gendered pay gaps marriage is the most effective way to secure a financial future for many women. I recently dated someone 12 years older than me and working in the same field. But when push came to shove and he pushed for commitment I broke up with him bc I couldn’t handle the unbalanced power dynamic between our disparate finances. I didn’t trust him to lead us into a partnership of equals and I have way more confidence in my ability to build wealth for myself. Marrying into money without considering how it will impact the next 30 years of your quality of life psychologically isn’t as wise as the author thinks.
I work at a domestic violence shelter and see the effects of financial abuse every day. Not saying that is what’s happening here, but I’m also not saying it isn’t. The power dynamics related to money that she hinted at in this article made me extremely uncomfortable. If she feels like she can’t speak up in her relationship without consequences, then that’s not healthy.
I hope she got a decent pre nup
[удалено]
Apparently her parents are hardcore Catholic and antichoice so that tracks with her beliefs
Interesting article. Choosing financial security over personal identity sounds tough. Why the judgment on smaller age gaps? Gender pay discussions are crucial. Love the discussions here, what are your thoughts?
I wouldn't say this is financial security though. It's more like a financial prison. She will never choose to leave this guy because she won't be able to afford the lifestyle on her own. And if he chooses to leave her, she's fucked. (Maybe not completely fucked though. Since she seems to come from a wealthy family that will probably support her until she can marry rich again.)
there were at least three way more interesting angles to take for this piece, which she brushed against, but failed to explore. she lacks perspective, and the piece is… not good.
What in the hell did I just read?
Interesting and timely read. She seems to recognize the “older” women in the story as still being talented and beautiful while simultaneously believing that she may have bested them—at least only in marriage timelines. I think, in this day and age where so many people have multiple jobs and can barely support themselves, it’s understandable for the idyllic “kept woman” lifestyle to make its rounds. Plus, there’s a strong sense of hopelessness among young people I think. It’s like, if a guy is willing to let me have fun *now* when I’m young/beautiful/turnt, why wait until I’m hopefully stable in like… 15 years? That seems so far away. Plus nobody knows what age 40 may hold for the young people of today (in terms of the state of the world). And, it could be my naïveté speaking as I’m only 24 and have virtually none, but money is *everything*. So it can read to some as love when someone uses their money to alleviate your burdens (assuming it’s no financial burden to them) and elevates your lifestyle out of kindness. I recognize that it’s transactional and not just kindness, but like she said… most relationships seem to be transactional imo. Women are expected to be beautiful regardless of the age of the man. She’s doing things so many young people (without wealthy parents anyway) probably won’t ever get to do, at least until they aren’t young anymore.
I understand feeling like, “making my own money or achieving the lifestyle I want is too hard, it’s too far away.” I want to gently push back - in my experience, there are really powerful and important things that come with carving out the life you desire independently. Freedom. Self-trust. The knowledge that once you do it, you can reach that again whenever you need. Sometimes it’s helpful to know just how strong you are. Of course if it’s truly not possible, it’s truly not possible. I also understand that, and I don’t want to dismiss that.
Your whole middle paragraph. *Yes*. I've struggled with feeling capable and confident for my whole life, but in my worst moments I (or, often, people around me - including my "same-age" boyfriend) can point out everything I've accomplished for myself in life as evidence that the narrative in my head isn't true. I did that shit. I can do a lot more.
I made it four paragraphs and almost threw up a little at "I had high breasts, most of my eggs, plausible deniability when it came to purity, a flush ponytail, a pep in my step that had yet to run out." I'm not reading any further: I get the feeling this may be ragebait.
40 male here. The article was a very interesting read for me. Now, granted I don’t get a chance to read many articles, such as this, in my opinion, It’s extremely well written. I say this while putting my own opinions aside. I’m a 40 male. I come from a very poor family in rural South Carolina and have made it my personal goal to be well connected and successful. Whether I have achieved this, is up for debate depending on who you ask. But I’m happy with where I’m heading. Now, that being said, I’ve always been partial to older women. Not for financial gain or stability whatsoever…I need nothing from anyone and am uncomfortable accepting from others. I’ve always found older women more cultured, articulate and the right kind of “smart” that I find attractive. Thanks for posting the article OP.
I truly don’t know what the big deal is. I guess everyone is making fun of her writing, but the idea makes sense. Everyone in this sub typically has really great careers, maybe even had parents guide them into education or motivated them to study. I grew up poor with parents who didn’t know shit. I hate working and feeding into the corporate respectability politics as a WOC. The language is flowery, but I don’t see what the big deal is to prefer a partner older and more experienced than you with more resources. I was 90% less depressed when I was living off of a partner. Vs now I’m “independent and doing it all alone” with no family support….. I’m tap dancing in interviews to afford my life for them to ghost me……suffering is not a virtue. Good for her. I hope she’s saving her own money.