Archive for the ‘marriage’ Category

Come Buy With Me, But Don’t You Dare Dump Me…

Sunday, January 3rd, 2010
No you didnt...

I'm taking the dog.. and lighting all those ugly ties on fire...

This week’s Sunday Times Real Estate section featured the article, “Come Buy with Me and Be My Love,” by Hilary Stout.   The article said that due to a terrific buyer’s market, a lot of couples who are ‘planning to get married’ are buying homes prior to saying their vows.

But although real estate is so cheap right now that even I want to buy (which isn’t even possible),  the smiles on the featured couples’ faces less filled me with congratulatory excitement than they did with overwhelming dread.

Because it may just be me, but buying a home, like an actual house and property, with someone you are “planning to get married to” sounds like a pretty terrible idea.

Why is that?

Because plans change.

And if, or when they do, both parties are going to be screwed in a bad way, economically and emotionally.

First of all, as the article points out, real estate laws are designed for married couples acquiring assets: the rules when it comes to plain old couples acquiring assets, even “planning to get married” ones (and even those who actually do down the road), don’t really exist. For example, Ms. Stout points out that the income tax break currently being offered by the government to first- time home buyers, which can be divided between a husband and wife, cannot be divided between aboyfriend and girlfriend acquiring the same assets.’

And how about emotional well-being?

Break-ups are hard enough as it is, but when you own something together, be it a couch, a stereo system, or a home, things get a lot more complicated (and I’m not even mentioning kids here). In a bad way.

My friend Rita was living with her boyfriend for the past year-and-a-half. College sweethearts, he moved across the country just to be with Rita (how romantic).

But as of November 2009, Rita wasn’t doing so hot.

Nothing persay happened, but she simply fell out of love, as people do. She no longer wanted to be sexual with her boyfriend and started to be attracted to other men. She also began to realize that her painting career- the reason she had come to NYC in the first place- had fallen on the back burner in respect of a more pressing day-to-day existence: being a dutiful girlfriend and roommate.

Rita came to me for counsel. Being as young as she is, and without the uber-complicating factors of shared property or children, I encouraged Rita to work on the relationship as much as she could, but if after a while, she knew in her heart that it wasn’t going to work, she should end things.

Rita really already knew this. But she was still filled with buts. On top of saying goodbye to her best friend, there was a lease to get out of, furniture to divide, the task of finding a new place to live, etc. And a myriad of other things to take care of in order to peace out of the relationship, stat.

Rita finally decided to leave her beau, but it wasn’t easy. She just moved into a new place this past weekend.

But if there are these many issues when the only physical property at stake are some kitchenware and a lease, can you imagine how hard it would be when a house is involved? And a tax break that only one of you received? And a mortgage that only one of you paid? Assets that can’t be split down the middle because the state, the government, doesn’t recognize your union, however much in love you were- they only recognize you as individuals. They don’t care who paid for what or who didn’t. Uh-oh.

Buying together becomes even more frightening when it comes to a couple who hasn’t even lived together yet. And yes, this does happen.

What if two days after the kitchen is done, you realize that the person you “planned to get married to,” you legitimately can’t stand. And the idea of being trapped in isolation with them outside of the city, (because, let’s be real here, most couples can’t afford to buy in Manhattan)- the city where you have always lived, close to friends and other sources of entertainment- makes you want to take a gun to your head and to theirs?

Then you are s*** out of luck.

So, as Miss Stout says, “Look Before You Leap.” Because the likelihood of one or the other of you breaking a leg, and not being able to walk for a long, long time, is more likely than the chance that you will be throwing a bouquet or hopping on your knee anytime soon. So, better yet, don’t leap at all. Focus on loving for right now and the leaping will come later.

Meezoog.com- Real people, real profiles, and real love…irf…relationships…

Posted in NYC, Stories, advice, advice for guys, advice for women, marriage, real estate, relationships | No Comments »

From Date to Mate

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

Yes, folks, that is indeed the title of the mockumentary style new TV show in which I play Sara Rappaport, a Jewish girl looking for love in New York via the internet (I’m an actress, in case I didn’t mention that). Although the show is scripted, a lot of it is improv based, so I get to stick my two cents on dating into some of the dialogue.

A lot of interesting ideas are discussed in the show- one of them that I became particularly intrigued with is the concept of settling when you marry someone. The idea is that because it is so unlikely that we will find our ideal mate (and because, for many of us, our ideal mate is completely unrealistic), we end up settling for whoever it is that we do marry.

After thinking about this for a while (and my character going on and on about how unromantic the concept is), I think that this idea has merit. In order to be happy with someone, and to commit ourselves to them monogamously and otherwise, we must accept the fact that they have flaws- and for many of us this may be “settling,” or merely being realistic, because our “ideal mate,” who has lived in our head for years, is flawless.

And let’s face it- even Prince Charming probably has issues. I mean, please, he’s probably off fighting dragons all the time and never sees his wife.

Here is the link to the trailer http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=500304595000&ref=mf

and here is the link to the first episode. This is the first of eight episodes in the season.

http://shalomtv.org/DateToMate_1.htm

If you would rather, you can also watch the show on demand for free. Go to Entertainment on Demand, and click on Shalom TV, and then From Date to Mate.

Also, although on the show my character may belong to a different dating website, my full endorsement goes with Meezoog, as it is the most technologically advanced and savvy way to meet someone compatible via the web.

Find your date, or your mate, or both, now on Meezoog.

Posted in dating, fantasy love, marriage, media, soulmates | No Comments »

The importance of being alone

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

My mom got married at twenty-one, my dad was twenty-two. They met at SUNY Buffalo through my father’s ex-girlfriend, who was my mother’s college roommate (and is now a lesbian…not really relevant, but for some reason I find it hilarious).

When I think about being twenty-one, I think of trotting around town with a genuine ID (one with my real picture on it that actually swiped through the scanners), being able to go out in Boston (it sucks, don’t waste your time…unless you really like homogenous white dudes in Red Sox hats), and my junior year of college. And although I was dating someone pretty seriously circa my twenty-first birthday, the farthest thing from my mind was marriage.

Yet in the seventies, and the eighties and early nineties, oh, and all of the decades before that, getting married straight out of college (or in some cases), even straight out of high school, was the norm.

These women, embroiled in marriage as soon as they left the womb of schooling, were never really alone. What does this mean? That they also never had to learn how to be alone. And learning how to be alone is an art in itself.

Conversely to them, women today, particularly NYC women, inhabit a newly independent epoch, one where being alone is the norm and is accepted.

To the women of my mother’s generation, and the generations before hers, this protracted female independence is unnecessary. And to my grandmother’s generation, they view being alone as forced by unpleasant circumstance (ie, World Wars I and II), thus they can’t understand why we women in our twenties and thirties may choose to be alone of our own volition, with no war at hand but one that only two percent of American men are actually involved in.

Because they never chose to be alone, they see no reason for us to be.

So it makes sense to me, why, when I cry to my mother about my incompetency at dealing with the little things in life, (ie. budgeting, using power tools, even figuring out how to work the DVD player), she says to me, “I don’t know, Samantha, maybe you should just get married.” And why my grandmother begs me for grandkids even as she sees me focus on my career and my writing.

Of course, my mother is not actually serious (although my grandmother is). But my mother is half-serious. Because contrary to me, who has to figure out how to use power tools (I nearly cut off half my hand yesterday…and my wall looks like it endured a small shoot-out), how to open a pickle jar; how to function all on my own in Manhattan (although I would be remiss if I didn’t mention my roommates’s, past and present, significant contributions to my survival- I love you dearly), she never had to. And she never will.

But in lacking the tools gained by forging one’s way alone, are the women of generations past missing a vital element in successful, blooming relationships?

Because what makes a relationship great is that although you depend on one another, you also know how to exist as your own entities, and how to function without the other, as may happen due to work, or circumstance, or choice.

And if you can’t, the relationship becomes such that you are virtually useless without the other, only a complete person when the other is there; a hollow, useless shell when by yourself.

So I may hate using a hammer, or a plunger, and doing Excel spreadsheets to try to keep track of my finances. But as M. Scott Peck said in his book,The Road Less Traveled, “Life is difficult. But it is through the pain of confronting and resolving problems that we learn, that we grow mentally and spiritually.”

So the independent woman of our generation may be forced to confront her problems on her own, to make decisions on her own, to find solutions on her own. But although it may suck sometimes, it may also mean that come the time to be with someone else, we will be wiser and more knowledgeable about how to create our own paths in life, and how to be by ourselves even within the relationship, more than our mothers ever did.

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Posted in advice for women, food for thought, marriage | No Comments »