Helena Hacker Rosenberg - How to Get Married After 35 Revised Edition: A Users Guide to Getting to the Altar

I dont know anything about luck. Ive never banked on it, and Im afraid of people who do. Luck to me is something else: hard workand realizing what is an opportunity and what isnt.

Lucille Ball, The Real Story of Lucille Ball,
by Eleanor Harris (1954)

F ew desires in our lives are more compelling than the wish to find and bond with that special partnerour mate. But what prepares us for that precarious path to love? How do we avoid the mistakes we learned from our flawed models? How do we tone down unrealistic expectations so our experiences arent a setup for heartache and disappointment? How do we move beyond the seductiveness of drama and excitement, trusting the value of calmer waters and a steadier pulse? How do we keep hope alive and value intact when those inevitable little doubts creep into our thoughts and dampen our belief in ourselves?

These dilemmas present hurdles to even the most hearty and fearless among us. But for the woman over 35, these challenges can be particularly daunting. This woman may already have felt the sting of love gone awry, causing her to pull back a bit, trusting less in herself or in the men she meets. Or this woman may have thrown her energies into the pursuit of educational or career goals, only now becoming aware of the jitters and pushy internal pressures caused by a ticking clock. She might have noticed that her expectations and thoughts of relationships have lost some of the flexibility and bounce they had in earlier days, that optimism and belief seem harder to hold on to. Or that her tolerance for discomfort has narrowed, and her reliance on the company of friends has increased. Or this woman may have lost a mate and simply not know quite where and how to start over.

Whatever the reason, the woman over 35 has special needs in her search for love. For starters, she needs the encouragement to know it can be done, that the path to love does have markers along the way and she neednt blaze her own trail. She needs a guide whos done it successfully, someone whos drawn the blueprint, mapped out the hidden potholes, dead ends, and detours. The woman over 35 needs a plan for how best to look for a man, and how to recognize the one who wont be simply a good date, but a good fit. She needs to overcome any sense of being a victim, any clinging to tired excuses whose single purpose is to delay and avoid action. She needs to learn to overcome passivity, disbelief, and the seductive comfort of the familiar.

While there is much to commend about Helena Rosenbergs book, what I like best is her feel for the woman at midlife looking for love. Her sensitivity, her step-by-step, no-nonsense approach, could only have come from someone who was that woman, someone who had found her own way to a healthy, loving marriage. Hers is the wisdom of the trenches, gained through her own experiences as well as those of the many women shes helped. Searching for a mate can be a lonely, sometimes even an overwhelming process. But no one reading this book will feel alone; she will feel sheltered, understood, and always encouraged.

Dont think for a moment, though, that the book is simply easy. The approach is empathic without ever being coddling. I guess its just human nature for all of us to hope well reach our goals and find happiness with ease and comfort. But we all know that growth, change, and new experiences are accompanied by making a stretch. And stretching can be uncomfortable.

The stretch youll be asked to make will be illuminating. Youll reconnect and find value again in aspects of yourself that may have been lost or ignored. And youll learn how to treasure that uniqueness and use it in your search for a mate. Youll be asked to take action, to make critical decisions, to turn flabby abstractions about love and relationships into realistic specifics. Youll be asked to give up notions about love that havent worked for you, that probably dont work for anyone. And youll be asked to honor and protect the best of you, and shown how necessary that protection is in finding the right man for you.

Read on. Take the adventure. Trust the process. Know that you, too, can be successful. The little stitches of discomfort along the way will be well worth it, richly rewarded.

Connell Cowan, Ph.D.

W riting this book has been an honor and a delight, in no small measure because of the help and support of the special people whom I would like to thank at this time:

To the late Jeannette Multer, for believing I could write while I was still a schoolgirl with not much to say;

To the late Daniel Menaker, for encouraging me to think big and for lending his name in the service of my progress;

To my talented agent Lisa Bankoff at ICM, for first believing in this project and for never wavering in her faith.

To my gifted editor Peternelle van Arsdale, for championing the book among her colleagues and for her always deft and sensitive editing of the manuscript;

To Alison Callahan, who adopted this book as her own and spearheaded its reissue in an updated and expanded edition.

To the wonderful folks who work in the Reference Department and Periodicals Room of the Beverly Hills Public Library, for their intrepid assistance and good humor;

To Tracey Alexander, Katherine Bouton, Judith Daniels, Bruce Ettinger, Janet Fireman, Judie Gregg Rosenman, Hella Hershson, Ellie Kulman, and Lindsay Maracottadear friends allfor their time and input at various stages in this books development. Their enthusiasm, honesty, and affection have meant the world to me;

To my dear friend Susan Weintraub, whose pesky prodding served me well and to whom I am immensely grateful;

To the many clients and friends who graciously shared their personal stories with me and without whom this book never could have been written;

To Rabbis Dov Heller and Joel Oseran and to Chana Rachel Schusterman, whose work inspires me and whose lives humble me;

To my brother David Shapiro, for giving me the rare gift of unconditional love and support, and for his continuing belief in my creative endeavors;

To my exceptional parents, Pauline Shapiro and the late Harold Shapiro, for reading every word of this manuscript and offering their loving constructive criticism, and for teaching me by their example that marriage to the right person can be a great unparalleled adventure;

And to my husband, Charlie, who agreed to be the de facto subject of this book without a clue how it would turn out, for his computer magic, his weekend baby-sitting, his patience, his boundless pride in my accomplishments, and his enduring friendship, commitment, and love.

A t age 44, I finally married the man of my choice, and in my wedding toast to my new husband, I summed up my feelings on the matter: I had always believed that someday my prince would come, but as the years went by, I had begun to worry whether he would arrive while I was still ambulatory.

My route to the altar had been an indirect one, filled with challenges and detours and even a certain degree of pain. For that reason, my arrival at my marital destination was especially sweet. Those who knew me well understood the historic import of these nuptials, exemplified by the response of one male friend when I phoned him with the wedding news: Of course he would be making the 3,000-mile trip for the celebration. He needed to witness what he called this clear triumph of hope over experience. I knew, however, that while hope had been a necessary ingredient in my ultimate success, there had been forces at work that were far more concrete and quantifiable.