Slate homepage. Tweet Share Share Comment. Each week, Prudie discusses a tricky letter with a colleague or friend, just for Slate Plus members. Aside from being intelligent and kind, he is also well-off, and I am an artist who is part-time employed at best.
I know my grandmother married for convenience, not love, and had a successful marriage that lasted 50 years. On the one hand, I think we could be good companions and he would give me many of the things I crave, including stability and a family. But my friend says I would be preventing him from finding true love. Should I flat out refuse him if he brings up marriage again?
Should I be practical and marry him? If yes, fine. We can grapple with a real dilemma here. Why clutter things up with messy and fleeting things like love and attraction? The difference should be, however, that both partners understand this arrangement and enter into it openly and honestly. Any similarities to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. But again, any similarity to an actual person is totally a coincidence.
All of that can really feel urgent, no matter when you feel it, but especially as you approach middle age. He might be hoping to eventually win her affection. And this gives the LW an opportunity!
Be won over and move from affection to something more intense? Joel: To tell the truth! Are you OK with waiting on me to get there someday? Would you be OK with it if I never got there? Does she really want to be with him if HE is okay with her position?
