Did I Lose My Mr. Good Enough?

I’m a dating single mom. It’s hard. Very hard. The dating part. The single mom part, not so bad. You get used to it. You adapt and pretty soon, you can’t imagine life any other way. But the dating part - it can be a drag.I am not in urgent need of a man to “save me.” It would be welcome, but it does me no good to pine for someone to sweep in and make my life easier. It took one year for me to come to peace with this. One year to suck it up and get over the fact that I’m on my own.This weekend I was pondering my break up with Kris. And then I read this. Lori Gottlieb’s now famed “Marry Him!” article. I’d read it before, but this time instead of boiling over with rage I could see some of her points.If you missed it, she’s a single mom (thanks to a sperm donor) and has never been married. She’s also in her mid-30’s and believes that single women and single moms need to start settling for Mr. Good Enough instead of waiting around for Mr. Perfect. And, according to Gottlieb, if any woman tells you she doesn’t want a man she’s lying to you and to herself.Okay. That’s the part that makes my blood boil.First of all, she may be a single mom, but she’s never been married to a guy who turns into a jerk. And yes, Lori, there are nice Mr. Good Enough’s who can turn into monsters too. It’s this idea - that to be happy as a single mom, I should be married - that infuriates me. It reinforces the stereotype that just because I’m single and with child - that I must be miserable and desperate for a husband.But here’s the part that makes sense, and where I agree with her: Men are not perfect. We can’t expect them to be perfect, flawless beings who adore and fawn over us like Queens. I get that.The pickings are slim. As we age, the selection of good guys left does diminish. After 35, the men big on commitment and starting a family have been snapped up. Do their wives appreciate them? That’s a different story all together.