What is your relationship status? How does Bolick's experience square with your own?

What is your relationship status (single, coupled, living together, married, etc.)? How does Bolick's experience square with your own?

I'm married for 25 years. I married at 29 after knowing my husband for 7 years. Bolick has never married and is reluctant to marry. I wasn't reluctant to marry but I was cautious and wanted to be sure before I married.

I married 47 years ago when I was 20. I was not cautious, blinded by a first love! Fortunately we are both generous enough to give each other the freedom to grow and change as we wish. So while my lifestyle is very different from Bolicks, I think we share some common themes and desires....and she is still young...her final chapters still to be written!

I have been married twice and am currently not married. Both times I married to get away from something versus to get into something. Needless to say, at this time I am relishing my status...90% of the time, and not at all anxious to be married again.

I am married for 47 Years. I got married at the age of 23. I had finished college and was working as a teacher, which I loved. My experiences were very different from Bolick's. She really hasn't given herself time to be alone, she seems to move from one relationship to the next. She seems to be afraid of both, marriage and the single life.

I married at 19, almost 20 and am still married at 62 - to the same guy! I always wanted to marry and really wanted children. This book fascinates me, in that the author and her five mentors have a very different mindset from my own. I really love the book.

I am 65 and happily divorced. I had a brief marriage at 37 and divorced at 44. I know that I married at a time when my self-esteem was low and the pressure from him to marry was overpowering. After a few years, I found the strength to uncover the real me that was inside (like Kate Bolick) and had been hiding for years. I consider myself single, not divorced, and though I am finding the book interesting (still reading) I do object to all the labels out there for who and what we are.

I am single. I can relate to Bolick's experiences with being coupled and enjoying it on a certain level but ultimately making the decision to remain unmarried.

42 years of marriage, 3 husbands. Been married more than been single. 1st one was to leave home and start a life. Lasted 19 years with the lying, cheating, sob. Single a couple of years and married for love and excitement. 4 years later I realized he was an alcoholic and divorced him. Single and happy and successful for several years. At 51 I married for the LAST time. If I had to do it all over again I would definitely be a spinster! I was brought up to believe that I needed a man to take care of me but now I know that's not true.

I have been married 48 years. I have always considered myself so fortunate. My response would be similar to barbs and reene. I could not relate to Block's experiences. "Me thinks the woman doth protest too much."

I have been married 45 years. I would not still be married if I did not also spend a lot of time in single pursuits. The give and take of family life has been important to me. My relationship experience has been so different from this author. I found it hard to relate to, or be engaged by, this book. At first I thought it was a generational difference. But further info the book I saw it as a difference in outlook and perhaps in relationship style.

I married at 31 and have been married for 27 years. I think that most of what Bolick said was rubbish. For someone who thinks that choosing to be single is important enough to write a book about, she hasn't spent much time actually being single.

I am 53 and single (never married). My experience is very different from Bolick's. I am a loner and am usually perfectly happy on my own. Of course I get lonely sometimes, but not enough to give up my independence. I do feel judged by society--people assume that there must be something wrong with me, or that I am a lesbian. They simply can't conceive that I might just prefer solitude. I hope that sometime in my lifetime, single women as a group will be accorded respect rather than scorn or pity.

I am married for the second time, but certainly had a season of the desire to be alone. I don't think marriage is for everyone, nor does a woman need a man to complete her. I don't believe there is a formula we must all adhere to in order to reach some version of success set forth by our culture or any other. That being said, Bolick did not convince me that she actually believes this. I felt like she was a young woman who hadn't found what she thought she was going to when she thought she was going to, so this must be the life she is to have - here's a book to convince me that this is my destiny.

I am single (never married). I much prefer the term "single" to the pejorative "spinster." I am single by choice; I've had a meaningful career and am now happily retired. It's easier for me to relate to the experience of some of the women Bolick wrote about than to Bolick's own experience. Despite her supposed defense of single women, she spent an awful lot of time coupled, or wanting to be coupled. She also did not seem to know how to make a life for herself while remaining part of a couple. It is possible for the partners in a couple to have their own interests and activities, while still remaining coupled. I was hoping that Bolick would do for single women what Susan Cain, in "Quiet," did for introverts; the is, give them a sense of value to the larger society. But so far (I confess I've not yet finished the book; but have read enough to want to participate in the discussion), I don't see Bolick doing that.

I have been married for Fourty four years on a second marriage. I was married the first time for 10 years. I have been very lucky with my second marriage.

I'm 32 and have never been married. I haven't had many long-term relationships either, and have never lived with a partner (not have I wanted to cohabitate). Bolick's experience seemed to be more like jumping from one long-term relationship to another.

Very happily married for 38 years. Bolick's experience is completely foreign to me. She is a strange girl because emotional intelligence lacks here.