I wonder if I’ve been brainwashed by Dr. Laura.

However, I concede that if I was pursued aggressively by someone whom I came to want to marry, I’d probably marry. That’s how I married the first time, and if such a thing happened to a post-40 mother like me, I’d take that as divine intervention that dare not be mocked.

My husband says if I die, he’ll take a different 20-something beautiful undereducated woman to church each Sunday, since that’s what people would expect of men. He managed to say this while sounding like he’d be somehow inconsolable at the loss of his 40-something me. He doesn’t think anyone would marry him because we have more than three children.

He’d be snatched up. And he’d get a woman with a graduate degree this time.

Better go take my vitamins.

Personally, I have an easier time accepting my wife re-marrying if I die before her than me re-marrying if she were to. I’d want my children to be well looked after and have a father figure to look up to for guidance.

As difficult as it is to imagine, I’d want my children to also have someone to look to as a mother if my wife were ever to die.

If the kids were all grown up and moved away, I might be more likely to slug it out alone.

are you saying she or any other woman would not be able to raise her young family without a husband?

No, but doing it alone is different than doing it with someone else there.

are you saying she or any other woman would not be able to raise her young family without a husband? Why would she or any other woman want to marry just for the sake of the children having a father? That’s the same thing as women who think they have to stay in an abusive marriage because of the children.

Seeing as how “most” men (excluding your dad, your sister’s husband and yourself) take on a small role in raising their children (and I am not talking about going to work at a paid job outside the home either) , the role of raising children still in this day and age falls on the shoulders of the women regardless if they are married or not.