The Husband Game

“Husband-Hunting: 1950s Style” is the current working title we’re going with, though I have a feeling it will change to something even catchier and more nausea-inducing. The plan is for me to follow a list of dating advice we found in a 1950 issue of Today’s Woman, entitled “10 Foolproof Steps to Land Yourself a Note-Worthy Husband.”

Never mind that a husband is the last thing I actually want. Never mind that I am staunchly anti-this kind of dating advice in the first place. This kind of rote obsession with outward appearance, with meeting the so-called “perfect” match and settling down, needs to be put to rest once and for all, if you ask me. 1950s women didn’t need husbands; they needed careers and the ability to work and be treated as equals, on par with the men of their generation.

Same with me. I don’t need a man right now—I need a career break. I learned a long time ago that you can’t trust a man to help you in that regard. Just look at my mother. She and my father agreed when she first got pregnant with my older brother—Mom would quit grad school and take ten years off to raise us kids past our early years. Get us settled into school, all of that. Then, she would go back to grad school while my father would step back a bit from his career to pick up the slack with the family duties.

Instead, the minute the time came for Dad to step back, he announced something completely different: that he needed a break from everything. Work, yes, but also marriage, and his family. He took off with most of the cash in their joint bank account and his secretary in tow, and vanished to California somewhere.

I haven’t spoken to him since. My older brother tried to track him down, and managed a couple polite, if stilted, phone calls. Dad lives in Seattle with a different woman—not the secretary—and a pair of dogs. He has no interest in talking to me or my younger brother. No interest in rekindling our family life.

That is what happens when you trust a man to help out with your career. My mother never could go back to grad school—she had to take two jobs just to make enough money to support our family. She claims she doesn’t regret it, that if she had to sacrifice everything for us all over again, she would.

But I saw the way she teared up with pride at my graduation. And I notice how proud she is every time I publish a new article—how she shares it with all of her friends and across her social media accounts (my mom is a big lover of social media, though she still uses it with all the efficiency of someone twice her age).

The last thing I would ever do is go down the same road she did. I know she wouldn’t want that for me. And I don’t want it for myself either. I want to support myself, to build my own career. To be the strong, independent career woman my mother could—and should—have been allowed to become.

I grit my teeth and prop up a canvas in front of my easel. I wrestle my stool open and settle in.

If becoming a successful writer means I have to do a few humiliating things in order to make my career happen, then so be it. This article will just be one of many. I can grit my teeth and bear the awkwardness for a little while.

I pull out my watercolors next, and an old water mug that I plan to use to mix them. While I do that, I use my free hand to tap open the photos I took on my phone, of the original article in an old issue of Today’s Woman. The image looks so old it has yellowed along the edges.

I zoom in, just to make sure I’m following the instructions to the letter. To that end, I skim the first few lines of the article.

Step 1: Make sure you go after a husband with a successful career (or future career potential!). For all you ladies lucky enough to live close to a college campus, this should be a no-brainer! Men love a creative, mysterious woman. Set up an easel outside the classroom building (science or engineering buildings are best!) and paint until a lucky young suitor starts catching your eye. You’ll know you’ve hooked him when he stops to ask what you’re working on!

Addendum: Don’t worry if you haven’t got much talent in the painting realm, ladies! Most men in this career path wouldn’t know a Rembrandt from a Monet. If he questions your style, simply tell him it’s modern art! You’ll seem even more hip and with it, then!