Marisa, I applaud your honesty and I hope you endure the general vitriol of these posts. But I quibble on a few points:

"Comfortably upper-middle-class, they had given me a plush suburban childhood complete with yearly vacations, a car at 17 and both bachelor's and master's degrees with no lingering loans. When I met Paul, I had already lived in France and the Netherlands, vacationed regularly in Mexico and the Caribbean, and toured far-off locales like South Africa and Korea."

If this is middle class, then I am by rights entitled to my own soup kitchen. Both my parents were high school teachers. I got a severely used car when I graduated college, about five grand worth of assistance for my bachelor's degree, and no international vacations. And among my friends growing up, I was considered the rich kid.

If Brooklyn gets too expensive try Milwaukee or Omaha. They need writers.

Anyone who realizes at only 8 months in that she needs to change to help save her marriage is cool by me. She learned from her mistakes, she became a better person and better partner to her husband, and she did what she needed to do to support herself and her family.

As a woman who is the bread-winner and who had similar marital stress way back in the early years of marriage before going on to make changes with my husband that led to deep happiness, I identify with her struggle to mature and realize that the callowness of youth has to be replaced by adult pragmatism. We can't all achieve our dreams right away, but by realizing that fact, we can buckle down and achieve big things (happy marriages, fulfilling careers) through patience and hard work.

And to those dissing her: good grief, YOU are the ones I wouldn't want to be married to! Talk about nags... I believe the saying is "those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones" -- unless you're all in perfect marriages and perfect careers, maybe you should simmer down. There's something valuable to be learned here, and you may need to calm down and try to keep an open mind.

"I was supposed to marry a man who could easily fill in the financial holes that would inevitably arise as I pursued writing."

That was the decision point.

Had you chosen wrong, in 20 years you'd be Mary Williams, still acting like a 20-something, still showing "potential" as an occasional writer for any backwater webzine needing filler, and whining to anyone who'll listen (or read) how that mule you paid good money for went lame.

Forever.

Good on you for choosing the alternative path of responsibility and work and adulthood.

Your husband should work his butt off to keep you.

Be well. Best of luck in your marriage and your career.

Nice personal account of a statistical reality.

There's some nifty research that in areas with high male unemployment, women still have children, they just get married much less often.

Among the friends we made when our now university age children were small only one couple has divorced and it was the one where the husband, a really nice guy, could not hold a job.

I think that it takes a unusual woman to not be bothered by being married to a man who isn't employed successfully (i.e. bringing in resources for the family). Certainly, the most stressful years for my 20-year marriage were the first very poor years when I was a grad student and my wife just couldn't stop spending money we didn't have. Once we had more money coming in she stopped spending.

Money won't make you happy, but it sure doesn't hurt!

I just checked your age, Ms. Walsh, and I see you're younger than me, but you're still old enough to know that love isn't the answer: straight talk is. Daddy Jack Kerouac had it right when he wrote:

"Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together; sophistication demands that they submit to sex immediately without proper preliminary talk. Not courting talk- real straight talk about souls, for life is holy and every moment is precious."

Straight talk about money.

About why money matters.

About conflict.

About protecting respect when you don't like someone.

And so on.

Ms. Walsh, I've seen you several times in the role of the protector when you've published young female writers. It's fine to protect, but you might want to unpack what's pushing that protection.

And Ms. Belger, I have no quibble with you other than your streak of what strikes me as naivete about what awaits you. You've got the momentum of lust and your mate is young and lovely, as are you. These things and other things will be taken from you. As life chips away at the two of you, I hope you've got plenty of plaster of Paris at hand and that you're handy with a trowel.

I had to skip the middle section of this essay and skim ahead just to see if she did eventually quit her bratty whining, get a clue and find a job of her own. unfortunately, the enormous amount of self-importance she attributed to herself upon becoming a wage earning schmoe like the rest of us was just as nauseating as the part where she threw plates and wanted to run away from her blue collar husband for not financially supporting her fantasy freelance writing career and desire to be a stay-at-home mom.

Dimwit.

if he hadn't lost his job just as soon as you started your official life together. Its such a marker of a new future attendant with the intent to get started in building a life together. Talk about a bad omen.

Years of commitment thru thick and thin might have provided a little more trust in the outcome.

This happened to me once, the person who had a job lost it as soon as we moved in together. and wasn't able to get it together for several months. Of course I felt like I had overlooked some important character component and had deluded myself about who they really were in the throes of romance. A lot of my blame fell on myself for being so unable to make good character judgements and I also viewed them as someone who had possibly set me up in a trap.I guess thats the claustrophobia part you spoke of. Glad to hear it worked out for you

(it didn't for me, but then we weren't married)

you shouldn't be too hard yourself for not being that sure of someone you really didn't know as well as you do now.