Cherise
Kelley's latest book, "How I Got Him To Marry Me: 50 True Stories," is now
available in e-book form, and the paperback will be available April 1.
I had the chance to get an exclusive excerpt provided by Cherise Kelley and learn more about her book.
"Living together instead of getting married began to be
acceptable in the 1960s hippie culture, and by the 1980s many young men no
longer saw the point in marriage. I watched the culture change, but I didn't
catch on until it was almost too late for me. Before the 1980s, the man was the
one who pushed for marriage. By the 1990s, living together instead of being married
was almost expected among young people, and now in the 21st century women have
a hard time getting married, even if we really want to."
"In writing this book, I asked 50 women who got married after 1990:
"How did you get him to marry you, and not just live together?"
I got 50 great responses, and as an added bonus, most of them explain how they
met their future husbands, too. I'll share my own answer first."
"I didn't get married until I was 31. I had been engaged twice before that. The
first time I was only 17, so I don't really count that one. The second time I
was engaged I was 19, and the year was 1982. Both of these guys begged me to
marry them! They were way more into marriage than I was. Silly me, I let them
both get away. I thought it would always be this easy to get a groom. Little did I know."
"How I
Got Him To Marry Me: 50 True Stories" is now available in e-book form at Barnes
and Noble for Nook, Amazon for Kindle and Kobo for the Kobo Reader. The
paperback will be available April 1 through Amazon. The e-book should be on
iTunes soon.
"He likes it. Now get him to put a ring on it! Learn from these
50 stories of women who have been there! You don't have to interview 50 married
women to find out how they managed to get that ring on their finger. The author
has done that for you. All 50 were married after 1990, so this is modern
information for our changing times. Read and find out how you can get him to
marry you and not just live together!"
Please see the end of the e-book to learn how to claim a free
paperback copy after you post an honest review. Limited to the first 25
reviewers at Amazon.com, Kobo, Barnes and Noble and iTunes (226 pages in
paperback).
"Because this book may be of interest to cultural anthropologists
such as Alan Dundes, my folklore professor at UC Berkeley, I'd like to discuss
the methodology I used to collect these stories, and two trends I noticed in
these 50 women's responses to the question of how they got their men to marry
them and not just live together for the rest of their lives. Many of the men in
the stories say dismissive things about marriage and make excuses for not
committing to their women, such as:
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it,"
and,
"Marriage is just a piece of paper."
Many of the women compare marriage to a fairytale where everyone
lives happily ever after.
I understand both sides.
Like many of the reluctant grooms in these stories, I come from
a broken home. When I was 9 and my sister was 5, our parents yelled at each
other across the house constantly. They never physically hurt each other, but
they did do damage. Once, Dad was so angry at Mom that he stormed into our
playroom and kicked our toys around, breaking both of our favorite toy
figurines: my sister's horse named Hacksaw and my cat named Murina. Right then
and there, I promised God and myself that I would never subject my own children
to their parents' unjust anger. Less than a year later, my parents were
divorced.
Sadly, the way I kept that promise was to never have any
children. Too late, I realized that was a mistake, and I regret it to this day.
Like many of the yearning brides in these stories, as a young
girl I loved fairy tales, weddings, and fancy dresses. I didn't connect these
three things until I collected these stories. In her fantasies, every little
girl is a fairytale princess, someone who wears fancy dresses and dances with a
charming and attentive prince. Like most brides and grooms, Scott and I danced
together at our wedding dressed as Prince Charming and his princess. My parents
put aside their differences and danced together there, too. It was like magic."
Links to purchase "How I Got Him To Marry Me: 50 True Stories"
