Should you settle?

Rod, I agree with your assessment that there is an element of "100% satisfaction guaranteed" involved here. Nevertheless, my single friends who are fast approaching their 40's are not so much concerned with finding the "perfect" spouse. Rather, what they struggle with most is letting go of a single lifestyle. In essence, they want to be married and have children, but they also want to maintain the freedom they have enjoyed as single adults. When they date, and consider marriage, it inevitably does not work out because they or their prospective spouse simply will not or cannot relinquish the independence of single life.

I think many of us would acknowledge this is not just a problem single people face, because many of my married friends still struggle with this. Everybody just wants to be able to do their own thing when they want. But as is clear in Gottlieb's essay, this just doesn't work when children are involved.

I don't think a person who sincerely approaches marriage focused on self-giving toward the spouse ever really has to "settle."

When we dwell on what we want to "get out" of a marriage, or on some artificial criteria that an ideal potential spouse should meet (online dating sites are horrible in this respect), we are essentially focused on our selves -- and thus probably not ready for marriage.

Just using the term "settling" tells me that the person is likely an egoist. One of the first questions a single person needs to ask is "what do I have to contribute" and "why is being with me a difficulty for someone else." These questions are far more important than "who do I want."

When you're honest about yourself, it makes it much easier to cherish the wonderful things about another person. When you think you're God's gift, you are much more attuned to a potential mate's flaws.

What the world need now even more than love is humility.

A lot depends on your definition of "settling."

I have been happily married for 8 years, and have a wonderful son. I could write a long list of all the wonderful qualities my wife possesses, and everything on it would be true (I'd like to think she could make an almost equally long list of my finer qualities).

But truthfully, I've been insanely, passionately in love with only two women in my life, and neither was my wife. Those two women, unfortunately, regarded me solely as a nice, quirky, funny friend who made for interesting conversations over an occasional lunch (during which, lucky me, I'd get to hear all about the men they WERE lusting after).

Was I "settling" by marrying a wonderful woman who actually wanted to be with me, rather than holding out for a fantasy girl who MIGHT love me back? Maybe. Maybe I SHOULD have waited for a woman who was as mad about me as I was about her.

Then again, since my DREAM job was to play center field for the Yankees, maybe I should have turned down all the actual employers I've had and held out for a chance to play in the major leagues! (Why "settle" for a real, paying job with an employer who actually WANTS me? Why not wait for George Steinbrenner to come to his senses and realize that I'M the one he wants, not that stiff Bernie Williams?)

I have talked to people in our parish who are from the "old country" and their marriages were arranged. Divorce is almost non-existent in those countries. If my ex-wife and I had been two young people living in the "old country", the matchmakers would have told us that we would not have made it. My friends told me before we got engaged that we would not make it. My father told the ex that she would not change me when we were married, but she disagreed.

I never understood why we stayed together for three years dating until I read the pop psychology book "Obsessive Love". It explains why some people cannot give up on poisonous relationships. I wish I had listened to everyone back then. But as the Orthodox priest who presided over my recent wedding explained to all the "orthdox" Catholic family members why we don't annul marriages to the point of saying they never existed, my first marriage was blessed by God with three children.

Derb has a nice bit on marriage in his homage to the show Married....with Children:

You might even stretch a point and say that the show was a celebration of marriage, as that institution has been experienced by most Western people through most of history. I am thinking of an exchange in one of Anthony Powell’s "Dance to the Music of Time" novels. The narrator, Nick Jenkins, a sophisticated metropolitan type, has been commissioned in a Welsh regiment during WW2. He is in conversation with one of his sergeants, a man with a working-class background, from a small town in Wales. The sergeant has mentioned a relative of his, who got married a few years previously. “And how are they now?” asks Jenkins. “Why, all right,” replies the sergeant, somewhat puzzled. “Why should they not be?” For the worldly, upper-crust Londoner it is natural to ask how a marriage is going; for the provincial proletarian, the question is baffling. They met, they got married, that’s the end of it. How could anything else happen to them now? The sergeant has, to use Orwell’s words again, “the working-class outlook which takes it as a matter of course that youth and adventure — almost, indeed, individual life — end with marriage.”

It's easy to get caught up in the notion, encouraged by TV and movies, that one's One True Love is out there somewhere, and when one finds her, there will be fireworks and angels will sing and life will be "happily ever after." It takes a certain amount of maturity to realize it doesn't work that way, and even when you do know better, it's still an attractive fantasy.

I literally walked away from one of the most physically beautiful women I've ever known to the woman who became my wife and it was the wisest decision I've ever made.

Marriage is not about beauty, it is about finding someone who will be with you every day that you are in the hospital with no rational expectation of coming out alive and then when you do get out nurses you back to health.

And when you return the favor, as it were, you can look at the astonishment on your sister-in-law's face when she asks you why you are there every day and you say, "Because it is something that you do."

But we really must stop abusing the "in sickness and in health" clause.

**What I long for in a marriage is that sense of having a partner in crime. Someone who knows your day-to-day trivia. Someone who both calls you on your bullshit and puts up with your quirks.**

BUT THAT'S NOT SETTLING.

In fact, I think Gottlieb stole that almost verbatim from my personals ad ;-P

(Of course, very little of Gottlieb's angst applies if you don't want kids, as I don't.)

Matt, addressing your question, "Where does this idea of perfection come from?", I return to my statement at the beginning of this thread that it is not really perfection folks are looking for, it is accommodation.

The singles I know who cannot find someone to marry are almost invariably self-centered to the point of distraction. They simply cannot accept a partner who will not allow them to remain as free as they are single. Thus, when they say, "I cannot find the perfect person to marry", what they mean is, "I cannot find a person who will accommodate all of my selfish desires and needs, while I do what I want, whenever I want -- and never complain about this!".

Our group was made up of 10 couples and a priest. My first thought: How is a guy who's never married going to be speak credibly on the subject of marriage and not come off like a joke? Not very well, was the answer.

One more reason, if more were needed, to allow priests to marry.

Back in the day, marriages were arranged by families, with little or no consideration of what we would now call "compatibility." Of course their success rate makes ours a joke, and I am far from convinced that those couples were not at least as happy as we-all are.

You're not looking for the right person. You need to work on becoming the right person.

As for having a baby without a man around, a lot of women do it, voluntarily or otherwise. It's tough but do-able, and worth it. My children are my life. Even if their father was not in the picture, I can't imagine wishing I hadn't done it.

Our group was made up of 10 couples and a priest. My first thought: How is a guy who's never married going to be speak credibly on the subject of marriage and not come off like a joke? Not very well, was the answer.

If you are looking for a priest to tell you how to cope with day to day married life, then you're looking in the wrong place. The purpose of marriage instruction from a priest is to teach you, on behalf of the Church, what marriage means on a theological/spiritual level. And he is very likely more qualified than the average married person to teach you about that.

Granted, this may not be the way it is in practice, but he's not your marriage counselor. The purpose of pre-Cana instruction is (or rather, should be) just that, instruction. If you think the difference between a compatable marriage and a bad match is whether or not your pre-Cana instructor is married, you are sorely mistaken.

Matt's question: "Where does this idea of perfection come from ?"

It starts right in almost literally from birth. The saturation of the culture by modern, advertising-driven mass media means that children are exposed to the ideas of "perfection" and "ease of obtaining perfection" at a young age. Buy this product, and you'll be just like the people on TV....

It continues in the schools, where competition based on superficialities runs rampant. My older daughter (a 9th-grader) tells me tales, on a nearly daily basis, about the fashion- and sexuality-related competition for status among her classmates. From what she tells me, things haven't really changed much from my own high school days in the late 70s. If anything, they've intensified, to the point where the girls do as much or more pursuing than the males do.

Finally, consider the fact that most couples today get together through "dating", rather than "courting". Dating is an inherently unrealistic process whereby the couple meets primarily in highly artificial situations ("going out" to dinner, movies, etc.). They tend to see the other person at their best, rather than seeing the full spectrum of behaviors and attitudes of the other person, and so develop seriously flawed ideas about the other person. Even worse, their families are only minimally involved (at best) in the process, so neither party gets the full picture of what sort of framework of relationships they are getting involved with.

Combine that with the easy-sex mentality of media programming directed at the 20-30something cohort, and one has to marvel at the fact, not that so many couples break up, but that so many stay together. The incentives to stay together and actually address Reality and its problems are, for the most part, simply not there.

My solutions ?

1) Keep the TV off when they're young. Get them involved with a hobby/sport/activity. If nothing else, it occupies their attentions and tends to insure that they meet people with similar interests.

2) For Heaven's sake, keep them away from the People/Cosmo/Glamour-type magazine racks ! "Women's" magazines are among the worst offenders in the superficiality department.

3) Re-establish COURTSHIP, rather than dating, as the principal form of introducing young people. If you're a parent, insist on meeting your child's intended, and in a variety of situations (not just family gatherings, but day-to-day things, as well). Visit them at their work.

4) Make sure you meet the intended's family. Get as much background information on them all as you can. At the very least, you can try to provide some facts to work against the romance-and-hormone befuddlement of modern "dating".

In short, be an old-fashioned, Nosy Parker-type PARENT. This is the future of your House and Line you're dealing with; it behooves you to take serious interest in the situation.

Were more parents to do this, I suspect that the younger generation would save small fortunes, and some divorce lawyers would even have to take up honest work.

Your servant,

Lord Karth

Actually, my husband and I got involved in pre-Cana, in a parish far to "liberal" (read - on the ground) for most folks here. So we had these meetings, and we talked and discussed and so on.

At one point this really cute bunny-rabbit, maybe 22, said, "But...what will happen if I later fall in love with someone else?"

I said, "Honey, make that when. Count on it. Human beings are not constant.

"WHEN that happens, well, then we'll find out what your word is worth."

Priests should know this, but as we have discussed endlessly on this blog, they don't.

Back on topic, women who decide to have children on their own have all my admiration and support. Or rather, the children deserve support. Men are not the be-all and end-all, the males here notwithstanding.

Noting that the relative rarity of a decent under-30 female in this culture (to disagree with Matt, our culture can me summed up in less than one sentence), I chose not to settle, and went foreign. 2 or so years in, I'm still happy she is my wife. Granted, it's only started, but I got what I was looking for.

Well, Christopher, if our daughters aren't "decent" enough for you, I can only rejoice that you didn't marry one of them. Especially one of mine, may God be praised!! (Horrors that I should have such a person as son-in-law, who did not think my daughters "decent"!! Yikes!) My daughters have found much more satisfactory men - one of them not an American - who think them more than "decent," and who love them deeply.

I hope your new wife is happy too, and for some other reason than your wealth (relative to her former situation). And that she too, not just you, "got what [she] was looking for" too, even if that would be only your economic situation.

Susan, I took Charles' comment to mean that he and his wife have each tested that clause by being sick, and that he hopes they can give it a rest for a while. Nothing more than that.

Glenn, I hope you're right.

But I'm worried. Charles spoke of the "abuse" of the "in sickness and in health" clause. The word "abuse" implies that for him at least it's been pushed too far. For him. So, he ought to be out.

No one chooses to be sick. Ill health is the heaviest burden on the patient. But one who has promised to be true "in sickness and in health" has promised to stay by the one who is sick no matter what. We'd all hope that that situation could be given a rest, as you say.

But what if it can't? What if the sickness won't give us all a break? So....that's "abuse" in this situation so that the healthy spouse is off the hook?

But Charles says, "abuse." "Abusing." That implies intention. Implying I guess that either the spouse isn't really sick and is pretending to be so (for whatever purpose) or that only so much sickness is enough and after that, no more.

Theresa Schiavo, through no wish of her own, became sick, and more than sick. Absent. Her husband pursued remedies, and then gave up, and made an alliance with another woman, by whom he had two children. Eventually, Theresa died.

Was this an "abuse" and if so, of whom?

Maybe we all do the best we can for ourselves and our children.

I have to jump in here and say that I think priests are quite qualified to give counseling to engaged couples. It isn't as though they hatched from somewhere, after all--quite a lot of them have wonderful parents who are excellent examples of what a good marriage should be; besides, it's priests who hear all about all the honest little nags and gripes and petty sins between husbands and wives. In the confessional. Under a vow of silence. So to pretend that they're clueless and naive is more wishful thinking than reality, I expect.

That said, I like what Sheilagh said. We forget that love involves the will, not merely the emotions.

The whole notion of "settling" seems to me to come from a misplaced pride that sees oneself as superior to all the possible spouses out there, and fails to look honestly at one's own, and many, flaws. Instead of "settling" maybe the process should be called "being realistic."

(Of course, I'm blessed beyond belief to have Mr. Manning; nearly thirteen years into marriage I'm still utterly crazy about him, and we are, fortunately, eminently suited to each other, in our faults as well as in our strengths. So perhaps I shouldn't presume to speak for anyone for whom any question of "settling" exists.)

Susan, I've run into your utter contempt for the priesthood before now, and I find it tiresome and predictable.

Guess what? The priest who counseled my husband and me before our marriage DID have a married couple talk to us, a couple who'd been married a decade or so and had three or four children. They were young, orthodox Catholics who you'd think would have had a lot of wisdom for us. And you know what? I got more true wisdom from the discussions we had with our elderly priest and with the Nigerian priest who married us (recently deceased, may God rest his soul) than from them. They spent the whole time we had with them telling us it was going to be hard, terrible, difficult, that children were going to complicate things, and that the vacation they'd recently had away from the kiddies was The.Best.Thing.They'd.Ever.Done for themselves, and they were going to try to do that from then on out, at least yearly.

Their life as a married couple was NOTHING like ours has been. We've had some hardships, but they've been shared hardships. We had times when our children were young when a little time alone would have been nice, but we've also always enjoyed our children's company, and as they get older we've found them more and more enjoyable as companions, and don't want--and never have had--a 'vacation' without them. We've never described our married life as terrible or difficult or seen life the way this couple seemed to see it.

The truth is, even married couples can only tell other married couples how THEIR individual marriage works. They can't really step back and see marriage in the abstract.

One couple may earnestly say that communication is crucial, that setting aside a certain amount of time each day just to talk is what has saved them from many a crisis. The next couple will just as earnestly tell you to be respectful of each other's need for silence, especially at the end of a typical busy day when you're already "talked out." Who's right? Both. And neither.

So go ahead and sneer at priests all you want, Susan. But don't make the mistake of thinking that a married person will automatically do a better job of counseling: depends on the marriage, and depends on the person.

So go ahead and sneer at priests all you want, Susan. But don't make the mistake of thinking that a married person will automatically do a better job of counseling: depends on the marriage, and depends on the person.

I don't have "incredible contempt for the priesthood." I just don't think that a lot of the time they know what they're talking about. Natural enough, given their limited experience. There are always gifted individuals in every situation who can transcend their lack of experience, and I'm glad you've connected with one.

Experience is not a magic potion either; you can have tons of experience and yet be a fool, as you rightly point out.

I've known a great many priests in my life, and count some among my closest friends. Some of them, not many, are very wise, just as some of everyone are very wise. But mostly priests, like the rest of us, are limited by their own life condition.

The idea that ordination, all by itself, confers some kind of wisdom in every and all situations is not supported by any evidence I've encountered.

Sorry, that's Gottlieb with a double T. But she's still wrong.

I m still under impression of the story of a young model looking woman X. She was divorced, and when another boyfriend cheated was in despair, could only cry and pray, thought why it was always going that way and suddenly it dawned upon her that the reason was dependance on strong passions which were on first place, simply 'good men' seemed boring and unattractive. And she decided to act in opposite way, when appeared a 'good man' (poor, unattractive by appearance but orthodox christian, who wanted children) she married. Now as two years passed they are having a second baby and make a happy family.
I can't imagine a young girl being so wise (she was 26 changing her life, that isn't very young for a girl). Unfortunately such wisdom comes only with experience, and to some doesn't come at all.
Maybe there is some sense in an old proverb which says: young girl should be given in marrige before she started to choose.

On the flip side of this debate, I think my mother had it right when she said the man should love the woman more than the woman loves the man. For a number of reasons men are better equipped to walk away when the going gets rough. Women, who in the narrow realm of family life, are much more practical and able to withstand the bumps in the road of marriage. My wife hates it when I mention this from time to time (immaturity on my part), but secretly I think she knows it is true. And I am ok with that.

Yikes, MargaretE, I think you are seriously misreading Austen. She describes what IS with unsparing accuracy. She is far, far from approving it. She recognizes that women are often faced with a choice between two bad alternatives, and she approves of their doing the the best they can under those circumstances. That's a far cry from approving of Charlotte Lucas's marriage to a man who is not just sub-par, but actively insufferable and morally inferior. Elizabeth is the author's viewpoint character, and she states quite clearly that Charlotte has dwindled in her esteem because of her choice. She understands why Charlotte did it, but she can't see it as a good thing.

Charlotte is certainly not presented as "grateful and content" with her marriage. She is pleased to have her own house and a living, and is able to remain dignified under the constant yoke of Mr. Collins' crass behavior. Austen's description of the strategems Charlotte employs to keep her husband as far away as possible is comic, but behind the humor is a great deal of understated pain and humiliation. And one can't help but realize that there will be times--every night, in fact--when Charlotte will be alone with the odious Mr. C under the most intimate of circumstances. Yuck. Charlotte has sold herself out of desperation, and everyone knows it. I don't think Austen was trying to encourage other girls to acquiesce placidly to a similar life if they had any other options.

In Mansfield Park, Maria Bertram marries without love, at the urging of her family and to assuage her wounded pride, and the result is disastrous--though the groom has plenty of money. Everyone wants Fanny to give in to Henry Crawford's importunings, and the author even hints that Henry might possibly have become a better person if she had--but Fanny is considered heroically virtuous because she WON'T.

Marianne is a bit of a special case among Austen's characters. Hers is a real tragedy of feeling, in an oeuvre that is mostly comic. She cannot marry Willoughby, because he has turned out to be a bad man. Colonel Brandon is in no way inferior as a person. He is an intelligent, active man of deep feeling and integrity. He loves Marianne as romantically as any woman could wish. Marianne is adored by two men, one of whom turns out not to deserve her, so she marries the other. That's hardly "settling." Yet even there, Austen doesn't gloss over the pain attendant on such a choice. Marianne doesn't recover easily with an attitude of "well, that's all right because at least I have someone to provide for me." Her heart is broken.

I honestly don't see how you can say that "Austen seemed to believe that income was every bit as important as love." She recognizes that people must have something to live on. But she repeatedly emphasizes that as long as you have "a competence," love, respect, and self-respect are infinitely more important than income. Elinor and Edward end up with a very modest income, but they are content to get by as long as they have each other. Edmund Bertram could have had 10,000 pounds with Mary Crawford, but prefers to live the life of a country parson with Fanny--and Fanny prefers him to Henry Crawford, even though Henry has more money. Yes, Anne Elliot rejects Captain Wentworth--because her family thinks he's too lower-class! And she hates herself for it on every page of the book until she finally gets another chance to defy them and follow her heart, as the author clearly indicates she should have done in the first place! NOT a good argument for your point!

In any case, we don't (thank God) live in those times any more. A woman no longer has to choose between marriage to a man with mental deficiencies or character defects and a humiliating life of shabby poverty. She can marry someone she loves, AND make a decent living. I think this would have made Jane Austen very happy.

Sorry, MargaretE, I didn't mean to "correct" you! I guess I was just so happy to find a fellow Austen reader speaking up that I may have been over-enthusiastic in my advocacy of my own interpretation. I've been watching the PBS productions, too, and it is always interesting to see how the novels are interpreted for the screen. So many subtleties have to be left out. I missed last week's installment, so you may be right--I might have missed out on some aspects of Jane's character. I'll have to go read her letters again.

I can't agree at all that you should have kept your mouth shut! Obviously, I found your comments most interesting and provocative, and I'm grateful to you for having given me food for thought. Again, I apologize for lecturing. Please forgive me and continue to comment.

**On the other hand, sacrificing any one of those four things could leave you in for a world of problems.**

Only if you desperately want kids, of course.

BTW, I'm curious why "having a few dates each" is morally superior to "serial monogamy." (From a strictly religious point of view, of course, any sex out of wedlock is evil.)

I believe you when you imply your dates were more or less platonic. But most men (and women) describing "having a few dates each" are really describing an endless series of one (or maybe two or three at most) night stands. That's reality in today's society.

And this is better than at least a modicum of commitment how, exactly?

1) My dates don't end in sex. I probably should have clarified. I often forget that the new societal norm is to equate three dates with at least one sexual encounter. Not the case.
2) I wouldn't say that it's "morally superior" to avoid many serious relationships. It just seems that it tends to develop undesirable attitudes and behaviors. That is not absolutely the case - I'm sure that many people have many significant dating relationships that end in something other than marriage and that it doesn't adversely affect either person in the least.(?) Dating, as a concept, is morally neutral. What is not morally neutral is how you treat the other person.
3) AnotherBeliever - I admire what you are looking for in a man, but I would advise you that a degree is not the only marker of "stick-to-it-iveness." I would suggest that many men's military service can reveal a high degree of "stick-to-it-iveness," as do long-term competitive athletics, entrepreneurship, commitment to family, or advancement in a career that doesn't require a college education.
4) re: Children - True, if both parties are not interested in children, the ability for them to be a good parent can be minimized. However, unless you take absolute steps to eliminate the possibility of children, I would hesitate to eliminate it altogether as a factor. Also, people should be aware that having children is almost a universal desire of humans because of the way that we are wired; not wanting children now doesn't mean that you'll never want children. If you ever change your mind, you don't want to be stuck with someone who will be a terrible parent. Generally, the ability to be a good spouse will probably translate into the ability to be an adequate parent.

You know, a few things to keep in mind are:
Men have more opportunities to get decent-paying jobs without a degree- yes, women can be plumbers, electricians, truck drivers, construction workers, etc, but they usually aren't. For most women, a college degree is important to making a decent living.

Should a woman with a useless (oh, don't give me that, they are, too) degree get away with turning up her nose at a man who didn't waste thousands of dollars on a degree in "womyn's studies"?

Hear, Hear, Sigaliris. MargaretE is rightly set astraight. I must only add that Persuasion's Captain Wentworth was no soldier. He was a sailor, whale blubber and grape shot by the spar & oar! Such an insult, confusing the services..

If she cannot be trusted in war, then she ought never be credited in love.

>>>Decency, in terms of arelationship is giving up absolutely everything, up to and including one's self for someone else.

No, that's co-dependency. Letting one person's whims rule the relationship (even if you get to trade off which person is the ruler) is not even prudent. No wonder you had to go abroad.

(and I am a stay at home mom who has been married 13 years.)

That was a very good read. Thanks, I Agree I didn't have to settle either. It is true we decide what we accept or not accept. I enjoyed reading this. Thank you.

I visited the website Feministing, which you might gather by the mere name is pretty feminist. Reading through the comments, the 30 something females were pretty hot and bothered about the woman who dared to speak for all women. They spared her nothing.

Well, that's not too surprising, I suppose. I was curious if any of the feminists there were going to give this single hurting mother the benefit of the doubt and assume that her pain was not who she really was, and that she was more than her lonely self. Not so much. They jumped on her.

I found that pretty disappointing but I didn't bother to gently make this point over there. I tried before to counter the group ethos over there a few times, the first being the infamous Jessica Valenti breast controversy with Ann Althouse. If you don't know what I'm talking about, that's probably for the best, but there's always google and bloggingheadstv for the brave of heart.

I am a father of three and not a Catholic, but I feel for this 40ish woman who had a kid without a dad. My own are 4,4, and 2 1/2. I cannot imagine going it alone! Imposible! It's one thing to fly solo if the spouse dies or abuses you, but quite another to decide to shoot the moon up front.

A woman I dated 10 years ago, her father became schizophrenic at 6, so he became violent and was yanked out of the house. She grew up solid so she thought it ok to try herself to parent solo. She's trying that now - but we've become estranged. I don't think it's going well for her. But no one could tell her otherwise. She turned out ok, so that's that.

Marian Neudel's post made me post. Amen to that! I just can't believe how rough it is, getting older. It's the most surreal thing in the world. So odd, I don't even have much of a point to this post, I suppose.

I'm 37, far older than the 20 year olds at Feministing who scoff off Gottlieb. But I just feel bad for her; she made a terrible error in judgement and now she's stuck. But the idea that settling is ok - that's such crap.

Parenting is such hard work, right now my boy is sobbing at bedtime, refusing to sleep. My wife is trying to get him to settle down. I will go up to help if it does't take. But what could be worse for the kids than to have a marriage where the kids see two adults who don't love each other and are just caretakers?

Her essay is STILL so selfish, she never mentions how settling affects kids, which is always what it comes down to. Settling is what would've been best for her. The sad thing is, settling never works either, because then you're just trapped in an unhappy relationship. We've all been there, too. That doesn't work either.

Settling doesn't work. Deliberate single motherhood doesn't work. The bullseye is really the only target here, I'm afraid.

Debbie Sherlock hallway:Pickering yes!retrieves atrophy