Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce announced their engagement just over a week ago, and now we’ve got the official write-up from the left on marriage and whether it’s worth your time.
Over at MSNBC, author Christina Wyman wrote an op-ed titled “Taylor Swift’s about to find out what a lot of married women already know.” Her sub-headline painted a grim picture. “In many ways, marriage creates more problems than it solves. No one knows that more than, well, people who are married,” it read.
The spark notes version of the piece is: “Marriage sucks.” But I will give you some excerpts, so you can really appreciate where she is coming from.
The Op-Ed
“I might be the only one who isn’t bursting at the seams with unbridled joy over Taylor Swift’s engagement news,” Wyman began. “To be sure, romantic love is real. Science believes that it lasts for about two years, tops. And building a life with someone you love can be great, if you’ve chosen the right person. But science has also discovered something else: when it comes to hetero unions, men stand to benefit much more than women do from marriage. And it is widely known that single women are thought to be happier than their married counterparts.”
“Widely known” – that’s her sourcing? Well, that’s actually completely untrue. The studies show exactly the opposite. It is not to say you can’t be happy as a single woman, but the data shows you are more than twice as likely to be happy if you are married with kids (more on that below).
“Our first four years of marriage turned out to be the hardest of our relationship,” Wyman continued, before writing a bunch of bad things about her marriage. I kept waiting for her to get to the part where she and husband got divorced, but it never came. They haven’t gotten divorced. She is still married to this person about whom she says a bunch of terrible things.
“I do not intend to rain on Swift’s parade, but I do wish someone would have been brave enough to sit me down for some real talk about what many married women know firsthand: There’s nothing magical about marriage. Nothing. Not one thing. Even for the happiest couples,” Wyman wrote. “I am, without a doubt, happily married. So far as I can tell, I have chosen wisely. My spouse and I share a lot of happy moments and copious laughter, for which I am grateful. We love each other fiercely and work hard to give each other good lives.”
And here’s the capper: “But despite our love and commitment to each other, most of our days together are marked by drudgery, negotiation, mild arguments, odd smells, and tedium — with a healthy dose of mind-numbing irritation that has made me want to throw in the towel more times than I can recall. I have no doubt that he has experienced the same — because we talk about it.”
She went on to write that they are in couples therapy “working out the very real and sometimes deal-breaking kinks.” Wyman concluded that “marriage is rife with such realities, and celebrities don’t get a pass on these basic truisms.”
A Dire Worldview
I could not relate to this piece less. I think what has really happened to poor Christina is she married the wrong person and her husband married the wrong person. It is never going to work out. Here’s a pro tip for you: Cut your losses now and find new spouses; or move on and be the lonely woman who you wish to be, Christina.
Because there are many of us who would argue that there is plenty that is magical about marriage. If you choose the right person, it can be utterly life-changing for the better. It can lift you up in everything you do – not to mention adding children to the mix, which is a whole new and unknown level of happiness for every normal person on earth.
She sounds like Michelle Obama. She is speaking about marriage as the darkest of institutions that is going to ruin your life. And it reminds me of what J.D. Vance said about those so-called “childless cat ladies.”
He said they really need to understand their misunderstanding of the possible joy that could be available to them in making a different choice. And he cautioned the left that going out there lecturing everybody on how terrible marriage and families are is one of the reasons why people look at them and say, I don’t want anything to do with these people. They don’t understand my life or happiness creating choices at all your thoughts.
The Actual Data
I read this and think about my friend Maureen Callahan who is not married and is totally happy and sparkling as a woman and as a person. She is thriving and brilliant with lots of friends. She is just such a rich person in the fullest definition of that term. And she is not my only example. It is very possible to be very happy not married.
However, if you want to get into the data as opposed to just claiming it’s “widely known single women are thought to be happier than their married counterparts,” the stats show the opposite.
A March 2025 survey of 3,000 American women between the ages of 25 and 55 concluded that married mothers are nearly twice as likely to report being “very happy” compared to single, childless women. When asked how enjoyable life has felt within the past 30 days, 47 percent of married mothers said it has felt really enjoyable most or all of the time. Only 34 percent of unmarried, childless women said that.
Those numbers are for some of the reasons my guest Glenn Greenwald mentioned – human interaction, physical touch, having a buddy and a best friend with you at all times, and having someone to go through life and work out problems with.
Megyn’s Advice
My point is simply that marriage as an institution is good and valuable, finding a life partner is good and valuable, and neither deserve this dumping from somebody who clearly chose the wrong partner. I will tell you as somebody who did get a divorce, if you are having to work this hard all the time – like Wyman says, like Michelle Obama says – you probably married the wrong person.
Because now having been married to the right person for almost 18 years, it is close to effortless. It is not, like, running through the fields with your hair flowing in the wind all the time. I’m not saying that. But it’s fun; it’s uplifting; you look forward to seeing the person; you have random hugs throughout the day; you do nice things for each other and show respect for each other. All those things uplift me in my life.
I can’t imagine sitting in a relationship with constant bitterness infesting my worldview to the point that when Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce get engaged she has to dump all over it. It’s like saying, I’m miserable, and you will be too. I mean, even yours truly said I wish her well – and I’m a critic of this woman!
More pieces need to be written reminding people of what is truly important in life because too many people on the left are going to listen to this nitwit and let some golden opportunities go by because they think they are going to be happier sitting alone in front of their TV night after night.
If that’s your jam, God bless. No judgment. But there is a really good jam potentially available to you on the other side. And once you add kids to the mix, it gets exponentially even better. So, give it a shot and maybe don’t get your marriage advice from MSNBC.
You can check out Megyn’s full analysis by tuning in to episode 1,141 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.