Does a lady have to be very well educated to deserve a husband that is very well educated?

Well I’m a girl, and if he really likes you your education means shit, compared to the love he can give you

That shouldn’t matter. Love is love, and how many degrees a person has shouldn’t get in the way. You can be intelligent and not have 5 degrees. I would hope the guy wasn’t pretentious because of it.

Are you kidding? Can you suck a golf ball….I mean bake an apple pie

You don’t want anyone who can’t handle you or appreciate you or like you exactly the way you are right now.

Similar education levels might result in better communication or common areas of interest but it is an individual’s preference….a generalization of worthiness is not appropriate.

If the disparity of your respective personal educational achievements is a significant obstacle in the relationship, you may want to reconsider the relationship.

Hell yeah!

Just curious—why does his having degrees change how you think of him? Or does it?

Your education is not just a matter of degree(s). There’s a strong likelihood—but by no means a certainty—that his idea of a permanent partner would be someone he regards as his intellectual equal, someone who is well read and can sustain conversation on a wide variety of topics, someone who can appreciate certain things in depth, whether they are his own fields of interest or not, and someone who can hold her own socially among his peers. A well-educated woman might be able to do that or might not. So might a woman who holds only a B.A. It will depend much more on her aptitude, the breadth of her reading, her range of interests, and her readiness to learn than it will on number of credits completed and degrees earned.

For temporary companionship I would imagine he might not have such high expectations. You haven’t said what you have in mind.

You also haven’t said whether you’ve completed your schooling or intend to go on.

Ultimately he will be the only judge of what he looks for in a partner. Don’t you go deciding for him. You could be very wrong.

Be confident. Saying you are not deserving makes the degree disparity a problem in your mind. Maybe you are exactly what he deserves, go with the flow. Every person whether with no degree or 50 degrees is as valuable and deserving of happiness and is an equal.

What’s more important is how you conduct yourself. Are you articulate? Can you carry on conversations about multiple topics? Are you tactful? Are you sure of yourself and project confidence?

These are things he may be looking for. How you came by these traits (or others he may find appealing) is irrelevant.

Common sense, compassion, ingenuity, passion – these are not taught at any university.
Dollars to donuts, “educated” folk are just as likely to not posses these traits are you are to have them.

@dannyc
true..like our education means anything…i got straight a’s in college, graduated and then began my true education..some people never leave school and enter the real “classroom”.

@Jeruba – Lurve for the not deciding for him. That’s so hard to remember sometimes, to not make those sorts of presumptions.

@lilgiraffe, please don’t be mean to yourself with those “I’m not good enough” thoughts. Don’t put the man on a pedestal, for your sake and for his.

It depends on a lot of things. How well read are you, and how do you spend your time? Do you have common interests? Does he keep his professional life and personal life separate? Many people do not want to come home to the environment that they left at the office. I have friends with lots of advanced degrees. At home, they’d rather be known for their exceptional homemade pizza and their karaoke skills than their chemistry degrees.

That is not enough of a difference that it should matter assuming you are well-read and intellectually curious. Do you guys find plenty to talk about?

Some people are just professional degree getters.

Where does a person get all the money to get that many degrees?

Some of the brightest people I have ever met have very little formal education. Structured learning is not for everyone. I know Ph.D’s who can’t change a car tire.

No, but she would need – in most cases – to have a similar IQ and intellectual attitudes. Some men like a woman who they can feel superior to, most in my experience want an equal. I already had two degrees, working on a third, but my wife was working as a waitress just out of high school when I met her. (We have a ten year age gap.) We still had much in common, she was intelligent and well read – and very cute. She now has three degrees and many years in upper management in a multi national company.

@The_Compassionate_Heretic Well, he got scholarships most of the way, cos he did a MFinance, then an MBA, then a PhD in Chicago GSB. He was a teaching assistant as well. Think it helped that he was known at school.

5 Degrees?! Nerd Alert!

@jeffgoldblumsprivatefacilities U may be surprised but he has v high EQ too, being voted the ‘Best teaching assistant’ by students 5 years in a row. :)

Uh-oh, @lilgiraffe, txtspeak is going to bring down a little rain on your head, I’m afraid.

@Jeruba Okay, noted. Thanks. :)

Just to repeat what many have said:

A similar level of intelligence will be much more important than a similar level of education. I myself am a high school dropout, but rarely feel inferior to those with higher education degrees. Envious, yes, but not inferior. :)

No, but she should be at least able to spell her name right. And be able to have a relatively interesting conversation on at least one topic other than Hollywood gossip. I think you’re fine with 1 degree :)

yes i think she does

The big red flag in your question is the word deserve. It seems to me to indicate a mental model where if you tick off these two accomplishments, you get a big prize, and if you tick off all seven accomplishments, you get an even bigger prize. Dating, romance, and relationships just don’t work that way.

This matters for some people, really. We all want to think love is love but society has a way of tainting that. Figure out what it is about you this man with so many degrees has fallen in like with and work from there.