This is actually from the UK, but this woman’s story could just as easily take place here in the United States. American modernity encourages us to forsake the things really matters in life – faith, family, and folk – in favor of glutting our lives with the “progress” of cheap thrills, empty materialism, and meaningless, superficial, libertine freedoms:

“Laughing and dancing with my fiance at our engagement party, I thought I might actually burst with happiness.

Surrounded by our family and friends, I looked at Matthew and felt certain I had met the man I was going to spend the rest of my life with.

Quite simply, he was my soulmate.

We were desperately in love and had our future life together mapped out.

First we would save to buy our own home, then would come a romantic wedding ceremony and children would follow.

It all seemed so simple to my naïve, 19-year-old self. I was, I smugly told myself, the girl who had it all.

So why, 20 years later, do I find myself single, childless and tormented by the fact that I have thrown away the only true chance of happiness I ever had?

Eight years after that wonderful engagement party in 1989, I walked away from dear, devoted, loyal Matthew, convinced that somewhere out there, a better, more exciting, more fulfilling life awaited me.Only there wasn’t.

Now I am 42 and have all the trappings of success – a high-flying career, financial security and a home in the heart of London’s trendy Notting Hill. But I don’t have the one thing I crave more than anything: a loving husband and family. …”