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<\/div>\nTo fully appreciate this story you have to know that Oscar Wilde wrote over a hundred years ago the comedy “An Ideal Husband,” and later on was thrown into prison because of a homosexual relationship. Maureen Dowd, the writer of the column, as far as I remember is single, and once remarked about her own state that men are scared by strong women<\/p>\n
By MAUREEN DOWD (NY Times)
\nThis weekend, we celebrate our great American pastime: messy celebrity divorces. There\u2019s the Christie Brinkley\/Peter Cook fireworks on Long Island and the Madonna\/Guy Ritchie\/A-Rod Roman candle in New York. So how do you avoid a relationship where you end up saying, \u201cThe man who I was living with, I just didn\u2019t know who he was\u201d \u2014 as Brinkley did in court when talking about her husband\u2019s $3,000-a-month Internet porn and swinger site habit? (Not to mention the 18-year-old mistress\/assistant.)<\/p>\n
Father Pat Connor, a 79-year-old Catholic priest born in Australia and based in Bordentown, N.J., has spent his celibate life \u2014 including nine years as a missionary in India \u2014 mulling connubial bliss. His decades of marriage counseling led him to distill some \u201cmostly common sense\u201d advice about how to dodge mates who would maul your happiness.<\/p>\n
\u201cHollywood says you can be deeply in love with someone and then your marriage will work,\u201d the twinkly eyed, white-haired priest says. \u201cBut you can be deeply in love with someone to whom you cannot be successfully married.\u201d<\/p>\n
For 40 years, he has been giving a lecture \u2014 \u201cWhom Not to Marry\u201d \u2014 to high school seniors, mostly girls because they\u2019re more interested.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important to do it before they fall seriously in love, because then it will be too late,\u201d he explains. \u201cInfatuation trumps judgment.\u201d<\/p>\n
I asked him to summarize his talk:<\/p>\n
\u201cNever marry a man who has no friends,\u201d he starts. \u201cThis usually means that he will be incapable of the intimacy that marriage demands. I am always amazed at the number of men I have counseled who have no friends. Since, as the Hebrew Scriptures say, \u2018Iron shapes iron and friend shapes friend,\u2019 what are his friends like? What do your friends and family members think of him? Sometimes, your friends can\u2019t render an impartial judgment because they are envious that you are beating them in the race to the altar. Envy beclouds judgment.<\/p>\n
\u201cDoes he use money responsibly? Is he stingy? Most marriages that founder do so because of money \u2014 she\u2019s thrifty, he\u2019s on his 10th credit card.<\/p>\n
\u201cSteer clear of someone whose life you can run, who never makes demands counter to yours. It\u2019s good to have a doormat in the home, but not if it\u2019s your husband.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs he overly attached to his mother and her mythical apron strings? When he wants to make a decision, say, about where you should go on your honeymoon, he doesn\u2019t consult you, he consults his mother. (I\u2019ve known cases where the mother accompanies the couple on their honeymoon!)<\/p>\n
\u201cDoes he have a sense of humor? That covers a multitude of sins. My mother was once asked how she managed to live harmoniously with three men \u2014 my father, brother and me. Her answer, delivered with awesome arrogance, was: \u2018You simply operate on the assumption that no man matures after the age of 11.\u2019 My father fell about laughing.<\/p>\n
\u201cA therapist friend insists that \u2018more marriages are killed by silence than by violence.\u2019 The strong, silent type can be charming but ultimately destructive. That world-class misogynist, Paul of Tarsus, got it right when he said, \u2018In all your dealings with one another, speak the truth to one another in love that you may grow up.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t marry a problem character thinking you will change him. He\u2019s a heavy drinker, or some other kind of addict, but if he marries a good woman, he\u2019ll settle down. People are the same after marriage as before, only more so.<\/p>\n
\u201cTake a good, unsentimental look at his family \u2014 you\u2019ll learn a lot about him and his attitude towards women. Kay made a monstrous mistake marrying Michael Corleone! Is there a history of divorce in the family? An atmosphere of racism, sexism or prejudice in his home? Are his goals and deepest beliefs worthy and similar to yours? I remember counseling a pious Catholic woman that it might not be prudent to marry a pious Muslim, whose attitude about women was very different. Love trumped prudence; the annulment process was instigated by her six months later.<\/p>\n
\u201cImagine a religious fundamentalist married to an agnostic. One would have to pray that the fundamentalist doesn\u2019t open the Bible and hit the page in which Abraham is willing to obey God and slit his son\u2019s throat.<\/p>\n
\u201cFinally: Does he possess those character traits that add up to a good human being \u2014 the willingness to forgive, praise, be courteous? Or is he inclined to be a fibber, to fits of rage, to be a control freak, to be envious of you, to be secretive?<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter I regale a group with this talk, the despairing cry goes up: \u2018But you\u2019ve eliminated everyone!\u2019 Life is unfair.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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