Thursday, March 14, 2013

Advice for young men

I am 44 years old.  I have two divorces cut into me.  Here is my advice for avoiding my situation.

1.  Make yourself ready for marrige before you get married.  This includes but is not limited to...
2.  Finish school.  I do not mean be graduated from college. I mean have school behind you before you marry.  Whether that is highschool or a Ph.D. program be trough with it before you marry.
3.  Get estalished in a career
4.  Buy a house
5.  Don't waste money or time.  Your 20s are not your teens.  Save save save.  Let the grasshoppers play.  You be the ant.
6.  Do not marry a woman older than 22 if you can help it.  DO NOT marry a woman older than 30. Women of that age have been running their lives for years and are not going to give up that control.
7.  Look at the family the woman comes from.  Is there divorce or mental illness?  If so, run.  Do not let yourself fall in love with that woman.
8.  Look at how her mother treats her father.  Look at the marriages of her siblings.  Can you live like that?
9.  Consider a monastic vocation.
10. Heed the warning of "The Quiet Man".  Do not be weak, do not be afraid, and do not fail.  You must never ever lose her respect.  No woman wants to be married to a failure.
11.  Get to know her well enough that you can pick out presents for her that she will like.  Some women will like knitting needles.  Some will like pearls.  Make sure you know what she likes before you marry her.
12. Politics matters.  Do not marry a principled paleo-con if you are a principled neo-con.  It is difficult to maintain respect for each other if you think each other to be idiots.  Opposites might attract but they make for difficult marriages.
13. Do not go into debt.  Not for school (there is a glut of college graduates on the market.) Not for cars. But maybe for a house.
14.  Does she always need excitement?  Is she easily bored?  If so do not marry her.

2 comments:

Rebecca said...

I agree with some of this but not all. Remember I have been successfully married for 42 years and am in the ministry of helping couples save their marriages. Hopefully one day you will trust me enough to find out what I think of this list. Love you, your sis.

Steve Robinson said...

I concur with many of your suggestions. The thing I wrestled with during my first marriage and after my divorce was "what was wrong with ME that I picked someone like that..." It took 7 years of therapy. I have a good wife because (in part) I chose well the second time even though some of your caveats didn't apply to her.