On Apr 10, 2007, at 11:53 AM, Whil Hentzen (Pro*) wrote:
> Well.... people also change over time.
OK, so what are the rules to make a marriage last. Really. Here are a
few of mine:
----------------------------------------------------
1. Don't do it if you are not ready.
This means:
a. "Get over yourself" phase completed. Usually a man doesn't do
this until his mid-30's. A woman until about 30. You know that you
don't know everything. You aren't constantly trying to prove you are
right about *anything*.
b. Don't be hurting. However your ex-spouse, ex-significant-other,
parent, boss or other person in your life "done you wrong" you must
be over it. Really over it, not just repressing.
c. Financially stable: confident in your ability to make a living,
even if the way you make a living needs to change.
d. Not chemically- (or anything else-ly) dependent. If you are
addicted to *anything*, food, chemicals, porn, gambling, really
anything, you are not ready. If your prospective spouse is, run away
now.
2. Don't do it unless you and your intended have the same fundamental
values. Even though it is not PC, and there are plenty of exceptions,
for *most* folks this means a mate of the same cultural background:
country, ethnicity, belief system and general social stratum. If you
don't, your whole framework for processing information is different.
You figuratively don't speak the same language. As man and woman,
this is hard enough already (see below).
3. The marriage comes first in all aspects of life. For men, this
usually means before the job. For women, this usually means before
the kids. More marriages fail because of this than any other cause.
As a man, I have seen more wives disappear entirely to become
mothers. You were a husband or wife first. the children are a
consequence of that union. Therefore, the fundamental needs of the
marriage come first. This doesn't mean that the needs of the job or
kids never take momentary precedence.
4. Your spouse will change: Be ready for it and get over it when it
happens. Because of men being so visual, I tell younger men to
picture your cutey-pie girlfriend with 30 pounds of flab, dark roots,
sagging, um, "assets", sick (blowing her red nose, perched over the
toilet vomiting) and angrier than you have *ever* seen her for weeks
at a time. For women, to whom finding a good provider is the most
basic biological urge, picture him unemployed for 6 months, broke,
depressed, sitting on the couch in a t-shirt not sure what to do with
his life (and not actively doing anything about it). It *will*
happen. If you still think he or she is the most wonderful, beautiful
person in the world, you *might* be ready.
4a. Never expect your spouse to change the way you want or expect
them to. usually, they change further in the same direction, not your
way.
5. You have to trust your spouse implicitly. Life will test you.
Something horrible will happen to you. Death, disease, or other
hardship *will* visit you. If must be able to make fundamental
decisions together, or trust your spouse completely to do it in your
absence, with no second-guessing. If the way he or she approaches
work, the wedding, money, family and similar issues bugs you, you are
not ready.
6. Let go of inconsequential issues. You have to let go entirely
issues pertaining to toilet seats, food preferences, toothpaste tube
handling, toilet paper mounting directions, and a thousand other
trivialities. If you can't, you aren't ready.
7. Don't expect the man to act like a woman or vice-versa. Men and
women process information differently. This includes emotional,
social and intellectual thought. Recognize and deal with the
differences, don't fight them. It is a losing battle.
8. Your fundamental goal in life is to help, satisfy and support your
spouse. For a man, "Yes, Dear" is the most important phrase in a
marriage. Really.
9. If you disagree on some matter, and one of you has the stronger
opinion, that person gets to decide.
Other rules to add? Debate some? (As hard as that would be of *you*
folks! <g>)
Ken
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