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So … who does make the ideal mate, anyhow?
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Quite frequently I think Maureen Dowd is over-the-top, but her recent New York Times column was right on target. Entitled “An Ideal Husband,”* it also applied to the “Ideal Wife,” and I’m passing it on for you to read and pass on as well.
The qualities she quotes comes from a 79 year old Catholic priest. And don’t hold that against him because he has some pretty sage common-sense advice distilled from decades of marriage counseling. Some of this your mom may have already told you (mine did). Here are some highlights:
“You can be deeply in love with someone to whom you cannot be successfully married.”
“Never marry a man [woman] who has no friends … he will be incapable of the intimacy that marriage demands.”
“Does he [she] use money responsibly? … most marriages that founder do so because of money.”
“Is he [she] overly attached to his mother …?”
“Does he [she] have a sense of humor? That covers a multitude of sins.”
“Don’t marry a problem character thinking you will change him [her]?”
“Take a good, unsentimental look at his family — you’ll learn a lot about him [her] and his [her] attitude towards women [men].
“Does he possess those character traits that add up to a good human being — the willingness to forgive, praise, be courteous?”
The priest goes on to say that “After I regale a group with this talk, the despairing cry goes up: ‘But you’ve eliminated everyone!’ Life is unfair.”
SNOETY ASKS: Are there any personality qualities you’d want to add to this list?
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The New York Times, Sunday Opinion, “An Ideal Husband” by Maureen Dowd, Sunday, July 6, 2008, pg 10 of “Week in Review”
