Persons That Make For a Risky Marriage~ Fr. George Kelly

There are always exceptions. But I would not want one of my children looking at their future spouse hoping he or she is an exception.

Father Kelly gives the youth the general rule if they want a happy and successful marriage.

Those who are married to people that have these problems….God can change all hearts and we must never give up praying, loving and hoping!

from the Catholic Youth’s Guide to Life and Love, Fr. George Kelly

Persons That Make For a Risky Marriage

There are some men and women whom you could validly marry in the Church, but they’d be such poor risks that you should keep clear of them. If you did marry them, you’d find it extremely difficult to save your soul—your most important goal in life—or they’d create a hell on earth for you.

 As a Catholic youngster, your conscience will tell you that you should avoid non-Catholics because solid experience teaches that mixed marriages are filled with many dangers for the husband and wife and their children. It’s bad enough to risk losing your own soul in a mixed marriage, but how much worse to risk the souls of the innocent children you bring into the world.

You should also avoid boys or girls who claim to be Catholics but are either indifferent or downright hostile to the faith. You can spot these types a mile away.

There’s Know-it-all Charlie.

He’s only seventeen, but he knows all the answers—more than all the great thinkers of the Church who spent their lives studying and defining the mysteries of our faith.

Charlie pooh-poohs Church teachings, thinks the Bible is “old hat,” and boasts that no moral law will stop him if it stands in his way of making money. At best, Charlie’s a fair-weather Catholic. You don’t need much imagination to picture him twenty years from now. He’ll miss Mass on Sunday because it interferes with his hard-earned sleep—the sleep he earned by playing around until 3:00 A.M. the night before.

He’ll eat meat on Friday in front of his children because he doesn’t like fish. In his job, he’ll cut corners, lie and cheat—”everybody does it” and besides, “anything goes in business.”

There’s also Glamorous Gert.

There’s nothing wrong with having a good time occasionally; everybody should. But Gert thinks the whole world exists so that she can have a good time continuously. She has a closet full of dresses—all the latest styles—and she boasts that her boyfriends spend half a week’s pay whenever they take her out.

She has firm plans for marriage. She’ll live in the most expensive neighborhood, she’ll decorate her home with the costliest furnishings money can buy, she’ll have a servant to do messy jobs around the home like preparing meals and washing dishes.

You might think Gert’s family had money to burn. But her dad is just a hard-working wage earner. Gert lets no one doubt that she will get what she wants. And she won’t be tied down with children. She’ll practice birth control regardless of the moral law.

Charlie and Gert match each other well. They have one important thing in common. They’re willing to toss over the laws of God, all principles of morality and decency and everything else that stands in the way of their selfish pleasures.

You marry these “Catholics” at your own risk. Hour after hour, their example and influence will work against your salvation.

Your “steady” should also be free of vices which usually turn marriage into a living hell for an innocent partner. For instance, beware of the man or woman who habitually drinks to excess. That trait is a red flag, a sign that the excessive drinker may in time find himself plunged into alcoholism.

Experts who have examined the reasons for broken marriages, divorce court judges and social welfare workers all agree that alcoholism is a major cause of marital tragedy. It can truly ruin your life and the lives of your children. Some young women become engaged to habitual and excessive drinkers, banking on the drinker’s pledge that he’ll “settle down” and “straighten out” after the wedding ceremony.

Would that these promises could be kept, but the sad lesson of experience is that if the heavy, chronic drinker won’t reform before marriage when he should be on his best behavior, there’s little reason to hope that he’ll do so later. In fact, the heavy drinker often finds himself traveling downhill—to jails, sanitariums, mental institutions—without being able to stop.

A chronic gambler is another bad risk. Many a marriage has been wrecked because a husband or wife couldn’t resist the dream of winning easy wealth by betting on the outcome of a horse race. Gambling small amounts you can afford to lose is, of course, a mild sort of entertainment. But when money sorely needed for food, clothing and rent is bet on a horse or the turn of a card, gambling becomes one of the most insidious devices known to man.

Like excessive drinking, it often grows on one. Once a person becomes addicted to this habit, he may find it extremely difficult, maybe even impossible, to stop.

Other poor risks are overly ambitious men or women—those determined to get ahead in the world regardless of cost. The idea that you must be a success in this world can become an obsession. Everything else falls into second place.

Qualities of love, warmth, sympathy for one’s fellow man, and so on, are given an inferior position or are eliminated entirely. Marry a person like this and you may get rich, but you’ll lose spiritual values of far greater importance.

Because the Church doesn’t recognize civil marriages, it sometimes happens that persons united before a civil authority, and then divorced, are eligible to be validly married before a priest.

Maybe you could marry a person who has been legally divorced from a civil marriage. But experience teaches that you should use great caution before doing so. Remember, a divorced person has already tried marriage and has failed. There’s at least an even chance that he was to blame. You are entitled to suspect that he might possess character defects which would make adjustment with any partner difficult.

Also, the idea that marriage can be lightly entered into and easily walked out of is often deeply ingrained in a divorced person’s philosophy. A ceremony before the priest may not mean any more to him than one before a justice. Be ten times more cautious of a divorced person who has had children by the previous marriage.

For instance, a man who can lightly dismiss his responsibilities to his children or their mother, does not show much loyalty—a characteristic needed to make any marriage a success. If he’s disloyal to one mate and casts her aside when she no longer serves his selfish purposes, he’ll probably also be disloyal to you.

Also steer clear of irresponsible men or women. When you marry, you should willingly accept all the obligations of your state in life. A man must be willing to be the provider of the family and leader of his children.

His wife must be his helpmate, and a mother and homemaker, which often means being a nurse, cook, laundress and chauffeur as well.

Your answer to one key question will tell you whether your boyfriend or girlfriend is a responsible individual: Could he (or she) do a reasonable job as a husband and father (or wife and mother)?

I recently encountered two cases where bad marriages could have been avoided had this question been seriously considered in advance.

One girl kept company with a boy named Joe for about two years before they were married. Joe had run into trouble in high school because he never did his homework assignments. He dropped out in his junior year and went into the army.

After his hitch in the service, he wandered from job to job. He held—and quit—five different ones within a year, and for months at a time he stayed out of work while he collected unemployment insurance. When he did work, his parents allowed him to keep all he earned as spending money.

So Joe showed absolutely no sign of being willing or able to shoulder the responsibilities of a married man. After his marriage, he actually resented the fact that he had to hold a job and use his earnings for food and rent. And when a baby was born, the thought that he’d be responsible for its care overwhelmed him. He deserted his wife and child. They’re now living off charity, and he’s nowhere to be found.

The other case involved Rosemary, a thoroughly spoiled teenager. Her father worked overtime to pay her tuition at a private academy for girls, and Rosemary turned up her nose at girls who attended the diocesan Catholic school.

Other girls who helped around their homes or worked to provide their own spending money were dirt in her eyes. She thought she was somebody special who deserved to have everything done for her.

After her marriage, her husband soon tired of the unwashed dishes, unmade beds and uncleaned house that greeted him every night. They began to argue endlessly over her unwillingness to do her share.

Now she’s living  with her mother again—says she won’t be a “drudge” for any man. The truth is that she’s unfit to be a wife.

As you continue to go steady, try to discover whether serious conditions, perhaps hidden from you until now, may jeopardize your happiness.

For instance, does he depend upon his parents so much that he can’t give you the first love you have a right to expect?

Will you always have to play second fiddle to your in-laws?

Are there any mental quirks that could upset anyone exposed to them every day?

One man had a streak of jealousy that bordered on insanity. But his fiancée was so eager to get married that she overlooked this characteristic. After the ceremony, she couldn’t even leave the house to shop for groceries without having to tell her husband how she spent her time and whether she stopped to talk to anyone.

Some are called to religious life, others to the priesthood and others to marriage. Marriage is not the state of life of non-calls! Marriage is a vocation, an invitation from God, a specific road of sanctification…..the way that God has called that person to live holiness.

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