08/15/2008 - By Chuck Monan, Preaching Minister

In three decades of preaching, I have had plenty of opportunities to counsel couples planning to wed. Many of these marriages have flourished into loving, fulfilling unions where Christian traits are modeled daily. Others have not turned out quite as well.

And at least a handful of these looked so doomed from the start that I still regret not stepping in and telling the prospective partners to under-no-circumstances go through with this.

But hindsight is always 20-20, isn’t it?

Recently Maureen Dowd interviewed a person who has some rather intelligent and practical advice for folks trying to dodge mates who would maul their happiness. He is Pat O’Connor, a 79-year-old Catholic priest born in Australia and based in Bordertown, N.J. He has spent his celibate life – including nine years as a missionary in India – mulling connubial bliss. His decades of marriage counseling have been distilled into a lecture – “Whom Not to Marry” – to high school seniors, mostly girls because they’re more interested. Here are the highlights:

Never marry a man who has no friends.
This 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, “Iron shapes iron and friend shapes friend,” what are his friends like? What do your friends and family members think of him?

Does he use money responsibly?
Is he stingy? Most marriages that founder do so because of money – he’s thrifty; she’s on her 10th credit card.

Steer clear of someone whose life you can run.
Does he ever make demands counter to  yours? It’s good to have a doormat in the home, but not if it’s your husband.     Is he overly attached to his mother and her mythical apron strings?
When deciding where to go on your honeymoon, he doesn’t consult you, but does ask his mother. In some cases I have actually seen the mother accompanying the couple on their honeymoon. Not a good idea.

Does he have a sense of humor?
This covers a multitude of sins. My mother was once asked how she managed to live harmoniously with three men – my father, brother and me. Her answer: “You simply operate on the assumption that no man matures after the age of 11.” My father fell out laughing.

More marriages are killed by silence than by violence.
The strong, silent type can be charming but ultimately destructive. The apostle Paul got it right when he said, “In all your dealings with one another, speak the truth in love that you may grow up.”

Don’t marry a problem character thinking you will change him.
Think you can change the heavy drinker or addict by having him settle down with a good woman? No. People are the same after marriage as before, only more so.

Take a good, unsentimental look at his family.
You’ll learn a lot about him and his attitude toward women. Is there a history of divorce? Is there an atmosphere of racism, sexism or prejudice in his home? Are his goals and deepest beliefs similar to yours, such as his religious beliefs?

Does he possess the character traits of a good human being?
Is he willing to forgive, to praise, to be courteous? Or is he inclined to lie, to fits of rage, to be a control freak, to envy, to be secretive?

An ounce of prevention, friends.