"Single fathers and those earning less than $60,000 a year were excluded from the study."
Maybe the "study" should lower "its" expectations before telling women to. Do I hear any bids for $55,000?
Those exclusions are ridiculous, and limit a woman's opportunities.
Ever seen the movie: Yours, Mine, and Ours. Funny but a true story.
In Los Angeles, it was reported years ago in the local Catholic newspaper that a married man who had just lost his wife to cancer, but who had five children, took different single women in his parish to the same restaurant each Saturday night. He would order the same dinner for each of his children and for him and his date: Lobster. Well, he had just about run out of dates, when he met his future wife. All the other women had failed the test, but this one lady passed his scrutiny when she cracked open all the lobster legs and cut up the meat for each of his five children. When she got to her own lobster, it was then COLD. He was looking for someone who was selfless and who could be a Mother to his children. She did exactly that. At last report, they were still very happily married.
a) sounds like he was interviewing for a nanny rather than looking for a wife.
b) if he could afford 7 lobster dinners every weekend, it's not hard to see where he got the sense of entitlement to approach the search for his new nanny as an interview process.
c) if after watching him order lobster for his 5 kids and then not lifting a finger to help his *own* kids crack the shells, she still wanted him, she's welcome to him.
I had a number of women approach me because they were looking for a father figure for their kids. And so some people do want a wife or husband who could also be a nanny/mentor figure as well.
I personally don't see anything wrong with that for if that's what they want then that's what they want.
The problem I would see with that is, marriage is a whole lot more than raising kids. Even if it was just that, it will still require that the husband and wife be in a real relationship with one another to raise the kids grow up to be decent human beings. if mom and dad, love and like one another, respect one another, share a friendship with one another, are loyal to one another, are there for one another, then kids growing up in that kind of home will grow up being decent human beings; who also other things being equal, will be more likely to have a good relationship and in turn be better parents themselves.
There is a lot wrong in what the man did, assuming ofc its all that he did, to decide on who to marry. he is setting everyone including his kids for a major disappointment IMHO
Wow! The couple have been happily married for many years now (at least 25 years).
I wonder how many other men and women test their prospective spouses before committing to them in Holy Matrimony (Holy Crowning? I know that I asked the Lord to help me. The sign I was looking for: that we would be drawn closer to Christ Jesus and that we would meet at a Christian event. My parents were also pleased. It was a win-win situation.
Maria I am sure you would agree that the length of marriage does not necessarily translate into evidence of having a good marriage. People stay married for a number of reasons, not all them good. In a marriage where one is using the other, this can go on forever and still the marriage will not be a healthy one. In this case I am happy to hear that they had a happy marriage. However if we were speaking in general what he did had many problems the way I look at it.
I have no issue with him trying to discern the right person to marry, my issue was that he was lying to himself, and others when he chose her over the others only based on what she did on that restaurant and by the lake for his kids. A human person is far more complex than that, and their relationships are far more complex than that. Surely he has other sides to him besides being a father to those kids. What does he believe in? What kind of Character does he have? What is it about her he liked besides how she treated his kids? How does he see her besides the mothering/ nurturing kind? What does he think she likes about him? What is their connection besides the kids, do they have spiritual compatibility? Do they have chemistry? Do they have intellectual compatibility (I do not mean education although that might factor in somewhat) what kind of man is he with and without money? (Some men can handle poverty, loss of status, without losing themselves to bitterness, etc. and turn into unbearable I am a man and happy only when I got money brutes. While others turn into a sleazy, nasty fools, when they get money, status and access to unlimited choice.) So does he have a rock solid character that remains in good or bad times whatever those may be? Does she? There are many challenging factors in life, that test the fabric of relationships, and from my limited observation (being never married, and currently unattached so take my opinion with a grain of salt) only mutual love and common spiritual goal survives them.
Kids are quite observant; they pick up tone of voice, body language, and in general what is going on in their homes. What they see affects them, some are resilient and turn out to be decent human beings even growing up in the worst possible environments, yet others are not so lucky. IMHO The best gift two parents can give their kids is to love one another, in the wholesome definition of love and what it entails in it through all circumstances of life.
I agree with you that most of us do indeed if not test (I do not like the term and its connotation), at least try to get to know the person well enough to see if we are compatible. Marriage is certainly not a destination, it’s a journey, and only God knows the person fully even better than they know themselves. So what each person can do is, first understand oneself well enough to know one’s strength and weakness, as no one is perfect and ones aspirations( spiritual or otherwise) as well as the driving force behind those aspirations. for instance like you did, to see if they share the same spiritual goal with each other, that is a foundation for how they treat each other, how they see their life together, how much they work towards that same goal etc. It could be that you might find a spiritual person but you cannot feel the pull of attraction towards them for whatever reason, it might be that there are people who are like tape recorders who can recite the word of God without having anything intimate with it themselves, or are self-righteous and are hell to be with so there is a risk of being deceived by false spirituality too. in the end the element of risk is always there, however after doing what we can to ensure we are not being deceived by others or ourselves, we take a calculated risk, as Christians we leave the rest in faith to God.
