I don't agree with your criticism of Dowd on this one. Connor is drawing upon his experience counselling couples, not on his personal life history.

Is no one allowed to claim expertise on something which isn't part of their private life? A therapist may comment on divorce, without having been divorced themselves. Give the man a break - he has done "decades of marriage counselling". I haven't asked my counsellor for a personal resume to ensure that her life history matches my own. Nonetheless, I welcome her advice and comments on my experiences.

Actually I thought the advice was pretty spot-on. Marry someone with friends. Don't marry someone who is irresponsible with money. Make sure you like his family. Make sure he has a sense of humor.

It was great advice. I don't think he meant that we should find someone perfect, just that we should be careful about who we choose.

I thought the advice was pretty sound, actually. Maybe Father Connor is celibate, but he sounds like he has his head on straight.

I also didn't notice any "you have to submit to him and have babies" talk from him, which is refreshing coming from a priest.

He's a priest therefore it's impossible for him to give any kind of advice on marriage? Shouldn't you take exception to content rather than who he is? It's just a baseless personal attack otherwise.

"man-robots"

Nice one.

[sarcasm]

I enjoyed the advice, and thought most of it was pretty reasonable. There was no talk about comprimising yourself or your values which I might expect from a priest. I think the criticism is not deserved without a further explanation for your disagreement with the advice.

His advice resonated with me in a huge way... and I really don't feel that he was implying that the ideal husband should not have experienced any trauma. Where does it say that?

I also don't see any allusions to dogma or religious scripture here, which for an atheist like myself, speaks volumes.

There is a reason this piece was on the top of the Times' most-emailed list for four days; this resonated with a lot of people! There are many potential parallels for anyone looking for their ideal partner.

I agree--it's mostly good, common-sense advice. And if you don't believe in marriage, or don't particularly want to get married, the advice can still be applied to other forms of romantic relationship.

It's simplistic, but I don't really see the problem. It's good to see clergypeople responding to other people's needs, even when they're totally different from their own.

Yeah, I don't get it either.. it was reasonable advice and I don't think it was supposed to be set in stone, it was just a general framework about common values and priorities.

I know you said you weren't really disagreeing with the advice necessarily, but in this case I also don't think it's setting a standard and pressuring us to live up to it more than saying "find something you love to do" is doing that... it's just good advice.

Since none of us really see what you were getting at, any chance you want to elaborate?

It's amazing to me that someone who obviously cannot tell "effect" and "affect" apart feels endowed with the acumen criticize a major writer who has paid her dues in spades, such as Maureen Dowd. And for what? Because Dowd didn't interview a horse to handicap the races?

Samhita, I never usually disagree with your posts, but I think you've gone way off the mark here.

Like everyone before me has said, there is really nothing in the op-ed by Dowd that suggests we look for man-bots who have not experienced trauma or disruption in their lives.

On the contrary, the advice seemed to say to me - meet someone with personality and someone who has been shaped by their experiences, for the better. The overwhelming theme that I took from the advice: "Make sure you can trust them to be an adult in your relationship." I'd say that's pretty sound advice for anyone in a committed relationship, married or not.

I don't fault anyone's reservations about going to a priest for marital advice, but a priest who acknowledges Saint Paul's misogyny can't be all bad. :-)

Sorry, I was raised Catholic, and I spoke frequently with many of the priests in my parish. Because they were good listeners, and thoughtful people, and have a lot of experience with seeing married couples from the outside, I would be more than happy to take their advice.

I know the Church dogma is problematic, but please don't conflate that with a number of very good, and selfless, priests and nuns. I don't see them as any less worthy of respect than some of my father's 'confirmed bachelor' friends or than women who, for whatever reason, chose to or were simply never married.

Even though I have not attended mass regularly for some time, I was almost married in the Catholic Church because one of the priests from my childhood was so important to me, and it would have been the only way to get him to perform the ceremony.

So please don't slam the practitioners of my religion. Even I, young as I am, have faced anti-Catholic prejudice. I really hate to see another side of it cropping up on a feminist, progressive website.

not to pile on, but I think it's ok to have ideals, especially when those ideals are don't marry an asshole.

I thought it was really sound advice. I read this last night and had a WTF moment, hoping you'd come back and clarify, and then you did, and... I still don't agree. Re. internalizing:

"A therapist friend insists that ‘more marriages are killed by silence than by violence.’ The strong, silent type can be charming but ultimately destructive. That world-class misogynist, Paul of Tarsus, got it right when he said, ‘In all your dealings with one another, speak the truth to one another in love that you may grow up.’"

Yeah... *communication* is one of the biggest downfalls I've seen in relationships. And he even acknowledges Paul's misogyny!! MAJOR points right there.

Really, the only thing that I don't really agree with is the "history of divorce" thing, but I can even see where that comes from... treatment of the opposite sex and how to interact in a relationship is very much a learned behavior that most people learn from their parents. When that example is bad, many people don't have the self-awareness to break out of it. Some do; many don't. But he doesn't place much emphasis on that and it's the only point that I'd even think of arguing.

I've been married, divorced, and in many relationships. To tell you the truth, this guy is right. I wish someone would have explained all these things to me when I was young. I had to discover it all the hard way.

Samhita, I'll disagree with most of the other commenters and sign on to what you said. Maybe you didn't express your distaste perfectly, but I think I take your point. The advice that Dowd cut-and-pasted from Father Connor is trite and simplistic. If you were implying that it also tends to blame women for their foolish matrimonial choices, rather than men for their piggish matrimonial behavior, I'll drink to that.

What Ismone said.

Once again I find myself disagreeing with you, Samhita.

As a woman who is approaching marriage, I have to agree with every single thing the father said. Without all of those traits he mentioned, the marriage will not be a fully successful one. And it's not as hard as you're making out to find a man--or woman--who falls under these qualifications. The priest is in essence describing a good man and breaking it down as to how you can spot him. It is not, as you seem to imply, putting pressure on men and women to have the perfect relationship, but just to start off with a person with good qualities. This is not an evil thing to expect.

I also know many a pastor and priest who do marriage counseling, and I would highly recommend those who are affianced to attend some sessions with them. Yes, some personal experience in sexual relationships helps things along, but you don't have to be a schizophrenic to be able to counsel one; the same goes with marriage counseling. Goodpeople have the advantage of years of being approached by those seeking advice. I've always found their counseling to be very good, if nothing else because of their years of dealing with the subject and seeing the outcomes.

Also, Unree, I don't see the article as blaming women for their choices. It is merely advice towards those who are about to be married. It's not aimed towards those with the bigoted or slovenly behavior. There are plenty of other articles dedicated to that subject (though probably not by Dowd). There is still the underlying distaste for men who act this way in the priest's advice (like when he speaks of being racist or sexist), but the advice is not to correct those men but for the women thinking of tying themselves to those men. Love is blinding, but should not overrule the brain.

I have to echo the comments of most of the posts above-- I read the article and thought it contained really sound advice. In fact I was a bit surprised to read it coming from M. Dowd, as it seems a bit out of her normal purview.

As to the advice, being almost 39, engaged twice but never married, I think it is SPOT ON and has very little to do with one's religious background (or opposition to such.) At the basis of most of his recommendations are compatibility and respect, something us feminists can surely endorse. Indeed, if I had heeded such advice earlier in my life I would have saved myself a lot of heartache and time distracted from career, developing strong non-romantic relationships, and learning about myself.

And, I must add that I shared the article with two friends who are recovering from very painful breakups who both said it provided a huge a-ha moment...

Finally, the idea that priests can not comment on or aid in developing healthy marriages is ludicrous, just as are the notions that Caucasians can not help to end racism or that men can not be feminists! I realize that the Roman Catholic tradition is troublesome for many (including me), but priests are in the "trenches" of personal struggles every day and can offer a lot of strong insight!

I read this article and the things to avoid in a potential partner and instantly saw my two ex husbands in the descriptions. Much of what the priest recommends is on the mark, and things I wish I had not ignored twice before. Love indeed trumps good sense.

The advice may sound ok, but it's coming from a man who has no training in marriage counselling, no experience in marriage of his own, no real experience of the problems real people go through day to day and no appreciation of any sexual problems that might arise.

It's nice to sit back and say that advice sounds good, but you don't want 15 second sound bites when your marriage or relationship is on rocky ground.

You need a long process of good advice and psychological help from someone who as at least had training in marriage counselling.

The priest here sounded nice, but when it comes down to it, do you want someone who has a nice line in short non psyologically tested koans, or aseries of meetings with someone who actually has trained in the area and knows that soundbites just don't cut it.

The divorce rate is over 50% and that's with most people stating that they are religious. Maybe if people didn't rely on their priest for advice in areas that he has no training or experience in, and actually went to advice counsellors or heaven forfend had proper relationship counselling in school by a real psychologist then that divorce rate would be a bit lower.

I'm sorry, but even with the clarification you're still not making sense.

I read it as "don't try to change him" not "don't marry a problem character".

It doesn't read as idealistic - most of the advice columnists come up with something similar.

It's a checklist: does s/he have friends, do you share ideals, are you able to communicate, are you trying to change the other, can you keep perspective and a sense of humour, do you have a similar attitude to money?

Which is standard for relationship counselling and marriage counselling and is the advice given by every married/post-married minister and counsellor I know in pre-marriage counselling. All he's doing is teaching them common sense.

Many priests have lived in community for long periods of time, and had to learn to get along with people, sharing almost everything (sometimes including a bed if not nec in a sexual manner). Those are all rules that come from living in community. Just cos they're celibate, doesn't mean that they haven't lived closely with others. In fact, living in a community (monastic or priests house) can be more committed than marriage - if they leave they can lose absolutely everything. Some monasteries are more generous, but they don't have to be.

Just because someone is celibate doesn't mean they haven't had relationships and had to get on with other people.

Sometimes the best counsellors are those that aren't formally trained (although a lot of priests are). And people marry in spite of the advice given. You could apply this advice just as well to women as to men, but it's the girls that go along to his talks, so that's who he tailors it to. I'd take someone with 40 years life experience over someone with just their MSc in Counselling.

Count me into the crowd affirming this priest's wise advice. Expecting a partner to be capable of intimacy, responsible with money, possessed of healthy independence from his parents, and able to communicate about relationship issues is not "unrealistic" nor a "crazy ideal." His comment that infatuation trumps judgment is also very insightful, as those of us who have suffered from such bad decisions can attest.

I think there are serious problems with the idea of a celibate priesthood. However, I have to admit that such priests are, in some ways, uniquely qualified to observe the marriage dynamic because they can see it objectively from the outside and are less likely to project themselves into it. Ever notice how you can see clearly what your friends/family are doing wrong but that they seem blind to the obvious? Yeah, like that.

A fascinating book I'm reading at the moment discusses the mental process that leads to bad decisions, marital and otherwise: Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me). This post - criticizing common-sense advice as a "crazy ideal" and characterizing decent mates as "man-robots" - smacks more than a bit of the self-justification that the book discusses. I recommend it to anyone who has ever wondered later, "WTF was I thinking when I did [insert dumb thing that everyone warned you against here]?" - and to anyone who would avoid making such mistakes.

Akhelios,

The divorce rate is not over half, it in fact has never reached 1 out of 2, and has declined recently to about 1 out of 3. It was 40-45% at the highest, this over half misconception was caused by bad math.

Izzy

I think the advice is solid. Also, I don't think it puts added pressure, forces us to internalize any ideals - instead, it takes the focus back to "can you actually live with this person?" and away from "oh wow, but he's so cuuuute when he sleeps" or whatever.

That being said, I have no idea what his advice would be like if you were, for example, a married couple and having conflicts within that relationship. It's possible that that advice would be very good and practical, OR it could contain a lot of church-y rhetoric about the husband is to wife as Jesus is to church.

"effect" means to begin
"affect" means to change

I think you meant to use the latter, and not the former.

That being said, as a man, I think all of that priest's advice was spot-on with no overtones of biblical submission of the woman to the man.
As to him having no experience, some priests enter into the Catholic Church later on in life, after they have already had children, or been married, or both. So without knowing his specific history, I don't think you're qualified to judge him as 'not having experience' to use your words.
I have recently had a very beautiful woman move into my house, and, despite her lack of initial attraction to me, what convinced her finally to come live with me (moving from Vermont to Southern California in the process) was the qualities she saw in me as a man, and relationship partner.
I have tried to embody those characteristics that the priest recommended, and shun those that he did not condone as belonging to a good partner. I'm only human, and sometimes I fail, but I think you're off on this one Samhita.
MoDo the Dragon Lady isn't exactly the best role model, but even a broken watch is right some of the time.

Samhita, personally, I don't quite see what your complaints have to do with Dowd. My impression is that hers was just a columnist's name to slap on a regurgitation of some mostly innocuous marriage advice that the Times figured would get a lot of page views. Why the Times, since it apparently found the topic so vital, didn't just farm the piece out to the priest for him to write escapes me, though.

That said, since when does a man's understanding of how to balance his checkbook and his possession of a social life qualify him as a "man-robot?" How is expecting men to have those things "unrealistic" and a "crazy ideal?" I sure as hell hope any man in the market for marriage would expect those criteria of me! It sounds like you don't have a lot of faith in men's ability to function successfully on that level, which I (and apparently a lot of the Feministing community) would argue is a basic adult one. I don't try to make excuses for my boyfriend's own ineptitude with money by saying that to hold him accountable for it is to expect a "man-robot"; I live with it for now, and I count it as one of those things he'd better grow up about before -- and if -- we ever get married.

The lapsed catholic in me feels moved to comment.
To non-Catholics, seeking marriage advice from a priest pledged to celibacy must seem bizarre. However, most Catholics I've known fully appreciate the irony and it's one of those things that’s a little joke to Catholics. (I’ve even seen cartoons in church bulletins joking about ‘marriage advice from the priest- what does he know’)
Catholics know perfectly well that the priest (probably) does not have personal experience with being married. Church marriage programs generally rely on the work and guidance of married couples. However, a priest can have valuable insight into marriage. Priests generally ARE trained counselors (particularly if their work involves a great deal of counseling). I think priests have a birds-eye view that other people, even other counselors do not have; they know their parishioners outside of the counseling relationship and counsel them before, during, and at the dissolution of marriage.

I think that advice is really sensible and not at all unrealistic. In my experience, when I started applying some of the criteria in that column (criteria which had previously seemed close-minded to me) I started having much better relationships.

What I particularly like about this advice is that it doesn't embrace sexist stereotypes the way a lot of relationship advice does. Women are often told that "men just aren't good at talking about their feelings" and other excuses that make women feel like they should settle into relationships with major problems because that is just how men are. It is nice to see a priest saying that at the end of the day, those excuses can't save a marraige.

I agree with what Akheloios said - this man doesn't really have any formal training in counseling marriages or relationships. I'd much rather go to someone who has been trained, than a man using 'common sense' advice.

However, I do have to make a point to other women out there. Although I didn't agree with all of the things the priest said, we do need to find guys who are good enough for us! Too often, I've seen my friends, and above all myself, settle for men who treated us poorly. I always assumed that this was because of the "men are from mars" rhetoric. Men were just different, so I couldn't expect them to actually treat me the way I wanted to be treated. Chalk this up to rhetoric and my low self-esteem. But ya know what? Fast forward a few years, and I'm dating an amazing guy who listens to me when I'm stressed, calls when he late, and basically does all the things I thought guys "didn't do."

Okay, sorry for that somewhat unrelated story. But all I could think when I was reading was how I would have read this a year ago, and how that's change. Women - we're too good to be treated shitty!

Akheloios and revsocialist, how do you know that he has no formal counseling training? Many priests do.

In any event, this particular priest does have 20 years of experience in marriage counseling, which would seem to make him more than qualified to give the very basic advice in this column.

I know the Catholic Church has problems, and I don't agree with organized religion in general, but to me this feels like an attack just for the sake of attacking the Church and a priest. The advice was spot on, and there were many refreshing things about it. Especially since he's a priest. Something tells me that if this was any other religion, it wouldn't have been singled out like this. I agree with almost every piece of critcism about the church, and there is plenty to criticize, but to attack well-meaning advice from a guy whose been out in the field for 20 years (which counts more to me then any sort of formal training) seems petty and one-sided.

As a lifelong Anglican I was rather puzzled about why Samhita thought it was a no to ask a priest for her ideas about what to look for in a husband. It took a few read-throughs to realise the implicit context.

In fairness, the 10 points are essentially correct and there are men who can meet these standards. This is not about finding the "perfect" man, just one who meets what should be the minimum standards.

Unfortunately, the last part of the column says it all when the girls wail, "But you’ve eliminated everyone!" because it says a lot about the type of guy they are interested in - one who will impress their girlfriends. Such guys have no compelling reason to change because they are attracting women without any need to.

However, for women, qualities that will make a marriage successful are something to work on after they've tied the knot and have his undivided attention. Then they are sure, a combination of withholding of sex and constant nagging should effect the changes needed!

I really have no sympathy for such divorced women.

wow wow wow.

I see exatcly what samhita means. These are nice traits to have and lucky you if you score a partner with them, but they should not be considered standards. Not everyone can be happy, good with money, have nice families who can tolerate you(much less like you), and have tons of friends. Thats not reality. I do believe we should take those things into consideration when seeking a partner, but they are not the definative of what equals a good partner. People who are not this standard deserve love and can live up to who they are. There is a mutual, personal aspect that is missing from his talk. People fall in love for many reasons, and they need to be in love and do what they need to do, when they need to do it. I think the reason this priest(he seems like a sweet guy) is putting so much emphasis on these things is because he comes from the standpoint of "divorce = bad" which, dont get me wrong, its bad for both parties and any smaller ones concerned(Many of the people in my family come from separated parents) but divorce because you HAVE to is necessary. This priest is merely trying to help people stay together. Even though his advice is typical and VERY common sense, its nice to see that he cares about the people he talks to.