Those, briefly, are the main types of mixed marriages. You should enter into them carefully, if at all. In any case where there are serious differences of background, the couple should compare themselves carefully, see just what the differences are, be realistic about those differences, ferret out the special problems that those differences will create (as in the rearing of children), agree on ways to attack the problems and solve them. Only then is there hope that the marriage can be a success. The difficulty is that couples tend to gloss over differences that exist. They refuse to identify them, to admit their existence. They put off facing them. Then later in marriage the problems can no longer be avoided and by then they have become so acute that reconciliation becomes very difficult.
For example, if a Catholic wants to marry a Protestant, it is far better for the couple to see the problems that will exist from such a mixed marriage before they are married than after they are married.
Chapter XIV
Nine Dangerous Characters
There are some prospective mates who will survive all the tests we have given you thus far and in fact look like ideal partners, and yet will bring you grief every time in marriage.
In studying marriage failures it has been found that again and again certain types of mates make a marriage seem intolerable. We’ll introduce you to nine of the worst troublemakers. They are hard to detect, but usually you can spot them if you have had several months really to know them before you commit yourself to marriage.
The Jealous Mate. Perhaps a man becomes excessively jealous because his young wife is attractive to other men or because she has been accustomed to traveling with a more sophisticated crowd than he has. On the other side perhaps the wife—with little cause—becomes insanely jealous of her husband’s secretary.
We know from investigation that jealousy causes at least one out of every five quarrels that occur between American husbands and wives. And furthermore, in divorce cases jealousy turns up as a factor in almost half of all divorces. That is not hard to understand because a jealous person inevitably becomes a difficult person to live with. He or she is usually suspicious, quick-tempered and disagreeable. It is hard to love a person who is jealous of you. You lose your respect for him, and you can’t be natural with him.