The Disorderly Mate. To be successful in marriage or almost anything else in life, a person must keep his affairs in a fair degree of order. You should be wary if you find that a person you are considering for marriage is sloppy in his or her appearance or affairs.
If a girl’s apartment looks like an unmade bed, you can consider that a fairly accurate forecast of how she would manage your home. Or if a man is habitually late for dates or shows up without a tie or with unshined shoes, you can be sure he would be even more sloppy and inconsiderate as a husband.
Neatness, of course, can be overdone. One wife we know objects to her husband sitting in certain chairs until he has changed his clothes. Another will not permit her husband to enter the living room—which she prizes—until he takes off his shoes, unless there are guests.
Some people are fastidious about the way they dress and yet are disorderly in organizing their lives. Others are the other way around. But when disorderliness becomes general an intolerable strain is imposed on a marriage.
The Mate with Clinging Relatives. Statistically, in-laws cause about as much marriage woe as drinking. Many a promising marriage has been marred by them.
In the past six months, more than ten per cent of the troubled married couples consulting the Penn State Marriage Counseling Service had problems aggravated or initiated by their in-laws. We read recently a letter from a young wife who bewailed the fact that her husband’s mother insisted on going along with them on their honeymoon. She had told her son she needed a vacation and would like to go with them. Without consulting the bride he agreed. The bride lamented:
“I spent far more time alone with my mother-in-law than I did with my bridegroom!”
Living with in-laws at any time creates a hazard for most couples and should be avoided if possible, but it is particularly irritating during the first few months of marriage. Those months are crucial because of the adjustments the two people are making. It is then that they get fully acquainted, adapt their habits, work out compromises.