Problem:
If one is deeply in love with a certain person, is not that sufficient for a happy marriage, even though others advise against the marriage?
I am in love with a young man, and want to marry him, but everybody tells me he won’t make me happy.
I am so happy just being in love with him that I know I’ll be happy in marriage.
Solution:
It has been set down as one of the most futile things in life to argue with a young person already in love, who believes that the happiness of being in love is a true measure of the happiness that will be found in marriage.
However, those of us who are interested in the happiness of married folk will still go on trying to convince young people of the danger of this mistake.
You say that everybody tells you that the young man you love cannot make you happy in marriage.
I presume that this means your parents, your pastor or confessor, your close friends. Such unanimity can hardly be a result of conspiracy against you, or unfounded on good reasons.
With eyes undimmed by the infatuation that makes you a poor judge of your boy friend, they must see something in his character that makes him unfit for the responsibilities of marriage.
Perhaps he is shiftless and undependable; perhaps a drunkard; perhaps unprincipled or irreligious.
After all, there are thousands of divorces in America each year, and tens of thousands of broken hearted wives.
Can’t you see that most of the latter married because they were breathlessly in love, and only afterward, too late, found out that love is not sufficient for a happy marriage?
You did not tell me on what ground everybody opposes your marriage to this boy, and therefore I do not say for certain that their opposition is justified.
There is a good presumption that it is, however, from the fact that it is unanimous.
I do say firmly, however, that you are clinging to a false principle when you say that “because you are happy just being in love with your boy friend, you know you’ll be happy in marriage.”
It takes more than love, I assure you, to make a marriage happy, and sometimes it is only your parents, pastor, and good friends, who can tell you whether that something is present or absent.
(Questions young People ask before Marriage- Fr. Donald Miller)
