A number of the father’s rights groups I recommend on my blog espouse the principle that the first thing a father should do, come what may, is to remain married to the child’s mother. I’m not an advocate of the right or the left on this issue, but I am a pragmatist. Groups that support the “if more couples stay married at all costs, we’ll go back to the way things were when Ward and June lived here,” philosophy are, respectfully, doing a disservice to fathers.

First, they are ignoring social reality. We live in a society that does not have the first clue what makes marriage work. We do not reward couples for entering into the civil aspects (contractual as they are) of marriage. Our advertising and social conditioning mindlessly promote the concept that marriage is about romance and entitlement, not about friendship and respectful partnership. We have women who want to be taken care of and men who can’t cope with an adult relationship if the woman is not dependent. They’re both wrong, and they’re both living from a set of perspectives that is completely false. Nevertheless, we do nothing to require couples to enter marriage with a sense of hard-headed pragmatism, and the skills training to make it work. And when city councils, legislatures and other law-making bodies propose legislation to do so, the same folks that want people to stay married for life (among other more sensitive social topics around the family) are the first ones up and screaming about the inroads into the sacred private ordering of the family.

Second, they are ignoring human nature in American culture today. Both men and women in our culture are chronically, endemically affected with narcissism and entitlement. I notice it more often in women, because of the nature of my work, but I’ve seen plenty of it in men too.

Very often, the affected spouse does not demonstrate noticeable traits of this until well into the marriage (particularly if there has been no premarital education or counseling). The more severely affected of these personalities are not merely narcissistic, they are dangerous, running the gamut from verbally to physically abusive and destructive.

Let me say this clearly. It is not an intact family that children need. It is an intact, reasonably healthy family. Parents who stay together because, “it’s the right thing to do,” without more, and whose families contain destructive conflict, whether verbal or physical, are affirmatively destroying their children. Children are always better off with at least one parent who demonstrates the ability to change and grow beyond conflict, and with one home where there is relative peace, than with a single, battle-ridden intact family (even if nobody but the family and the four walls sees the conflict).

Let’s start by insisting people be hard-headed and intelligent about the marriages they make.

Let’s continue by educating parents about the destructiveness of conflict on children before children are born.

Let’s not insist on the alleged virtue of living with a mistake no matter how destructive to the individuals involved, from some ridiculous notion that intact equals better.

The Daily Record, Maryland’s legal daily paper, approved of my series on premarital planning. In her July 18 post on legal blogs, Caryn Tamber referenced the series in the paper’s daily blog: Daily Record Law Blog Roundup.

The right to marry is a fundamental human right protected by the United States Constitution and the constitutions of most states. With divorce rates at between 50% and 60%, and the human misery I routinely see as part of my daily work, it’s very easy to be seduced by the idea that if we could just force people to use some common sense we could reduce some of the misery.

On the one hand, I wish it was possible to require folks to go to premarital counseling before they married. Or pass a test before they could procreate. But not only does that kind of government intervention run afoul of the Constitution, it isn’t realistic. Human behavior can’t be legislated in, or out, of existence.

There is no foolproof way to keep a second, third or subsequent marriage from failing. But there are real, common-sense ways to increase your odds for success.

If you need help with a premarital agreement, and you live in Maryland, let me know. I’d far rather get to know you that way, than through representing you in divorce litigation.

Remember the Three P’s:

• Patience – Take plenty of time to get to know your partner before you seal the deal.
• Prenuptial Agreement – Get one, preferably one that covers more than just money and property.
• Premarital Counseling – Spend a little money now and increase your chances of avoiding the big money and the bigger heartache later!

The final in this series of three posts about how to prepare to succeed in marriage focuses on premarital counseling. I’m not talking here about a few sessions with your priest, pastor or rabbi, I’m talking about an intensive course of counseling that lasts at least six months, but can continue up to a year before you marry or move in with your partner. You should find a qualified marriage counselor to help you with this unique course of counseling.

Premarital counseling has two primary purposes: First, to help you both develop skills you will need to succeed in marriage (such as communications skills building based on your unique communication styles and conflict resolution skill building to teach you how to use conflict to resolve problems and bring you closer); second, premarital counseling uses psychological testing and other tools to help you both identify areas of difference that might become a problem for you later on. Washington Post on Premarital Counseling

In addition, this aspect of premarital counseling can help you identify more serious issues ranging from drug and alcohol problems you might not know about to personality problems that might not be immediately apparent to you to areas of conflict that aren’t so serious, but can put a real monkey wrench in a marriage, like inherent laziness or lack of initiative in a spouse.

Premarital counseling also helps you both identify your respective expectations about marriage. Take, for example, a couple getting married in their late 30s or early 40s. You’d expect them to be mature enough to know all this stuff in advance, right? Wrong. What happens when her ultimate goal for retirement in twenty years is to move to Arizona, live in a senior center, and make crafts, and his is to move to the wilds of Wyoming and hunt mountain lions?

Premarital counseling isn’t cheap. If you figure $125 to $200 an hour, once a week, for six months to a year, you may spend as much as $2,500.00. But when you consider that a divorce attorney (in this part of the world, anyway) will probably ask you to plunk down at least $10,000.00, and you amortize how much that amount would be worth if you have to pay it five or ten years from now, you get a sense of perspective. Spend the money now. It’s worth it!

Most of us have heard of pre-nuptial agreements. Most people, when planning to marry, are pretty reluctant to even consider them. They think a pre-nup is for the wealthy or the untrustworthy or both. They think a pre-nup means they don’t have confidence that the new marriage will succeed.

This is simplistic thinking. If there is one thing that helps relationships succeed, it is ensuring appropriate boundaries. A contract is an expression of expectations and intentions that put boundaries around a relationship.

A contract between committed partners, whether married or unmarried, can be one of the best ways you can help your relationship succeed.

A traditional pre-nuptial agreement primarily covers property and financial issues. It helps define what couples expect and intend for their estates. But a couples contract does that, and more. A couples contract is a must for any couple who lives together, married or not.

Not only does a couples contract define expectations and intentions for income, property and estate rights, it can define how couples will handle conflict, if it should arise and what they want and expect in other important areas of their lives.

Maryland does not have a statute governing pre-marital agreements, but has set standards for pre-nuptial agreements by appellate court decision (Frey v. Frey, 298 Md. 552, 471 A.2d 705 (1984)). Other states have adopted the Uniform Premarital Agreement Act (the “UPAA”) (check out this link for a full text version: UPAA).

Like any contract, it’s well worth the expense of seeking competent legal advice before you enter into it. Whatever you do, don’t just download a form from the internet and fill it out the day before you move in together or get married. And if your partner has a lawyer, be sure you do too.

The standards that make these contracts enforceable are based on the assumption that each person in the relationship has a full understanding of what they are doing when they enter into them. That’s why it’s useful to have competent legal advice. Make sure there is plenty of time to think about it too. There should be plenty of time (at least a week or more) between each stage in the process: between the time you get a draft from your partner and the time you sign it; and between the time you sign it and the time it becomes valid (i.e., either when you move in together or get married).

Investing the time and money to draft a couples contract will help strengthen your marriage or partnership by giving it clear boundaries, standards for resolving conflict, and a set of intentions that can’t be questioned. Properly drafted and entered into, a pre-nuptial or couples contract is one of the best ways to avoid or diminish problems later in the relationship.

Most of us who practice family law believe that it should be as time-consuming and expensive to get married, as it is now to get divorced; and as quick and easy to get divorced, as it now is to get married. This is the first in a series of posts about what you can do to avoid getting burned a second, or third, of fourth time. Hey, it’s never too late to learn!

There’s this great song by a great American musician, Keb Mo, called “The Itch.” The lyrics, written as a tongue-in-cheek prayer, apply to anyone who’s been burned by what they thought was love and marriage. The refrain says, “Don’t let me do the same !#@% thing all over again.”

Problem is, most of us (yes, that does include lawyers . . . and doctors . . . and Indian Chiefs . . . and older, as well as younger, people . . . and it includes those who have done it once, twice, or three times) do the same !#@% thing all over again . . . and again . . . and again.

This human tendency to repeat error is especially poignant when it involves fathers who have actually won custody of their children, after great struggle. I’ve seen it over and over again. Here’s the story line: father is married to a less-than-ideal mother; divorce ensues; father fights like crazy and wins custody of the kids; father struggles as a single parent, gives up time, gives up the opportunity for much of anything for himself, and after a few years is wiped out; enter a new woman; father, being exhausted and feeling like it’s time he got a little happiness in his own life, is swept away and in a very short time, marries the new woman; problems ensue. Sometimes, the problems come from the ex-wife. Sometimes, the problems come from the new wife. Sometimes the problems come from the kids, who have found a new reason to get one over on poor old dad. But wherever they come from, they could have been avoided by one simple word. Pause.

That’s right, pause. Just stop. And then stop again. And take your time. Lots and lots of time. You DO deserve some happiness for yourself. Especially if you’ve sacrificed a lot for your kids. But you deserve lasting happiness, not temporary happiness. And the best way to be sure you get it in a new relationship is to take plenty of time before diving into a new relationship.

Start out by living your life for yourself. Find things that interest you, and pursue them, not finding a new mate.

Develop friends. This takes time. If you’re living your life for yourself, exploring things that enhance your mental, emotional and physical well-being, you’ll meet people that have the same goals. Get to know them. Gradually. Very gradually. Don’t get sucked into the trap of thinking that you need someone else in your life to fill a role or a slot. Everything you need is already here. Develop friends who have the same philosophy.

When you move beyond friendship into what feels like romance and attraction, do the same thing. Pause. Take time. Lots of time.

Patience is the first step in avoiding the mud puddle of the Same !#@% Thing. Practice it.