QUESTION:

I am 21 years old and for nearly five years have been keeping company with a young man three years older than I. For the past two years he has been talking marriage and recently threatened to break up with me because I have not been wiling to set a date for the wedding. My friends think I am stupid for delaying so long. The thing that bothers me is that my friend is extremely jealous of me. Actually, he does not trust me, and has even believed false rumors that I have dated someone else in another town. Do you think I should go ahead with marriage plans when his jealousy nature causes me so much concern? His mother, of whom he is very fond, keeps telling him that girls nowadays have to be watched closely because they are not so modest and dependable as the girls of her generation. Once, when I told him that his mother should stay out of our affairs, he slapped my face and would not see me again for a week. What shall I do?

ANSWER:

True love has a strain of jealousy in it, but in the instance of your friend there is the additional factor of mistrust. Don’t ever go into marriage with a man who does not have full confidence in your integrity. I see no prospect for a happy home where there is not mutuality of respect and faith. If you plan to live with a man who always demands of you detailed information about every move you make out of his presence, you may as well expect an endless series of disagreeable experiences in which love cannot thrive. It is way past time for you to break your engagement to this young man. Send him back to his mother!