Watch How a Man Treats His Mother
The relationship advice every young girl needs to hear.
One day I am chatting with a friend.
“How did you end up with such a good man?” I ask.
“That’s easy,” she says. “My mom told me always watch the way a man treats his mother.”
I’m struck by the clarity of her words.
So simple but so telling.
Unfortunately, these words are finding me decades too late.
To be fair, had they found me in my twenties, I’m not sure I had the maturity or knowledge to recognize what I should be looking for.
I think I would have focused on their immediate interactions. I never saw my husband be disrespectful to his mother nor did I ever see them argue. To a girl from a big Irish Catholic family, the absence of commotion seemed enough to confirm a perfect relationship.
I would have been wildly unaware of the bigger ‘relationship’ picture.
There was actually an absence of a relationship.
My husband ignored his mother just as he would one day ignore me.
They lacked the type of emotional intimacy that caused my big family the occasional brouhaha. The kinda connection that makes you care enough to…
