Mr. Always Right

On New Year’s Eve I met the only man I ever wanted to marry. We have the same likes and dislikes, his family loves me, mine loves him, and he wants to marry me. Still, he finds ways to make me feel I may not be the perfect girl for him (like a knock-down drag-out fight where he smashed my phone and iPod against the wall because I’d kissed his best friend before he and I met). Also, he doesn’t want me being some big career-minded woman (what he initially claimed to love about me). I just got my dream job, which requires overtime and travel. He’s pushing me to go for something less demanding so I can be home to cook him dinner and care for the kids (which I do want…someday). He reminds me that his mother quit being a lawyer to help his father run his restaurant and so they could have “a beautiful life together and two adorable kids.” How much is too much to sacrifice for love?

—Conflicted

“How much is too much to sacrifice for love?” Well, when you actually have love in your life, write back and I’ll let you know. In the meantime, just wondering, when your boyfriend turned your iPod into a $400 doorstop, was it playing your song?

Now, no man does cartwheels upon hearing the news that his woman once kissed his best friend, but whatever happened to good old-fashioned sullen, passive-aggressive pouting? Here you are, so hypnotized by the call of the aisle that you can’t be bothered to parse exactly what the guy’s saying to you: “How dare you not invent a time machine, go back to the moment before you kissed my friend Biffy, and knee him in the groin instead?!”

Yes, your boyfriend was smashing your stuff against the wall because you failed to break the laws of physics to time travel on his behalf. If this doesn’t scream “Get out!” what does? But, don’t just take my word for it. Put in a free call to the National Domestic Violence Hotline (ndvh.org), 1-800-799-SAFE, and let them explain the difference between domestic violence and domestic bliss; preferably before Mr. Wonderful tires of practicing his fastball with your portable electronics and starts playing tetherball with your head.

Of course, you should have been outta there long before this—like, the day he suggested you revise your dreams to bring them into compliance with his: “I know! You can sell Tupperware so you can be closer to the stove. In fact, why don’t we just chain you to the stove?” Just what you need—a guy who finds out what makes you happy, then pushes you to stop doing it. As for how well giving up lawyering worked out for his mother, maybe she was ready to drop-kick the law to count out catsup packets, or maybe she wakes up every morning regretting that she did.

Sure, at a certain age, “Someday my prince will come!” starts to wear on a girl, and it becomes tempting to flop a crown on any guy who’s heterosexual, still breathing, and isn’t doing 20-to-life for armed robbery (for seven-to-10 there might be wiggle room). Understandable as this is, pronouncing a guy “the only man I ever wanted to marry” makes you prone to weed out any inconvenient facts that suggest marrying him is about the dumbest thing you could do. Giving up what makes you happy will never make you happy, but giving up the guy who wants you to might do the trick; ideally, before he gets you pregnant so you’ll be too fat to run away.

Cull Of The Wild

I’m a girl just out of a long relationship I never should’ve been in, and I want to find a better match. What’s the one thing I should look for in a potential significant other?

—Always Sucked In

If you have to narrow it down to just one thing, I’d say go for a guy whose previous girlfriends aren’t lying around in pieces in garbage bags in his basement. But, in general, knowing what works for you takes knowing who you are, and forgive me if I find that difficult from a two-sentence e-mail. Once you figure out who you are, figure out what you value, then come up with a list of “man minimums”—the qualities in a partner you can’t live without. But, when you meet somebody who you think fits the bill, don’t just dwell on the positives, as nobody ever broke up with anybody for being too rich, charming, or too acrobatic in bed. Accordingly, ignore those who advise you to be “open-minded”; in other words, to relax your standards until the honeymoon hormones wear off, and you gaze across the breakfast table wondering why there’s no death penalty for people who chew like farm animals.