BoomerGirl Diary

Are you getting ready to tie the knot a second or third time?

If so, don't forget to correct the mistakes you made in your prior relationships. Take control of what you did wrong.

None of us like to admit that we behaved badly. None of us like to admit that a divorce was partially our fault.

But if we don't fully own the errors of our past, each of us can turn another marriage upside down.

Plenty of us either marry too young, marry with expectations of unconditional love, or marry to boost our self-esteem problems.

But after Divorce No. 1, most of us pick ourselves up and try again. Without careful thought, however, all of our past mistakes can start to play out again in the exact same ways.

Marriage is a highly complex relationship. Almost any marriage is overloaded with stress from Day One. Eccentric relatives, false hopes, too little money, too much money, ex-spouses, and blended families can all come into the mix.

Before you marry again, or if you're in a second marriage, stop to consider what you need to change about yourself. This way, you can hopefully steer your relationship a little better.

Ask yourself questions along these lines about your first marriage: Did I expect too much of my partner? Did I expect this person to tolerate too many bad habits from me? Did I pay my partner compliments? Did I forget to brag on my mate after the honeymoon period?

Once you've started this review process, ask yourself if your "love" ever turned into "compassion."

Chances are, if your love did not turn into genuine concern for the welfare of your mate, your marriage did not grow properly. You stayed too focused on yourself.

In reviewing your past mistakes, make up questions that you'd advise a friend to ponder. Most of us can image how we'd counsel a friend to review marriage mistakes. We'd tell that person to dig pretty deep.

As you devise questions to review your past marriage, examine your own part in the quarrels and the tension. Try to look at yourself objectively from your ex-spouse's point of view.

"I was a nagging perfectionist," says a friend of ours we'll call Fred. "I wanted my first wife to look like a beauty queen and cook like a French chef. I was always asking too much of her. One day, she ran off with the UPS delivery man."

Fred says he thought his nagging was "helping" his wife understand his needs. Now, 15 years later, Fred knows he must have destroyed his first wife's self-esteem.

"I make 10 times more money than a UPS driver," says Fred. "But, my money couldn't buy love. I hear a lot of people literally dissecting their mates out in public. I cringe because I remember how screwed up I used to be."

A minister we'll call George says he can predict divorce in second marriages during counseling sessions. Second go-round lovebirds are going to mess up another marriage when they place all blame on their ex-spouses, according to George.

"If they can't see their own mistakes or how they contributed to the divorce, they haven't grown," George emphasizes. "They are going to wind up back in divorce court."

George tells an interesting story about a man who called his first wife all sorts of names. "He was bad-mouthing his ex-wife in a pre-marital counseling while getting ready to marry another woman in his church. This man made me laugh out loud," declares George. "He used terms for his first wife you'd only use in bad fiction in a porn magazine."

George says he helped the man take a look at his past mistakes. "We talked for over six hours one Saturday, just the two of us," says George. "The man finally admitted that he withheld compliments, love, money, and cooperation in any way he could from his first wife."

George goes on to say, "The man wanted to punish his former wife because she refused to have his mother live with them. His mother, incidentally, was addicted to cocaine."

When it dawned on him that his former wife didn't deserve his bad treatment, he cried, says George. "He just bawled and bawled," George emphasizes, "but when he stopped crying, he knew he had a formula for making his new marriage work. The formula was that he'd better develop compassion for his new spouse and stop trying to force his will upon a woman."

Marriage is a relationship that can easily become overloaded in one week. Months and years of stress piling up can turn love into sheer hate.

Many of us wonder why movie stars marry so often. It's probably because they have the money to pull out of a commitment faster than most of us. Also, they have other willing lovers waiting in the wings to offer a new thrill. Most of us average folks have to hunt for a second or third spouse for years.

However, movie stars who can't face up to their mistakes will wind up like anyone else. They will one day find they are alone, lonely, and confused about why their marriages didn't work.