Top 20 Ways to Mess Up a Marriage

Top 20 Ways To Mess Up A Marriage: 

1. Have Premarital Sex - This can be with your future spouse or not. Regardless, the statistics show that it means a much higher chance of a failed marriage. 
2. Cohabitate - This doubles your chance of divorcing your spouse! Go with this one if you almost certainly want to mess up a marriage. 
3. Use contraception - kids are a burden that make life miserable. Why take the risk? Of course couples that use NFP are happier, have better sex-lives, and stay married more than 95% of the time.  And, by the way, not too long ago the World Health Organization categorized the 'pill' as a Class I carcinogen, right up there with cigarettes!  Read more about it here. 
4. Cheat on your spouse - Nothing rings the death knell of marriage like this one.
5. Use porn - only the fastest growing reasons couples divorce today. Duh!
6. Drink too much or use drugs - This one is a great way to love a thing more than your spouse. 
7. Marry for the wrong reasons - Marrying someone merely because you have strong emotions about them (which will eventually go away) or because they are good looking (which won't last) is a great way to eventually ruin a marriage. Attraction is all that matters.
8. Never Work on Communication - talking is over-rated. You should just learn to tolerate one another, not really communicate. 
9. Be a Workaholic - being rich and successful is the most important thing on earth. Right? 
10. Be selfish - expect your spouse to serve your every need and never expect to return the favor. 
11. Have Different expectations about money or debt - Spend too much, live beyond your means, and then pay the price. Money is the #1 reason that couples argue. 
12. Don't tithe - The money is your own, do what you want with it. 
13. Talk negatively about your spouse - who needs to be built up anyway? 
14. Make big purchases without talking about it first - want that new car? Go get it! 
15. Spend more time with your friends than your spouse - they are probably more fun anyway. 
16. Never let love mature - let your love remain all about the emotions and sex (neither are bad in-and-of-themselves) so that love never matures.
17. Never go to church or pray together - marriage doesn't need God. Does it?
18. Once you have kids focus all your attention on them - you shouldn't still work on the marriage, because the kids are most important.
19. Marry a non-Christian - There are certainly marriages that succeed between believers and non-believers, but the least you are doing is putting a strain on a relationship. 
20. Never grow or change - no need to say you are sorry, no need to humble yourself, no need to make changes. Just stay who you are.

This list is not exhaustive. You could be inventive and come up with another way to mess up a marriage. If you have one, let us know.

(Adapted from Texas A&M Aggie Catholics Blog Site)

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Texas A&M University, based in College Station, Texas, has a very large, active, and well-organized Catholic campus ministry, St. Mary’s Catholic Center at Texas A&M University.  In conjunction with the school’s heritage as once an agricultural and mechanical school, its sports teams are called the “Aggies;” hence the blog “Mary’s Aggies.” 

St. Mary’s Catholic Center, an actual parish instituted by the Diocese of Austin to serve the needs of the large Catholic presence at A&M (total enrollment over 53,300, with a Catholic population around 25%), is headed full-time by three priests, four deacons, three religious sisters, and some fourteen lay staff, with regular help from an additional two priests.  Portions of this data are also reflected in a 2009 pastoral letter from the USCCB, entitled Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan.