Two weeks later Carol met Carl, who is thirty-two twelve years her senior and has been married twice before. Carol s parents are evangelical Christians and are against her marrying Carl, to whom she became engaged six weeks after they met. Carol has been raised in a Christian home, whereas Carl, although baptized as an infant, has not involved himself with a church since he was a child. Carol s parents want her to go to college and are also concerned that Carl is a high-school dropout. Fred and Alice have been married for three years and find that they are arguing more and more.
Communication seems to have completely broken down.
As Alice describes it, they seem to talk at each other rather than to each other. They both feel that they love each other, and they both want their marriage to work. Ralph and Edith have been married for twenty-three years and have two children, the youngest of whom will be leaving for college in a couple of months. Their other child is married. Ralph suffered a mild heart attack last year, and his doctor has restricted his activities so that he had to turn down a job offer with another firm that would have meant a major advance in his career.