Good advice is hard to find.

A friend recently recounted a conversation he had with another man whose parents, aged 78 and 80 and married for more than 40 years, had just announced that they were getting a divorce. Shocked, my friend asked, "But why?" "Well, you know," the man replied, "they never did get along."

A true story, one redolent with black humor that, while certainly extreme, may offer a perceptive commentary on marriage in our times, even though "going along to get along" was far more typical in years past. Our times might be described as "the age of the short fuse" in marriage.

For years now one of the women's magazines, Ladies Home Journal, has run a monthly feature that is eagerly awaited by its readers. Called "Can This Marriage Be Saved?", it recounts a case history of a particular troubled marriage. After detailing the friction points in the marriage with some testimony from the couple involved, the article's editor calls on "marriage experts" to diagnose the situation and offer prognosis. Rarely does the counselor's considered judgment necessitate changing the feature's title to "Is This Marriage Worth Bothering About?"

The growth of the marriage advice industry in the United States (and probably in many other countries) is a story in itself. Originally it was a modest program to prepare inexperienced, often innocent couples for the great encounter, and once "hitched"--to sensitize them to the delicate task of getting to really know one another.

The Catholic Cana and pre-Cana programs have been such an effort. With the help of one or more married couples, a priest, and sometimes a doctor, these programs have often been helpful in leading young women and men down the marital primrose path without their being impaled on its thorns.

Today's rules in many, if not most, U.S. Catholic dioceses, requiring couples who wish to celebrate their marriages in the church to undergo a number of months of marriage preparation, are more controversial. On chancery-office paper these rules would seem to be worthwhile. Granted there are things about building a solid marriage that most young people don't know. And it's not surprising to hear some scoff, erroneously or not, that couples are "a hell of a lot better prepared" than their new teachers realize. If these latter attend the prescribed marriage-preparation classes at all, they go grudgingly. Has anyone considered making a more persuasive argument for the usefulness of this preparation and allowing attendance at them to be voluntary?

Out in the secular world the marriage advice industry continues to thrive. Pop-psychological advice abounds, and some of it is unquestionably helpful. The redoubtable sisters Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren have, for it seems time immemorial, offered advice that is as available as your daily newspaper. One of the strengths of the advice given by these women to their readers is their commitment to consult experts (or at least specialists) for help with solutions to especially knotty problems. And they are often also wise enough to refer troubled men and women to professional counseling when that seems to be warranted.

Wise, indeed, because when marriages become seriously dysfunctional, well-qualified and experienced professional counselors are desirable when shoot-from-the-hip advice could be disastrous.

Advice of the latter kind is abundant on the seemingly self-multiplying TV talk shows. Again and again on these all-too-public confessionals, poor souls willing to expose themselves in almost any way are grilled by glib hosts and thrown to the mercy of a salivating studio audience and even more salivating callers.

Occasionally these TV orgies will offer the services of a professional marriage advisor, but is anybody listening? Not unless that advisor is the likes of Dr. Ruth offering her silly platitudes.

Our hearts should go out to priests and other clergy who are often confronted with couples or one member of a marital duo and asked, "Father, what should I do?" The wisest of these will probably reply, "Tell me about it"; and some will be sensible enough to do barely more than listen. A comforting word or two and a call for continued prayer would be very much in order, and in some cases may be all that is needed. More deep-seated or even irremediable problems may call for the Ann Landers/Dear Abby wisdom: "I suggest that you seek professional counseling."

But marriage advice ain't easy. For one thing, just as no two people on our planet are identical, no two marriages are identical. Each has its own roses and its own thorns, and even one who with his wife will celebrate 50 years of marriage this month is unwilling to offer marriage advice urbi et orbi (to the city and world), as we say about the pope.