>>But, because we aren't forced to stay together, we're just together because we're happier together than we are alone, it's going great so far.

Funny that, Amy:)
I check under the marital bed every morning for the tiny official apparently crouching there and "forcing" me to stay with my husband.

And after 22 fun-filled years of co-habitation, I still haven't spotted him.

Jody, you won't know he's there until he says "Ni!" o.O

Well, there's another adaptation - looking on the bright side in personal circumstances. I suggest that you'd be happy regardless. Your promise is with each other.

As for the licensing: again, the State has a vested interest in your household's doings, and has since it was the Tribe looking on. If you want a real nightmare for your offspring, or for society in general, just consider the elimination of inheritance.

We're already going that way. Might as well make it official.

Marriage isn't the problem. It's who we pick that's the problem (don't bite me about the "we" Crid).

P.S: there was a Dear Margo from today that I commented on (click my name) that supports this idea. An idea that's definitely been discussed here before.

While I'm against marriage licenses in actuality, the theory is brilliant.

>>Jody, you won't know he's there until he says "Ni!"

Flynne,
Terrible confession, I'm one of the 0.0001% who saw Spamalot on Broadway and genuinely laughed...

"John Cleese Finally Listens To Me"

While you've got his ear, tell him to get back together with his buddies and make a sequel to "Meaning of Life," please. Thanks in advance.

Jody,
I actually laughed rather heartily when I saw Spamalot, as did quite a bit of the audience. But I suppose since it was Off-Broadway, our crowd was slightly less discriminating (snobbish). :)

To All,
Happy Halloween/All Hallows Eve/Mug People for Candy/etc!

This is a great idea, but it'll never happen. Society isn't going to make it easier for us to get out of miserable marriages when it has so much at stake keeping us in them.

Why would we want to take advice from a double failure on his third try?

I support counselling before marriage, but I know in my case that nothing would have dissuaded me from marrying my wife. The license was just another piece of paperwork. (As a guy who was in the military marrying a foreign national, overseas, in the Catholic Church, trust me, I know paperwork. In triplicate. With translations.) It was and still is the best thing I ever did. So why do you want to annoy me with more paperwork?

MarkD, thanks for the reminder!

Because yours is the exception, and everybody thinks their situation is the expection, and everybody has a solution that others are sure won't work and nobody wants anybody to slip out of a promise because it's "inconvenient" or something...

You were in the service. Thank you, from the EPCP of USS Batfish, now scrapped. I am delighted by your success. Not everybody gets there. Let me tell you about a guy I'll call "Chuck".

This guy met the girl of his dreams in the Naval base barracks - at 3 AM. A week later, he put in for Special Liberty to get married. The "chit", a small form, has the sailor's ID and what he wants to do on it, and it gets routed up the chain so everybody knows this vital piece of seagoing equipment is going to do something different from staying on the ship, where he would be safe doing his duty.

"Chuck" wanted to get married.

His Chief, learning who it was, yelled, "Oh, Hayell, No!" and disapproved it. This meant it had to go up the line all the way to the Captain. At each stage - Division Officer, Department Head, XO - it was explained who the hapless sailor's intended was, and another "Disapproved" appeared on the chit.

In the CO's stateroom gathered everybody in the chain. The Captain wondered, "Why are we trying to tell this sailor he can't get married?"
So the Chief puts a finger up, says, "Can you hang on a second, Skipper?" and steps out. He drags a shipyard worker into the room, and says, "Hey, umm, Robert, this is the Captain, and we have a question. If you had ten dollars and you had to get a little strange tonight, who would you call?"

So Robert says, "That's easy, man," - and calls her by name!

"Chuck" went ahead and took leave, instead of liberty, and married her anyway. And she proceeded to make him and us miserable. Him because he hated people knowing who she was, us because a distracted sailor is worse than no sailor at all. It's been 20 years. I hope he finally worked everything out, honestly having no idea. I really hope she didn't do him further wrong.

The short story is that a renewable license would allow people to tone down on the righteous vengeance, recognize that it takes TWO people to keep a promise and let people go on with their lives with less encumbrance. Paperwork goes up - well, this could be done on-line, and probate might go 'way down - but misery could go down, too. "Chuck", if things were horrible, might not owe half his pension to a ten-dollar ho.

As with seniority at work - you don't automatically become a better person repeating the same tasks year after year.

I mean... Scott Adams says that opposites do, indeed, attract, and that if people say your partner is really nice, chances are you're a colossal PITA. [grin] Imagine poor Gregg having to live with Amy 24/7! [/grin]

So Amy, how does this work with your views that parents shold stay together just whether or not they're happy? Only non-parenting marrieds get to non-renew? Parents who separate through non-renewal are somehow less crappy than parents who separate through divorce?

Why would people not planning to procreate marry? You can live together without it. You can have rights of inheritance and hospital visits without it. All it takes is, again, a little paperwork (one reason I have no idea why gays bleat about "spousal rights" when wanting marriage. They can have those easily now with a few pieces of paper and a pen)

I am all for making it harder to get married. Not so much for making it easier to end. Shouldn't you make your choice before you say I do?

I don't know about that. Can you imagine going down to the DMV and standing in line three hours to renew your marriage license? County courthouses would rapidly become the #1 cause of divorce in America!

> (don't bite me about the "we"

Well, that's a different "we." You really mean to put the focus on individual responsibility.

Besides, you're right.

> Why would we want to take advice
> from a double failure on his
> third try?

Yeah.

> you need to set up the situation
> that's optimal for them, which
> does not involve flitting off

Yeah, but imagine being a six-year-old riding the bus with his/her parents as they fill out another five year renewable. "Whaddya mean we have to come back in a few years?"

Does this mean I get new silverware and china every 5 years?

OK, I'm going to let Amy's 'marrying myself' comment stand on it's own. But I would attend and bring a gift.

On the marriage thing, I was a non-marriage type from the beginning, actually from about college when my girlfriend moved away. Not until years later when we met again did the idea of marriage cross my mind, and regretfully I did it. So much for first love; her first love is now a hefty hispanic woman named Marceilla that shares a cell with her in state prison in Texas.

So while she works for the state of Texas, I am out here raising my son. My responsibility, and I'm not complaining. But the thing is, while I said I would never get married again, I am actually thinking about it (I said thinking, not doing). Like Amy said, the best environment to raise a child should be considered. Of course this leads to an additional problem, if this gal and I decide to get married (she's divorced, 41, no kids), a consideration of more kids is already on the table.

So maybe hell will freeze over and I'll do it again. But I assure you, it will not be without serious thought from all the levels and angles possible.

And to Gretchen on the Dear Margo: That woman screwed up. I'm going to go comment further on your blog: some friends of us here in TX like 'Margo', although she's not as tough as Amy, she is usually on target.

And John Cleese is the man. My hovercraft is full of eels.

My dad remarried. First marriage, to my mom, ended (rather predicatably, eh Amy) when the baby went to college. Dad was bitter, whoever's fault it is the marraige ended tends to be the bitter one towards the ex, I've noticed. He was a cad the whole marraige. Told my older brother, a lawyer, to stop him if he ever tried to do it again, or at least write a prenump. Well guess what? 2 years later, married again, with no prenump. Why? She had as good a job and retirement as he did. Uh, but where did she work? Enron! Now, he's unhappy, married to a shrew with nothing, and stuck, since he doesn't want to let go of half of his half, and doesn't want to work till death.

I came into this, my second marriage (first no kids) with nothing but debt, and got a prenump. So careful Sterling! Think wisely!