MARRIAGE

Marriage:  A joyful union of man and woman in which they grow a blissful family garden of new humans called children while providing mutual emotional and financial support.  It is the least defined legal contract imaginable.  There doesn't seem to be any mutual nullification possible, aside from a suicide pact, only divorce which is no easy out for either party.  As penalty for marital failure, divorce rewards lawyers, who are Taliban trained pickpockets having no other interest in the whole matter.

Husband's Biker Grandparents in the Late 1800's

After 40 or 50 years have ground away at them, married people morph into the people we all recognize as "happily married" or at least "still married."  There are the "go your own way" folks, who are never seen together; the "never apart" people, who seem to be required to hold hands and make a big show of their couple-ness; and the "happily bickering" people, whose life is one long sparring match of love.  Most of us are some combination of those fossil remains of romantic love.

My Parents in Love

I Don't Know Who Those People Are

Same sex couples are seeking to share in the dubious legal entanglement, and its blessings and pitfalls, in order to access rights given heterosexual couples, and that is understandable.  At the same time, the fundamental bad construction of the marriage agreement will continue to disappoint two people, who each have different expectations.  Would that I had known Husband's idea of "wife" was one who kissed him goodbye in the morning, cooked his meals, washed and ironed his clothes, and packed his lunch for trips on the road with his best friend.  I didn't.  Would that Husband had known I wanted to be part of a couple, who did things together and engaged in something called conversation, aside from "Where's my ___?; Did you wash my __?; Did you pack my __"?  Slowly the chasms of unfulfilled expectations filled in with inert matter:  the things I substituted for companionship and the things he substituted for text-book housekeeper and valet.

Happy Fish-Free Mother's Day

I do believe that same sex couples have advantage in their more intimate understanding of their respective minds.  The one thing I know a man can not do is understand the reasoning of a woman.  Instead of being perplexed when the wife gets angry that you went fishing with buddies on her birthday, anniversary, or Mother's Day, a lesbian partner would know that road without a map.  This is enviable.  The thing a woman can not do is understand why a man will wear a T-shirt that says "Kiss me, I have crabs."  Gentlemen lovers would consider the coarse humor as heightening a rollicking good maritime adventure.  Ahoy mates!