Advice to the Loveworn

In its ideal state, marriage is a moral as well as a legal relationship between a man and a woman, based on mutual love, trust, cooperation and respect. It is also necessary to have patience tempered with a lack of selfishness.

Divorce is a severance of the marriage relationship which occurs when one or both partners lose interest in making it work. Divorce has gotten so common over the last 25 years that 25 percent of children under 18 live with only one parent. Forty years ago, that figure was less than 10 percent.

I bring these things up because of society's developed interest in the "pre-nuptial" contract. That is an agreement signed by parties to an impending marriage that seeks to cover any or all disagreements that might arise, like who gets the dog in case of divorce, what kind of car to buy, who controls the family checkbook, etc. Some people are trying to cover every possible contingency that might arise, from what side of the bed they get to sleep on to who decides about moving to a different town. Intelligent attorneys try to discourage this kind of foolishness.

A lawyer back east refused to write up a contract wherein a future divorce would automatically grant the husband custody of one child, based on a "pick of the litter" concept.

I feel that pre-nuptial contracts are either a conscious or subconscious admission of negative vibes and an obvious first step toward guaranteeing a marriage failure. If you cannot enter into a relationship as important as marriage without reservations or conditions, then I contend… you shouldn't do it. An obvious exception is a second marriage between older couples where one or both have children from a former marriage and have acquired goodly assets; but, there should still be every effort made by the contracting parties to be completely open and honest with each other. Otherwise they, too, are asking for failure.

There probably is no such thing as a "good divorce," but there are now some where the couples at least hide their anger and bitterness long enough to act responsibly in settling property and child custody issues. A few years ago when the concept of a "friendly divorce" first surfaced, one fellow was asked what that meant. He said, "My friendly divorce meant that I got to keep anything that fell off the truck as she drove away."

The premarital or pre-nuptial contract was not known by the common man when First Wife Iris and I got hitched, so last week I kiddingly asked her if she'd like to draw up such an agreement as a "better late than never deal." Iris thought it over for several days then gave me a basic outline. Under her proposal I would be required, "…To always throw my dirty clothes in a corner of the bedroom, not shovel the walks or cut the grass until at least three days of nagging, try to dominate conversations and win all arguments, buy a lot of dumb things we don't need, sleep through at least eight hours of TV sports every Sunday," and so forth.

I looked over her long list of proposals then asked, "Honey! I made you the marital contract offer on a really serious basis. Why in heaven's name did you come up with all these silly little things?"

She replied, "Because those are the 'silly little things' I have adjusted to over the last 49 years, and I am now too deeply adapted to make the extreme changes required for living with an ideal, well-trained husband."

Luckily, I knew Iris was just joking so I forgave her for making up that stuff. It is probably this quickness to forgive — coupled with my fine sense of humor, and a rare kind of modesty — that has kept our marriage going for so long.

I especially hope young people reading this column have learned something important about successfully sharing their life with another.

G. George Ostrom is the news director of KOFI radio and a Hungry Horse News columnist.