I’ve taken to the notion that a marriage license should expire after two or three years. Athletes sign three-year deals all the time. Unless it’s an unusual case, Manny Machado and Bryce Harper come to mind, today’s athlete signs brief-term deals and if things are going well after that second year, the owner and the agent talk extension. If both sides cannot work something out, the player has the option to take his services elsewhere while the team has a freed up a tremendous amount of cash to spend on a different ballplayer.
I am not suggesting a pre or postmarital agreement, although, like a good deal of people, I discovered that little tidbit a bit too late.
I am suggesting they draw a legal contract up, unlike the one size fits all model they give you prior to speaking, “I Do” with measurable thresholds. At the end of the contract both parties conduct an evaluation. Should they agree on new terms, go ahead and sign.
However, if there are problems, this is the negotiation phase, and ultimately decided if moving on together is practical.
Let’s be realistic, it’s hard enough to convince the person of your dreams to sign a prenuptial agreement. If you love each other, it is insulting.
We base marriage upon emotion and let’s call it what it is…expensive. In the traditional sense, a man offers a diamond ring to his intended bride, and for the next year they talk about the wedding and how can we not invite my mother’s aunt? Maybe because no one has seen or spoken with her in ten years.
I’m trying to figure out how a woman could say no to a question that comes with an expensive bribe. There was a guy in my neighborhood when I was growing up who people did not like. One day, I saw a friend of mine having lunch with him. Later that day I asked him why. He told me he would be sailing on his parent’s boat this weekend.
Things change when two people marry. Things change when people sign a contract. The sex changes. I am not sure you ever have the “I just got an engagement ring” sex ever again. I wonder, however, if married sex is better or worse than dating sex?
Dating sex to me meant dinner and a movie and a walk and the possibility and if it happened, then what?
Married sex can be common. We see each other every night. It becomes commonplace and worse; you want it and she doesn’t. Nothing says, “Let’s kick the guy in the old male libido than what’s wrong with you, I said no.”
With a contract in place, you can talk about sexual desires and discuss what pleases you.
And it’s not just affection to be considered. Housekeeping, finances, childcare, etc. At the end of the two years, the couple can renew their agreement, adjust its terms, or dissolve their marriage.
I know what you’re thinking. Steve’s divorced and got screwed.
In the first place, I was divorced after nineteen years and two sons. In the second place, I was totally screwed. I was not young the day I walked down the aisle with my Best Man. I was thirty-five and never married.
There was nothing logical about my marriage and considering that marriage is the biggest step you take in your life, there should be some logic associated with the person who will be the closest person in the world to you.
I had no prenup and by the time her attorney was finished ripping out my genitals through my wallet; I thought that maybe if we had done this seventeen years earlier, I never would have met her attorney, Satan’s brother.
All I’m saying is that longevity alone shouldn’t be the marker of a happy, healthy marriage.
Instead of staying in a marriage ‘until death do us part’, short-term marriage contracts would allow partners to tweak their marital contract accordingly or agree that it’s beyond tweaking and end it without the drama of an ugly divorce or lingering doubts about what went wrong. We move on with what we took into the marriage and split everything else acquired.
Am I bitter? Yes. But we should allow practicality.
Never be afraid to start over. It’s a chance to rebuild your life the way you wanted all along.
So maybe we will never get to the three-year agreement with an option for a fourth, but I remember what a wonderful friend said to me recently.
“It’s wonderful how we can celebrate the sanctity of our third marriage with a prenuptial agreement that already sets the terms for the divorce.”