Divorce Balance

Negotiation > Recovery > Enhancement

Saturday, January 8, 2005
When Not to Say "I Do"

One of the first questions I routinely ask any new client is:  "How did the two of you meet?"

Tell me that, the timeline of your courtship, and a bit about your wedding day. Right there and then we're already a good piece down the road to unpacking the issues that brought you through my door. The one marked by the word "divorce" on its nameplate.

Among the most fascinating responders are women who tell me how they had to overcome an almost all-consuming instinct to run for the hills on their days of nuptial promise. This was at the very moment, in fact, that they were preparing to walk down an aisle that climaxed with the utterance of the words, "I do."

Ostensibly, 'til death do us part.

And their stories don't sound like revisionist history, either — the sort of "retroactive nullification" of a marriage that Joseph Hopper, University of Chicago, details in research unlocking "The Symbolic Origins of Conflict in Divorce."

The women I'm hearing from share rich details that include the smell of bouquet flowers, the feel of intricately fitted chiffon wedding gowns. Organ music pervades, punctuated by the intermittent, deep popping sounds of a professional photographer's strobe.

Against this, approaching their grooms, the words "this is a mistake" taunt in their heads, over and again. They keep time with each step after step — to the end.

It's the antithesis of progress.

"In ancient times, men didn't bother with a first date or even a marriage proposal," a supplement to The Saline Reporter reminded us last fall. "A young man with wedded bliss on his mind typically abducted the woman of his choice and held her captive in a secret location. A groom would be entitled to keep his bride if he prevented her from escaping him for an entire 'moon' or lunar cycle."

Here in the twenty-first century, I've found that the secret locations that hold us captive tend to be a lot less obvious.  If only they were: At least then we'd be released from them by the next werewolf call.

What might be holding you hostage?

If marriage is merely a vehicle for desperate escape, consider adapting the equally oblique remedies offered by The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Dating & Sex. See particularly, "How to Stop a Wedding."

• Tip #5: "If you do not have the courage to speak up during the ceremony, feign illness."

• Tip #6: "Pull the fire alarm."

• Tip #8: "... try to prevent the marriage from being consummated."

I'm serious.

Folks go to a divorce lawyer to pursue fresh starts. Unfortunately, no divorce law can ever completely return a bridal dress to the fashionable status it held before you walked that walk, swallowed hard, and said, "I do."

Marriage vows shouldn't serve merely as a way to substitute one captivity for another. In the end, it too often becomes a tearful path to my door.

Sometimes it's more courageous and less expensive to say, "I don't."

—posted by Dell Deaton @10:39 PM EST 1/8/2005 [500]

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