Attention Newlywed Men

Hello, Gentlemen.

June is wedding season. Did you just get married?

Are you already regretting it?

Maybe you think it is the best thing you've ever done. Yeah, that's what you think for now.

Especially if you do not have children with this woman, you need to keep something in mind. How much alimony you'll have to pay her often depends on how long the marriage continues. For example, there are states that say if you were married for six years, you have to pay alimony for three years. Eight years of marriage means four years of alimony. In states like California, ten years of marriage can mean lifetime alimony.

So, the clock is ticking.

Don't let embarrassment, or thinking of it as "failure" or "quitting" if you get out now, or the sunk costs (how much you spent on the wedding, honeymoon, etc.) stop you from getting out sooner rather than later. It would be better to be free, and free sooner, than live a life of quiet misery, get stuck with years and years of alimony, and spend far more money on things she wants as the years ago by.

Things aren't going to get any better than they are now. Likely, they will get worse. People say things got better over time are usually saying that they stopped caring about what they needed, wanted, and their dreams, and developed tolerance to the misery. Guys often forget what freedom was like. Don't let that happen to you!

If you don't have children with her, do not get her pregnant if you're having doubts that marrying her was a good idea.

Much of the advice in this post applies to how to get out. But you definitely need to consult with a family law attorney, since you signed a state legal document (most likely).

Cancelling the Wedding

If you're scheduled to be the groom in a wedding within a few months, a week, even later today, you can still cancel it, and you probably should.


EMERGENCY - If the wedding is today, tomorrow, or days away, you can still cancel it.

If this is the day of the wedding or the day/evening before, inform her privately (take a reliable witness, just in case, like the officiating pastor) or send someone to do it. Inform the officiant.

If this is the day of the wedding, have someone apologize to the guests.

[This is assuming you don't have children with her. If you do, you really don't want to start a war with her.]

For more about what you need to do, see further below.

Will cancelling the wedding be a mess?

Yes, it will be a mess, and the closer to the wedding the more of a mess it will be, but it's far better than being married, especially being married and then divorced. For most men, there is nothing wrong with cancelling the wedding; it's usually the best thing to do in the situation you're in. You can do it. And most likely, you should.

The pain, the mess, the effort, the costs, the losses of cancelling a wedding pale in comparison to the downsides of marrying, even more so marrying and divorcing.

Do not fall into the trap of thinking "Well, we live together already and/or we have all of these plans and shared things." If you marry, it will be the last significant decision over your own life you'll be able to make in peace until she divorces you or you decide to divorce. If you marry her, all power you have (other than to divorce, which will be very expensive and destructive) shifts to her.

You are better off free, and if we believe all women, she is, too.

So here is what you need to do:

1. Accept that your relationship with your fiancee is over. Accept that there are people who know both of you who will drop you (this may include having to leave your religious congregation or other shared activities or groups). Accept that this might feel embarrassing. Reject any notion that this is a failure. Letting it go further would be a failure. Divorce is common. You're avoiding years of misery in marriage and then a divorce.

2. Be strategic about what you do when. For example, if the wedding is still six months away and you're living together and sharing some accounts, you've got a little time to do this, and you need to do as much as you can to dis-entangle yourself from her and protect yourself and your assets before she realizes you're cancelling the wedding. Once she knows, you might need to have a reliable witness with you whenever you interact with her. Document/record/get copies of everything that matters: paperwork, conversations, whatever might become an issue.

3. If you two have obtained a marriage license from the county/state, at some point you should destroy that so there's no chance it gets signed and filed.

4. If things have been paid for and finalized, you should cancel with anyone or any venue or business with which you have the power to do so. If you or your parent were the one paying, you should have that power. That might involve the wedding coordinator, rehearsal dinner restaurant, tuxes (and bridesmaid dresses, depending), florists, photographers, DJ/sound, musicians, cake bakers/decorators, officiant, church/wedding venue, reception venue, caterers, honeymoon travel and accommodations, even bachelorette party stuff. You may lose money, especially on deposits, but it is a small price to pay to save money over the coming years and retain your freedom. Don't fall for the "sunk costs" mentality of saying you don't want the money to go to waste. Getting married would result in exponentially more wasted money. If you still want to do what would have been your bachelor party, rehearsal dinner, reception, etc. that's up to you, if you're the one who put in the money. Those can be turned into a celebration of your freedom. (Having the contact information of everyone involved, including invited/RSVP'd guests, is helpful.)

5. It'll be best if you have some trustworthy people who have your back and can be your witnesses, and it will be helpful if those include both men and women. Have them help you move what you need out of your shared residence (if you're sharing one). Consult a lawyer if you need to about any entanglements you have with your fiancee, especially if it is YOUR residence you are sharing (the lawyer might tell you NOT to move out, in such a case). If you need to temporarily go somewhere else for your safety (and to avoid confrontations with her/her family that could end up with police getting involved and/or false allegations) consider a friend's place or a hotel, but it has to be kept secret.

Although few may say it, most people will understand, and most of them will think you made the right decision. Of course SHE and her family and friends are likely to be upset with you, especially at first. Unless they already control your life, it shouldn't matter, because you're going to be avoiding them.
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Rather than repeat myself about everything else, see this link and follow the the links at that post, too.

Guys, even if the wedding date is set, even if the plans have been finalized and payments made, the guests attending verified, even if the wedding is tomorrow or later today, you can still back out, and you probably should. Be sure to consider your safety, whether physical, financial, reputational, or emotional.

You need to be thinking about what is best for you. Nobody else is.

Weddings Are Highly Visible But Marriage Isn't A Wedding

Weddings are highly visible. They are often prominent in both fictional media and "reality" media, including news and gossip outlets. They are announced all over, there are save the date notices, formal invites, and thank-yous. There are wedding registries. There are special dresses. There are entire websites/shops dedicated to weddings. There are wedding rings. There are bridal showers, wedding showers, bachelor parties, bachelorette parties, rehearsal dinners, receptions, anniversary celebrations, elaborate proposals, engagement announcements, engagement rings, wedding photographers, wedding planners, cakes and cake tasting, flowers, on and on it goes.

If the people getting married are happy through those things, that's fortunate.

But marriage isn't a wedding.

Here are some of the things about marriage and its aftermath that are hidden or far less visible:

• One spouse having to pick up after another
• The spouse who has/earns more money having to pay for bills generated by the other, especially for things the paying spouse didn't want or couldn't enjoy
• One spouse feeling stifled by the other
• Abandoned dreams
• Alienation from family of origin
• Alienation from friends
  
• Arguments, disputes, conflicts
  
• Cruel words
• Mood swings
  
• Loneliness
• Disappointment 
• One spouse not being able to sleep or relax because of the other
  
• Walking on eggshells
  
• Nagging
• Frustration
• Disrespect
  
• Irritation and annoyance
• Emotional rejection
  
• Sexual rejection
• Boredom and monotony
  
• Affairs
  
• Marriage counseling
• Indifference
  
• Contempt
  
• Visits by law enforcement due to reports of possible domestic violence
• Actual domestic violence
  
• One spouse murdering the other
• One spouse subjecting the other to their substance abuse
• Abandonment
• Physical separation
• Legal separation
• Consulting divorce lawyers
• Paying divorce lawyers
• Court battles over divorce
• Dividing assets
• Ongoing payments, such as alimony
  

What if those things were as visible as weddings? What if people were to tell you and put on their social media "We're going through a really crappy time in our marriage right now" whenever that was the case? Do you think there might be fewer weddings?

There are many people who have an interest, especially a financial interest, in other people getting married. People have been selling marriage. They emphasize the good and keep the bad quiet. Talking about the bad is "tacky" or a "sin" or a "betrayal" or a "negative confession."

But what if reality wasn't hushed up so much?

Reminder: Stay or Get Free

 

With June almost here, I’m issuing this urgent reminder to stay free.

If you aren’t free, but haven’t filed the terrible state contract often called marriage, don’t file or sign it. Get free. Then stay free.

You don’t need to be married.

June is Coming

Wedding season, gentlemen. Maybe you’re scheduled to be the groom.

Maybe a man you care about is scheduled to be a groom.

Maybe a woman you’re "seeing" or "with" is expecting you to be her date for a wedding or weddings.

Obviously, the first situation is the most dire.

Wedding China

I don't know how long it has been a tradition, and I don't know if it is falling out of favor now, but when we got married, my wife put a china set on our gift registry. Having a china cabinet, full of china, is important for some women.

So we have a dedicated cabinet, a china cabinet, full of expensive china.

We've been married "a long time" now. How often do you think we've used that china?

Go ahead. Take a guess.

...

If you guessed ZERO, you are correct.

It just sits in the corner of the room, collecting dust.

I found out after we married that one of my wife's family members told one of my family members people shouldn't bother buying the china for us, because it would never be used. That person was right. The people who spent the money on that could have bought us gifts we actually would have used.

This is just one of many ways modern marriage and wedding culture is impractical.

Avoid it, guys!

Attention Newlywed Men

Hello, Gentlemen.

June is wedding season. Did you just get married?

Are you already regretting it?

Maybe you think it is the best thing you've ever done. Yeah, that's what you think for now.

Especially if you do not have children with this woman, you need to keep something in mind. How much alimony you'll have to pay her often depends on how long the marriage continues. For example, there are states that say if you were married for six years, you have to pay alimony for three years. Eight years of marriage means four years of alimony. In states like California, ten years of marriage can mean lifetime alimony.

So, the clock is ticking.

Don't let embarrassment, or thinking of it as "failure" or "quitting" if you get out now, or the sunk costs (how much you spent on the wedding, honeymoon, etc.) stop you from getting out sooner rather than later. It would be better to be free, and free sooner, than live a life of quiet misery. get stuck with years and years of alimony, and spend far more money on things she wants as the years ago by.

Things aren't going to get any better than they are now. Likely, they will get worse. People say things got better over time are usually saying that they stopped caring about what they needed, wanted, and their dreams, and developed tolerance to the misery. Guys often forget what freedom was like. Don't let that happen to you!

If you don't have children with her, do not get her pregnant if you're having doubts that marrying her was a good idea.

Much of the advice in this post applies to how to get out. But you definitely need to consult with a family law attorney, since you signed a state legal document (most likely).

June Is Here

Wedding season, gentlemen. Maybe you’re scheduled to be the groom.

Maybe a man you care about is scheduled to be a groom.

Maybe a woman you’re "seeing" or "with" is expecting you to be her date for a wedding or weddings.

Obviously, the first situation is the most dire.

An Unique Escape Hatch For Engaged Men

Sir, are you engaged to be married?

The National Emergency and global pandemic we're dealing with right now gives you an unique escape hatch to avoid marriage, especially if your wedding is scheduled and rapidly approaching.

Service providers are shutting down. Venues are closing down. People aren't traveling.

How can you have or even plan a wedding in these circumstances?

Tell your fiancée that the wedding needs to be delayed. Most likely, she will agree, because she wants the big party, and the series of associated parties, and those just can't happen with things like this.

Now, there's a chance she'll say she wants to go to the courthouse or the county office and have a small legal ceremony, and she will probably include that the big formal wedding, or at least reception, can be later.

Try to convince her that it would be best to wait and keep the legal wedding as the same thing as the big ceremony.

Then, while the wedding is "delayed," you can plan your escape. No, you can't keep the relationship. She's going to want to get married.

Desperate situations call for desperate measures.

June Is Coming

Wedding season, gentlemen. Maybe you’re scheduled to be the groom.

Maybe a man you care about is scheduled to be a groom.

Maybe a woman you’re "seeing" or "with" is expecting you to be her date for a wedding or weddings.

Obviously, the first situation is the most dire.

Recent Dear Abby Columns Should Be a Warning Against Marrying

A couple of recent Dear Abby columns caught my eye. You can really learn a lot about why you don't want to get married or have children by reading Dear Abby.

SPOIL ME, PLEASE, IN OHIO wrote:

My husband and I have been happily married for seven years. He recently graduated from his final residency, and after 11 years of post-high school education, he is finally out practicing.

During all those years, I supported us financially.

Awwww, how nice!

Yet Another Lament That Men Don't Want to Marry

Quite often, Townhall.com has some great content spanning "conservative" viewpoints from center-right to libertarian to whatever. Recently, they ran another column lamenting that men don't want to emasculate themselves by marrying. That's not how they put it, but that's basically what it amounts to. This time Jerry Newcombe wrote the piece:

I attended an unusual wedding this past weekend.

You attended a party. What you usually don't see are the pointless and not-so-pointless arguments and all of the bad things that result from a man and woman living together in a Mexican standoff with the state.

Ben Steverman notes in the Drudge-linked article: “The U.S. marriage rate—the number of new marriages per 1,000 people—has been falling for decades….And research firm IbisWorld predicts the marriage rate will keep falling over the next five years.”

Although I wish this was mostly from men refusing to sacrifice themselves on the altar of ungrateful narcissistic gynocentrism, most of it is likely a mere delay. People are getting married later because... they can and they should (if they're going to marry at all). People who are busy trying to get a college degree and/or trying to establish themselves in a career aren't in a good place to be a good spouse.

He adds, “It’s unclear whether the decline of the American wedding is a permanent trend. American millennials lag previous generations on many metrics of adulthood…Maybe most of them will eventually get around to weddings of their own—but then, it’s possible that many never will, and that they’ll bring the U.S. marriage rate closer to Europe’s.”

Metrics of adulthood... so the Pope isn't an adult? People should establish themselves as independent adults. They don't have to marry to do that.

It would be disastrous for this country if we went the route of Europe in being a post-marriage society. The old cliché is still true: As the family goes, so goes society.

Even if I agree, I can't encourage men to enter into such a raw deal. Want more men to marry? Work to stop punishing husbands in law, courts, and culture. Raise women who will be the kind of women who will attract and keep a husband.

What’s happened to marriage in America?

We took away incentives for men to marry, and added risks and obligations to husbands. Men have been slow to catch on, but more and more are.

Hollywood has turned monogamy into monotony.

It wasn't Hollywood that did that. Women who are trying to get a man to sign on the dotted line are often quite different sexually than a woman who has a man trapped.

The irony is that surveys show that those who are married tend to enjoy everything on a much more fulfilling basis. And that includes intimacy.

The surveys are flawed. If a survey doesn't distinguish intentionally unmarried men from the rest of unmarried people, and compare them against married men, it is worthless survey. It's also worthless if there wasn't at least some confidence in being anonymous.

Let's deal with a couple of facts. When you combine:
...marriages that divorce
...marriages that don't legally divorce but more or less end before death with emotional, physical and/or legal separation
...marriages that end with suicide or murder-suicide
...marriages that have significant periods of misery related to or based on these two people being legally/socially tied together and/or living together

Then MOST marriages are not happy, lasting marriages. MOST. Does it make sense to you rearrange your entire life and to wager half of your wealth on something that is more likely to fail than succeed?

“Living in sin” (as cohabiting used to be called) has lost its stigma—but most such couples don’t seem to realize that, statistically, living in sin prepares you for divorce more than it does for a happy marriage.

Yes, but why is that? I used to blindly buy into the idea that they had doomed their marriage by shacking up, and I maintain that shacking up is a a terrible idea (almost as bad as legally marrying). But the reality of the situation isn't so simple. Among the reasons is that some people who shack up should never have married in the first place, but they do because they're already living together. They marry because they think it will fix things, because we keep saying that marriage is some sort of magic tonic, or the woman is told that if the relationship doesn't end in marriage, she's been "used" or "wasted her time" even though she was getting something out of the relationship the entire time. It is also likely that the kind of people who shack up are more willing to leave a bad marriage than spend the rest of their lives being miserable in it. There are other reasons, but the one that fits with what this guy and others like him are saying is that, in some cases, people establish patterns in shacking up as unmarried individuals that carry over into the marriage, where they are supposed to be united, to the detriment of the marriage.

Although millions profess Christian belief, too many compartmentalize their lives and fail to live by Christian standards, i.e., no sex outside of traditional marriage.

I really have to wonder where exactly this comes from. What, precisely, does he mean by sex? Words or phrases translated "sexual immorality" in our English Bibles are not clear enough, obviously, because some people say it includes making kissing off-limits. Intercourse was more of a problem before there was contraception and before there were DNA tests. The Old Testament seems to be focused on intercourse. I know what churches have taught, but how much of it is explicitly taught in the Bible? I'm not arguing that PIV is the only thing the Bible teaches against or that everything else is OK. Clearly, giving each other orgasms causes people (especially women) to bond, and that is problematic if you shouldn't be with the person to whom you're bonding. But I really don't think the Bible is as clear as so many of my fellow religious conservatives would think.

Government tax policies, especially in the example of welfare, have subsidized single parenthood, thus, breaking the back of the urban family.

Yeah, that should be stopped.

Instead of actually helping the poor, welfare has ensured their long-lasting misery—because the family is the key to upward mobility.

Not for men. Really. In today's employment market, men need to be able to work long and odd hours, extra days, move, jump from one employer to the next, go on business trips, and network in mixed company unencumbered by a wife and kids who require stability and limiting interaction with women who are now ubiquitous in every strata of the workplace. A man who doesn't have a wife and kids to support can save, insure, and invest in a way that will increase his wealth far more than his married-with-kids counterpart.

Traditional marriage is good for individuals all the way around. Numerous studies show it’s good for your spiritual health, your mental health, your physical health, and your fiscal health.

Again, those studies are flawed. Personally, I attended and focused effectively in church services and Bible studies far more often as an unmarried, child-free man. I did personal Bible study far more, too. Now, I'm busy being a butler, medical advocate, and prison warden.

Many today think marriage is unnecessary.

It is. Someone can have a fulfilling and full life a productive, independent adult. Most of us aren't living on isolated farms anymore.

They think marriage is misery, and singleness is bliss.

It certainly can be. In singleness, someone has far more control over their life.

Perhaps one of the biggest myths of all about marriage is that feelings are all that matter.

Of course feelings aren't all that matter. Freedom matters. Finances matter. Peace of mind matters. Self-determination matters.  And that's why most men shouldn't marry.

He then retreads the flawed correlations between marriage and positive indicators, implying that it is the duty of individuals to sacrifice themselves so society will be better off. Sorry, but the social climate has changed. Men do not have the same power and influence as husbands and fathers as they used to.

The couple wed in the cow patch said a mixture of traditional vows along with some interesting twists...

And how many of the people attending had always made vows to love, honor, and cherish until death, but haven't???

Let women and bicycle-less fish enjoy themselves. Don't marry them, guys. Take care of yourself, become independent and secure, and find worthy causes for your time and money. Don't tie yourself to an irrational creature with the imposition of the state into your relationship.

K-E Diet For Brides

Thank you, Good Morning America, for this article.
Here's another example of some women being so obsessed with their Special Day that they take an extreme measure to drop weight quickly. I wonder how many of these women have spent more time thinking about their wedding dress than they have about how to be a good wife? I wonder how many of these women prepared for their wedding day in more meaningful ways, such as thoroughly discussing important issues faced by married couples? How many have financially prepared for marriage?

How many of these women are shacking up with heir husband-to-be? How many have children with him? How many of these women are going to gain the weight back, and then some, almost as fast as they lost it?

No matter. What really matters is fitting in to that really expensive white dress for that Special Day.

Brides-to-be looking to shed that final 10, 15 or 20 pounds in order to fit into their dream wedding gown have taken a controversial approach to crash dieting that involves inserting a feeding tube into their noses for up to 10 days for a quick fix to rapid weight loss.

The K-E diet, which boasts promises of shedding 20 pounds in 10 days, is an increasingly popular alternative to ordinary calorie-counting programs. The program has dieters inserting a feeding tube into their nose that runs to the stomach. They're fed a constant slow drip of protein and fat, mixed with water, which contains zero carbohydrates and totals 800 calories a day.

I bet this looks really good at the rehearsal dinner.

Di Pietro says patients are under a doctor's supervision, although they're not hospitalized during the dieting process. Instead, they carry the food solution with them, in a bag, like a purse, keeping the tube in their nose for 10 days straight. Di Pietro says there are few side effects.

"The main side effects are bad breath; there is some constipation because there is no fiber in the food," he said.

Bet that makes for some fun on the wedding night.

Dr. Di Pietro charges $1,500 for the 10-day plan, and says the before-and-after pictures sell themselves.

Who cares about cost? Most women marry men who earn more than they do. So it is going to be his bill to pay.

My ultimate point is this: too many women focus too much on the wedding in ratio to the marriage itself. I do believe weddings should be lovely celebrations of holy matrimony. But I am thankful to this day that my wife was a reasonable bride.

Can't Have a Wedding Without a Groom

Well, a few US states and a few countries say you can. But I'm talking about real marriage, not activist-invented piggy-backing.

"ROB IN TOMAKOMAI" wrote in to Dear Abby:

I am beyond tired of the number of women I read about in your column who refer to their wedding day as "my special day." News flash, ladies: You should be using the term "our special day"!

I agree, but most of these women writing in have been shacking up with the guy for years, and in many of those cases, he’s already had everything he wanted, and he’s agreed to get married and have more than just a bare-minimum wedding ceremony because she’s been nagging him for it, or his family or others around them want it, even if just to have a party. In those cases, it really is her special day, and he would rather it not even happen. Most of those guys will not actually say that, for fear of upsetting her. After all, the reason they are going along with it is because they didn't want to have her move out.

If you're so focused on your dress and hair and any faux pas -- real or imagined -- your guests may commit that you lose focus on the life you and your husband are beginning, perhaps you should buy a pet rather than get married.

One of the problems is when the "wedding machine" gets cranking after the engagement, and life for her is all about planning the wedding. She isn't devoting her attention to make sure she isn't making a mistake marrying this guy, and she has an incentive to ignore any red flags she does see – to avoid the hassle and embarrassment of calling off the wedding.

Any person who has stayed married for more than a few years knows the marriage ceremony is the easy part. The self-absorption that permeates today's wedding scene ranges from embarrassing to sickening.

Well said, Rob! A wedding is an important event, and it is understandable why a bride would fret about the details. But the reason a wedding is important is that it is the legal, social, spiritual, and often religious uniting of the couple; it is supposed to change many things about their lives. When that is forgotten in the planning of what becomes a theatrical event, a party, and a vacation, marriage is trivialized.

Dear Abby responded:

Weddings (and funerals) can bring out the worst in people because they are times when emotion sometimes trumps common sense.

And they are events that can bring together people who may share blood or (past) legal ties, but don't like each other.

The majority of American brides are gracious, polite, loving and hardworking. They are also prepared for the realities that come after the fairy tale wedding.

Eh... the statistics say otherwise. Actually, most people (regardless of sex) who are getting married for the first time don't truly know what they are getting themselves into, no matter how much they've read, talked, and thought about it. It is like becoming a parent. You can know on an intellectual level, but you don't really know until you're in the middle of it.

Please don't judge all American brides by the ones you read about in my column. The weddings that go smoothly I don't hear about.

Good point!

My MIL actually tells the story of walking down the aisle as a bride and noticing how nice it was to have all of her friends and family there, and was struck with the thought of, "Oh, he's here, too" when she saw her husband-to-be waiting for her at the altar.

Did She Prefer a Hostage?

A guy decided he'd rather not get married to a certain woman rather than end up being divorced from her. She responds by suing, giving us a clearer picture of why he called off the wedding in the first place. Susanna Kim has the ABC News story.

In a suburb of Chicago, fury has overtaken a jilted bride who is suing her former fiancé for the wedding costs. Dominique Buttitta, dumped four days before the wedding was to take place, is seeking damages of $95,942 from Vito Salerno to cover wedding expenses and the cost of the lawsuit.

That could be an excellent deal for him in the long run. Actually getting married and then divorced could have easily been much more expensive.

Buttitta and Salerno began dating in March 2007, were engaged in December 2007 and the wedding was set for October 2 of this year in Barrington, Illinois.

There's something wrong when the dating period is nine months long but the engagement is almost three years.

The suit's itemized list of expenses included over $30,000 for the banquet hall, $11,000 on lighting and flowers, $10,000 for an orchestra, $7,550 for a photographer, $5,000 for a wedding dress and accessories, and $1,700 for wedding favors. The expenses include other non-refundable purchases, including a bridesmaid luncheon, bridal shower and a deposit for a wedding planner.

And whose idea were most of these expenses? $30,000 for the banquet hall? I'm sure they could have found a great place for a lot less. The facility should already have lighting, and flowers wither in days. Who needs an orchestra? Photographers overcharge for weddings. $5,000 for a dress that will be worn once? I know for a fact that you can get beautiful dresses for under $1,000.

The suit also claims that one month before the wedding date, the groom attended a bachelor party at an adult entertainment business called the Pink Monkey. He allegedly engaged in lewd acts, including lap dances with strippers, of which the bride was unaware.

If that is actionable, then there are a lot of wives who are in big trouble!

Some states, including Illinois and Georgia, have "breach of promise" to marry laws.

I actually think such laws can be a good thing, but only as part of a comprehensive set of laws that would punish people for breaking their marital vows, which include much more than promising not to have sex with other people. Breach of promise usually means "I only had sex with you because you promised me marriage." Is she claiming that?

This is not the first time a heartbroken bride sued her former groom. In July 2008, a jury in Georgia ordered Wayne Gibbs to pay RoseMary Shell $150,000 for breaking off their engagement three days before their wedding.

So, guys, the earlier you DTB (dump the bride), the better. However, it isn't too late until the marriage license is signed and filed. You can even go through a ceremony and still not have the marriage legally validated.

What's the alternative, really? A guy should go ahead and get married to as to not ruin her special day, then get divorced later? Shouldn't she have to demonstrate that he knew many months prior that he wasn't going to marry her, but that he deliberately kept the wedding planning going in order to upset her?

I think the wedding budget and expenses should be part of a comprehensive pre-nuptial agreement that is finalized and in effect before a wedding date is set. Terms should include who will pay what under what circumstances.

Wanting the Wedding, Not the Marriage

You've probably heard by now that Dr. Laura is taking her program to subscription satellite radio and planning to make some changes to it. It should be interesting as she feels less pressure to be politically correct.

Anyway, I have subscribed to her website and so I get to download every second of her show – at leat what they want to put online. Her infamous n-word call (for which she has duly apologized) didn't make it to the website. But that kind of editing is rare.

Because I hear every call, I got to hear the one she wrote about in this blog entry, "Girlfriends Compete Over Wedding Days".

Well, my caller told me she was engaged and planning a wedding, and her friend is also engaged and planning a wedding....and the friend's wedding is happening sooner than hers.

"SHE STOLE MY THUNDER," my caller said.

What? The triviality with which this young woman saw "friendship" and "marital vows" was astounding. I gasped and said that her friend's wedding - nor any other event in the world - could steal any thunder, as it was not about thunder. It was about lifelong vows in front of God, family and community to love, honor, and cherish 'til death do you part.

Too many people, women especially, want the wedding. They don't think enough about the marriage, nor do all of them really want a marriage.

She hung up on me.

I don't blame her. I was hoping she was ferociously ashamed of using a man who loved her with vows of love, loyalty and fidelity as a "win" over a girlfriend. Yeesh!

My heart goes out to this guy, who will probably have to get her pregnant before her friend and get the new car and house before her friend does. He won't be measured by his character and warmth -- he'll be measured by how much and how fast he gets her to trump her "friend."

Yeah, it's rather scary. Hopefully, he or someone he knew heard the call or he’s seeing the red flags. Getting married is one of the biggest decisions anyone can make, and it is personally catastrophic if you marry the wrong person. Who knows how much money this guy is or his parents are spending on the wedding? How much alimony will she get when she divorces him? And more importantly, what will it do to him emotionally? Hopefully, she will mature and change her attitude before they have any kids.

My wife's sister was engaged to be married before we were engaged, but we had our wedding before she had her wedding. We didn't tell them to have a long engagement, which they did, but we did have what I would consider a short engagement. My wife was a virgin when we married, and her sister was shacking up with her man. Those facts probably had something to do with the length of the engagements and timing of the weddings. It was a bit of an issue with her sister (who is younger) that we got married first, but nothing along the lines of the caller.

We Enjoyed the Wedding

I previously wrote about my wife getting negative about attending a wedding for a friend of mine. As it turns out, she dropped the attitude after that one night – for the most part. That was good. It meant the rest of the week leading up to the marriage wasn’t torturous in that respect.

We attended the wedding and it was great. All went well. Our kids were with family, and we could enjoy ourselves without having to look after our kids. We don’t get to do that enough.

The woman my wife was concerned about ended up sitting almost directly behind us (with her husband). During the reception, we were sitting on different sides of the room. We never had to interact. I never even got a good look at her husband. We had a great time getting to know the people with whom we were seated.

My wife had gotten especially dolled up, clearly to rub it in the nose of the other woman that I ended up with a wife who is better-looking than her.

The Past is Still Present

I was an adult for 13 years before I proposed to my wife, but mentioning anything that happened in most of that time frame is a potential minefield, because if it can be in any way connected to a girlfriend or fling (like a trip I took somewhere), my wife may shut down, making it very clear she is angry with me, or remind me how stupid I was to not stay a virgin like she did.

Virginity is big deal to her, even more than I realized before we married. She was adamant that it wasn't a problem that I wasn't a virgin, but she was in denial. She knew she wanted to be a virgin bride as long as she could remember - before she had her spiritual awakening - largely because she knew her mother had been one when she married. On the other side of the coin is her father's infidelity of many years ago. Mix these things together and push it together with my days of being a very bad boy, and you get a corrosive brew.

Although I would never say it to her, I have reason to be glad I had those experiences. Again, I'm not going to say that sex with someone other than a spouse is morally acceptable. But if I hadn't had those experiences, I would be quite bitter about the current lack of frequency, or some of the limitations my wife places on our lovemaking. Because I did have those experiences, the thought that "I'll never know what that is like unless I can pester her into changing her mind" is not there. I would be upset that I had waited all of those years, only to find out that I was going to miss out even though I married. That's not godly thinking, to be sure, but it is an honest confession about my feelings. It probably isn't godly to tell someone that things are okay and then continue to hold that sin over their heads, either.

This all came up again because we're going to a wedding this weekend. The bride has been a friend for almost a decade, and we've been looking forward to her wedding. I used to work with this friend. Someone who will be at this wedding is someone else I used to work with; a woman with whom I had a short fling. The fling was stupid on my part on many levels, including that we worked together, though in that aspect I had a written communication from her indicating that she had been the aggressor and that I had been well behaved.

There was one positive aspect to the relationship. I've noticed that about all of my relationships – that there was something positive that resulted even though the overall situation was wrong.

It was a very casual thing – so casual I didn't care when she dumped me. The fling was her way helping her to move on from a long-term dead-end relationship. She's now married, and I don't have feelings for her as I barely had them to begin with.

My wife has known all along that this woman, with whom she has never communicated, is going to be at the wedding. But yesterday, something reminded her about this reality. And the frost descended into the room. I could tell she was angry. My wife told me that I could go to the wedding by myself. It's not going to be a small wedding. We don't have to interact with this woman and her husband.

There were three things I thought about after that. 1) Is she going to be like this all week? What about after the wedding? 2) Everyone "in the know" would know exactly why my wife didn't show. They wouldn't know all of the details or the full extent, but based on past events they'd know it was because she was there. 3) I once had brunch at an exclusive restaurant with a girlfriend and some people who had invited us to the brunch. That's not unusual, but the people who invited us were my ex-fiancée, her husband, and his parents. My girlfriend was fully aware that I had had sex with my ex-fiancée. I'm sure the husband was aware of that fact, too. And yet there we were, enjoying brunch as a group, everyone having a nice time.

From an objective standpoint, my wife is much more attractive than this woman. That would be true even if the woman hadn't packed on the pounds after getting married. If we were invited to a wedding for one of my wife’s friends and an ex-boyfriend of hers was going to be there (and she crossed the line with at a couple guys, but didn’t have intercourse), and I knew I was much more attractive than him, I would show up standing tall and with a huge smile on my face and my wife on my arm. It is sad that my wife is fixating on my sin from many years ago and that it would diminish her enthusiasm for our friend's wedding to the point where she would consider not going.

What are your thoughts? Have you been through something like this? Is it therapy time?

Out of Order

What a mess. GROOM (?) IN MICHIGAN wrote in to Dear Abby:

I am a 48-year-old man about to be married for the second time. My bride, "Jennifer," is significantly younger than I, but aside from that, we're alike on most issues. We have lived together for five years

Strike one.

and have two beautiful daughters, ages 3 and 7.

Strikes two and three. So it took you almost three years after knocking her up the first time before you decided to shack up? Why not marriage? And then you made a second kid out of wedlock? Ugh.

We are now involved in making wedding plans.

What's to plan? You can get it done with almost no planning. Where I live, you go to the County Clerk and you can get it done with little hassle.

I know it's a woman's special day, but when I ask the normal question of "How much does it cost?" Jennifer becomes unglued.

It's traditionally a woman's special day. You both threw tradition waaaay out the window.

And now that she has you by the balls, she's going make the decisions, and you are supposed to either shut up or be reduced to paying child support and visiting your kids.

If this is how she acts now, what about after the wedding?

It's going to get worse. And you'll be signing over half of your earnings to her (child support will be on top of that).

Am I being an idiot to worry about the money, or is Jennifer being unrealistic by ignoring it and stifling my concerns?

You were being an idiot when you knocked her up. She is being unrealistic now. You have kids, and you need to be financially responsible for their sake.

Dear Abby responded:

So before you go any further, stop the music and insist that the two of you get premarital counseling to ensure that you really are on the same page. It could save you a bundle -- of heartache and money.

If a wedding date has been set, postpone it, without resetting the date until after you get a pre-nup – one that includes a budget for the wedding. Only then should you reset the wedding date. If you haven't already, get a vasectomy. In your next life, don't make babies until you are married.

Surprise Weddings Are Generally Not Cool

But in some cases, they may be the best thing.

Several years back, there was a "live" television special on a major broadcast network during which women surprised their guys with a surprise wedding. The guys supposedly didn't know – each woman explained the situation to the audience while the guy was in some isolation chamber, and then he was thrust out in front of a live audience, glaring lights, and television cameras, and presented with what amounts to an immediate ultimatum. I suppose that is better than finding yourself on the show of Connie Chung's husband or the former mayor of Cincinnati. I'm not sure how this was all supposed to work out from a legal standpoint – I would imagine if the guys actually wanted to get married and weren't just doing it for show, the couples obtained marriage licenses after the fact.

If I recall correctly, it was only women surprising men – not a single instance of a man surprising a woman with a let's go now wedding.

I would like to know how those couples are doing now.

I bring this up now because of this Associated Press story (complete with photo):

A woman in a wedding gown surprised her fiance by greeting him at a Texas airport along with a justice of the peace.

Robyn Moore and William Acosta exchanged vows Monday at Corpus Christi International Airport after he got off a plane arriving from Toledo, Ohio.

I don't know about you, but riding in a cramped commercial jetline usually doesn't put me in the romantic mood – with one exception. At the end of our last trip without a child with us, I decided to take advantage of the fact that my wife was wearing a short skirt and... let my fingers do the walking. Sure, there was some guy napping next to us, but we were subtle about it, making good use of blankets. My wife found it to be a major turn-on. Certainly made the flight more pleasant. I recommend this for married couples. But I digress.

Acosta, who was wearing jeans and a sweater, says he was speechless and thrilled by the wedding Moore planned.

What else was he going to say? Make a negative scene in the middle of the airport? Actually, it might not be a bad place to dump someone if they are abusive - lots of security, and no tolerance for threats.

But here's the important info:

The couple got a marriage license last week and planned to tie the knot this month, at a site to be determined.

In this case, it sounds like they were both actually planning to get married, which can make this move a very nice one for him. He didn't have to deal with all of the stress of a big ceremony and all of the lead-up, although she still gets to be the center of attention (even in the news) and I would expect that they'll still have a reception later, so they don't miss out on a party and still may get a lot of gifts. Not a bad idea, and a lot less expensive.

I wish them well.

In other cases, like the ones with the TV show, it isn't a good sign if a woman has to trick, badger, nag, beg, or manipulate her guy into marrying her. (If any of those couples secretly were already set to get married, but decided to trick TV producers into paying for their wedding and wedding video, then good for them.) Even with all of our feminist changes in our culture, men are still expected to pursue. It's nature. If a guy wants to marry you, he'll ask. He'll make it happen. If he already is unenthusiastic about being with you, that's a horrible way to go into marriage. Besides - it robs you of the challenge relished by so many Category 4 gals of breaking his spirit and driving him to despair from the heights of joy and optimism. It is much more fun when you can point out to him that he was eager to marry you. The look on his face as he tries to silently reconcile that fact with his misery should be priceless.

I would have like to have seen one of those guys on the TV show risk the boos of the audience and all of the TV talk-show and magazine trashing he would have received – by explaining exactly why he wasn't going to get married. The director of the show probably wouldn't have let him talk very long.