To Vow or Not To Vow?

Should we still call them wedding vows?

Maybe we should just call them "temporary agreements until something better comes along." OK, you're right, that doesn't flow off the lips as easy as "vows." How can we make this more succinct and still remain true to the state of the modern American marriage? I know, how about "marriage thoughts"? Or maybe "marriage maybes"? Yea, that's it..."marriage maybes" leaves plenty of wiggle room for later.

After all, today I feel like I'm in love with this wonderful person, but tomorrow those feelings may-be gone. And God knows that if those feelings are gone, I should have the right to find someone else who provides for me those great feelings!

Sometimes it's just too difficult to maintain those feelings in a relationship when it becomes obvious that the two of you are growing in different directions. Or worse yet, what about those changes that age brings: less active, more overweight, less attractive, more fearful, and on and on the list goes. All arguably wonderful reasons to adopt the marriage maybes over the marriage vows.

Let's not forget the top three marriage destroyers: communication, money and sex. Any one of these is enough to validate the dissolution of a marriage, right? How much more when there is a combination of two, or even all three of these running rampant between a married couple.

Who could argue with the facts when they are all laid on the table as clearly as this:
"We just don't talk anymore...we've got nothing in common."
"She just does not listen to me!"
"He spends every penny he makes on himself."
"If I had a nickel for every pair of shoes she owns we could pay of the mortgage on this new house."
"Make love? He repulses me...he's changed and I don't like what he has become."
"She never has time for me...she says she just doesn't enjoy sex anymore."

It all kind of makes sense to me, especially when I consider that we live in a very disposable society. When something becomes broken, don't fix it, just throw it away and find a new one.

For those of you considering the renewing of your vows, I urge you to thoughtfully reconsider that silly idea. Just because you have weathered the storms and quakes of married life for 40 or 50 years, there's no guarantee that your next decades together will be so fortunate.

And those of you who have been married a somewhat more abbreviated number of years, I encourage you to just look at those vows as maybes. Everyone else is. It's in vogue. The stigma of divorce is gone. We now live in the day when personal fulfillment trumps commitment and promise.

So go ahead, get out there and fulfill Your desires, Your dreams, Your plans, and blow off any thoughts of being bound to one spouse. May-be there's someone else out there who will make you happy...at least for a little while...and then you can divorce them too. And then move on to the next one because, well you know, they're not marriage vows, they're just marriage maybes.

Mr. Articulate