Marriage: For the Bad Times

As anyone who's ever shacked up with someone nubile enough and willing knows, you don't need marriage to bind two people together in a happy home life. At least for the first six months or so. That's what all the crazy hot monkey sex is for.

That's right: I said "crazy hot monkey sex".

Once you get past that initial period, though, the ardor which infused you every time you saw your mate, which drove you mad like a mandrill seeing a female's shining red posterior, tends to fade. The need to do the ol' Oop-Oop Ack-Ack Go-Bananas Throw-Bananas fades with time. The good news is, it won't necessarily stay quiet forever. With proper stoking, that furnace can be made to heat up on a pretty regular basis. The bad news is that, if you stick around long enough, it will eventually run silent and run deep for a while.

So: what keeps people around for those dark and sexless times?

Commitment.

Love is grand, but love with a legally binding contract is better. Many people think marriage is for the good times, for when you love each other, for being soul mates and dying at the exact same moment rocking on a porch somewhere, wrinkled hands stretched towards each other in a gesture of the everlasting bond that transcends even death.

Not so. First off, almost every marriage contract lets you out of it when you die; if heaven does exist, then you go there single and ready to get some. Second, marriage isn't for those times. Marriage is to get you to those times.

Marriage is for the bad times.

If you are ever married, there will come a time -- okay, many, many times -- when you will want to leave your spouse, even if it's just to go get an ice cream sandwich. Love will not be enough to keep you there. You will need paperwork.

You know in the cop movies, where they say "I'd shoot you, but I don't want to have to do all that paperwork?" Well, that's marriage.

"Wait -- if I shoot my wife, does that generate even more paperwork, or do I get off work early?"

As I noted in How to Have the Perfect Wedding, Mrs. Wag and I wrangled greatly over our vows. This is because we knew we were imperfect people, and the contract that bound us together would have to be strong indeed. A couple Anniversaries ago, I printed them up on some really nice paper, framed them, and gave them to Mrs. Wag as a token of my affection and the fact that I'm not going anywhere.

Here's what it says:

What I Have Promised

I have promised you Fidelity, Honesty, Patience and Love.

I have vowed to keep your Counsel , and to trust you with mine.

I have vowed to act in your Absence as I act in your Presence.

I have vowed to Cleave to you in all things and in all circumstances.

I have vowed to Have you and to Hold you, in Sickness and in Health, in Good Times and in Bad.

I have vowed to strive at all times and in all things to be the Best Spouse that I can, for as Long as we both shall Live.

In addition to being a wonderfully inexpensive romantic gift, it has the benefit of being a solid and specific reminder of the things I am contractually obligated to do for Mrs. Wag. I would be constantly forgetting that "keep your Counsel" thing otherwise. As it is, I only forget it often.

May your vows be just as strong, and may they come to mind right when they need to.

-- The Prolix Wag
Wondering why Mrs. Wag puts up with him since 2005.