Internet headline: “10 huge pre-wedding mistakes brides make”
My first thought upon reading it: “You mean aside from saying ‘yes?’”


A while back, I got an email from an irate man who thinks The Marriage Files is “anti-male, one-sided hate speech.”  He asked, “Do you really think this helps the relationship problems that contribute to the extremely high divorce rate in America?”  As a comedian once said, “I can’t do anything about people determined not to get a joke.”  (Besides, I know for a fact that writing TMF has helped prevent one divorce—mine!—so that makes the answer an unequivocal “yes.”)  But Mr. Humorless raises a good question.  Why exactly has the American divorce rate gone to the moon?  It’s a question worth examining in June, this month in which more weddings will occur than any other.

I propose that there are a few reasons why we’re getting divorced in record numbers, and that one of them is…weddings.  The stress and strain of arranging a modern wedding—the kind to which entire magazines, websites and sections of newspapers are devoted—is enough to destroy a marriage before it’s even started. 

Ask people who’ve been married a good long time, and often they’ll tell you they got married wearing their best suit in a courtroom by a justice of the peace.  The guests, if there were any, got cookies and coffee for refreshment in the basement of the local Sons of Knute lodge, and the honeymoon consisted of a weekend camping near Niagara Falls.  (There’s a reason why Oscar Wilde once said, “Niagara Falls is a bride’s second great disappointment.")

The budget for the wedding and honeymoon combined was the contents of the coffee tin in which the bride’s mother hid her pin money.  There was no gown, no fancy setting, no floral excess, no color scheme, no coordinated bridesmaid dresses or tuxedo rentals, no banquet hall, and no exotic destination.  These days, that kind of wedding would be considered grounds for divorce.

At some point between my parents’ generation and mine, weddings became big business, thereby spoiling the whole thing.  Nothing illustrates the problem better than the megalithic entity called The Knot, poised to completely overwhelm the world with books, videos, websites, DVDs, must-haves and content areas about weddings.  Here’s an example of a title offered by The Knot: The Ultimate Wedding Planner: Worksheets, Checklists, Etiquette, Calendars, and Answers to Frequently Asked Questions.  I’m exhausted already!

Silly me, if I’d founded a comprehensive wedding planning service, I’d have called it The Noose.*  We’d offer books like Shabby Chic Weddings: The Noose Guide to Great Goodwill Bargains for Your Special Day and Getting Married On Less than $10 Per Person: I Can Do It!  A Book of Personal Affirmations.  Of course, someone at The Knot is fabulously wealthy and I’m not; draw your own conclusions.

Or maybe the divorce problem is the result of plain, simple bad luck.**  I came across this little rhyme at a delightful web page devoted to Victorian wedding customs:

Monday for wealth,
Tuesday for health,
Wednesday, the best day of all
Thursday for losses,
Friday for crosses,
Saturday for no luck at all

Years ago, people got married on whatever day of the week suited them and their families.  Now we try to stuff a wedding in between staff meetings and Botox injections, and virtually all Americans get married on Saturday.  Weddings have been forced to conform to the Monday-Friday workweek, and nothing is a surer sign that something’s been devalued.

My third and final theory for our sky-high divorce rate is that in marriage there’s a high rate of recidivism.  Recently, I saw some statistics suggesting that a small number of repeat offenders are responsible for a large number of divorces.  True story:  When my husband K— and I went to see his family’s pastor about having him officiate at our wedding, he told us about another couple who’d asked him to marry them.  When he enquired about their histories, he found out that they had about five divorces between them.  Incredulous, he asked, “If you haven’t made it work yet, what makes you think you’ll get it right this time?”  I guess they didn’t have a very persuasive answer, because he declined their request.

Marriage should be something like what the Olympics once were: reserved for amateurs.  Professionals (by which I mean people who have done it more than once) shouldn’t be in the same arena.  You ought to get one shot at marriage.  The second time around and thereafter it should be called something else.  Maybe there could be ranks, like in the military, but in marriage the more times you did it the lower you’d move in the ranking system.  If a first marriage is, well, Marriage, perhaps the second could be called Tethering.  The third might be known as Slight Stickiness, and by the time you get to the fourth, Parking seems an apt analogy.

Marriage is not for everyone.  In fact, it requires so much skill and dedication that I think you should have to have a license to get married.  Oh, wait…you do need a license to get married.  Maybe what I mean is that you should have to pass a test before you can get married.

The irony of the letter from Mr. Hate Speech is that I did pass a test—the Marriage Readiness Test (click here to visit it, but don’t bother if you’re a Scientologist—it was created by psychiatrists).  It told me, “Your marriage readiness score…indicates that you are ready for marriage! You…have proven to have a healthy understanding of what is expected and required for a marriage to be successful.”  And what’s number one on Ms. Prepared’s list of things required for a successful marriage?  A sense of humor.

So, one-sided?  Undoubtedly.  But hardly man-hating.  For that, click here.


*  Note that a noose, technically, is a type of knot.

**  I’m a big believer in luck and its importance in life.  Just the other day I went to my local New Age practitioner and said, “I see you have crystals here that are supposed to attract money and ensure health and sexual potency.  What crystal do I wear around my neck for sheer dumb luck?”  She was not amused.