I'm 27-years-old, and I've been watching my friends get married for a long time. When I was younger, it was strange watching people my own age getting married, and although I can't remember exactly who was the first to walk down the aisle from my cohort, I remember thinking that the first marriages from my generation were a significant milestone, and they made me feel old.
Now that I'm about to get marrried myself, I'm wondering who of my friends will be the first to get divorced? I have many friends who have been married for five to seven years by now, so it's just about time, statistically, for some of their marriages to start falling apart. I don't have anyone in mind specifically, and I certainly don't want any of my friends' marriages to fail, but it seems likely that some will. I think I'll feel even older when the first divorce rolls around. And then the first remarriage!
Michael! How could you take such a cavalier attitude toward impending, inevitable tragedy?
If we go by the Xerox Principle (i.e., the last person who successfully uses the machine is the resident expert), you have just become responsible for guaranteeing the continuing solidity of all your friends' marriages. It's time for you to get into training -- now.
Practice up your hectoring skills. When you get really good, you'll be able to detect the slightest trace of marital boredom or disharmony merely from the way he raises an eyebrow or she looks at the ceiling. That will be your signal to spring into action:
-- Remind him that even at the moment he walked down the aisle, there must have been things he hated about his intended much, much worse than what has his dander up today.
-- Remind her that the years aren't really kind to anyone. I mean, does she really think that she can do better today, when at the peak of her attractiveness and charm the best she could do was him??
-- Carefully tabulate for them the vast number of things that, if they part, they'll have to agree to divide somehow, amounting to the utter and complete financial ruin of both. Don't forget to include their mutual friends in the spoils to be partitioned; few persons are strong enough or diplomatic enough to remain friends with both halves of a divorced couple.
-- Above all, make sure they're aware that too many couples go to bed angry, with catastrophic results, but if they would just stay up all night screaming at one another, morning would find them back in one another's arms. They owe it to one another to make the effort -- to say nothing of what they owe you for all your efforts.
Marriages, it's been said, are made in heaven. Made by God, perhaps. But the bonds must be carefully supervised and, when appropriate, reinforced by His Earthly agents. Do your part.
FWP: It's impending, but since I don't know which marriage will fall apart first I don't know who to hector!