Buy me out of love

Sometimes, when a man loves a woman a whole bunch (or when a man gets a woman pregnant), they get married.

Sometimes these two people will discover during the years that they’re very different and get divorced. If they work through their differences and stick together, they become material for a sitcom on CBS.

In a recent example of the former, a woman who had been divorced for more than two decades only recently started to collect alimony payments.

When Paul and Theresa Taylor divorced in 1982, they split amicably and waived any right to alimony. Through the magic of the justice system, Ms. Taylor convinced a Massachusetts judge to make a new $400 per week charge to Mr. Taylor’s pocketbook.

The Taylors’ situation exemplifies the need to reexamine alimony, or finally just wipe out marriage and let the homosexuals win. (Haven’t they been trying to ruin it for years? That’s what I heard on the radio.)

Alimony has changed over the past few decades. Women have gone above and beyond the glass ceilings that hindered them in the 1950s. Why do we still treat alimony as if everything’s still black and white? Any spouse who sacrifices a career and health to raise children is obviously at a disadvantage in a divorce, but this is not always the case.

Alimony shouldn’t be enforced as some sort of punishment for a marriage being dissolved, but as a transaction to ensure either person’s burdens are taken care of until they get on their feet.

We have prenuptial agreements, but it’s an option not usually used. Students have a hard enough time convincing their roommates to split the Netflix account. How can we expect people to come to rational decisions about this on their own when the game of love is involved? States such as Pennsylvania and Oklahoma are currently battling to change these laws, but there is another solution.

When a couple approaches the altar or public servant to dedicate their foreseeable futures to one another, why not have them sign one more document after saying “I do”? If they wish to tie their finances to one another forever then so be it, but get it in writing first. Save us time in the court proceedings.

Did you waste away five years of your life in an unholy alliance? Get five years of alimony pay. If I had that many years of paid free time, I would have invented a new color by now.

If it’s that awkward to talk to your bride-to-be about this, then maybe you shouldn’t be getting married. I understand the uncontrollable love you might feel at that moment, but your “perfect” man was an imagined version of Maverick from “Top Gun” – that’s not a real person.

If you think this makes divorce too easy, go ahead and lock yourself in financially for the rest of your life. You can’t buy love, but you can become in debt to it.