Posts Tagged ‘Marriage’

The fixer-upper

A fixer-upper – a project, usually a home or a piece of property that needs money and substantial sweat. It needs some maintenance, some redecorating, some reconstruction and some redesign; it is a real project, not just a weekend outing.

Christmases past

December 26th my wife and I celebrate our 28th anniversary.  The year we married I was a single father with a three-year-old son, whom my wife later adopted.  And, this year is the first Christmas it will be just the two of us.  After cutting down our 28th Christmas tree, we reminisced about some special Christmases past.

Has marriage outlived its usefulness?

A few weeks ago, I discussed cohabitation and the problems associated with it.  Is marriage necessarily better?  What if the problems associated with marriages are as bad as, or worse than, the problems associated with cohabitation?  Maybe cohabitation is the lesser of two evils.

Cohabitation – still just shacking up

It’s called cohabitation, the progressive, enlightened, and politically correct term for old-fashioned shacking up.  The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development reports that “cohabitation, once rare, is now the norm.”  Roughly 10% of couples living together are not married.  It used to be wrong, discussed in whispers.  Our mothers would point to those who “lived together,” explaining in hushed tones they were not married.  What changed?  Were our mothers wrong? 

Introduction to men and women

I am approaching thirty years in our emergency room.  I am not sure I can any longer recall patients I have seen, the histories I have taken.  Some histories are fascinating, some adding to my life education knowledge I never needed to know. The one constant that has remained throughout these years is that men and women are staggeringly different.  More important, those differences never diminish or go away.

Gay rights and employee benefits

Gay activist groups targeted Wal-Mart claiming they discriminate against gays because they deny them workers’ benefits and they gave Wal-Mart a “do not buy” rating.  Gays disagree with Wal-Mart’s continued refusal to grant benefits to the partners of cohabitating gay workers, unless the store is in one of the few states that legally recognize domestic partners.