Marriage is scary, risky business

A close friend got married Friday evening. The happy couple was hitched by Salt Lake County Justice Court Judge Peggy Acomb in her office at the Salt Lake County Complex.

As weddings go, it was perfect. People cried, nobody got shot and there were cookies afterward.

It wasn't the first wedding for Clarke and Francine. Judging from the way they looked, it could have been their first though. Francine was radiant. Clarke looked idiotically happy.

The couple met when Clarke's nephew bashed his ride into Francine's car in Sanpete County. A few months later, the entire matter was resolved by a judge.

When I spoke to Clarke before the ceremony, he confessed to being happy but also "scared." This only made sense. He's had marriage experience. He knows that it's a risky business.

About half of all first marriages end in divorce. Odds are even worse for second marriages. Depending on whose stats you use, second marriages fail 105 percent of the time. Third marriages fail 200 percent of the time. Fourth marriages end in prison. Fifth marriages are considered a form of mental illness.

Experts say this is because so many subsequent marriages happen on the rebound. The participants don't know each other well enough, aren't thinking clearly, and are too set in their ways.

By those accounts, I should be divorced. I married my wife less than five months after falling in love with her, I've never had a clear thought my entire

life, and 34 years later, I still refuse to eat broccoli.

Granted, this doesn't make me an expert on marriage, but I'm probably doing way better than most Hollywood actors are.

Whatever number marriage you're on, the odds of it succeeding have less to do with how it happened than how you keep making it happen. You have to work at it.

Just before the ceremony, I asked Clarke if he loved Francine. He said he did. I believed him because I've seen the two of them together, and because he can't lie worth spit even to himself.

But being in love isn't always reason enough to get married. Even a monkey can be that for five minutes. Humans, especially men, have to examine our more evolved feelings and emotions. I explained it to Clarke.

ME: "Are you afraid of Francine?"

HIM: "I think so."

He wasn't getting it. Was he afraid of losing her? Did the thought of disappointing her scare him? Was he worried about not being what she needed him to be? Did the mere thought of her falling out of love with him keep him awake at night?

HIM: "OK, I'm terrified."

ME: "Then you're good to go."

As we headed into the judge's chambers, Clarke asked me if all of this worked the same way for women. Did similar feelings of fear of their husbands exist in wives?

"Hell if I know," I said. "I'm too scared to ask mine."