[bubbsy]

this is a very interesting topic. I have often thought that the institution of marriage would eventually fade away (in 100 or so years of course), but that may be another topic for another day.

Today, i think a lot of us fall victim to this notion about love/passion/attraction being key drivers for marriage. There lies the problem. Marrying for reasons that can be attributed to "falling" in love is a bad idea, as these reasons are quite different from being happy in marriage .

Marrying for love/passion seems dumb to me. You must be much more rationale in your partner picking decision (ie. use your brain not your heart). of course, even this doesn't necessarily work since people grow and change. My biggest fear of marriage is that i'm completely happy in my marriage (5 years now) but we both are individual growing creatures. Who's to say we don't grow away from one another (ie. who we are individually 10 years from now leave us less compatible).....

At the end of the day, marriage is hard work. you have to live with its pros/cons, and try to be flexible enough to make it work. Easier said than done of course.

also, my thoughts on pre-nups. They are a great idea, technically/rationally speaking. I didn't get one, nor would i ever be able to. I couldn't get into something like this (knowing it's difficult and will take extreme sacrifices over a lifetime to make work) and go in planning with "out-clauses". I found it counter-intuitive in buying into the whole arrangement.