A direct shot to the gut. For those of us who have lived the experience in one way or another... Giver or receiver...

As a reader and writer I have to wonder if you wrote this from your experience. Don't need to respond of course.

Some one close to me once told me that the institution of marriage, human created thing that it is, will all too often fail, fall apart.

Those that don't fail, that hold together through never ending hell fire and all perhaps should be allowed quick and less painfull deaths. Metaphor like.

Then! Then there are those couples that make Ozzie and Harriet look like torture. They look happy! What's their secret? Not sure and how could anyone know?

Point is perhaps: it's not for everyone. Before a couple enters into the 'arrangement`, moment to moment, hour to hour, day to day, fast forward to: year after year, decade after decade; think about it!

And then! Hang on here. And then there's that damnable something, refuses identification, about the daily emotional grind, the lost romance, the colorless span of pain, the intrigue, the delicious shadows... The utterly human thing. C'mon, you sure as hell will never spy an armadillo saying: "Jesus, how could she do this to me, what did I ever do to deserve this, the scaly bitch..."

Thus we write!!!!!

Easier said than done, I know...

Thanks for letting us in.