femalenetwork.com

Being a single girl who hears more than her fair share of marital infidelity stories, I cannot help but be a tad jaded about marriage. Friends and acquaintances come to me asking for advice on how they can get back at their cheating husbands or end their unhappy marriages. In true cynic form, I tell a few select heartbroken wives who have put up with the most brazen and hurtful of cheating husbands, that refusing to end the marriage is “sometimes” (and I mean it when I say only “sometimes”) the best revenge.

Imagine that you’re engaged. You can’t stop admiring your ring every 10 seconds. You happily practice the loops and swirls of your would-be signature for the Nth time. To you (and you alone), Tom Cruise couldn’t hold a candle to your groom.

Then it happens. Tom Cruise grows fangs and asks you to sign a “pre-nup”.

Your world swirls. Your heart sinks to your knees. You feel Lestat’s fangs sucking your life blood and all you can do to gain control is to raspily say, “Whhhaattt?”

Now stop imagining. Take a deep breath. And let’s talk pre-nups.

After having been dreamily proposed to by Mr. Right, it would be beyond anti-climactic to plan a church wedding on a shoe-string budget. On the other hand, if you’re the type of person who has to have the wedding of her dreams, equally disheartening are the staggering expenses connected with walking down the aisle as a one-day princess-bride, which can mean living the first years of married life scrimping on basic necessities. There is, however, an alternative to the inevitably more expensive church weddings that most brides would never consider taking, i.e., the practical, cost-efficient, legally binding and expeditious civil wedding.