‘Happily Ever After…Is A Loooong Time’

As a stand-up comedian, I often joke that at 53, I am not in a bad marriage, but that by casual observation it could be said, I am in a boring marriage. These days my husband and I are more excited by purveyors of non-dairy pizza, than we are with one another.

Unsurprisingly, I get the biggest laughs from married couples. They know the score. Long-term relationships are great, but they are very long. Very long.It is not new news that most marriages last well past the honeymoon phase. Yet, we get by. For some, children come along, and exhaust them into not noticing. For others, careers can provide adequate validation, even excitement. For us, it is the unending search for pop-up kitchens.

But there are the chosen few – they have decided that they will not fill the void with gluten-free strudel, and like a law firm that has more work than it can handle, have boldly taken on yet another partner.Men are more likely to seek this setup than women, mainly because historically they could. They were, and as a rule still are, financially more secure. This is an important point. Because expendable income plays a key role in one’s ability to maintain two major relationships.

Cab fares back and forth between two residences? That would be enough to deter most men.Although, honestly, the main reason men will do this more than women, is because women have actually given this setup some thought. This is something that only sounds like fun. In reality, not one of us wants two sets of in-laws, two sets of bro friends, and two sets of children.Some females would likely prefer to buy a ridiculously overpriced handbag, than spend her hard-earned money on an extra guy, no matter how cute, interesting, or fun he may be.

Gentlemen, the fact is nothing comes close to Italian leather and French design, and a woman who earns enough money to actually afford this ludicrous two-household lifestyle, is not going to opt for nurturing yet another relationship. One is headache enough.But regardless of who is doing what, and with whom, it is no longer a secret that the general population is a bit tired of marriage, as it stands. Besides the two-households-one-householder model, I hear open marriages, polyamory and throuples are gaining traction.

And there must be several other combinations, which are meant to make till-death-do-us-part less tedious. Some of these combos I haven’t even heard of, because I refuse to use AI.Frankly, I am unclear why we are still trying to keep marriage as a concept alive. Clearly, it has run its course. The next round of children should be allowed to remain legally single, nay, they should be forced to remain legally single. For this to actually happen, everyone will have to be financially independent.

And women will have to refuse to have kids. This is, frankly, a brilliant suggestion. More so, since we have enough kids to keep our population going for a while.

So, I am not causing any major social disruption.We must kill marriage, because no matter how well planned and executed all these other permutations seem, someone is always left wanting. I recently hung out with a couple, who tried to open their marriage. It was going swimmingly, as long as she was out and about.

But the moment he returned the favour, all hell broke loose, and in a flash everyone went from smug to miserable.In closing, I want to be real with you all. I too have pondered open marriage. But I have come to see, it is not for me. Not because I have a finely tuned moral compass, but because I have a finely tuned sense of reality – my chances of pulling someone new are slim to none. No one wants a middle-aged lady who carb-loads, is cranky, and needs to urinate three times a night, sometimes before she can make it to the bathroom (just kidding, maybe not).These are not circumstances under which one throws open the gates to Eden. I keep our marriage closed to spoil his fun, not mine. Plus, I am saving for a Prada.The writer is a standup comedian