Stone Soup by Jan Eliot for April 20, 2010

Any guy who gets married needs to be committed.

Marriage is a fine and upstanding institution … but who wants to be in an institution? … W.C.Fields

Who said anything about marriage? But don’t most people prefer to know that the person they love will still be around tomorrow?

That’s the problem in how most people look at marriage, they think its going to be an absolute guarantee that the relationship will last.

Fish or cut bait, Sal, like the Carny Barker says, you pays your (emotional) money and you takes your chances….

Anyone else get the feeling Val is projecting?

These days, it’s women who are just as likely to be commitment-shy.

I’d still be married today if it weren’t for one thing.

Val’s going to push Phil away with her own insecurities…

Jascat: Either that or by ‘sticking her petite 8 and a !/2 in

between her ‘pearly whites’ like she just did with her

brother-in-law.

I don’t know I have family that have been married some close to 60 years to over 60 years. My own parents made to to 45 years wish it was longer health on my dad where as my mom is still going strong but not looking. They married in their 30’s. I have a cousins married 50+ and they married in their teens not shotgun either since I’m older then there oldest. Me and my husband 29 years this Sunday. By the way I and my husband did not live together before marriage we married then grew to know each other. My parents dated only 2 months then just decided to. I have an aunt and uncle 24 hours and not shot gun type either been married 60+ years.

I still know SS is a comic strip and suppose to be funny but it’s so realistic. I don’t know what I would do if I lost my husband. His former sister-in-law remarried after she lost her husband to cancer after 45 years of marriage and neither lived together.

Marriage isn’t magic. IT doesn’t work… those IN IT make it work. And work is exactly the operative word. Commitment means determination to each other and to push through good times and bad. The romantic notion of love likely destroys more marriages than any other thing. Love doesn’t “happen.” Infatuation and lust happen. Love is deterministic and intentional. Ask my wife who pushed through my 30 years of alcoholism and helped bring me out of it. After 47 years we have found what love and commitment really mean, and it’s NOT instant gratification.

white good of your wife to be so strong to get you through something like drinking you started what a powerhouse you have. Me I am my husband are comfortable with each other he helps me and I will with him but neither of us drinks or smokes. He has been assisting me due to rt shoulder surgery I had last week and I so appreciate him for this. The family I mentioned earlier all loved and fought but where together through high and low times. But are together.

Val is going to blow it! Phil is clearly looking for commitment! Come on Val!

I LOVE the last panel! So perfect in representing everyone’s thought of the moment… and Val needs to stop being afraid to show her hand- soon.

LOL My poor husband understands the brother in laws pain! He’s a sweet, commited, faithful man who’s very much in love with his wife and family, and is surrounded at work by guys who would be perfect on Tool Academy! LOL

I wonder… Is Val going to decide that she does want to marry Phil, but when she tells Phil that, he’s going to say “Whaaa…?!?” She seems to be going from not giving him any time right to thinking about a marriage, and might be in danger of overshooting the mark.

Val’s having these discussions with Joan and Wally, when she should be having them with Phil.

married twice,,,,divorced twice……if at first you don’t succeed try ,try again.

I was third wife for my second husband. He said he finally got it right. So did I. Miss him a lot. Gone one year next week.

Okay, runar, I’ll bite… what’s the “one thing”? :-)

Like they say, if you want it, you have to REALLY want it.

lightenup: A divorce…

Congrats Kab Buch on your anniversay next Sunday.

In other words, Ushindi, “It is, therefor it must be. Contrariwise, if it isn’t, then it ain’t.” :-)

If Shakespeare had never died, he’d be alive today.

Married 4 months and 3 days. Looking forward to the years ahead and children.