Two Reasons Why I Can’t Marry You

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Your Marriage Proposal

Dearest Martha,

As you know, I’ve always prided myself on being honest. And the honest truth is I love you. I really do. You are so kind and giving, a she-animal in the bedroom, and you make me feel so loved. I love you so much that if you were swimming in a South American river, and a school of hungry piranhas came after you, I would jump in the river, and fight them off with my bare hands. I would be eaten alive by piranhas if I could protect you from harm. That’s the honest truth!

Although I’ve always been honest with you, Martha, there is something important I’ve never told you. A year before we met, I was engaged to a young woman named Suzie. We planned a large wedding, and arranged for a priest to perform the ceremony. But then something terrible happened. Her former boyfriend, who was thought to have died in a tuna fishing accident, wasn’t dead after all! Pulled overboard by the tuna, he hit his head on the edge of the boat, and, barely conscious, floated for hours in his life jacket until he was picked up by Jamaican fishermen.

The day before our wedding, Suzie’s boyfriend came back from Jamaica, and she ran off with him! Needless to say, I was devastated. But thank God, a year later, you came into my life and took that pain away. You made me whole again.

I love you, Martha, and would die for you, but I must say no to your proposal of marriage, and there are two reasons why:

First, after my failed relationship with Suzie, I can’t risk the pain of rejection again. If we got married, and you divorced me—or ran off with another man—I don’t know what I would do. I might jump off a bridge! I’m afraid of getting hurt again. A coward is what I am, but I can’t endure the pain of rejection from a woman I love.

Second, and most importantly, although I love you now, how can I know that I will always feel this way? What if I woke up one day I was no longer in love with you? My Uncle Jim told me that if you choose to love your wife every day, and do good to her, the feelings of love will always flow. Uncle Jim endured 40 years of marriage to a nasty, self-centered woman until he died of a heart attack.

Uncle Jim was a saint, but he was wrong about love. Love is a feeling you have no choice in. You either feel it for your partner, or you don’t. If I fell out of love with you, how could I stay married to you? It would be like a prison sentence I could never endure!

Because love is an unstable emotion, how can I with integrity stand before a priest and make a promise that I will be with you for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part? If I made that promise, and later divorced you, that would make me a liar. But I’m not a liar. I’m honest Roger! I always tell the truth, and never make a promise I don’t intend to keep.

No, my dear Martha, I love you too much to make a false promise that I would marry you and never leave you. I love you now, and I am 99.9% certain I will love you tomorrow, next week, and even next month. But as far as next year goes, I have no idea. I don’t have a crystal ball!

However, I do have a counter-proposal. Why don’t I move into your apartment? We can split the rent, and buy groceries together. We will both save money and have a better quality of life. And by living together, we can discover if we have any annoying habits that might make us incompatible. Wouldn’t this be a safer and more sensible approach than the outdated institution of marriage? We will be together for as long as both of us are happy.

Let me know what you think of my proposal. I can’t wait to hear!

Love and kisses,

Roger

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