Be Careful What You Wish For

I don't really talk much about my divorce, especially at work, but little by little I have become less reluctant to do so.  Given that most people at work know the girl I have been dating for the last five years it isn't really a secret that I am divorced, but the reality of situation isn't something I go into detail on much.

Maybe it was the horrible incident in Orlando that caused me open up or maybe it was just the moment but I was having a conversation with a person, who happens to be gay, at work whom I have know, and consider a friend, for decades.  He mentioned something about retirement and I made a comment about that the fact that it is pretty much illegal for me to ever retire. That opened it all up and in a matter of minutes I told him about the curse of lifetime alimony that I am under and the fact that not only retirement but remarriage is, for all practical purposes impossible for me.  Ever.

The topic changed to same-sex marriage and I told him that when the whole issue came up a few years back came up I was conflicted. I don't believe the government has any business regulating who can marry who but under current law, at least in Minnesota, it opens up a whole new segment of the population to the horrible injustices that occur in Family Count.  It is analogous to giving women the right to be drafted and fight in combat - during the height of the Vietnam War.

Equal rights are good. But you have to be careful what you wish for. Yet hope springs eternal (it has to for me or I could never survive) so maybe, just maybe, as same-sex people start getting divorced some of more heinous aspects of family law will change and change for the better. Same-sex marriage went from an impossibility to reality in just a few years. Maybe the most unjust aspects of alimony can eliminated before too long as well.  I hope so.