A driver in his mid-nineties was trying to parallel park on a busy street in Palo Alto during the height of the lunchtime hour this week. The driver hit the accelerator instead of the brake and slammed into a pedestrian and four people seated at tables outside of a restaurant. Two of them needed surgery, the others had cuts and bruises. The driver could just as easily have killed them all. The police are calling this a tragic accident and, pending further investigation, don’t plan to file criminal charges.

The DMV requires that the driver take an ’emergency retest’ to see if his license should be taken away. Really? If he passes his retest, will they let him out on the road again? He wasn’t drinking. He could have been doing drugs, perfectly legal drugs that impair his ability to respond quickly, to coordinate his eye, hand and foot movements, to judge distances and inhibit his responses.

Actually, what he was doing is criminal. He shouldn’t have been driving in the first place.  The people he injured may suffer permanent health problems or be disfigured. Our collective insurance rates will rise because his insurance company will have to reimburse the people he injured. If he had killed the five people he injured, their families would have suffered serious consequences.

The Department of Motor Vehicles should draw a line in the sand. No matter how well a 90- year-old sees or how many questions he answers correctly, he’s too old to drive. No matter how sharp his memory or what a good dancer he still is, behind the wheel of a car, he is a potential menace. If he hands in his keys voluntarily, let’s give him a medal. If not, let’s deny him a license.

Ninety is not the new 70. The body and brain that worked well two decades ago isn’t doing so well.   Don’t endanger the rest of us in the name of beating the aging game. If you’re in your 90s, hand in your keys. If your parents are in their 90s, for your sake and theirs, take the keys.It’s time to draw a line in the sand.

Take off the rose colored glasses and listen up. I apologize for shattering your illusions. However,  if you consider these points with an open mind, your marriage may stand a better chance of surviving.

1. Marriage is not natural behavior. There is no equivalent in nature where either sex of any species mates for life as a result of illusions about their mate. They pair off to propagate the species without benediction or perception of personal future benefit. Neither Uncle Sam nor God care about the words. Uncle Sam only cares about the taxes; God is too busy holding the universe together.

2. Marriage is a choice. Unless you’re being forced into a shotgun wedding or live in an arranged marriage culture, you’re choosing your mate. The behaviors you see during courtship, or don’t see, but believe are there, are part of our human ability to camouflage and fantasize. If you don’t like certain behaviors in a fiancee, you won’t like them any better in a spouse.

3. Marriage doesn’t protect you from anything. Loneliness, disappointment, illness, financial problems, disillusion , parental neglect or daily stress can accompany you right to the altar and beyond. Your spouse is a partner, not your shield against what’s not right in your world.

4. Marriage is a legal and financial responsibility. Once you marry, you’re part of a business partnership that presents a tax opportunity for the government and a financial obligation to your creditors. Love or lack of it isn’t a valid defense against your signature on a contract, mortgage, tax return or lease. Sign it – whatever it is – and you’re as responsible for it as your mate.

5. Marriage isn’t structured to make you happy. It gives you more legal rights than living together, but it’s harder work than people predict. It is an opportunity to be with someone you love, work together with each others’ support and envision a future you can both share.

To paraphrase John F. Kennedy: Ask not what marriage can do for you. Ask what you can do for your marriage.

Comments? http://www.financialintimacy.com

Ellen De Generis has one. So do Rosie O’Donnell, Suze Orman and Meredith Baxter. Before my husband died, I used to be one.  I often dreamed of having one.

With the emergence of same-sex marriage as a legal reality, will we need to find a new word for wife as we did when Ms. entered our life as a substitute for Miss or Mrs?

In a gay marriage, will husband take on a whole new meaning? In a lesbian marriage, who will be the wife?  Is wife a job description? Will a wife take her ‘husband’s name’? Will husband and wife only apply to straight marriages?

It’s very exciting. I think same-sex marriage will change the institution of marriage in ways that will benefit straight marriages. By providing a new model for how two people can live together equitably and create a stable environment for children to flourish, this evolution of marriage may lighten the load of assumptions and stereotypes that create resentment and stress in heterosexual marriages. Without gender stereotypes, marriage may free a couple to shed the burdens of what is male, what is female and focus instead on the partnership that modern marriage can be.

We’re barely at the beginning of this social experiment.  Just as the womens movement redefined marriage, divorce and the role of women in society, same-sex marriage may make the terms ‘husband and wife’ obsolete. Marriage vows that ask “Do you take ____ to be your lawfully wedded partner….. bode well for more egalitarian marriages – and possibly, less divorce.

It can feel intimidating to talk to a lawyer. I’ve learned the hard way that if your lawyer can’t explain things to you as if you are a smart 14-year-old, you should find a lawyer who can. A lawyer is supposed to make your life easier, not more stressful.

Credentials count, but this is about more than education and experience . The law is complicated enough; you need someone who can explain things to you in addition to being qualifed to advise you. In the event of divorce, or the death of a spouse, you will be working closely with the lawyer. You want things explained clearly to you because you’ll be emotionally upset. A lawyer’s jargon and lack of ability to communicate clearly will upset you even more.

For example, I couldn’t work with someone who is patronizing. Consulting a lawyer is already an unequal situation. You have a problem. You need a solution. You don’t need someone making you feel even more vulnerable. Many lawyers think that reassuring and protecting a woman is doing her a favor. I call that the ‘Don’t worry about a thing, dear’ attitude that keeps women from being able to make decisions. Many women want their lawyer to take care of everything. I’m not one of them.

I want a lawyer who listens, doesn’t interrupt me, doesn’t flood me with jargon,and shows up on time. I want information, an explanation of options, pitfalls, and costs.

Anyone out there know someone like that?

A marriage is like a business that two people who love each other are building together.

People don’t like to think about their marriage as having a business component. It’s called marital finances – MONEY –how much comes in, how much goes out, what it’s spent on and how much is saved. Money, this ‘thing’ we think will take care of itself if only we love each other enough, is a huge factor in breaking up marriages.

There’s no romance or illusion involved in running a business. But there is intimacy – financial intimacy – that makes all the finances transparent for each of the partners. Financial information is shared, discussed and agreed upon. Neither partner commits the other before consulting with them.

Would you hide purchases from a business partner? Would you commit to investments your partner didn’t know about? Would you spend needed capital on something you couldn’t resist and then try to justify it?

People have a double standard when it comes to building a business and building a marriage. That’s too bad. Going into marriage, it’s all about love. Coming out of marriage, it’s all about money.

http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/26/your-agenda-for-fiscal-health-day/

Hilary Price, a wonderful cartoonist, has a drawing in which a man is kneeling in front of a woman, holding an open jewelry box with an engagement ring. He is saying, “Let’s assume each other’s debt. Trade in our independence for security and societal approval and celebrate with an event that will have cost overruns in the thousands.

I’ve been accused of being cynical, a spoil sport who doesn’t believe in romance. Someone who wants  to take the romance out of weddings. Not so. I want something much more important. I want to put the intimacy back in.

What’s so romantic about starting married life with thousands of dollars in debt due to wedding bills paid for with credit cards? It’s not romantic when bride and groom are still paying off the bride’s perfect wedding as they prepare for the arrival of baby.

It’s not the groom who amasses the cost overruns. All he wants is to get out of there and get on to the honeymoon. But the bride has believed from the time she played Barbie’s Fantasy Wedding that a ‘perfect’ wedding guarantees ‘happily ever after’.

Sometimes that works; more often it doesn’t. How much more loving and mature would this couple be if they traded in romantic thinking about wedding costs for a financially intimate look at what they can really afford?