Page 14 - The Circle of Life

Chapter 1

A few words to my readers & indemnities

It is always fascinating to see how a couple in love reacts when you discuss

divorce with them before they get married. Some look at you in horror and

others with incredulity. All dismiss the very idea of divorce as plain crazy and
frankly irresponsible if not totally inappropriate. Many said to me I will bring bad
luck to them by discussing this topic and made the sign of the cross in my

direction which I am prone to believe is a blessing. I hope so anyway for I would

not like to think otherwise that it may be to ward of the curse known as me.

* The cross sign is alien to my Afrikaner culture. We simply don't do such things

and we almost never kneel in public for prayer either. It is though expected for
the men to stand up with bowed heads and most certainly without a silly hat on

your head.

Others mutter oaths of the wrong kind under their breath and give me dirty
looks designed to bring the message home that I am a middle age twice

divorced fellow who forgot all about love years ago and now want to spoil their
happiness! That by the way is simply not true. I believe in love and am very

much in love with my American Patriot who is cute and beautiful and super
smart. Never been this happy in my life! Unfortunately statistics proves beyond

any doubt that your chances of not getting divorced are one out of three. In
other more negative terms you have almost a seventy percentage chance of

making divorce lawyers richer at some stage in your life. It makes for sad
reading.

Seventy percent against you is terrible odds in any language and the worst thing
about this is that your second marriage is even more prone to disaster as

statistics shows a second marriage, probably because of baggage, is the one you
end the quickest (mine lasted a year). As you probably already know, in life, the

first time round is always the worst except parachuting unless you are an

adrenaline junkie or something polite people avoid.

* Yeah I had a few comments about this paragraph from the parachutists

amongst my readers. Sorry about that - it was meant to be a joke and not as an

13