Green beans. Alice says that monogamy is like green beans. Apparently, she�s been discussing it with Kath and Alice implies that Kath agrees. First, one should never ask single friends, especially divorced friends, to support the concept of monogamy. Some of them will support it but most of them will consider monogamy green beans or, much worse, unsweetened, cooked carrots. Second, if monogamy is like you currently have a marital cold and everything will taste alike no matter what you do.

Marriage is not a single item. It�s more of a mixture. Anyone who thinks marriage is only green beans is only seeing one part of the plate. I�ve never known a person who was only one thing (although, unfortunately, I�ve met a few who came close.) As relationships are a blend of at least two ingredients, the only way one could possibly get green beans is to be green beans and marry green beans. While I�m sure it happens, I suspect it�s rare and I doubt it lasts. Green beans may be good for you but only if they are part of the diet. No one can live on green beans alone.

To say marriage is a mixture is not to say what type of a mixture it is. Some marriages are stews, some are fruit soup and some are ratitoulle. Heck, some are probably root beer floats. There are as many marriages as there are combinations of people. A huge amount of what marriage is comes from what you bring to it. Marriage tends to be a bit bigger or more complex than its parts but rarely do the bad parts have only one source.

If you like stew, marry the right ingredients. If you are peas, search out meat and potatoes. If you marry stew, you can have your meat, your potatoes, some peas, a bit of delicious gravy, and, unfortunately, those cooked carrots. Served cold, it is totally unappetizing. Served piping hot, it will warm you through the winter and get you through much of the day. It will fill you up. It allows you to look for what you will and, if you look for those cooked carrots, those cooked carrots will seem ubiquitous.

If you prefer something sweeter, and you�re a bit sweeter, you can create a marriage more akin to fruit soup. You�ll have lots of different fruits and you�ll likely dislike a few. It�ll taste good cold but heat it up and wrap it in a blintz and you�ll be in heaven. You�ll need to eat it a little more frequently to fill you up and you�ll have to be prepared to get more nutrients from outside relationships but fruit soup can work quite nicely. But if you want fruit soup, you can�t marry and meat and potatoes type of guy.

You can even create marriages that work if you are mango and you crave chicken. Many recipes rely on some yin and some yang, some sweet and some sour and they work too. But almost marriage, unless one uses tunnel vision, consists of only green beans and it is hard to be certain that the green beans aren�t part of what you brought with you.

Yes, sometimes another guy temporarily looks like chocolate cake. Yes, occasionally one wonders whether it would be better to ditch the stew or soup for a piece of chocolate cake. But only the initial stages of a relationship bear any resemblance to chocolate cake. The next thing you know you�ve melted your ice cream all over the top and the thing is just a gooey, overly sweet, unsatisfying mess. Worse, you discover that his mother is the type who bakes spinach into her cake. (Yes, baking spinach into chocolate cake can be done. I used to do it to my vegetable-hating child until she caught on after a year or so.)

If you�re feeling like all you�re getting is green beans, take out your Parmesan and sprinkle liberally. If you prefer it and have it, pour out teriyaki sauce instead. Put a little sugar in the cooking water and see what happens. If you dig down, you have more than green beans there somewhere. If you don�t, the marriage is probably doomed to be unhappy.

Green beans? Only green beans? I think not.

LAST YEAR: Siren Call

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Copyright 2006 by Ellen