I will admit I am writing this out of jealousy.  I never got married myself.  It was one of those things that were never possible.  Nonetheless I remain intrigued by the many marriages, remarriages, and non-married couplings that have entertained my family members.

When I was 24 I remember telling my brother-in-law, who is now no longer my brother-in-law, that I wondered why people to do it.  Perpetrate families.  'There must be another way,' I told him at the time.  He shrugged.  'Its one of those things that do not work but no one has found a better system,' he said.

I should say that although I have refrained from marriage, I have not refrained from creating a family.  I felt driven to do it.  I felt like a failure without children.  And as a single parent I am my own kind of sterotype.

Neither did my spinsterhood prevent me from becoming a stereotype in all sorts of requited and unrequited love affairs.  I yearned.  I became jealous.  I became angry and mean.  I disappeared.  I was cruel.

So I do not mean to be judgemental about other people's choices, or their ability to suspend disbelief long enough to enter into marriage.  For I am sure my choices and my behavior in a marriage would be worse than theirs in all ways.  But I have never been able to do it.  It felt like beliving in Santa Claus, or pretending to be normal.  I am too ironic for that sort of thing, and too ashamed of how ridiculous I become.  No longer myself.  I am sure this is why I no longer write fiction, too.

But I cannot help but be fascinated by the dramatic marriages  of my nuclear family.

These are their stories.