BACHELOR'S DIARY: Irreconcilable differences, huh?

No marriages are more fascinating than Hollywood unions. Not only are they sometimes shockingly short, I tend to think they’re entered into based on everything but love. Mostly just lust, I dare say. How else can one explain how male and female costars in movies always seem to fall in love? Even those who happen to be married to other people, by the way.

Since they are so fleeting, prenups are the order of the day for each party to protect their properties. Imagine how losing half of one’s stuff to a divorced spouse would have wreaked havoc on Liz Taylor’s eight marriages to seven different men. Prenups in order, the marriage limps along for a while, maybe until they meet their future spouses on the set of their next movie.

What is even more captivating is the most common reason these couples give for separating. Irreconcilable differences. It’s such a broad term that it borders on the absurd.

On the face, it means a fundamental incompatibility between two people, particularly spouses, that has caused a marriage to break down to the point it cannot be resolved, making it a legal basis for a no-fault divorce. Basically, it’s anything and everything. Bad or no communication, poor lovers, working too much, got too fat or too thin… Any excuse can be irreconcilable.

The best part, though, is “no-fault divorce”. I mean, what the heck does that even mean? I bet that would never work in any other aspect of life. It’s like if I went to a dealership and bought a car, drove it around for a few months, then I take it back to the seller and ask for my money back.

“Why?” asks the dealer. “Something wrong with it?”

“Oh, no. It’s a no-fault return. I just want to go elsewhere and buy another car.”

In other words, you can get married and then decide to get a divorce for no other reason but being bored of the whole thing.

Funny thing is, there’s no way to challenge this ground. By stating that you’re done trying to make the marriage work, no judge will force you to stay on. If anything, you’ll be granted the divorce not so much for you, but for the spouse whom you would only make more miserable by staying.

That said, it frankly beats me why anyone would enter into a contract knowing quite well that the other party could end at any time for no reason at all. And that the law would back the erring party, too. You invest years of your life, not to mention oodles of money and other resources, just for your partner to wake up one morning and say, “I can’t deal with you anymore. I’m outta here.”

Frankly, I’d think someone would owe me a reason. You don’t just bail on me on a whim and get away with it willy-nilly. But then again, I may never have to go through anything like that. Why? Because I refuse to be put in that box.