Marriage Stats Serve To Depress

We all know that 87.5 percent of statistics are made up, but it's still hard to be all engaged and excited to get married while getting deluged with an endless stream of statistics that make marriage seem like a more unsuccessful venture than even my fantasy baseball team (which will finish the year in 14th place, a slight drop from 13th last year).

Just under half of all marriages end in divorce, according to statistics. The younger you get married, the more likely you are to split up -- mostly because the older you are the more likely you are to die before you can file the papers. Marriages are most susceptible to divorce during the ironically-named honeymoon period, and first marriages that end in divorce last a measly eight years, just in time to break the news to your first born after his first day of 2nd grade.

This week, there was more news: More than half of all couples that might have celebrated their 25th anniversary since 2000 were either divorced, separated or widowed, which is triply depressing.

But have no fear! The Germans have a solution! A bizarre-looking district administrator (pictured above) from a rural state in Germany is running for congress with a conservative Christian party and proposing that marriages expire after seven years.

"This would mean that one will only commit for a fixed period and will actively have to renew your vows if you still want to continue," said Gabriele Pauli, who has been divorced twice (shocker).

In 7 1/2 years someone please remind me not to suggest this to the wife. Thanks.