What do you say to the man who grandly offers to pay rent for having occupied your heart and space in your home? Smile, and walk away; your heart was never to-let! That was the irony of love! But what of marriage? A friend called me because her marriage, unbeknownst to her had fallen apart. Unbeknownst, because she did not know, until she was served divorce papers by the man she cooked for, looked after, slept with and loved... or perhaps, I got the sequence wrong, can't say. The papers came all neatly packaged in a brown envelope and addressed to her. She had married a widower of three children and whose youngest was one year old. Now after 10 years of marriage and another child together, her beloved husband decided the children no longer needed a mother. What do you say to a man who decides his wife of 10 yrs was only a glorified baby sitter? I said, drag him through court... for having used all of her services and then more! Atleast, the little one would received what is rightfully hers. Do pay offs make it better or demean what was to someone, a sacred thread? Do pay offs make it easier to salve one's conscience or instrumental in sustaining the definition of justice? I suppose the equation of love and marriage changes as the term "mutually beneficial" reaches the tipping point to favor only one party at which point the" favored" realizes he/she nolonger needs the other, hence the payoff. As Tina Turner sang soulfully, "What's love got to do with it?!" Just another morbid topic for a dreary spring day!