RECENTLY I completed an interview for an online forum that I participate in. I decided to post my responses to four out of the five interview questions on my site as well. This is the second of four journal entries based on these questions.

QUESTION 2. You've been married twice and divorced twice. Are you still the marrying kind? If so, what do you want to do differently the next time? If not, why not?

Oh my! What a question! Divorced twice? Marry again? Everyone is on the edge of their seats… If he answers that he would marry again he must be a fool! If he says he won't, he must be bitter and cynical about relationships. Ah! If he does declare online that he still is the marrying type, maybe he will receive a flood of emails from interested and beautiful single women!

Maybe he should just answer the damn question!

I am going to say that I am still the marrying kind. I believe that marriage is a good thing. Plus, I have always been the kind of person who has no problem with commitment. I would prefer to find that one person to be with until the world ends. That would be a good thing. Whether that will happen for me is questionable.

As to what I would do differently the next time, I don't think there would be major drastic changes in the way I would approach things. How do I explain this so that it doesn't sound like I'm saying that I was completely faultless in my marriages and it was all their fault?

Those who know me personally and watched me walk through those very difficult times will tell you that I was more patient and forgiving than most would have been. I was of the opinion that marriage was a sacred thing. We vowed before God and a whole church full of people that we would be faithful to each other until one of us died. I took that seriously. And I loved both of them. So I went that extra mile out of love and commitment. When it became apparent that my first wife had a drinking problem, I did what I could to keep things together, care for the children, try to convince her to get help, etc. When my second wife decided that she just didn't want to be married and wanted to "live her own life," I suggested that we get some help and work through things. She had moved close to 400 miles away to stay with her mom. I did a lot of driving to see my daughters and to try to communicate with her. Strangely, she had made up her mind and refused to discuss it.

My experience has shown me that it does take two to make a marriage work. But it does not necessarily take two to ruin it. Sometimes it just takes one spouse with serious emotional problems or with no desire to continue the marriage to make it all fall apart. Often I have tortured myself by thinking, "It must be my fault. I must have some terrible personality traits that I'm not even aware of. Or maybe I'm schizo and don't even know that there are more than one of me in here!" No, I did my best and it just didn't work out.

All of that to finally get to answering the actually question. What I would do differently is a.) communicate better and with less fear, realizing that avoiding confrontation does not produce a strong relationship, b.) be more decisive, c.) be less of an enabler and draw the line sooner when it comes to someone's poor behavior. These were a few of my weak points. I've learned this the hard way. But I learned it!

(Now that I think about it... Renee Zellweger and I look pretty good together! And Snyder is a much better last name. I liked her best in "Jerry Maguire." "You had me at hello." That line gets me every time! Somebody do me a favor and email this picture to her. I can hear the revised line now... "You had me at 'You've got mail!'")

PART 3 COMING SOON!