Trust in Public Records

There is a woman in Washington State who was married to two men. Two! My hat goes off to her, because here I can't make a marriage work with one man, and she managed to stay married to two for five years! Must be all the breaks she took while traveling from one husband to another.

All kidding aside, this was one smooth operator. The press is silent as to the reason 39-year-old Chunbo Shen married the 76-year-old man from Kingston, WA, whom she met online. We know little about the Illinois husband, except that he exists, which also means he didn't check public records before marriage.

The Washington husband found his wife's joint tax return with this other husband on his computer. Now he understood all the trips she took; she must have said she was visiting family, and she was. Ironically, she was even arrested at the airport: Kitsap County has charged her with bigamy. All good things come to an end. Both husbands would make ideal 'poster children' for reasons to explore public records before getting married.

And that is the moral of the story, as I see it. An older American man marrying a pretty young immigrant woman should come down to earth and realize it's not his masculine prowess she is after. I don't mean to imply that all such relationships are corrupt, but there is a large precedent.

Before you blindly trust someone, why not build your trust on solid ground? Check out your intended's background and verify that there is no other marriage certificate on file. While you are at it, make sure she has no civil judgments, liens or bankruptcies, or even criminal history. You can find all that information in public records.

Then you'll at least know whether the love of your life has reasons to deceive you, or not. Romance is wonderful, but trust is earned; there is nothing wrong with protecting your interests. Better safe than sorry. How many more cliches do I need to employ to convince you?