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Hi all.
It's great to know I'm not the only one who's unmarried by choice.
Back in the early '90s, when I was with the last person to whom I ever applied the label "girlfriend," I had some experiences that led me to seriously question the whole idea of marriage. Her family was very religious, and her parents--who lived in the DC area--threatened to leave the area if we even had contact with each other because, as they told her, "We can't stay and watch you ruin your life." When we moved in together, they actually did leave the area...and that was just the beginning. She went to visit them one weekend and overheard her aunt say "I don't know why she'd bother to show her face here, since she's living in sin with THAT MAN and all..." It was really heartbreaking--for her because her family is pretty close-knit, and for me because I really did love her a lot and felt utterly misunderstood. Then one day when we were shopping for a used car--neither of us had much credit at the time--the manager of the dealership said to us "Why don't you just get married like your folks want you to?," and my girlfriend just burst into tears. Of course there was no way the manager could have known how much crap her parents were already giving her over the "living in sin" issue, but that for me felt like the last straw. I started really asking myself what the big deal was, whether I actually would ever want to marry her and why or why not, etc., and I kept coming back to a feeling that I really didn't believe in marriage in the first place. It wasn't that I didn't believe in love, caring, commitment, etc...just not marriage. As I started coming to terms with what my views on relationships really are, it seemed to me that most people--probably not all, but quite a lot--who marry are really marrying the concept of marriage more than they're marrying each other. I also realized that, since I don't have faith in the institutions that support marriage (church and state), I don't think I could marry and really feel like I'm being honest with myself or others. Also, I'm in no great rush to bring more children into a world that often is not very kind to the children that are already here. To top it off, neither monogamy for monogamy's sake nor just getting laid without caring have ever felt right to me. So the upshot of all that is, while I definitely haven't given up on love, I don't feel the need either to marry or place any of my relationships on a hierarchy and give them labels to make them somehow legitimate. It just doesn't work for me. I would never try to tell others what to do with their relationships--As I said, I've experienced that, and it sucks--but I often wish more people could be more committed to each other as whole individual people rather than a role (e.g. "husband," "girlfriend," etc.)
Peace,
--Andy
It's great to know I'm not the only one who's unmarried by choice.
Back in the early '90s, when I was with the last person to whom I ever applied the label "girlfriend," I had some experiences that led me to seriously question the whole idea of marriage. Her family was very religious, and her parents--who lived in the DC area--threatened to leave the area if we even had contact with each other because, as they told her, "We can't stay and watch you ruin your life." When we moved in together, they actually did leave the area...and that was just the beginning. She went to visit them one weekend and overheard her aunt say "I don't know why she'd bother to show her face here, since she's living in sin with THAT MAN and all..." It was really heartbreaking--for her because her family is pretty close-knit, and for me because I really did love her a lot and felt utterly misunderstood. Then one day when we were shopping for a used car--neither of us had much credit at the time--the manager of the dealership said to us "Why don't you just get married like your folks want you to?," and my girlfriend just burst into tears. Of course there was no way the manager could have known how much crap her parents were already giving her over the "living in sin" issue, but that for me felt like the last straw. I started really asking myself what the big deal was, whether I actually would ever want to marry her and why or why not, etc., and I kept coming back to a feeling that I really didn't believe in marriage in the first place. It wasn't that I didn't believe in love, caring, commitment, etc...just not marriage. As I started coming to terms with what my views on relationships really are, it seemed to me that most people--probably not all, but quite a lot--who marry are really marrying the concept of marriage more than they're marrying each other. I also realized that, since I don't have faith in the institutions that support marriage (church and state), I don't think I could marry and really feel like I'm being honest with myself or others. Also, I'm in no great rush to bring more children into a world that often is not very kind to the children that are already here. To top it off, neither monogamy for monogamy's sake nor just getting laid without caring have ever felt right to me. So the upshot of all that is, while I definitely haven't given up on love, I don't feel the need either to marry or place any of my relationships on a hierarchy and give them labels to make them somehow legitimate. It just doesn't work for me. I would never try to tell others what to do with their relationships--As I said, I've experienced that, and it sucks--but I often wish more people could be more committed to each other as whole individual people rather than a role (e.g. "husband," "girlfriend," etc.)
Peace,
--Andy
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