thewebthsp said:
Right-- again, marry or breakup! I want to make sure the woman I end up with does NOT espouse this view. I see nothing wrong with having a childless domestic partnership for a while. I may want to be with this person -- I just don;t want to be married to her in such a short period of time!! In your formula, the woman should break up with me for believing in such an idea. I also think a dom. partnership should be seen as an interim step towards marriage, and thus also I believe in giving homosexual couples the same track as heterosexual couples in the secular system.
First of all, no, I wasn't saying that a woman should break up with you in that situation. I'm simply stating my own opinions, as they apply to my life. I'd never presume to know what's best for anyone else or to try to tell anyone else what they "should" do in their relationships. Everyone is different; what's right for one person may not be right for someone else. For the most part, I could care less what choices other people make, as long as they're happy with them. Many women are not particularly interested in marriage, at least not any time in the near future, if ever. If you find a like-minded woman who is also not interested in getting married any time in the near term future, then more power to you both, and I'd never say there's anything wrong with your relationship just because you've been dating for a number of years and aren't married (as long as both people are happy with the situation).
For me, that isn't a situation I'd be interested in. I think of marriage as being the ultimate commitment. It is a sacred, eternal commitment to love, honor, and cherish another person. I also see it as having a spiritual component and being a path to spiritual growth. I think that if you're willing and go into it with the proper intention, marriage can help you learn to love another human being unconditionally, to learn to put another's needs and desires on level with your own, and to learn about the nature of real love. That's a path I'm very interested in following, and one of the reasons marriage has always been one of the things I've wanted for myself. Marriage isn't something I take lightly, however. You can see how if I loved another person enough to make what I see as the ultimate commitment to them, and if they had no interest in making that commitment to me, then I'd have a hard time with that. To me, it would mean that I wasn't as special to them as they were to me, and that's not what a love relationship should be. I think it's important in a relationship that both people are relatively equally invested in it, and I'd have a hard time staying with someone knowing I cared more about him than he did about me.
Now, there are certain situations in which that wouldn't apply, such as if someone just has philosophical opposition to the institution of marriage, and doesn't believe in it for whatever philosophical or political reason. Then the desire to marry or not says nothing about the depth of love and commitment. Or if someone watched their parents go through a horrific divorce and was left with deep doubts about marriage as an institution; those things I could understand. I think there are legitimate arguments to be made against the institution of marriage, such as that it is heterosexist and someone doesn't want to take advantage of an institution whose benefits are available to them because they are hetero but that are not available to gay people. I'm very sympathetic to that argument (and as you can probably guess, I'm in favor of gay marriage). But if someone who I loved enough to marry simply didn't care enough about me or wasn't sure I was "the one", and wanted to play around more for a few years first, well, that's something I would have a hard time with.
The real problem I have with your construct is that you want two things: you don't want to get married for many years, yet you also want the right to continue to be in a relationship with this person and not have them break up with you. If you meet a like-minded woman (and they are out there) who also doesn't want to get married or for whom it's not a priority, then no problem with that. However, what if your partner, like many women, DOES want to get married in the relatively near-term future? Then your construct isn't fair. Why aren't her desires and goals as important as yours? Why should she give you what you want if it's not what she wants? My point is, you may be forced to choose at a certain point between wanting to be with this person and not wanting to get married. You may not get to have both things you want. And there's nothing unfair about a woman putting you in that situation, if marriage is one of her goals. Her desire to get married is just as legitimate as your desire not to, and there's no reason her desires should come second to yours. You have the right not to get married; she has the right to break up with you if that's not something you want and she does. She has no obligation to stick it out for 5-10 years waiting to see if you'll want to get married if that doesn't fit with her goals, desires, and plan for her life. So, if you don't want to get married, that's fine, but you may have to accept losing the relationship unless the person you're with feels likewise, because you have no right to impose your desires on her anymore than she does on you.
As you point out, marriage is not just about love, it is also a partnership. A partnership has to be based on shared goals, values, and desires. If you and your partner have very different goals and desires in such an important area it's going to be hard to have a real partnership. Just as you say that if a woman is interested in marriage in the near-term future she's not the woman for you, a guy who was virulently opposed to marriage wouldn't be the right guy for me. There has to be compatibility in terms of goals, values, and life plans for a relationship to work out well.
You say that marrying someone who is "just right for you" after three years of a relationship in college would just be insanity for you. I assume you're referring to my situation; actually, it was 4 1/2 years before we were married. Regardless, I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree there. I know my husband is the one for me, and I've known it from a few months after we met. The five years in between have just served to confirm that knowing. I admire my husband more than almost anyone I have ever met; he is one of the kindest people I have ever known, he works very hard at whatever he does, and he has a lot of integrity. He is always there for me, he makes me laugh, I love spending time with him. We have similar ideas and goals and values and want the same things out of life. More than anything, I love him. And he loves me.
My husband wanted to marry me just as much as I wanted to marry him. I didn't push or force him into anything. If you knew my husband, you'd know that wasn't possible!
Especially not in this arena. I had absolutely no idea that he was going to propose; he kept it secret from me the whole time he was looking at rings and planning it. Just about everybody knew we were getting engaged before I did, because he was too excited to keep his mouth shut. He wanted to set the date the same night we got engaged, and I've never seen him happier than he was on our wedding day. This is something he's wanted just as much as I have, and he's very happy to be married. I certainly never pushed him into anything, and I would've been happy to wait for a few more years if that was what he wanted. I certainly never would have wanted to marry him before he was ready.
Anyway, I don't know if we'd fall into your "religious exception" category or not. We're not particularly religious, but the spiritual aspect of marriage is very important to me, and I think I do have more of the "duty/sacrifice" model of marriage than most people (although of course I believe that love and happiness are important too). In any case, I never meant to imply that there's just one right way of doing things or that everyone should do it my way. I was simply stating my own opinions, mostly as they apply to me. As long as the person you're with is like-minded, I see nothing wrong with dating/living together/having a domestic partnership for as long as you want, or with living together without ever getting married for that matter if that's what you want. As long as both people are compatible and want the same things!
I'm shocked by how negative folks here are about marriage. I'm married to an M1 and we both think marriage is the best thing to happen to us
