Marriage
Conclusion: marriage is not for everybody!
I thought I'd give you the conclusion I have come to realize before you read the whole thing thinking that it will be a rosy story about what marriage should be like and love and all those loads of crap.
Come to think of it, when I was a teenager, I thought that I would be married by the time I turned 25. I thought I wanted to have all the children I wanted to have by the time I turned 30. And I used to think that living happily ever after involved another person, and that it could not be achieved without this magical being who was going to be my husband until the end of time. There would be love everyday, and only love. We would never fight, we would never disagree, and we would have the best three children anyone could have wished for.
Obviously, I lived in a world of illusions. As I got older, I started realizing what a load of crap that was. I have not really changed much, besides getting more educated and learning that I am happy being on my own for now. The problem is that I started knowing other married people at a more realistic level than ever before. Until I went to college, the only real couple I knew was my parents. They don't have a perfect lovey dovey marriage by any measure, but they are genuinely happy together and belong together. After all, this year, they celebrated their 34th anniversary. That doesn't happen by just pretending or putting up with a horrible partner. The problem is now I know other couples. People who not only shouldn't be married to the people they're married to, they shouldn't be married to anyone at all. Insecure shallow people, who are constantly trying to compensate for their insecurities by putting every move of their spouse under the microscope. I know way too many couples like that. And nothing can turn you off marriage like a boring couple, except maybe a couple that is the worst mismatch since Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie were together. People who are obviously married because they thought that it's better to be married to the wrong person than to not be married at all.
I am not sure why everyone thinks marriage is the answer to everything. Not everyone is meant to be married. At this day and age, if you want to have kids, you don't need a spouse, if you need money, you have your own job, if you want insurance, well, get a job. This isn't 1930 where each person has a specific role, men earn the bread and women stay at home and become housewives. Both can do each other's roles, and I am really suspicious when girls freak out that a guy isn't proposing. I don't need a guy to propose to me for me to figure out if he's serious about being with me or not. If you're smart enough, you can tell. If someone says "if he doesn't propose by such date, I will leave" I lose respect for them. Why do you need a guy to propose? You can just talk to him and figure out if you're serious. Maybe it's easier for me, because I never think that I need to secure myself financially by marrying someone. I am realizing that this is not the case for a lot of women, still in this day an age. Quite sad and pathetic. Being proposed to and getting married are not equivalent to finding true love.
At the same time, I am at the age, where I can sit back and laugh, yes laugh at all the idiots that got married right out of college. Scary as it is, I am at the age, where those people are starting to get divorced. It's satisfying enough for me to sit here and say "I TOLD YOU SO!" I was also the biggest opponent of people marrying right out of college, because no one really knows what the other person is truly like in carrying on their everyday life, even if they dated all throughout college. Most people don't even know what they themselves are like or they want from life. Not to give credit to the older people who sometimes get married because they think they're too old to find someone, so they marry the first person they go out with for longer than a certain amount of time.
This brings me to something one of my friends just recently told me. She informed me earlier this week that a guy we both know proposed to a girl last Friday. When I told her that I did not realize that he had a girlfriend, she told me that he'd been going out with her for two weeks. You have got to be kidding me! I've had a carton of milk in my fridge for longer than that. I have had a longer relationship with my milk carton than this guy has had with this girl that he wants to marry. The milk carton and I are going on week three or four. I will be extremely offended if my milk carton doesn't propose to me by the end of this week. If it doesn't, I'm going to dump it (down the drain). It just seems that our relationship has gone sour recently. And to avoid problems, I am not going to wait till the relationship is completely spoiled. Bye bye milk carton. It's not me, IT'S YOU!
8 comments:
while some of the things you say do make sense to me, i think you're being pretty cynical here. i know, you are a cynical person but c'mon...
C and my relationship is FAR, FAR from perfect, but i truly love him. and that feeling can make you make wrong decisions at times and give up a little bit of yourself. which is okay, because that's part of the compromise you have to make once it's not just about you any more. but you get a lot back, that's for sure.
certainly there are couples that should have never gotten married in the first place but there are lots of marriages that work to prove that marriage itself is not a bad thing [just see your parents]. you just have to find a partner it'll work with, which is the hard part...
i think in the U.S. the pressure is a lot higher than in europe, too. here you are an "alien" if you get married before you're at least 28ish and over there you already get sympathetic looks when you're NOT married at that age.
so while i agree on that getting married too soon [after two weeks? that really seems like a desperate move...] is probably not a good idea for most people, i still DO believe in marriage. and quite honestly, I can not imagine a happily ever after without kids AND a great partner to raise them with. but that's just me... :)
Actually, I'm not a cynical person at all. I believe in marriage too, but only for the right reasons. And I don't think we really disagree. Actually, you and C are a good example. You're capable of committing to each other and loving and trusting each other without having to be married. Not to say you won't get married, but for now, you are comfortable in your relationship without having that piece of paper, because you know that you love each other.
I think you're right, people in the US are different. Women here are less secure in relationships and need that reassurance that the guy won't leave them. They're not happy enough with being with someone for a long time without having the guy propose. That I think is sad. It doesn't mean I don't believe in marriage. I just don't believe in marrying the wrong person for the wrong reasons, something that a lot of people do around here.
I don't know what you're seeing when you read what I write, but I don't think anywhere in there I indicated that I didn't want to get married or have kids. I don't want to do that with the wrong person, and I don't want to put an age on when that should happen. That's all I said.
Ha ha love the milk carton analogy!
I think you're right about people who marry too young. But you know that because you've got hindsight.
Nobody can tell at 23-year-old that they shouldn't get married because by the age of 25 they'll be a completely different person and likewise, the person they married will be completely different.Nobody can tell that 23-year-old how her spouse will eventually complain about that she's "not the woman [he ]married" and how he'll use that as an excuse to cheat on her. 2/3 of "failed" marriages are attributed to infidelity, but I actually think that percentage is higher (like 90%) when you're talking about young couples with no kids who are just getting started.
Don't get me wrong, I think there are young couples who *can* make it. But marriage is war, and in a society where everything--including people--are seen as disposable, if you want to make it, you better be prepared to battle.
Some of us just don't have the fight in us.
Nah, your relation with your milk is going cheesy! :P
Being married to my wife for eight years has been more fun than a roller coaster: you get your ups, downs, barrel dives, sometimes even one or two cars get derailed, but the maintenance crew comes up and there you go!
Yes, I agree with you: you have to marry somebody for a "good" reason not just to be accompanied by somebody... that's the formula for disaster or divorce...
Here in Mexico if you're not married by the age of 30 you got the same looks as Kim described no matter if you're a man or woman but the pressure is bigger for women...
Because of that I know some "odd"couples" that seem single but in fact they are married... makes you think: what was the point of getting married?
Anyway, you're going to get married when you feel to, not when everybody thinks you should be.
well, i guess i misinterpreted these parts:
... I used to think that living happily ever after involved another person, and that it could not be achieved without this magical being who was going to be my husband until the end of time. [...]
... Not everyone is meant to be married. At this day and age, if you want to have kids, you don't need a spouse, if you need money, you have your own job, if you want insurance, well, get a job. ...
it just kinda sounded like you were all ready to just be a successful business-single-mom or something and not need or wanna have a husband "to live happily ever after" with at all. it came across a little "anti-marriage". at least that's how i read it, but i'm german and certainly misread things in english some times! you cleared that up and i'm sorry i misunderstood :)
and of course i agree 100% about how you shouldn't marry the wrong person for the wrong reasons. i guess i've just been lucky enough to see all my friends have at least 6+ years of a working and developing relationship under their belt before they got married. so all i see is pretty much marriages out of the right reasons. but like i said, it's different in germany and i'm glad it is! :)
PS: i think you sometimes are a bit cynical - or at least come across that way to me. sometimes you seem to be so annoyed by other people who live different to what you believe in an you have a strong opinion and way to bring it across. which doesn't mean that i don't agree with a lot of what you're saying, i would probably just say it a little different some times. which does NOT mean that my way is right and yours isn't ... !
Hanni - You are right. We all have perfect vision in hindsight. And I agree, that far more people cheat than statistics show. To me, that's the one thing that would make me walk away without a fight. I just can't forgive cheating. I guess I am lucky that in college I managed to date a series of douche bags that I always ended the relationships and didn't run the risk of marrying someone at such a young age.
I agree, some people just don't have the fight in them. But also, some things are not worth fighting for, like cheaters.
Julio - Ooh, I can't believe I missed the cheese reference too with the milk carton analogy!
WOW, 30 being the cut off age is way too much pressure. Yikes! I don't think there's really an age here. I hope at least there isn't.
I also know a few couples who are married, but act single and lead very separate lives. I have no respect for people like that. It's one thing to be two independent different people in a marriage and retain your own personality, it's another to act like you're not married. People often mistake one for another.
Kim - I did not start a blog to write about the rosy stuff. I am not cynical, but I think serious issues and problems of the world are more worthy of my writing space. You obviously don't know me that well if you really think I'm cynical.
I am not annoyed at people who live differently from me, I am annoyed at people who are fucking nuts and do dumb things, in my opinion. I happen to know a lot of people who have very different lives from me, but I like them, so I don't feel it necessary to write about them. I call those "MY FRIENDS." Crazy people annoy me. Crazy people who threaten to ruin my life because they missed a medication dose really annoy me. People who do dumb things I disagree with, well, they just provide me with great material for my blog.
By the way, the way people do it in Germany is the right way. Most girls I know in the US say things like "after a year, he better be ready to propose." I think after a year you will know if this is someone you want to marry, but that doesn't mean you should actually marry them after a year.
Don't worry about me, I won't be pulling the single mom thing yet. But I do know I want children, and if I get to a certain age and have not met someone special, I would not hesitate to have a child by myself. I am far from that point though. But no, I am not at all the kind of person who says "I don't need a man, EVER!"
kula, i'm sorry. i probably really don't know you well enough. we've seen each other one weekend, but that was it (unfortunately). all i'm saying is that IN THIS BLOG (or sometimes your twitter) you COME ACROSS as cynical. which is because this is your space to rant (which is perfectly fine) and bitch but that way only shows a small fraction of who you are.
i am actually very much a "live and let live" person and should probably care about things that go wrong in the world more - and maybe try to change some. so in a way i think the fact that you do care enough about idiots out there to write about them is great. i NEVER wanted to offend you and i'm sorry if it came across that way.
this written-thing can be difficult at times - and lead to misunderstandings. SO, please don't be mad or insulted or disappointed because of my comments. this was just how i felt it "came across" in the post.
talking is def much better than this writing-thing :)
Kim - You met me, which is the more reason why I'm shocked you think I'm cynical. Most people think I'm a cheerful and happy person after meeting me once. But I don't think I can entertain readers with happy stories. When I read blogs, I don't care much for the happy stories. I'll dedicate the next blog entry to you, to show you what I mean.
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