Young Marrieds

[vovat]

bethje has remarked on occasion that the two of us are more best friends than anything else, which I guess is kind of true. When we'd only been dating for a few months, people compared us to an old married couple. I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that I'm not an exciting person to be with. I'm mostly just reliable, and I don't hear anyone saying that reliability is what they're looking for in a partner. I guess it's a good thing, but it isn't something anybody is really attracted to. I've always been clear that what I most desire in life is contentment, and I suppose I try to provide that as well. Is it weird for a married couple with an average age of thirty to be more close friends than anything else? Isn't that usually something that happens some time down the road?

What's kind of weird is that I'd wanted to get married for a while, yet I don't think marriage really has much meaning. Neither of us are religious, so we don't have the concern about being legitimately together in God's eyes. (And really, if I WERE religious, I doubt I'd think the Almighty would be that petty.) I wasn't really giving up my bachelorhood, because I'd never dated anyone else anyway. And for that matter, I don't even think marriage has to be about monogamy. I don't want to have an open relationship, but I don't really have a moral objection to the idea, either. It's more than I wouldn't want the complications (and I don't think anyone else would be interested in me anyway). It's more that I like being married because it means something to other people; saying "my wife" sounds more impressive than "my girlfriend," even if our situations were the same before and after the wedding. And, of course, there are the legal benefits of being married, like being able to share in my wife's health insurance. Honestly, I feel like giving special benefits to married couples is pretty ridiculous on the part of the government. I have to wonder if conservatives are so intent on preserving "traditional marriage" not just to pander to the Religious Right, but also because it saves money. If you can, for instance, limit the people with which someone can share health benefits to a spouse and children, that means less people for the insurance companies to cover.

Comments

[dragonxbait.livejournal.com]

The marriage issue was really complicated for me too. I really don't agree with the idea that the state or the church needed to recognize our commitment for it to be valid. For whatever reason, it was really important to Tom that we get married before starting a family, and in retrospect, especially since his income is so, so much more than mine and I am going to be staying home I think it probably ends up protecting me in a lot of ways in case of disaster. I think we could have found other legal ways to get those protections, but marriage definitely made it easier. In terms of being mostly close friends- I have had relationships with lots of passion, but for the most part they tended to also have lots of conflict. Not to say this is always true, but I think the whole cinderella being swept off your feet myth does a disservice to marriage, because those feelings really can't last too long beyond the beginning of a relationship, and it contributes to people feeling dissatisfied and looking elsewhere for that feeling. Tom is super reliable, and we both agreed a long time ago that our relationship was something that was worth working at during the difficult times. I wasn't always convinced that I had found my "soul mate" but I have to admit that as the years go by, I feel more and more like he has become that. Meh, it's all weird to explain. I know some people who have arranged marriages (that they agreed to, mostly middle aged indian couples from the daycare center where I used to work) and one of them told me that they never saw marriage as being about falling in love, it's about working together to run your home and family and eventually you *do* love them, as a result of that. I think maybe I there is some value to that.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

one of them told me that they never saw marriage as being about falling in love, it's about working together to run your home and family and eventually you *do* love them, as a result of that. I think maybe I there is some value to that.

Yeah, that makes sense to me. I'm still glad that my own marriage wasn't arranged, though. {g}

And passion and conflict really do go together like flies and honey, don't they?

[dragonxbait.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't know that I would have wanted an arranged marriage either, but I do think our cultural expectations about love and marriage are sort of...broken.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Or at least overly optimistic, expecting the passion from early on in a relationship to last forever, and then getting disappointed when it doesn't.