Mawwiage

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I know I've been talking about marriage a lot lately in my entries, so I was wondering about other people's perspectives on the topic. Are you married? Are you single? Do you want to be married? Do you flee from the very thought of marriage? What do you think are the criteria a couple has to meet before getting married?

Tell me your stories.

-- Jan (bookworm@jetcity.com), July 19, 2000

Answers

Listen, you may think I am totally weird, but I really worried about you after your Haitus entry. Marriage and commitment is a hard, complicated issue. Just so you know, I am married and have been for almost 10 years. I do not believe that you need to be married to be commited to someone on deep, intimate levels. And the new Vermont civil union is making me, at least, look at how marriage is defined. But I do know that an impasse in a relationship such as the one you are in and the one I am in (I want to start a family, my husband isn't ready yet) is really unfair to the person wanting to take the next step. I mean, even though technically it is an impasse, in the back of your mind, it feels like the other person won. So I was really glad that the two of you decided to revisit the issue at a later date. Because when one wants one thing and the other doesn't, life can pretty much suck.

As for my general thoughts on marriage. As I said before, I don't think you need to be legally married to share a life together. But some sort of ceremony can strengthen bonds between two people and also with the people sharing the ceremony. It doesn't have to be in a church with a minister. It doesn't even have to have clergy present. You can write your own vows and recite them to each other on the beach or on a cliff or somewhere else that is meaningful to you. The important aspect is the seriousness and beauty of two people committing to sharing their lives together. For better, for worse and all that. Marriage is changing. The deliniation between historical economic reasons for marriage and the more "modern" emotional reasons for marriage are becoming more and more deliniated. But I think marriage or life-long commitment is a wonderful thing when entered into with both eyes open and both feet on the ground.

-- Carrie (david@rlf.com), July 20, 2000.


I tend to only write about "serious relationship issues" with Keith when bad things have happened, and therefore the view that my readers have of our relationship is somewhat skewed.

Some things have happened in our relationship since that Hiatus entry that have been very, very good. I don't feel like writing about them in my journal right now, because it's private, and sometimes when very good things happen, I like to treasure them just for myself for awhile before sharing them with the world.

Suffice it to say that things are going well. Much better than they were a few weeks ago. I thank you for your concern.

-- Jan (bookworm @jetcity.com), July 24, 2000.


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