Marriage

To Ed -- is she worth it? If so, why not? :-)

What do you want to do when you're older?
I don't know.
You don't know what career you want?
That's RIGHT.
You want to get married and have kids, though?
I DO?

probably not the most solid basis for a marriage.

This is mainly because I find it hard enough to find anybody I can even stand in a friendship capacity, let alone someone to live with Forever And Ever.

this is completely my situation. waited six years before i asked, but at the time i bought the ring, i was jobless. i spent half of my savings on the ring because the way i looked at it, i loved her and she meant that much to me. what else was i really going to be doing with the money. i'm young and i'll be able to save it again.

the entire year planning the wedding was the most stressful time of my life. we did the whole big traditional wedding (Pebble Beach, yowza!). her parents are filipino catholic, so that's the way it's going to be done, period. after many, many times of thinking why the fuck am i doing this, the wedding came (2 months ago) and it was the most wonderful day of my entire life. seriously. to have 150 of your closest friends and family members there to share your love with each other. it's beyond amazing.

now we're married and guess what. it's no different than normal living together life. which means everything's good.

uh, so, yeah, like i'm married and it's pretty alright i guess.

(Ally in being a bling ass motherfucker shocker)

http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Lou_Reed_marries_Laurie_Anderson_re_04252008.html

Marriage is what you make of it, where "you" = both of you. No more or less.

Sounds trite. Stupid. But it surprises me how often 'marriage' is blamed for failed marriages, as if it had some malign power of its own. It doesn't. It's just two people trying to strike a balance of terror power through cooperation and communication. No magic involved.

And, since you can't make a marriage work all by yourself, however much you sweat bullets trying, it is a good idea to choose your spouse as wisely as you possibly can, given all the hormones at work at the time of the choosing.

^^^^^^^^this.

Its a daily thing, like most anything else. You gotta choose to make it work.

Other than red wine. It pretty much fucking rocks just sitting there.

Excuse me, DG, *I* was going to be the blushing bride. You're just too manly.

-- Ned Raggett, Wednesday, September 19, 2001 5:00 PM (Wednesday, September 19, 2001 5:00 PM) Bookmark Link

shop?

Someone I know once said any relationship is the two people in it making the daily decision to want to stay together. I like that.

being married is kinda like not being married except you're married

when you get sick and tired of being married, it costs you upwards of about $1500 on top of god knows. when you get sick and tired of not being married, it costs you whatever you didn't pay for in the first place.

in many respects, I am an extremely, EXTREMELY lucky dude

regardless, I would get married again in a heartbeat if I felt like it.

Motherfucker.

i wouldn't mind being married if i could be.

that means finding someone first, which will probably happen after laws change

They have laws against finding someone?!

How many marriage threads are there?

being gay is an impediment to getting married here in the unenlightened states is what i think he meant. (xpost)

i've been married so long I don't know what to think about it anymore.

aimless' generally OTM comments reminded me of something a shrink said to me once about how people choose mates -- that you reach a phase in yr life where there's a physical/psychological imperative to marry/partner, a window of opportunity, and who you wind up with is less of a conscious choice than a gut reaction, a kind of overlapping with somebody else in the same phase. I think that's what he said.

of course this doesn't explain the ever growing number of happy post-divorce second marriages, so maybe this guy was just filling out the hour with some bullshit theory he concocted.

being gay is an impediment to getting married here in the unenlightened states is what i think he meant. (xpost)

Not in MA! We saw two guys getting married by a pond in the Boston Commons last weekend. It was very sweet.

my wife and I celebrated 10 years of making it work yesterday! fuck yes! and we did it the same way we celebrated on the day after the wedding: by watching the Cubs lose.

(at the ballpark I mean - our marriage has benefited greatly from going to see the Cubs lose at key points)

haha congrats!

For maybe the first time ever I'm with someone I could honestly imagine being married to - and I'm really "whats the point?" about the whole thing for the most part (dont want kids, religious/legal aspects of no relevance to me). But yeah.

being married is weird. i dunno, i can't imagine doing it with anyone but maria. i guess that's the point of the whole thing. i didn't grow up with religion or anything like that, and i hate society cuz i'm a punk rocker, but it seemed right at the time. it's a statement of sorts. plus, our wedding was cool:

http://www.nba.com/media/sixers/vw_c5.jpg

Marriage is different from living together in a couple ways.

You get married in front of your friends and family, so it has a more broadly social and community aspect to it. Family and society both lend greater support to married couples, because the relationship has been given a known definiton and structure, and they know more what to expect.

Secondly, it strengthens the formal commitment to one another to keep trying when things get rough (not "if", because they always do). Sometimes that extra commitment gets you through the rough spots, and there are real rewards to achieving that longevity (but better sex is not one of them).

The challenges of living together are precisely the same as in marriage, so it's not like you get off any easier for avoiding the ceremony. You only get off a little easier if you decide to end the relationship.

"You get married in front of your friends and family, so it has a more broadly social and community aspect to it"

or, just for the sake of argument, a dwarf, a rabbit, cleopatra, and marc antony. just sayin'...

Someone mentioned to me today the concept of finding someone you can live with for the rest of your life... I can't even imagine living with myself for the rest of my life, at least not without major changes in lifestyle. The thought horrifies me.

-- Al, Wednesday, September 19, 2001 8:00 PM (6 years ago) Bookmark Link

haha on first glance I thought wrote this, posted under that name for a while but I'm pretty sure I didn't even fin ILX until October '01. my marriage begins in 14 days. I'm pretty optimistic about it.

fin=find

Congrats and good luck!

J. and I are a month from our 23rd anniversary.

Marriage has been very satisfying for me, for almost 5 years now. The fact that I have a partner whom I can count on to be there and not be insane or flake out or ream me a new one when I transgress against some never-stated law means immeasurably much to me. Conversely, having someone whose happiness I truly give a shit about -- not the kinda shit you give when trying to avoid a fight and get laid -- truly enriches my life. I still buy gifts, flowers, etc. for her, give foot massages, and so on, which honestly is something I never did for any of my 20-some years of pre-marriage girlfriends. So yea, I endorse marriage.

it's gonna be awesome Alex in Baltimore I just know! Congrats!

I think so, yeah. I play well with others IRL better than I do here, I swear!

J. and I are a month from our 23rd anniversary

Congratulations! My wife and I are coming up on our 12th anniversary.

The fact that I have a partner whom I can count on to be there and not be insane or flake out or ream me a new one when I transgress against some never-stated law means immeasurably much to me

what kind of fairy tale marriage are you in???

just kidding

congrats to a in b

a dwarf, a rabbit, cleopatra, and marc antony. just sayin'...

Weddings can be mocked or disrespected, just like anything else. Just sayin'...

I see nothing disrespectful about Mr. Seward's ceremony.

Hey, if a dwarf, a rabbit, cleopatra, and marc antony constitute Mr. seward's friends and family, then I fail to see what his point was, but I can still live with that.

jesus christ on the fucking cross how did I end up a mod to you people

I am sorry. I have no information on that matter. I should think you'd have some recollection, though.

The fact (?) that Seward's "event" constituted a legal ceremony demonstrates more respect toward the institution of marriage than anything else he could have done.

Marriage completely scares the shit out of me. Two of my friends have these destructive, depressing marriages (one is going through a really painful process of ending). They constantly remind me how drastically their partners changed after marriage--is this inevitable? The result of the wrong choice in person? Or just plain their fault?

Another friend dated his current wife for a year, got married, then waited a whole 4 months before conceiving a child, and I keep waiting nervously for the (seemingly) inevitable congress of shit and fan.

On the other hand what libcrypt has sounds awesome, and congrats to the others who are celebrating long years of marriage. I might get there somehow but I can't possibly imagine it.

*many long years, or just many years, whatever it's been a long day

People changing after marriage is indeed inevitable. Change is inevitable in most areas of life. Doesn't mean that your chosen life-partner will change into some horrid soul-eating monster.

Generally speaking, you do need to have enough flexibility to accomodate change. However, if the change invalidates whatever you loved about the person, then accomodation is not the correct answer. Loveless marriages do not work well for anyone.

I think they were talking about sudden, scary, "OK we're married now so I'm gonna act like this" kind of change, but I'm sure I'm only getting one side of the story, and you're totally OTM.

I don't necessarily think being in the relationship for a long time before marrying is inherently better or improves the overall chances of longevity, but I feel a lot more comfortable about my future having been w/ my fiancee for 6 years now. In a way I'm glad certain factors (like going to colleges 2 hours apart when we met, being too broke to afford a ring for a couple years after we eventually moved in together) kept us from reaching this point earlier. I think some of the growing pains we had early on, and especially when we first lived together, would've felt a lot more serious and relationship-threatening if we were 'husband and wife' at the time. My parents knew each other for literally one month when they married, and I think the inevitable "change" (or revealing of unknown personality traits) probably had a lot to do with their divorce. I think my fiancee and I know each other about as well as we can, so I'm assuming there won't be any unpleasant surprises from here on out, it'll just be a matter of actually doing the right thing consistently, and not fucking up my life like I have in the past, because I will now share that life with someone else.

People who suddenly radically change?

People who are scared shitless are more likely to act radically different on short notice. Marry someone who won't crap their drawers when confronted with trouble. Get one courageous lover, because courage is love's second face.

I credit much of whatever success I've had with my marriage to that I got married at 35, not 25 or younger. I definitely wasn't mature enough for marriage in my 20s. Obviously, this generalization doesn't apply to everyone, but it's worth a box on the marriage checklist.

All good advice, and duly noted.

I am anticipating future marriage and then the soon to follow divorce!

Of the married people I know, I can't really see any of them as having changed a whole lot since they were married. Nothing drastic, at least, or suddenly having to act like some sort of mythical married couple. Then again, 99% of the married couples I know (friends, siblings, cousins) lived together for at least a year before they got married. It's gotten to the point where it seems sort of weird and deliberately obtuse to not do this.

I think any "change" that people notice is something that was there all along but was ignored or repressed until it comes out later during the marriage. Living together first lets you fish these kinds of things out and deal with them to some degree, or at least not be shocked when it happens when you suddenly have to live together.

It'll be 7 years of marriage this summer, but we moved in together, combined finances and merged CD collections 3 years before that. We've both changed but not in unexpected or confusing ways.

http://www.theschooloflife.com/blog/2014/06/how-we-end-up-marrying-the-wrong-people/

kind of wish this would apply to dating, but maybe dating serves a different purpose to most?

https://i.imgur.com/W6EEqGb.jpg

Super interesting data comparing same-sex married couples in the US vs opposite-sex couples:

https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/2024/demo/acsbr-020.pdf