I do. Do I? I Don't think I do! (Marriage - Is it outdated?)

Member Name: pjs21

Product:	Marriage - Is it outdated?
Date:	01/10/01 (71 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Asking the wrong person

Disadvantages: Costly if goes pear, Costly anyway, Not always the right thing

Okay, sorry to be the bad guy here. The cynical one.

Now, I'm not going to slag off marriage. I'm not. Really. Well...

Okay.

I think I was about 7 years old when my Uncle and Aunt split up. The had two small children and it was New Years Eve. All I remember is my Aunt hugging my dad, tears streaming down her face. My unlce had gone. Nice.

That was the first divorce I remember. And actually, the only one I had experienced personally until I was 27.

I know people who are divorced, but they were divorced before I met them.

I also know people who are married. Happily married? Some of them, yes. I know possibly three couples who are so in love with each other and have been married for 20+. Now that's lovely. It is. Really!

Out of the other 96% of married people I know, how many can I say are truly happy, or still love that person? Well, most are fairly happy. The odd major arguement, sorry, dissagreement, but not about to split up. I know atleast four couples who I really have no idea why they're together.

At the age of 17 I made a decision that I never wanted to get married. Why? Well, what was the point? That was my argument back then, 12 years ago.

As the years went on and I aged slightly, I found more and more reasons to back up my decision. People who had been together ten years and more were splitting up, people were having affairs, nervous break downs, doubts, falling out of love, changing their mind etc. Marriages were failing all around me and almost nobody I knew was happy. What a state of affairs.

Then, the most surprising thing happened. I met someone and fell in love.

Two years later, at the age of 25, I was a married man with a ring on my finger and piece of paper signed in church.

One year later, I was a man without a wedding ring on his finger and a piece paper signed by a solicitor saying I was being divor
ced.

I was in a particularly nasty marriage, a violent and abusive relationship that started the day after the wedding. The woman I knew and had been so madly in love with had become my worst nightmare.

Married life was everything I had always believed it would be, and when I left her, she divorced me for being the violent and agressive one. She took me for every penny I had and I finished up in hospital after collapsing at home. I was 27 years old and I looked and felt like an eighty year old.

This experience changed my life dramatically. It's hard to describe to you the feelings you have as a man in relationship like this. I cannot say whether it's the same feelings a woman has in a violent relationship, but probably not far off.

It took me another year to build my life back up, regain my confidence. I started going out with someone else after two years, and took it six months of perseverence and a lot of patience on her part for me to let her get close to me.

Now you may have some understanding as to why I'm so cynical.

The idea of marriage is good one. It is about the union of two people who would like to spend the rest of their lives together. That's a nice dream to have. I would love to spend my life with one person as a lover, a partner, and as my best and closest friend. But I don't think that I ever will. People change. Constantly. People change direction, careers, beliefs, values. And it is these changes that are not accounted for and are not always accepted by the other person. The chances of finding that one perfect person I think is incredibly rare.

I love my girlfriend very much. She really does mean the world to me and we are best friends, but I cannot believe that we will spend the rest of our lives together. But we might. What I do know is this, whatever time we spend together will be very happy indeed. It may be 20 years, 10 years, or maybe on
ly another few months. I really don't know. And that's why I will never get married. Because I don't know how long it's for, and I do know what it feels like to come out of a marriage. I never want to go through that agian, or put someone else through the hell.

When a relationship breaks down it can be very painful for either party, even if you're the one who does the breaking up. It is always hard to let go of something you've known for a long time.

When I got married, the amount of pressure from the families and friends was unbelievable. There were constant comments made, many saying we wouldn't last, some saying they thought we'd have children. Do you go out together? Who's parent's do you go to at Christmas? What is you have no choice because the other person says they refuse to see yours on Christmas day?

Even when this horrid relationship finished I was devastated for loss, and I grieved for it. Even though I knew it was the right thing to do.

Marriage itself is not outdated, some of the beliefs about marriage are. Marriage isn't what it used to be. The wife no longer stays at home and looks after the children and the house, not always anyway. The man isn't necessarily the biggest money earner. Not all couples want to have children.

For marriage to survive the way it is looked at needs to be changed. People need to change their ideas about what it stands for. My wedding cost £30K+ because that's what the bride wanted. Her dream wedding. It lasted one day and the marriage less than one year. Two of my best friends got married six years ago, it cost them £98. They are still going strong. Do you know why? Because they know what it's all about.

Marriage is about the love of two people. It is not about the dress, the cake, the shoes, the champagne, the coach and horses, the bridesmaids, the meal, the parents, GOD, the church etc.
It is about the two people who are so deeply and passionately in love that they want to do it.

Or, maybe they are so deeply and passionately in love, but they don't want to do it.

Marriage isn't right for everyone. It's not about being scared of commitment. I can commit, but I don't ever want to get married again - in honesty, I never wanted to in the first place, but I loved her and it was what she wanted.

My girlfriend also doesn't want to get married, and I have several friends of teh same age, some younger, some older, who feel the same. Some have partners of 8, 9, 10+ years and they still in love, but will never get married.

For those who it's right for, marriage is great and can be a success, but nobody should feel that they have to do it.

The only thing that's outdated about marriage is the attitude of the church towards it. These days it's all about money with churches and less about whether it's a good thing. £100 for bells, £150 for a choir, £300+ for the hire of a church, £150 for flowers. That's £700 before you've even said "I do." Maybe if the church spent less time adding up the profits and more time talkign to people and making sure that marriage was right for them the divorce rate would be a lot lower. Just a thought.

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