Overheard:
It is better to be happy and divorced than unhappy and married. I don't believe in making very bold promises at the age of 25 or whatever and expecting them to last a lifetime. I took crap like that out of the vows I made with my husband.
Discuss.
Marriage is supposed to be a life-long commitment. If you weren't ready to promise forever, then you weren't ready to get married. You should have gotten a dog instead. They only live about 15 years and you could get a different one after that. Better yet, lease a car. You can get a new one every two years.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I always wonder what people EXPECT from marriage, if not for it to last a lifetime. I mean, really.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I don't understand the thought of "if I don't like it I can always get a divorce". What is the point of getting married at all if you have a toe out the door from the very beginning? Why, oh why, plan on having children if you know that you might not want to have a family with your spouse? Is this just a large psychic wound that half our generation has? Did something screw us up so badly that we can't give ourselves in that way?
ReplyDeleteI know you don't agree with the whole living together thing, but where some people would have thought of it as cheating at the prescribed order of things, it was my way of being sure I wasn't going to want to break my vows later. I wanted to KNOW that spending every day with each other wasn't going to get annoying and stressful, leaving me wanting out of our marriage because it turned out that we didn't *really* like each other that much. Especially coming from a household where my father was unquestionably in charge of all of us, I wanted to be sure that that wasn't what being married was going to be like for ME, and I couldn't know that without being in that situation. If I had discovered we didn't live well together I could have moved out and considered it a successful escape instead of a failed relationship.
I'm not sure what part(s) of this irritated me more: the idea that someone at the age of 25 (I was 24 when I got married) is incapable of making "bold promises" (really, at what point, then, IS someone capable?) or the "I took the crap like that out of the vows I took." I would wonder what sort of crap was IN someone's vows, if not the promise to remain married forever. I mean, that's what marriage IS.
ReplyDeleteWell, I did take the "obey" crap out of my vows. :-)
ReplyDeleteWell, sure. As did I. But the "loving forever" part is, well, kind of the POINT of a vow, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteBut what if someone becomes unloveable?
ReplyDeleteYou're assuming marriage is based on love, and not a contract/commitment to remain married. What is a vow?
ReplyDeleteInteresting. So in some cases it becomes a living nightmare, but since you made a vow, you are stuck? (not you, just a general "you")
ReplyDeleteSounds like a good case against marriage ;)
But that is what marriage IS. A vow to love someone, forever. People ALWAYS become unloveable. We are people. We are not perfect.
ReplyDeleteWhen you marry someone, you vow to love that person FOREVER.