Why Marriage?

Why Marriage?

June 23rd, 2009 @ 1:47 pm by Mrs. Penguin
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I never really sat down and thought long and hard about WHY I wanted to get married. Prior to tying the knot, we lived together, we loved each other, and we had (and currently have) no real plans to have children in the next few years. There was no TECHNICAL reason why we needed to get married. A dental plan would have been nice, but even since marrying and hooking on to Mr. Peng’s dental plan, I still haven’t gone to the dentist (eew). So, there’s no excuse there, either.

I could say I wanted to get married because I was ready to commit the rest of my life to Mr. Peng. I could say I wanted to get married, because he was the one, and we wanted to stand up and legally commit to each other in front of our friends and family on one glorious day. But that’s not really the truth.

Mr. Peng and I moved in together when I was 23. I was ready to commit to living together, and lived happily in peace for well over a year without so much of a peep of marriage talk, either from me or from him. In college, I always thought I’d get married at 28, if I was lucky and the world worked out in the way I planned it to. It wasn’t as if my secret “magical marriage age” was even close to coming up.

Then they came.

Save the dates. Shower RSVPs. Wedding invitations. From people that had been together a shorter period than my mister and I had been together, no less. What was wrong with me? Why was that girl more marryable than I was? All of a sudden, I felt inadequate. Within a 6 month period I went from relationship bliss, to if-I-so-much-as-catch-a-peep-at-a-wedding-invitation-in-our-mailbox-I-will-have-a-breakdown. And break down, I did.

One of the sad truths I’ve faced is that I wanted to get married because other people were getting married. To deny that fact would be lying to myself. Why was my desire to get married all of a sudden so intense when I was 25, and not even existent when I was 23? I was sure I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him at 23. But why marriage?

WHY is there this invisible pressure (especially, apparently, on women) to get married? I didn’t feel the need to “lock him in”. Co-signing the mortgage took care of any lingering fears that either of us were willing to commit. I didn’t even really dream about our wedding day when I was ape-shit crazy about getting engaged. The day was a blank—no dream dress, no amazing venue swimming in my head, no color schemes or favorite songs or flowers. I just wasn’t that person that thought about those things. I just wanted, so intensely, to be married.

And now, we’re married. WHAT is different now that we’re married? I don’t know. I’m happy that we’re married, but it was not physically life changing in any way. Neither of us moved. Neither of us quit working. We wake up in the same bed we did 2 years ago. Our parents don’t treat our relationship as more “legitimate” than it was 2 years ago, when we decided to move in together (at least, not to our faces!). Same old, same old. We were a unit then, and we are a unit now.

Do I love Mr. Peng more than I did the day before we married? I know I’m supposed to say, “I love him more and more each day,” but, in the grand scheme of things, I really feel like I love him equally as much as I did before we got married, and I don’t know if I’d love him less today if we still weren’t married (although he might have some stabby holes in him from every time another save the date passed through our mailbox). Our experiences together continue to make our lives together richer, but I think about how much I loved Mr. Peng when we weren’t married and I loved him so much. And today I love him so much. Maybe it’s equal, maybe it’s more. It’s hard to say.

Why do/did you really want to get married? Have you sat down and really thought about it? Did outside factors contribute heavily to your desire?

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43 Responses to “Why Marriage?”

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Member

eileen marie (message) 1,662 posts, Bumble bee

Nail.on.the.head, Peng. (Now that I think about it, I could have written this post–I marry on Saturday-rain, rain go away…)

6/23/09 @ 1:56 pm (reply)

Hostess

Erindesmar (message) 2,180 posts, Buzzing bee

This is a great, great post. Nuff said.

6/23/09 @ 2:01 pm (reply)

Member

lavenderpug (message) 284 posts, Helper bee

this is a really good question that i think most brides come to at some point. i was trying to write out our ceremony and found this issue particularly relevant considering the current injustice which prevents most gay couples from marrying, and how to address that at the wedding. will marrying make my relationship any more valid than that of my friends, who have a loving relationship and two children together, but have not been able to marry? for me, i don’t know if there’s an easy answer and i have to admit that part of it is getting somewhat carried along in the fun of it all and the illusion that somehow you are more committed than before. i don’t get depressed by it though.

6/23/09 @ 2:02 pm (reply)

Guest

skibobrown

I totally get you. I definitely felt the outside pressure when about a million *much younger* graduate students in my department all got engaged a in the last couple of years. That was the start of my marriage meltdown. However, now that we are engaged, I really feel that our relationship has reached a new level (even after 3.5 years of dating). Having my fiance finally say those words — “I want to spend the rest of my life with you” — has 100% solidified our relationship. There’s a new level of closeness, which I didn’t even think was possible, and we couldn’t be more thrilled that we’ll be getting married next year.

6/23/09 @ 2:02 pm (reply)

Bee

Miss Bunny (message) 349 posts, Helper bee

Hmm … this post inspired so many thoughts I’m going to have to do my own blog on it.

6/23/09 @ 2:09 pm (reply)

Guest

portlandgirl41

Great post. I hear you; I feel the same way about my husband now (as newlyweds) as I did when we were living together and sharing our life three years ago. I do wonder, though, if the outside world views us differently, that there’s something more powerful in the word “husband” than “boyfriend.” Either way, I’m happy he’s mine.

6/23/09 @ 2:09 pm (reply)

Guest

Patty

I definitely feel a pressure from my family to be married. Living together in sin is a big no-no in my family. But other than that… you’re right, there’s no real reason for marriage per se.

6/23/09 @ 2:10 pm (reply)

Bee

Miss D'orsay (message) 2,272 posts, Buzzing bee

I only had one set of friends who were engaged when we began discussing marriage. I think we both just really wanted a legal commitment to each other in front of our families. But then again, we’re sappy sap saps and not too keen on logic…

6/23/09 @ 2:16 pm (reply)

Bee

Mrs. Penguin (message) 3,499 posts, Sugar bee

@portlandgirl41: I absolutely think the outside world views “husband” more powerfully than “boyfriend”. It’s another one of those outside factors! I still think I loved boyfriend Mr. Peng the same as I love husband Mr. Peng. I try to think about how deeply I loved him then, and how much I do now. Love is hard to quantify, of course, but I SWEAR it’s not a lot different now, in marriage, than it was then. It’s only been one year for us though (in marriage… but we’ve been together for 8 years total)! Maybe I will feel an more deep, intense love later down the road? Perhaps when he is the father of my child(ren)? Who knows.

6/23/09 @ 2:16 pm (reply)

10.

Member

AnnieAAA (message) 3,782 posts, Honey bee

Yep, you sound excatly like me! It gets even more interesting b/c my FI and I don’t ever want to have kids, so why marriage?? We live together so I don’t think much is going to change there, but when I really started thinking about it, I realized that we would in fact have many changes. We live sort of like roomates, we literally take turns buying the dog food, toliet paper, dishwasher soap, so on; and this def gets annoying having to stop and say “okay so who bought this last time?” Same with resturants & bars, splitting the check unless one of us is treating…arg annoying! This will all change when we are married, thank god for joint accounts! Besides money, I think that we were just ready to be “husband” and “wife” we both want the title, plus after we are married we will both finally be able to sleep in the same bed when we visit our parents. All in all, getting married will make our lives less complicated…plus all the gushy stuff like looking at him and knowing hes my husband will totally make me happy!

6/23/09 @ 2:16 pm (reply)

11.

Guest

Jenn R

Green card? Is that terrible to say?

I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with my fiance, but I was in no hurry to get married. Immigration fears moved us toward marriage a little more quickly than we probably would have gone on our own. Not that it’s a bad thing… it just changed the timeline slightly.

6/23/09 @ 2:17 pm (reply)

12.

Member

Karma007 (message) 381 posts, Helper bee

I’m marrying FI simply becasue he asked he to, and I can deny him nothing.

I felt that leaving someone else and moving cross county with nothing but a van full of stuff and my dog was enough. That in itself was a declaration of my love for him.

I’ve been married before, and honestly am a little skeptical of it all. A little jaded.
But FI is not, and while I may be lacking faith in marriage as an instutition, I have complete and total faith in FI. If this is what he wants, I’m good with it. It will be an honor to be his wife.

We’ve made a pact that goes above and beyond the vow. “No Matter What”.

I’ll marry him becasue I love him madly.

6/23/09 @ 2:18 pm (reply)

13.

Bee

Mrs. Corn (message) 1,127 posts, Bumble bee

This is really interesting because I grappled with the same problem with why do I want children. I knew I wanted them, but I still can’t figure out the exact reason why. I guess part of the grace that is marriage and children is being able to trust yourself to make those decisions even when you don’t have the answer.

6/23/09 @ 2:19 pm (reply)

14.

Member

lit_geek26 (message) 138 posts, Blushing bee

Great post. And I’m going to have to think long and hard about my answer. We’ve been together 6 1/2 years and it’s funny how now we’re suddenly more “official” than we were at bf/gf. Societal pressure? Perhaps. I don’t know. But great post.

6/23/09 @ 2:23 pm (reply)

15.

Bee

Miss Joey (message) 1,031 posts, Bumble bee

I felt this way the night we got engaged. Nothing was going to change - not really. Everything is the same.

6/23/09 @ 2:26 pm (reply)

16.

Member

MyPurpleWedding (message) 237 posts, Helper bee

This cracked me up “(although he might have some stabby holes in him from every time another save the date passed through our mailbox)”. hahahaha

6/23/09 @ 2:29 pm (reply)

17.

Bee

Miss Stiletto (message) 918 posts, Busy bee

I was swept up with ‘wedding fever’ too! I don’t have a lot of friends who are married/getting married, but last August I was a bridesmaid for the first time…so when I started doing dress shopping with that friend, I was totally done for! So I definitely started pushing the marriage envelope a bit with Mr. S

However, a longer engagement has worked for us because we are a solid team, we own a condo together (seriously, that mortgage solidifies everything!), before the conod we shared an apartment…we have a very settled life, and while marriage I think will but another puzzle piece in place for us, I don’t anticipate there being a monumental shift in our life. But things will still be great, or at least i hope

6/23/09 @ 2:40 pm (reply)

18.

Guest

rhodeygirl

great post Mrs. Penguin.

I suppose I am coming from a completely different perspective… My fiance and I will not be living together until marriage, and that was a known fact from the beginning. So we really aren’t getting our lives “started” together until marriage. We live in different states and getting engaged and married were the next steps to happen before living together or making joint decisions on things. For both, it is definitely because of the way we were brought up that made that order the most logical one.

6/23/09 @ 2:44 pm (reply)

19.

Bee

Mrs. Canary (message) 682 posts, Busy bee

Great post Peng!

I guess in my situation it was different because I didn’t live with Mr. C before we were married, though we had a very intense relationship. We’ve been together for close to 9 years now and getting married was just the logical next step. It made co-signing our mortgage, getting our own place, setting up our home, and making mutual decisions all the much sweeter. Aside from those things those, nothing dramatic or fundamental has changed in our relationship. We are still ourselves but I do feel that we have a tighter bond and it’s more fun to mock each other as spouses (we often use the third person, i.e. your wife would like you to take out the trash) than as an unmarried couple. I do agree that it also affects how the outside world validates a relationship.

6/23/09 @ 2:45 pm (reply)

20.