Marriage?
LaserWolf
Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
Is it important?In your families culture what is the significance of marriage?What are your thoughts on marriage?I've never thought about it to much. I know that in Jewish culture as in most other old world and Eastern cultures, weddings are joyous occasion that signify, among many other things, the continuation of tradition, family, culture. One day the woman I was living with and I decided we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. Once we made that decision we decided we wanted to let our family and friends know and publicly celebrate our commitment. The wedding was 22 years ago this coming Sunday. It was a mixed wedding. My childhood Rabbi refused to attend. We wrote our own vows, with no mention of G-d, since G-d had no significance to us. We thought we found a Unitarian minister who would perform the ceremony with out mentioning G-d. Instead, to our amusement, he asked some spirit, if there is one, above, or below, who ever you may or may not be, if you exist, to bless our marriage.He also, against our wishes, included an escape clause. Something along the lines, "May you remain forever happily married, unless you drift apart or find someone better".Her parents read the twentysomething Psalm, my parents read a Hopi blessing. We did not get married for children (which we didn't want and don't have) or benefits, or religion, or sin. The most significant change in our lives was the way our families treated us after we were married. (All positive.)Any way, the question is, does marriage matter? Does it have meaning?
Comments
It does to me. Celebrated my 2 year anniversary yesterday. I'm a very happy man and being in a union and partnership with my wife means the world to me. It meant a lot to me actually go through the ceremonies because it was a lot of fun, and it was a special day that we're going to treasure for the rest of our lives...
... but I didn't need to do all that to have added significance to what it is we have. We've been together almost 10 years and even if we never did "make it official" we would still be happy.
Granted, making it legal makes things a lot easier for us in terms of finances and taxes and shit like that.
At the end of the day, don't need no ring nor certificate nor big fancy party to make it any more than what it is. But it was sure nice to have all of that stuff.
But really it's to each his own, in my humble opinion.
(And congratulations on your anniversary my dude!)
Here's an interview with him on the radio for lazier folk: http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R904231000
Can you please sum up how this author offers insight for the resolution of said merry-go-round?
b/w
Every marriage is different. I love being married to my wife and I hope that we are going to grow old together and eat twix bars at the seashore and help each other down the stairs.
That's what we are going to do to celebrate our anniversary this weekend.
Nice.
It was never brought up again.....we planned the wedding for 6/10/79.....I flew up a couple of days before and my old Bar/Club co-workers held a hellacious bachelor party the night before the ceremony. No stripper/hooker stuff but drinking that would make any alcoholic jealous. The next day we all had hangovers from hell.
By noon we made it to the church. The best man and I were led to the "Rectory" to wait for the Priest to call us out for the ceremony. My Best Man, who was also raised Catholic, had extreme dry mouth and was looking around for a drink. He found a coffee urn filled with water and filled a cup and drank it....he was filling it for the second time when the Priest walked in. He said "What are you doing!!" to which my buddy answered "getting a drink"..."That's the HOLY WATER" the Priest bellowed. At that point I said the first thing that popped into my head..."Well, at least we know he's not possessed by Satan or else his head would be spinning around". The Priest was pissed.
The wedding went quickly and my Charles Manson look-a-like Ushers were ushered right out of the church...they couldn't get rid of us fast enough.
About 15 years later a young girl I worked with was getting married and asked my young daughter to be the Flower Girl. She was Catholic and was telling me one day about how her husband-to-be was taking religious classes because he wasn't raised Catholic.....In a somewhat bragadociaous way I told her "I didn't have to take the classes"...she was shocked..."Well you had to sign the contract" she replied...."Nope, didn't do that either" I told her. She called me a liar and appeared genuinely pissed off....I kinda laughed it off, after all, what was she gonna do, call the Pope and squeal on me".
As the wedding approached my Mom called one day and I told her about how upset the young lady was when I told her I hadn't done any of the required Catholic bullshit. She kinda got quiet and said..."I guess I should tell you"......"Huh, tell me what?".....well, your Mother-In-Law was so freaked out about the wedding I told her I would take care of it and I forged your name on the "Contract".....HOLY SHIT MA!!!!! YOU LIED TO GOD JUST TO GET RID OF ME!!?? "Yep" she replied "and it was well worth it".
I never had the nerve to tell my co-worker......three months after she was married her marriage was anulled when her husband decided to come out of the closet.
Great story.
The way we handled things was to let her mom have near full control of the reception (and my mom the prenep dinner).
A lot of stuff is just more important to the moms, than to the couple.
We took control, or so we thought, of the ceremony.
My mom invited a lot of people who I asked her not to, because "you can't not invite, this cousin or that ex-business associate".
Obviously, marriage is important to my Unitarian minister and your Catholic priest, who just can't be happy unless people conform, or at least listen to, or pretend to conform, to their beliefs.
For the Unitarian minister (who told us how devastating his divorce was, not because he left his wife but, because he broke a vow) an escape clause and giving praise to a god, if there is one.
For the Catholic priest, making sure that there are more Catholics is whats important.
When he came out to his mom she was very upset.
She went to see Father Phillip.
She cried, my son is gay.
He put a hand on her knee, and said "It's all right, I'm gay too".
From that day forward, she told all her friends and family, and told them if they had a problem with it they would have a bigger problem with her.
Point of the story was that even though she thought the church was wrong on homosexuality and birth control and abortion, she never stopped going to mass.
He on the other hand could not accept the church while they held those views. But since his mother had died he found himself seeking out churches and going in and praying.
Which has nothing to do with the topic on hand.
its not that important to me
and my fianc??e is a sturdy atheist
we found a beautiful mountain open air forest church near her hometown but they dont celebrate weedings
so here in quebec anyone can become an official celebrant and legally marry you
i am getting my childhood pastor ??(who got kicked out of the church) so everyone is happy
It sure does, but not the one I want to give to my relationship.
I wish nothing but happiness and strength and having each other's back for all those who took the plunge or are going to, but it ain't me. It ain't us to go through that process. We're going on 11yrs in a couple of months and I told him as soon as it got serious that I didn't expect marriage or a ring or any of that and he was "yup, me too". If either of us turned around and said, it means a lot to me now to do it, we would. It's no thing either way, so we opt not to.
With all this talk of gay marriage and what it really means in society and the legalities and all of it, I hear a double standard/taking shit for granted talk. It's a legal/civil issue when it comes to queers, but some deep spiritual, reallyreal business for the straights. And the only thing I have against it is the importance folks put on it as some sort of legitimizing factor to love, commitment or the depths thereof.
Salut! to all those hitched and those to-be!
Read this: http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780307266897&view=auqa
One thing Cherlin says that I think is compelling to consider is that Americans are kind of fucked in the head around marriage because:
1) We believe in marriage as an important social institution that one should be committed to but...
2) We also believe in personal fulfillment and independence which essentially undermines #1 and explains one reason why Americans LOVE marriage but also divorce one another around 50%.
Ha, sounds like a variation on one of Dan Savage's favorite lines: "every relationship fails until one doesn't."
My wife and I will be married 9 years this August.
Mixed (sort of) marriage. My wife was raised Jewish, I was raised (and confirmed) Catholic, but walked away from the church when I was 15 and never went back (I can't remember a time when I ever believed in either God or Santa Claus). We had a very cool interfaith ceremony with readings from Catholic, Jewish, Taoist and poetic sources.
We now have two children (5 and almost 3) and a very nice life together. I can't imagine going back to the way my life was before we were together.
I'm lucky in that I have a great relationship with my parents (married 48 years) and my in-laws (married 41 years).
There are certainly challenges with my life now (I gave up my job to take care of my sons, who are both to varying degrees special needs), but like I said above I would never trade life as it is now for anything I had before.
Marriage is a great thing, unless you're married to the wrong person, and I've seen plenty of people with that problem.
We had a Quaker wedding, so there was not priest or officiant. We have a wedding certificate with our vows which was signed by all of our guests and hangs proudly on our bedroom wall.
For me though, it's like Cosmo said, I went into it for the tax/legal shit. We've been together for almost 10 years, so it's on for life regardless, but my wife wanted to get married so I said OK. I didn't make a difference to me, although I don't regret it.
We are very, very good friends and intend to keep it that way. Marriage was great for us in many ways, but it eventually ran its course.
For us, it's the difference between doing stuff because you want to versus doing stuff because you are expected to. In a perfect marriage, those are simultaneous...but when those relationship-related expectations get too weighty, they become a burden more than a sacrament.
In our case, it seems more and more like it's the marriage itself that we're ditching rather than each other.
My sagacious older brother once told me that every relationship has a life span. Going into it, you don't know if it'll be six months or sixty years, but when its time is up, it's up--and it's nobody's fault. I've drawn great comfort from those words over the years. Sounds like you're in a similar place.
For us it was a way to celebrate our commitment publicly before friends and family.*
* Just in case I didn't make that clear in all my other long ass posts.
I've actually been reading up on some astrology and realizing after 15 years that my wife and I made just about the worst match possible...Leo/Capricorn. So yeah, much of it is out of our hands.
But my earlier point was how our relationship isn't ending afterall, it's just mutating into something else...something else very similar and very different at the same time.
NO SUCH THING.
Some people just manage to stay on the same path (through good fortune or hard work-only they know), some may be more compatible in general....some people are maybe more determined to work as a team. But NO ONE is in sync all the time, and no one is exempt from the challenges and tragedies that a life together will eventually bring, and things that can move people apart from each other as easily as bring them together.
I love being married but life is hard no matter who you are with and both of us make our share of mistakes when dealing with each other, but I chalk it up to how people are. I hope we grow old together but there are no promises in this life, just raw hopefulness.
Harvey, my best friend just finalized his divorce last month, and while I know we like to spar here online, I wouldn't wish what he has been through on my worst enemy(and his split went relatively smoothly, but still felt hellish). So good luck getting to the other side with your situation.
I like the idea behind that but I think it sounds more, well, sagacious than pragmatic. I mean, what if you weren't aware that the time was up?
It's not an issue of "fault" (except in cases where the "the time is up" conversation is preceded or followed by, "oh and by the way...the baby's not yours") but rather, the complication that people build relationships together but they come into them (and leave) out of individual desire. So perhaps it's not that the relationship has a lifespan - it's that an individual's desire for that relationship has a lifespan but it's hardly the case that BOTH people will reach that same conclusion at the same time.
This is very true. Married or not, the two people in a relationship have to both want to be in it and make a lot of effort for it to work. If one or the other party is unsatisfied to the point where they won't try anymore, there isn't anything the other person can do to repair things. The thing that kills people is they don't recognize when their partner (or they themselves) has crossed the point where there is no way to save things, yet they still try to salvage the something that can'be saved. Shortcut to a breakdown.
Egregious hairsplitting. I refuse to believe that you are somehow unaware of what a relationship is. File under "It takes two."
Thank you. Yes, shit was absolute hell a couple of months back...not so bad now even though the divorce is still on. I had to just let go of a bunch of shit...including comfort, security, my house, lifestyle, etc. In the end, it's just a matter of changing up your orientation. The tough one yet to come for a possessive dude like me will be learning that my ex has started to fool around with others. But whatever, I hogged her for 15 years and got a wonderful daughter out of it, so
Naw dude, you miss my point (I think?). Your brother's observation - by its very language - constructs a relationship as practically its own entity (hence the metaphor of a "lifespan") which, when it dies, absolves the involved parties of any responsibility ("no fault"). And that doesn't strike me as being remotely accurate as to how relationships work or fail. It's not the *relationship* that has a lifespan; it's people's interest in it. And if your interest happens to die before your partner's, it's cold comfort to them to think of the relationship as having died when, really, what died was your interest in it. The relationship doesn't die on its own. It's the death of your desire that kills it.
There are times where that desire mutually fades but as we all know, it's rarely that things should work out so cleanly.
I think a more realistic variation on your brother's idea would be to say: "just because you're in love today doesn't mean you will be forever and people have to accept that will happen through no fault of their own."