My boyfriend and I have been
together eight months. We love each other, and I see us spending our
lives together. At least I did, until something he said a few days
ago.
Long story short, for the last five months
he’s brought up marriage. Then a few days ago he informed me that he
doesn’t want a wedding. When I offered a small ceremony for immediate
family and friends, he balked and said he’s not even interested in a
courthouse wedding. I asked if everything he’d said before was empty
talk, and he said yes. He won’t give me any better explanation. Oh, and
this was two days after we decided I’d be moving in with him, and he
still wants me to live with him even after dropping this bomb! Everyone
I’ve talked to, including my therapist, said the equivalent of
WTF?!?
Dan, can you decipher this male-ese for
me?
Lady In A Relationship
You were discussing marriage at three
months?
The fact that he would bring up marriage so
early, and the fact that you didn’t laugh in his face, disqualifies you
both from obtaining a marriage license. (Okay, it doesn’t—but it
should.) Three months—eight months, sixteen months—is way too soon to be discussing marriage. Sure, you can
allow yourself to be swept away by new love, you can crush out on each
other, you can sheepishly admit that you’ve allowed yourself to
daydream about marriage—so long as that admission is immediately
followed by this statement: “But I realize it’s way too soon to
even think about it seriously…” But you absolutely, positively should
NOT be making plans to marry, small ceremonies or large,
courthouse or St. Paul’s Cathedral, at eight fucking
months; nor should you attempt to hold him—or anyone
else—to a premature “commitment” to wed.
Your boyfriend doesn’t have a bad case of
“male-ese,” LIAR, he has a good case of came-to-his-senses-ese. If
you’re lucky, the strain is contagious, perhaps sexually transmitted,
and you’ll soon be showing symptoms yourself.
And a bit of bonus advice: Get a therapist
who doesn’t believe that cashing your checks obligates him to tell you
whatever idiot thing you want to hear.
In a recent column you wrote,
“If you’re not having sex with your boyfriend, or anyone else, and
there’s no sex in your foreseeable future, ANB, that’s not
monogamy—that’s celibacy.” I have been with my girlfriend for
nine years, living together for seven. We have never had sex. At the
beginning we fooled around a lot, but never went far. Now, like many
couples who have been together for a while, the frequency has
decreased. We go beyond kissing a few times a year, and never all that
far. I am mostly okay with this: I take care of myself as necessary. We
never talk about sex at all. We’ve moved back and forth across the
country together and are otherwise committed. Is it ridiculous to leave
sex out of the relationship?
Sexless And Seemingly Content
If you’re happy and your girlfriend’s happy,
SASC, then I’m happy. Two people in a bad relationship can have plenty
of great sex; two people in a great relationship can have little sex or
no sex. Sex is a metric for assessing the health of a
relationship, but it’s not the only one. When two people come together
who love each other and are compatible sexually—which can mean a
shared interest in sex or a shared disinterest in sex—the angels
sing, SASC. All that matters, again, is that you’re both happy.
But are you happy, SASC? You say that you
are, and I’ll take your word for it, but there’s a lot of wiggle room
in the “mostly” in this sentence: “I am mostly okay with this.”
You owe it to yourself to determine if you are really and truly okay
with living without sex—and if the girlfriend is too.
I’ll add this to the debate over the threat that gay people pose to marriage: A fag saved my
“opposite marriage.”
My wife and I had a huge argument about sex
after she rebuffed me one night. She was shouting that she couldn’t
stand the idea of me inside her because she felt like I was just
masturbating in her. I shouted that we could stop having vaginal
intercourse altogether for all I care because it was boring me, too,
and besides, there was lots of other stuff we could do. She screamed,
“Like what?!?” And I screamed, “Like oral! Masturbation! Role-playing!
Whatever kinky shit you want!” There was a pause, and we both started
laughing.
We took vaginal intercourse “off the menu”
that night. After three weeks of amazing, mind-blowing sex, she called
me at work and asked if I missed vaginal intercourse. I told her that I
did but that putting it back on the menu was entirely her call. She got
in the car and drove to my office, and we fucked in the stairwell.
Sometimes you help people you don’t even realize you’ve helped.
Married O And Newly Surging
You’re welcome, MOANS, and thanks for
sharing.
And speaking of marriage: Last week’s
decision by the California Supreme Court upholding Proposition 8 was
expected but, in the wake of so many recent victories, still saddening,
and I’m getting mail from lots of unhappy people. I’m unhappy about it,
too. But we have to remember that this is a long game, folks, and
despite this setback, we are winning. We’ve heard a lot about
Prop 8 over the last week, and we’re going to hear a lot about the
fight to overturn it over the coming months, but let’s not forget about
Proposition 22.
In 2000, California voters approved a law
banning same-sex marriage. It was a ballot initiative, like Prop 8, but
just a law, not a constitutional amendment. And it was that law, Prop
22, that the California Supremes struck down in 2008, in their historic
ruling legalizing same-sex marriage. And voters in 2000 approved Prop
22 by a 22-point margin. Eight years later, the same voters
approved Prop 8 by just four points. That’s an 18-point shift in
favor of marriage equality in just eight years. That’s extraordinary
progress. A loss is still a loss, and a loss sucks, but the trend is so
strongly in our favor that we cannot lose hope. The anti-gay bigots
know that they’re losing this debate, and it’s why they’re so hot to
amend state constitutions now, while they still can, while they
can still count on the votes of the old, the bigoted, and the easily
manipulated.
But they are losing and they know
it.
Gay marriage will be back to the ballot box
in California in 2010 or 2012, and voters are going to repeal Prop 8.
Fundamental civil rights should not be subject to a popular vote, of
course, and the California Supremes had an opportunity to reaffirm that
ideal. They chose not to, they buckled, and so gays and lesbians,
unlike other minority groups, face the challenge of securing our rights
at the ballot box. That seems like a daunting prospect until you recall
Prop 22 and compare its margin of victory to that of Prop 8. Again, we
witnessed an 18-point shift in favor of gay marriage in California in
just eight years. We can gain another two points in two. We just have
to stay in the fight and constantly remind ourselves and each
other—and Maggie Gallagher—that we are winning.
If, and this is a big IF, I have not read through the tombs of legalese: if the civil union gives the same benefits as a marriage, then, I think the movement should be let’s take the term ‘marriage’ out of the legal, civic, books. Make everyone get a civil union and go to your religious preference to get a ‘marriage’.
All ya’ll get civil unions, the government doesn’t hand out marriages anymore.
@98
I thought about erotic asphyxiation too for Carradine. Sad.
@89
My life exactly : a guy very intent in getting hitched, psychological abuse, ten years, 3 kids. May I suggest to add a depression for the wife, or is it just my luck ?
self-important, entitlement-based, passive-agressive, opressive-hypocrisy.
why not:
selflessly promotiing, underpriviledged, eager to interact, inclusive-care.
bukboy, seriously, if you don’t want a marriage, don’t have one. But please just let everyone else have the freedom to do what they want. Quit trying to justify your denial of their rights. Thanks.
Hey, I love your column….One thing though….
I think 8 months is good enough to talk about marriage if you’re mature enough and ready to make the decision. However, the problem is people concept of love and relationships is screwed up. I believe that people are to quick to say I love you or talk about moving in together. Once couples make the decicion to move-in together they find things about the person that make them change their mind about the relationship all together such as…..toliet seat left up, tooth paste on the sink, dirty dishes….etc. People need to start spending their time getting to know each other first of all instead of being stuck in the honeymoon phase of the relationship.
And as far as the guy who hasn’t had sex in a decade it’s sound like his not happy and not mature to discuss his concerns with his girlfriend……Have they been naked together? Fooling around is very vague…Maybe the girl is a transgender…..or possibly rape, sexually molested as a child if he love this girl maybe a heart to heart to get down to the problem so he can get down with some sex.
Why are you so fucking surprised LIAR? This only means your boyfriend is both sane and honest. It’s a good thing. I’ve been dating my girlfriend for a year and I haven’t dropped that bomb on her.
I wonder why? Oh, yeah, haven’t needed to, because we’re not that crazy.
Dan is quite correct on his advice to not get married too soon. My advice is to the other hetero men out there. Wait. If the woman you are dating is showing troubles with affection/sex/desire wait, wait, wait. Same thing goes for women who have a man who is showing troubles. Because if you rush, the problems will be ten fold, and you will have to get a costly and messy divorce. If you wait, and the problems persist, you can end things with a lot less emotional, social, family and physical withdrawal problems. Any ending brings problems, but a rushed marriage carries a huge risk. Some quick unions end up happy, just like some people have sexual play with a power tool and get happy rather than injured. But talk to the folks who’ve been a visitor or staff in an ER.
Dan, If you have been giving this advice for years, I somehow missed it.
Right ON, what was I thinking!!
If I had been thinking, I wouldn’t have had to flee from a murder-enraged anger-obsessed psychotic eight years ago.
Marriage—to a loving, supportive person who equally shares one’s goals, dreams, and accepts one’s family, friends, religious denominations, etc., etc.,—can be wonderful.
But it’s not something to be rushed into by either party.
You told SASC:
My partner and I used to ball like rabid stoats for many years. Two horny guys, going at it three or four times a week, and with lots of jacking off in between, at least on my part. OK, on his part too, but it’s fun to at least pretend you’re keeping it secret from each other.
We have almost no sex at all these days, but that’s OK too. We met when I was 19 and he was 42. I’m now 52 and he’s 76. That’s 33 years together, and he is now disabled from crippling lower back pain.
That we don’t have sex much anymore — though we do, occasionally — doesn’t matter. That I don’t even want to jack off that much (something that would horrify my younger self), also doesn’t matter. He cared for me, supported me, for many years, and that is my focus. Now that he desperately needs me to repay that debt, there is great satisfaction in doing so. That satisfaction comes from love. Not sex. Love.
Thankyou :91 SSPK
If I have understood you correctly, then it seems that marriage is after all a religious institution, that is soooo sacred that one man (king Henry 8th, who gets some younger pussy that refuses to give it up unless she’s queen, waved in his face ) can just turn the whole institution into a secular one at whim.
I love that….
So then its back again to marriage being originally religious after all. Id like to ask the people here if the reason they want to get married is because they are so brainwashed about the evils of fornicating in sin, and a consequent eternity in damnation that they absolutely have to live up to the afterlife standard that’s defacto assumed?
Id like to bring up a very basic point.
There is no real knowledge (where knowledge is something that can be demonstrated true and justified) of the afterlife…
And if there is no knowledge of the afterlife, then there can be none in the scriptures…. anyones sacred books…
Unless you count secondhand testimony that cannot be verified from peoples dreams, containing personal and unverifiable messages from god.
To demonstrate, If i had to see a object moving unexplaineably in front of me, I would say, “hey that’s a completely unexplained phenomenon. lets figure it out”
whereas someone that was brainwashed by their cultures’ religion would automatically and without hesitation come up with a ghost or spirit or even Jesus sending a message. This is pretty much the state of our afterlife knowledge.
Even though I am not hostile to the possibility that there is a god, Im a completely against anyone claiming that they know anything about it without any backing evidence. And every spiritualist is full of these assumptions.
I want you dudes, so desperate for marriage, to consider that you are living in a social framework, that’s based on a whole lot of assumptions and made up religious inspired gobbledygook. Please have some objectivity and stop supporting this ridiculous institution.
Why not try to live your lives according to your own rules? instead of conforming to someone else’s feverish creations?
Especially since there really is no way around the story of sodom and gommorah in the old testament, which teaches that being gay is fundamentally evil.
Thanks all for listening.
I got married in 5 months 10 years ago. So sometimes the risk is worth taking. I was 39 when that happened, so my experience was the critical factor in making the decision to go ahead: I knew what I was doing by then.
I’m *really* surprised by Dan’s “advice” to LIAR. Not only do I disagree with the broad prescriptive note that “no one should be talking about marriage at three months” (clearly, as comments reflect, longterm and happy marriages do occur even when you’ve *gasp* started talking about marriage at 3 months) but Dan’s advice to LIAR is also just extremely unhelpful. What is she supposed to do with, “you were stupid for talking about marriage anyway”? Is that going to help her deal with her lying boyfriend? Is that going to help her be better in this relationship OR the next one, when she has been yelled at for talking about what she hoped for? No.
@12: I understand and share your disgust over CA passing Prop 8, but please do not give up on the state just yet. As Dan noted, there has been considerable movement in public opinion on this issue, and as gay marriages continue to take place in other parts of the country more people will stop freaking out over the novelty, come to their senses, and realize that seperate is not equal. It was easy (if, in hindsight, stupid) for us in CA to be overly confident in 2008: we won’t make that mistake again. This issue is not over just because of the CA Supreme Court ruling: the legal system is only one way to pursue civil rights. Wasn’t it Andre Brink who said that law and justice are distant cousins at best? Back to the ballot box: we will come back and fight, and we will prevail…
I liked your advice on the too soon to marry letter. For the brief time that I was dating someone (and even when I wasn’t) I’d get strange looks from people for saying that I wasn’t going to get engaged/married while in college. For some reason people couldn’t understand when I told them “I’m not ready for it, I don’t have a job or a degree, and I couldn’t honestly support someone else with the commitment of marriage.” It strikes me as odd that there’s this extreme push to get married as soon as possible, instead of waiting. I see too many couples going into terrible relationships that I know will somehow end in hardship. Not that any relationship is perfect.
Also, I’m not in California, but it saddens me to hear about Prop 8 being upheld. But I agree, I think the tides are turning and people are finally realizing that gay marriage isn’t hurting anybody. Let’s hope we can all keep changing people’s minds and opening their eyes.
first date was in november, we got engaged in february, married in september. 10 months from first date to altar. i was 22, he was 35.
two kids, 9 and 10 … thirteenth anniversary this september.
maybe we’re an anomaly, but it’s made me a believer that if it’s right, you will know it.
Great column, as usual, Dan, but concerning LIAR, if boyfriend is seeming intent on marriage until after the naive gf moves in with him, and thereafter isn’t interested in marriage and won’t talk about it, aren’t we talking bait-and-switch here? If it were me I’d be having serious trust issues about then. So why isn’t it DMFA?
Talking about marriage at 8 months is NOT too soon. I think this is something on which sexual orientations/cultural differences matter. If two well educated, 25-30 somethings, have been dating for 8 months, and neither can see staying with the person long term – maybe one should get out. At this age, I’m too old to be wasting my dating life on someone who doesn’t want to be with me in the future. I’m not saying book a location and hire a wedding planner, but at least some kind of acknowledgment that you could see yourself marrying the other person. Also, at 16 months, if he ain’t put a ring on it… I might leave – especially if he wants to move in together too…
Dan, if you think 16 months isn’t enough time, then how long would you suggest a couple waits? I’m very curious to hear your opinion.
My fiance bought the ring at 8 months, proposed at 10, and we’re getting married in October, 2 1/2 years after our one night stand (yeah, we’re one of those one-night-stand-that-stuck couples). I know I don’t have the years behind me yet to back up my belief that my marriage will be long and happy, but I have a calm certainty about the depths of the love and committment in this relationship.
I disagree with your response to LIAR. The issue isn’t how long they were thinking about marriage, but that he completely changed his mind with no explanation. Talking about marriage at 3 months may be a bit crazy, but the fact that he admitted it was all empty talk is insane. It doesn’t matter if they were talking about living on Mars after 2 days… if he said it with the understanding that he was fully committed and it was a plan, he needs to give her a better explanation than “it was all empty.” He didn’t tell her he got a case of rationality. You did. Had he told her that this would be different.
I agree with a lot of the other posters here, Dan. Yes, you are absolutely 100% right about 3 months being WAY too soon to talk about marriage, but maybe as a gay man you’re not familiar with the obvious manipulative tactic that LIAR’s boyfriend was clearly using here? In het relationships, par for the course is the man wants sex and the woman wants commitment. I realize there are exceptions, myself included, but that is what you can generally expect. And men who are aware of this will lead women on with false promises of commitment and marriage. I’ve even known men who have said a great way to get a woman’s pants off is to say they’ll marry her if she puts out. So yes, by all means say 3 months is WAY too early to talk about marriage, but also tell this girl to DTMFA. He’s exploiting her, pure and simple. It’s a signal any experienced and wise het woman will pick up on in a heartbeat.
i can’t believe how good i am at masturbating this week.
@94 Just because you are a “stupid””idiot” don’t generalize to the rest of us.
@64 LMAO, I concur.
dear dan,
My wife and I talked about marriage after three weeks and then we took the plunge seven weeks later. I can say that I never thought I would find this happiness in life, and if you were to ask her I’m certain she’d say the same. Though I must admit your little column has amused us for years (and certainly given us both the mental framework to expand in ways perhaps once not possible) we have grown tired.
Yawn.
MWM
This debate over “soon, not too soon” for marriage seems like the perfect forum for me to raise my own existential life dilemma: is there a point at which it’s too late to consider marriage?
We have been dating for five years now. The sex is hot and full of variety, as it’s always been but since my discovery of Dan, it’s gotten even better. We met at 19 in the midst of both of our hard-partying college phases, and as a result of that time and our equally fucked up but circumstantially different childhoods, we came in to all of this with a lot of painful emotional drama. We moved in together and moved apart, broke up and “moved on” multiple times… I slept with the other fish in the sea; he stayed home and played MMORPGS. A truly modern romance.
The thing that has surprised us both is, for lack of a better word, there’s an eerie element of destiny to our relationship. I have “gotten over” dozens of men, but getting over him has proved literally impossible; he has been a lifetime commitment-phobe, but can’t stand the idea of losing me no matter what the cost. We have stayed communicative through all the ebbs and flows of our journey, and while the graph of closeness has been less than linear, it has been undeniably progressing upward.
Now he’s proposed. We’ve crafted a custom marriage affidavit making clear our disdain for our state’s homosexual insularity, and have started talks on compromise: I want the pretty ring and his last name, he wants the small wedding and no pets in our home.
I have never felt so ambivalent in my life. Please help.
The red flag with LIAR’s boyfriend is he’s backpeddling with no explantion just when she agrees to move in. Coincidence? I think not. From the letter it sounds like her boyfriend just said all marriage talk was BS and there’s no plans. Maybe he got cold feet or decided it was too fast, maybe he was suckering her into putting out, only he knows and he’s not saying.
Another thought- this guy might fit the profile of a potential abuser. They often will say anything they think their partner wants to hear to lure them in (let’s get married!), but then the promises evaporate once they think their victim is hooked (I don’t need to go to as much effort to keep her). Abusive people also jerk around their partners emotionally (get up her hopes for marriage, then squash it and make her feel stupid.) Maybe he wants her to move in so it’s harder for her to leave once he starts acting like a bigger asshole.
I’m thinking DTMFA for false advertising or at least hold off on the move if he doesn’t explain himself quickly and convincingly.
C_in_Va, you are totally off base. Even by your dictionary standard “indifference” is exactly what Dan used it to mean. He didn’t mean the opposite of interest, which would be almost a dislike or interest in the absence of sex, but rather two people that show no interest, lack of interest, indifference or disinterest in sex.
What kind of language Nazi would use Yourdictionary.com? Any self-respecting wordsmith would use Merriam-Webster. Dan did not redefine the word. Despite your claim that writers don’t define language, they ABSOLUTELY do! English is a living language that is constantly changing and evolving. Hint: this is why the dictionary has a new edition every year or so, words are constantly added or words develop new, broader meanings or changed meaning entirely. For instance, in “wench” used to be a benign reference to a girl. If you used that to refer to a woman today, you’d probably get a slap in the face! If you’re going to attack anyone that changes a words meaning, you’d have to attack a large portion of the human race, including yourself for your uninformed understanding of the word “disinterest.” (Also, word meanings in the legal context are dramatically different from common usage, your example is legal and WAY off base).
Love is not the same as being in love. Those are two different states of mind and spirit. Marrying someone too early in the relationship is like doing it while under the influence or basically blind. If there’s love, real love, the one that happens AFTER being in love, marriage can happen at anytime. My advice: wait, it doesn’t hurt. If it’s meant to happen, it will happen. If it isn’t, the wound will not be as deep. My sister married twice before the end of the first year. The first one was a disgrace; the second one is still a blessing. But she could’ve saved herself the first pain. By not waiting, she gambled big and lost.
@20: emsique:
I feel for you. I left a SHITTY marriage myself.
The only thing I did right during that senselessly blindsided 9-year relationship-from-hell (I take equal blame here—I was warned plenty by family and friends!) was not have any children with my now ex-spouse.
I’m not anti-kids. But any we might have had back then would have been really fucked up children with him as their Dad!
@127: Good point, xjuan. Waiting would have saved me from the nightmare I once lived. At least I’m older and a little wiser now.
@125:
Well said, E!
@C_in_VA (and others interested in “uninterested” and “disinterested”:
You might enjoy this discussion of the issue on Language Log:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=…
Regarding Miss LIAR:
I find it very interesting that there isn’t many people advising her not to move in with the boyfriend, asshat or otherwise.
For all intents and purposes, living together is just as good as being married. (without the dress, ceremony and benefits as outlined by the prop 8 discussion) There is shared finances, space, friends & social agendas, children…. And, if and when a break-up happens, the result is similar, if not exactly, like divorce.
Wether or not they should consider/discuss marriage at any stage in their relationship is something that they should determine. Everyone is different, with different needs and desires, the same way that some people like vanilla and others golden showers. It shouldn’t be for us to judge and discard that due to our own prejudices.
No-one can say what is going on with her boyfriends fickle head, but everyone is definitely entitled to change their minds and I am sure that we have all excercised that at some point in their lives.
I would suggest that they continue to date, if LIAR is still interested, but check the big stuff, like marriage, cohabitation and children at the door until they are really ready to face it together.
Dan, why do you think that the gay community is not very open to black men. I go to gay clubs with my friends, well dressed (not thugs here) but we get turned away a lot. Lots of gays are not interested in black men or women. The “beauty” standard for men in the gay community seems to include the Nordic look. I’m chiseled through and through (bodybuilder here) but I get no play from queer folk. What do you think that’s all about?
Thanks a million and a half.
Wow. I didn’t even get to the rest of the column before just stopping at that first full paragraph regarding marriage and thinking “HOLY SHIT, I know who needs to read this!!!”
But they won’t listen to reason. Oh well.
@Lewis:
Doubly tough, isn’t it? Homophobia from much of the black community (often hardcore Christian) and racism from much of the gay community (overwhelmingly white). You remind me of the documentary Tongues Untied. If you haven’t seen it, I really recommend it.
Completely love you Dan
For those of you who argued that your marriage has been successful despite a short courtship, are you saying that you wouldn’t be together now if you hadn’t married when you did?
Obviously there are going to be exceptions. People with a long courtship having a bad and short marriage, and those who married after 3 months spending the rest of their lives together.
I can understand if there was a circumstance in your relationship in which marriage would be a reasonable risk, but why rush into marriage otherwise?
I don’t think it’s the length of time that you wait before talking about marriage that’s the issue. It’s a question of how you view marriage. Some people know right down to their bones that they’re going to build something lifelong. They’ll start talking about marriage as soon as they come to believe they’re forming a strong bond. It doesn’t matter that they’re still in the romantic haze at that point; they don’t think a marriage is something that should last only as long as the initial overwhelming infatuation. For people like this, early talk isn’t crazy, and pre-marital cohabitation isn’t even necessary. They’ll most likely make it work, and if not, the divorce won’t be caused by something they could have discovered in the first 8 months or even two years.
For others, who are not really all that sure that marriage is an institution they’re committed to, and who assume that marriages should be dissolved whenever there’s a serious issue, even several years of cohabitation may not be enough. They almost need to survive ten or more years of committed relationship before they can begin to know whether marriage is something to risk.
But, more important, I agree with the many commenters who noted that LIAR’s boyfriend doesn’t know how to communicate and seems to have no sense of the duty of grownups not to make commitments they don’t mean to keep. (Or in his case, at least to be honest about revoking the commitment instead of indulging in the crazy-making game of requiring her to guess whether he meant it.) This guy appears to say whatever he thinks will buy a little peace at the moment; he may not mean much harm, but that won’t help her. She should steer clear of the guy and definitely not move in with him, not sign a lease with him, and not open a joint checking account with him.
I know there are a lot of ‘oldies’ that are against gay marriage, but there are a lot of ‘youngies’ that feel the same way. As a percentage it’s probably greater for oldies to be anti marriage than youngies, but older supporters of gay marriage do exist. I think it’s probably due to knowing gays and gays who have been in long term relationships. So, Dan and Phoebe, drop the oldies comments…I’m 58 and I’m for gay marriage. So’s my mom and she’s in her 80’s. But then again, I’m gay, so I suppose that doesn’t count.
@phoebe
I know there are a lot of ‘oldies’ that are against gay marriage, but there are a lot of ‘youngies’ that feel the same way. As a percentage it’s probably greater for oldies to be anti marriage than youngies, but older supporters of gay marriage do exist. I think it’s probably due to knowing gays and gays who have been in long term relationships. So, Dan and Phoebe, drop the oldies comments…I’m 58 and I’m for gay marriage. So’s my mom and she’s in her 80’s. But then again, I’m gay, so I suppose we don’t count.
To someone up above in the postings; grammar does count, communication is our lifeblood and if grammar doesn’t count, then what holds the language in a form that everyone can understand?
Tulip star. Don’t do it. No way. stop. listen to those feelings of ambivalence. i bet those are felt many times of the day. how often do you have the love of sex feelings in a given week. will this person be there for you when the chips are down? how do they treat you when they are having a bad day?
@nobody should marry with doubts:
Thank you for being the only person to respond so far. I do feel the ambivalence often. What about you, are you married and have you felt it? Perhaps in some relationships and not others? I don’t even know anyone who has a good enough relationship that I’d want to emulate, at least not personally, and I’ve had pretty bad experiences so far… I guess my rationale here is that he’s someone I share much in common with, including common life goals and a desire for children, and he’s someone I feel very passionate about, both sexually and intellectually. We have had some nasty roadblocks. And your comment rings true, he does not treat me well when he’s having a bad day. Nothing abusive, but just general hostility and emotional distance which I strongly dislike. I guess I’m just not sure how much of a mixed pot of these sorts of feelings is to be expected…
@bukboy:
I agree with you about the social brainwashing. My thought is that humans are, at their core, social animals. In the past, being different could lead to branding as an outcast, and lessen your chance of survival. But you’re right; in this modern era, adhering to social norms isn’t entirely necessary.
I don’t think marriage is needed in order to share your life with someone. I believe people mainly do it out of tradition, religious or not. (and you get a crapload of presents) I think another big reason is that upon marriage, you are accepted into the social fold of those who are also married.
Marriage is just “what you do”. Like going to college, getting a job, buying a house, having kids, etc. I wonder how many people follow this path because they think it will bring happiness, and then find it sorely lacking?
tulipstarr, don’t know if you’ll be checking back in on this post, but… i agree with the other poster. and it sounds like you know in your heart this marriage isn’t right for you, at least not right now.
i had a shitty first marriage that i regret a great deal, largely because i had been so ambivalent about him. in my heart i think i knew before we got hitched that he wasn’t right for me. i just couldn’t let it go at the time; it was too painful.
i’m now 3 years into a relationship that started out not unlike the one you describe. he and i are both divorced, both have major family issues, we love each other but we’ve struggled a great deal. his fear of intimacy and commitment left me feeling sad and alone so many times.
about a year ago, i decided that even though i love him very much, i couldn’t stay in it unless something changed–i needed to feel good about the relationship a majority of the time (not an unreasonable criteria, i think). i gave it until the end of the calendar year, and told him i’d like to go into counseling to work on our difficulties.
a year later, i’m not going to tell you things are perfect, but they’ve changed enormously. we’ve learned how to communicate with each other much better, and he truly stepped up to the plate in confronting his intimacy/abandonment fears so he could stop being such a douchebag every time he got too close for comfort. but we’ve worked on it–HARD–and it’s taken time.
i so hear what you’re saying about feeling like there’s an element of destiny. but if you’re still thinking about getting married, please try to find a good counselor so you can both work through your fears. i can tell you that walking down that aisle with uncertainty in your heart is no joyful experience, and neither is waking up several days a week with that pit in your stomach–you know the one–because something just isn’t right.
you don’t have to make a decision right away. take good care of yourself, and don’t make a huge emotional, financial, and legal commitment to this guy if you don’t feel confident you’re doing the right thing. whatever happens, i wish you the best.