After all these years, what are your thoughts on the concept of marriage?

Myrtle said:
I'll just say I married young and we were married for 47 years before he died. You wouldn't believe me if I told you how much determination, hard work and tending to little things, how many prayers, how many times you will have to go more than 50% of the way and so will he, how much you will put up with or how glad you will be someday that you made that effort and made it over and over and over. You wouldn't believe how many times love is not the most important thing, at least not the kind of love that brought you together.

Commitment matters more and so does character when you are in for the long haul.

But you will have so many good times and good memories if you make that effort. And you will laugh later about many of the harder times. But, just know love is not enough, it's essential but it's not enough and that love will change many times and in many ways through the years.
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The problem is for the vast majority.. only one person is putting in 90 % of the effort..

When I first got divorced .. it scarred me so much that I swore I would never marry again. We could tell he had the better experience because he married again as soon as the divorce was finalised. I stuck to my promise to myself, raised my daughter alone without any financial help from him, and refused all offers of marriage from potential suitors... sticking to my resolution, for 16 years.

When my daughter was 23 and left home I agreed to marry again.. I thought it might be different because there was no children involved... acch...... again..only one of us giving the majority of time and attention to the union..

I wish I'd stuck completely to my earlier resolution... ..it will never happen again...
 

I've been in a very good marriage for 40+ years. Didn't start dating him until age 26 and was very comfortable with living untethered. I moved in and out of relationships as the mood struck (and it struck often), had a great job, nice apartment, plenty of friends, was financially solid including some savings, etc.

My life was going along pretty swimmingly. As was his. Point being, neither of us "needed" to be married. Nevertheless, within two years of being together we got married, choosing to intertwine our lives for the duration.

There have been lots of changes over the years - very little in life stays the same - but knowing we can count on each other has made the joys a little happier, the bumps a little smoother, and the difficult tasks easier to accomplish.

Sure, there have been some difficult periods, but nothing we've confronted has been larger than our affection, love and commitment. We are cautious to avoid damaging what we have and have always been extremely considerate and polite to one another.
 
Marriage is a great relationship that helps you discover a new dimension in yourself. It’s a path to fulfillment and happiness in life. It’s a natural way for couples who are from two different parts of life to come together and find meaning.

The fact that gay people have fought tooth and nail to allow, by law, marriage of the same gender, speaks volumes of the beauty and sanctity that marriage is.
 

Myrtle said:
You wouldn't believe me if I told you how many times you will have to .. go more than 50% of the way
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I don’t think of marriage as requiring determination like as would be needed to roll a big rock up a mountain. I don’t think it needs to be such a purposeful thing so long as you have a real desire to have a life partner and choose one you respect, find interesting and genuinely like (at least when they aren’t vexing you). But you will vex each other just as anybody who isn’t you would vex you some some of the time if you live together. So if you value your partner and partnership it is important to realize you always have a role in any friction and that is the key to defusing hard feelings when frayed nerves lead to hurt feelings. It helps also to realize there is no easy alternative if you like having a partner.
 
bobcat48 said:
Good points. I remember studying some time back about "emotional nakedness". We most often go through life with masks on. Our true self is hidden behind that mask, even often in marriage. It seems we do so because we fear that if others knew the real "us" inside, they wouldn't approve, or would not like us. Emotional nakedness is an act of conscious removal of all masks. Many have concerns about physically being naked in front of another because they are self-conscious about their body, but again, it is for the same reason. We haven't accepted ourselves, and therefore fear others won't as well.
I remember a scene from the movie Avatar where the female (Neytiri) looked at Jake with a deep gaze and said "I see you", meaning that she could see his soul, the real person inside.
I think when two people make love, it is sex, but when two souls make love, it is a whole different level. If a relationship has that soul merging, it is stellar.
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Interesting perspective to ask oneself if they were completely real with their spouse before and after marriage. I think most of us held back before and let it out after. Or held back feelings about their behaviors until you just couldn't handle it anymore and left for good!!!
 
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bobcat48 said:
I think in marriage there is an understanding of mutual ownership. It essentially says, "Even though sometimes I may not like you, or even want to be around you, I don't want anyone else to have you either". It's a strange paradox.
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Well, I am at a loss to understand what sort of marriage you are talking about...ownership? no one is buying cattle here.
This is 2023, not pre Victorian times when women had to hand over property
to their husbands. I don't understand your thinking.
Marriage means different things to different people I guess.
 
hollydolly said:
The problem is for the vast majority.. only one person is putting in 90 % of the effort..

When I first got divorced .. it scarred me so much that I swore I would never marry again. We could tell he had the better experience because he married again as soon as the divorce was finalised. I stuck to my promise to myself, raised my daughter alone without any financial help from him, and refused all offers of marriage from potential suitors... sticking to my resolution, for 16 years.

When my daughter was 23 and left home I agreed to marry again.. I thought it might be different because there was no children involved... acch...... again..only one of us giving the majority of time and attention to the union..

I wish I'd stuck completely to my earlier resolution... ..it will never happen again...
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Yeah, 3rd time isn't always a charm.
 
I truly believe men and women don't have any business living together. It's like oil and water. The old "men are from Mars, women are from Venus" schtick. But society says it's best if we're couples so couples we become.

It's probably a good thing that I barely knew my husband when we got married..... But we started married life thousands of miles away from home, in a foreign country and 18 months later, there was a baby and we all grew up together. We had 37 years of what was a successful marriage. Did we argue? Yep. About the same things over and over again? Yep. Would we still be arguing about those same things today if he hadn't died 17 years ago? Yep, probably.

I've been living with the Spousal Equivalent for a long time. There's no "common law" in our state....we're just "shacking up" or as the old US Census designation called it "POSSLQ (Persons of Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters). Neither of us have any interest in changing the status quo. It works.
 
Murrmurr said:
Marriages were more or less governed only by religion for a while. For a long, long time, it's been governed by laws.

Marriage shouldn't be governed by parliaments and congresses and dictators and such, imo. I'd like to see all marriage laws disappear.

Child custody is another matter. Those laws are are necessary.
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There are still marriage laws because someone has to keep the peace while couples fight over their property. Not kidding.
 
Jamala said:
Well, I am at a loss to understand what sort of marriage you are talking about...ownership? no one is buying cattle here.
This is 2023, not pre Victorian times when women had to hand over property
to their husbands. I don't understand your thinking.
Marriage means different things to different people I guess.
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Okay, that wasn't intended to be literal, but figuratively. In most societies, a marriage is considered a permanent social and legal contract and relationship between two people that is based on mutual rights and obligations among the spouses. When you pledge to forsake all others and stand by your chosen one till death do you part, it is understood that you are giving up certain freedoms in the vows you take. I didn't mean that they own you as one would a slave. It is more of a "belonging" type ownership. Hope that makes sense.
 
Myrtle said:
There are still marriage laws because someone has to keep the peace while couples fight over their property. Not kidding.
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For that, you have marriage counselors. Who, if marriage laws didn't exist, would be called Couples Counselors.

Also, laws governing property are not marriage laws. They're about property and ownership. Marriage doesn't have to come into it.
 
Murrmurr said:
Also, laws governing property are not marriage laws. They're about property and ownership. Marriage doesn't have to come into it.
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Exactly.!
I feel the whole legal marriage thing is totally unnecessary.
A couple can choose to live together without church or any other vows. Property etc., drawn up legally.
Children could be registered in both names and ultimately choose which one they wish to live by.

Guess I willl get a lot of wowso_O for this but it is the way I see it.
 
Murrmurr said:
Marriages were more or less governed only by religion for a while. For a long, long time, it's been governed by laws.

Marriage shouldn't be governed by parliaments and congresses and dictators and such, imo. I'd like to see all marriage laws disappear.

Child custody is another matter. Those laws are are necessary.
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this is true..an example was in my parents marriage. She was a devout Catholic, he was a protestant. From almost day one the marriage was a disaster, and she wanted out. They'd married in register office, and so she told him that in the eyes of the church they were not married and she could leave whenever she wanted.

He wrote to the Pope..I'm not kidding..he was a prolific writer.. but not educated enough to realise there were certain steps you should go through... so anyway, unbelievably the Letter was read by someone with some clout at the Vatican.. and within a very short time they'd got a visit from the Local Bishop...who'd obviously had the letter forwarded to him.

I was only about 3 or 4 years old at the time... but I was told the story years later... my poor mothers' heart was broken when she was told unequivocally that despite her beliefs, she was in fact married in the eyes of God...

My only and abiding memory of that time was her making the first attempt on her own life , and the ambulance coming to take her away..and me trying to get in there with her and being repeatedly lifted back out...
 
bobcat48 said:
I think in marriage there is an understanding of mutual ownership. It essentially says, "Even though sometimes I may not like you, or even want to be around you, I don't want anyone else to have you either". It's a strange paradox.
Some people even have an "open marriage", but that makes me wonder why get married at all. Just date or be friends with benefits.
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Mutual ownership, yes! My husband never seemed to mind being owned. Married in 1959. Married for 62 years I think it was. We both believed we gave more than 50%. Respect is everything, romance is nothing.
 
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