I have all these post ideas about married life bumping around in my head… thoughts about what it means to be a partner, thoughts about sacrifice, thoughts about having ‘enough instead’ of ‘having it all.’ But for today those will have to wait. Today I want to talk about something a little bit bigger, something a little more taboo (in the world of weddings): Marriage Ambivalence.
The funny thing about writing this website (and I think one of the reasons I write this website) is that David and I don’t go to a whole lot of weddings. People always tell us, “Oh just wait, soon you’ll be going to 12 weddings a year, just like us.” But they’ve been telling us that for years, and we’re almost 30 and it hasn’t happened. And frankly, I don’t think it ever will. It’s not that we don’t have a lot of friends, but because (as the running joke goes), our friends are just not the marrying type.
Why is that? We move in very urban, slightly bohemian circles, and there are a lot of things at play. We know a lot of, achem, overly educated people. When you don’t get out of grad school till you’re almost 30, well, sometimes you get married a little later. Sensible. A lot of our friends are gay. While yes, of course they could get married, and yes some of them do, something about it not being legal here often puts a kabash on it. It’s a little bit of, “If society doesn’t recognize our union, then f*ck them. We’re not going to shell out money for a party.” And then there is the simple fact of slightly-bohemian marriage ambivalence. We have a lot of friends with kids who haven’t married their partners, or who married their partners well after having kids. While I know this is common in other countries (I’m looking at you Canada), it doesn’t tend to be in this country. But in our circles, there tends to be a sense of ‘We don’t need society’s approval,’ or not thinking that marriage is a necessary institution in the first place.
Because I grew up this way, because I grew up around reeeaaaaallllyyyy non-traditional relationships, I have spent years and years circling around topics like weddings and marriage and parenthood in my head. I’ve spent years knowing that these outwardly traditional institutions were important to me, but equally sure in the knowledge that I could not live them out in the way that we see modeled over and over again in popular culture (TV, movies, commercials, you name it). So I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how I could take ownership of these institutions, and why I wanted to be part of them. So, in that sense, *of course* I have this blog, because I’m circling around the same questions endlessly here, and trying to come up with collective models for each of us, things that might actually work.
I think, in the end, a large part of the ambivalence towards marriage that I see around me (and inside me, some days) steams from what I’d call “Wedding Cake Topper Syndrome.” 
There is this feeling that marriage can’t be for you if you don’t look like/ fit in too the models of the wedding cake toppers. And *that* is why I care so passionately about discussing brave marriages, and marriage equality – because I know that no matter how I look, I can’t ever fit into the typical cultural mold of wife. So in a sense, I feel the reverse of the Sapphic Housewife: maybe if we broaden our view of who marriage can include, we’ll expand our opinion of what marriage can be.
So, some questions for you:
- Have any of you felt ambivalence about the institution of marriage? Maybe like so many near and dear to us, you are feeling it before: ‘Is there a point to getting married?’ Or maybe like me you are feeling it afterward: ‘Can I find a way to feel fully empowered within the cultural confines of the institution of marriage?’
- For those of you that are already married, how has it changed your relationship or your life (or not)? How has your perception of the institution changed?
I always knew that if I was going to have a serious, live-in, long-term relationship with a man, that it was going to be within the context of marriage. Part of that might be my religious upbringing, and the rest was conditioned by family values and the rest of society.
But I haven't always been decided on wanting to marry. I've been single more often than not during my adult life, and completely happy with that status. And I've seen too many examples of domineering husbands and subservient wives, which is totally against what I want for myself. As cliched as it sounds, when I found someone who loves and accepts me just as I am, and who doesn't try to impose his will on me, I was smitten. I want to marry this person, raise children together, and grow old. And since I want to do all of those things with him, and I trust him to continue letting me flourish as my own separate person, I want to marry (him!).
January 20, 2010 4:47 am
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Meg, great post! I definitely hear you on all these points.
I am newly engaged and can say that before being engaged, I just wanted the tax benefits and really just the plain, nitty gritty legal benefits of being married. My partner and I had a stable relationship that of 5+ years and I thought – what would change if we got married? and my answer was "nothing but the taxes!"
Now, I still mainly agree with that, but getting engaged has changed both our minds. Just being engaged has meant more than either of us expected. I think it has to do with the outpouring of love and support.
So, i'm going to say something that is maybe contradictory and i'm just throwing it out there…cuz I circle these thoughts too and don't know where to land exactly yet… But marriage means a lot more than I thought it did but I don't think it should. Or maybe I just think all sorts of relationships should be accepted and that there should be other ways to celebrate love than to get married….
wow. this is a complicated topic. Thats all i have for now. :)
January 20, 2010 6:29 am
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Great post! I have had an ambivalent engagement, which has nothing to do with the fella. I love the fella. I'm very excited to spend the rest of my days with him. The whole process has been a lot more angsty for me, I think because that picture you put up made me slightly nauseous.
My angst mostly comes from the amount of exhausting energy it takes to define yourself as a bride in contrast to those rigid gender roles. Suddenly every decision, from clothing to venue to whatever, needs to be made between the pressures of the tradition and pressures to define myself and our relationship in contrast to that tradition.
It is hard to dismantle the masters house with the master's tulle. Especially if you kind of like tulle…..
January 20, 2010 6:30 am
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@Lisa
Totally.
January 20, 2010 6:38 am
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I read a very interesting take on marriage once that it wasn't about you and your partner, but rather a vow to your community and society that: 1) If you had children, they would be taken care of in a stable home, 2) You and your partner are no longer "on the market", so to speak, and so would not be trying to break up other stable homes with children.
That's a perspective I sort of agree with, even though in practice it isn't always done that way. If you're going to have children, I think you sort of owe it to them to provide a stable environment for them to grow up in, and for a lot of children, that vow to society, that legal document is just another reassurance that neither of you is going anywhere.
I think it's also important in the sense that it's an official vow that even when things get tough and maybe you hate each other sometimes, you're still going to try your best to work it out instead of giving up on things (except in extreme circumstances of course). Again, not exactly how people always do it these days, but I think that's the goal, the thing to strive for.
It's not to say you can't have any of those things without marriage, and not that you can't be married and not have those things, but sometimes making things legal and official helps cement them into place. I think that's what it's supposed to do.
All of that besides the legal issues (who has the right to make decisions for you in the hospital etc) and tax issues of course.
So yeah, I think it's pretty important.
January 20, 2010 6:40 am
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Yes, round and round indeed. When I think about what it means to participate in the institution of marriage, I begin to think that perhaps it's not an institution at all. If marriage is a vow (and I think that's it's a vow to the spouse and to God), then the institution portion of it is only in the legal system. That legal system is the bit I'm ambivalent about. To me, getting married was about the promise. I'm decidedly not ambivalent about the promise. Cultural norms have played into my decision, mostly on the religious side. Could it be that some of the ambivalence you see isn't so much towards the institution itself (the legalities) but towards the cultural norms and religious influences?
January 20, 2010 6:51 am
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I never thought I would get married until my boyfriend started talking about getting married. I never thought that throwing a party and adding jewelry would improve my relationship. And from a political standpoint, I didn't want to participate in an institution that barred some of my friends from access.
I don't think my views on this have changed, though I am now engaged. Emotionally I'd already made the commitment to my partner years ago. I'm still bothered that not all of my friends are invited to participate in this cultural ritual.
I am looking forward to my wedding. It will be really fun to get all of our friends and family together, no small feat since they're scattered across the country. I love the proud look on my fiance's face when he talks about being married to me. I'm looking forward to the credit boost and additional health insurance options we'll have when we can check the "Married" box. And I won't miss the anxious look on people's faces when they found out I was in a committed long-distance relationship with no "plan".
All that really matters to me is that it matters to my fiance that he can introduce me as his wife. That is reason enough for me to hop on the marriage bandwagon. I'm sure there will be things about marriage that I don't like, just like there are things I don't like about being unmarried. But those are all external, they have to do with the way other people react to my life. I assume it will be equally irritating, but new and different irritating.
January 20, 2010 6:56 am
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my ambivalence about our marriage is, to me, more that i don't see a marked change between pre-married relationship and post-married relationship, i just see the maturation of the relationship as a whole over the years we've been living together. that i get excited about, and granted we do still get a little giddy about calling each other husband and wife, but i'm still not totally sure the getting married moment was the biggest part of it.
January 20, 2010 7:00 am
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What a great post.
I understand the ambivalence. On many levels, my fiance and I are getting married for the legal implications (taxes, health benefits, joint property ownership benefits).
I don't expect our relationship to change as husband and wife, or at least I don't expect it to change any more than it would change if we remained simply "living in sin".
And, yet.
I do want the community acknowledgement of our commitment to one another. If society could accept and understand that our relationship is forever without an official marriage, maybe (just maybe) that would be enough. I also want the "public" announcement of our love. I want to scream from the mountaintops that I found my soulmate. I get to do that (in a matter of speaking) at my wedding.
January 20, 2010 7:17 am
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A friend of mine once said that anything worth doing comes with a healthy dose of ambivalence, and I tend to agree. We're t-minus 3 months and change from our wedding and I think are both very much struggling with what it means to be married and what we want out of it. I'm far more settled than I was six months ago, a period in life I'd rather never revisit, but I'm still wrangling. But I now have an answer to why we're getting married instead of just living together forever: because we want to call each other husband and wife in front of our friends and family, and in turn have them hold us accountable for those explicit promises. I hate that we can so casually take advantage of a legal right that so many of our loved ones can't. But I feel like having an examined marriage is a very small part of the same fight. Over the past few months, there has been a fundamental shift in our household, and it's a lovely thing. It's a shift toward a deep sense of comfort and permanence that has never been there before, even after almost six years of dating. It's a different animal. Maybe it is, as Laurie Colwin once said, an acceptance of our imagined happiness.
January 20, 2010 7:24 am
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I'm thrilled to be marrying Jim, but a part of me is not so pleased that I'm participating in an institution that bars my brother from doing the same. And I can't really wrap my brain around the idea of combining every bit of our finances. Why should my student loan payments or his constant need for new tech gadgets, for example, come out of a joint checking account? We're sorting all that out now and will probably do multiple accounts, which I've been informed by more than one friend means "you might as well not bother getting married". Insanity.
January 20, 2010 7:25 am
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I love this post. What modern woman doesn't feel ambivalent about the marriage at some point? At a pre-marital counseling session we went to I realized one of the reasons I agreed to getting married is so that we could live together without the disapproval of my parents. And, all of a sudden, I realized how wrong that was and made me rethink the entire concept behind the importance of marriages and, well, it's something I'm still struggling with. Legal, medical, and tax perks don't seem like enough of a reason… calling each other 'husband' and 'wife' is really nice, but just words. I love my guy now; a piece of legally-binding paper wont change that. I guess I'm hoping for a Meg-esque ethereal moment at the wedding where everything comes together and, somehow, I feel the full force of 'wifedom' and am proud of it (and stick with that feeling for life). Has anyone ever had ambivalence while engaged, but post-ceremony found that it was worth it after all?
January 20, 2010 7:31 am
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Somehow this shout out to Canada felt a little personal… :-)
Awesome post Meg… This is APW at its finest. Exactly why I keep coming back here even though I've completely moved on from being interested in everything weddings.
January 20, 2010 7:46 am
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This post was useful in helping me to accept my partner's ambivalence towards marriage. We have been together for going on 6 years now, living together for almost 4. While I have wanted to be engaged for several years now, he (from Canada) has never really understood the need to marry other than the legal perks. As such, it hasn't been a priority for him because he already feels as though we are committed and living as partners. This has troubled me for a long time as I go back and forth between wondering if this is some sort of commitment phobia manifesting itself through non-engagement… or if it was a legitimate point of view that I needed to understand and come to grips with. I'm to the point where I believe it is a perfectly legitimate point of view, but what makes it hard is that it is in conflict with my desire to have the public recognition, the ceremony, the celebration. When I have read past posts about the wedding itself being a life changing event – I believe it – I have been to weddings like that and would like to be in the middle of my own. But then I second guess my desire for the celebration, wondering if I've been culturally programmed to want the wedding. Bottom line for me: it is what you make it, and I know that for me, at least, it would be meaningful to be married.
January 20, 2010 7:47 am
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Thanks for this post. I don't know quite how to word this comment but I figure I'll give it my best shot.
I think you are right that you move in a very narrow, relatively tiny circle of society. It's sort of like you were born in the urban bohemian "bubble" and then for whatever reason never chose to move outside the bubble. Or take a little mental vacation outside the bubble. And I LOVE your writing and your attitude, love love LOVE it (that's why I follow APW religiously!) but at the same time as a reader the bubble effect is a little bit frustrating.
I am from Ohio, a corn-fed, two steps above Hicksville, wonderful little town in Ohio. And I think it is a totally different wedding-and-marriage culture. When I think of my five best friends, I think of a group of women, all college educated, with three masters degrees and one PhD in progress. All educated, modern women. And yet, none of us is the slightest bit ambivalent about getting married, or wife-dom. All of us love the idea of being called "Mrs. John Smith," which I know you feel is so retrogade it's not even funny. And none of us find the marriage "equality" movement worthwhile. But again we are all from Hicksville, OH (and surrounding communities).
And ever since I left my little Ohio bubble, sometimes I feel like I must be thickheaded or missing a gene or something, simply because it doesn't occur to me to have marriage angst. I have never worried about turning into a subserviant wife, or if my having a traditional relationship means I am propping up patriarchy. Or if by getting married my identity would be destroyed. It just never crosses my mind.
Maybe it is a combination of the Hicksville vibes and because I just don't see it around me in my immediate relationships? With my parents, it was more my mom would kind of abused and dominated my dad in terms of lifestyle and finance decisions. I'm sure that plays a role in my thought process.
January 20, 2010 7:53 am
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I don't question marriage; I question whether I even want a relationship at all. I still don't know the answer.
What I DO know is that I wouldn't accept a great relationship NOT leading to marriage.
As far as "redefining marriage", it sounds a bit pompous to me. It seems to assume that other couples aren't already defining their own marriage. Couples have always been free to craft their own unique relationship.
Legal reasons are the original reason marriage was invented. People needed some all-purpose way to protect their designated partners and offspring.
Sure, you can gain many of the benefits of marriage without getting married, but it involves a lot of legal expense and wrangling just to duplicate what a simple marriage ceremony would have accomplished.
Besides, it's romantic to think that someone loves you so much that they want to ensure those legal protections.
That's why most of us feel insulted if a partner doesn't want to get married. It puts a question mark on the depth of their love and the seriousness of their committment to us.
January 20, 2010 8:07 am
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I have never taken any "cultural ideas about marriage" seriously.
I've lived long enough to know that very few couples live inside that box.
My grandmother died in 2005 in her late nineties. She was a housewife all her life. She loved children and was disappointed that she only had two, but she made up for that with 7 grandchildren.
She always handled and invested all the money. My grandfather had zero input in financial decisions. He always said that if he ever decided to run his own business, she would handle the finances of that also because it wasn't his talent.
She also had interesting hobbies – she was practically a master gardener.
Because of having her as a role model, I've never bought into the idea that society could define marriage roles for me.
My grandparents just did what they each felt they were good at and what they wanted to do. It was a very happy household.
January 20, 2010 8:20 am
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There is nothing about my husband and I that are, I think, typical for brides and grooms. We, neither of us, were (or are) overly sentemental. We don't spend hours gazing into each other's eyes – we'd rather play video games or bake cakes.
When we got married I made sure that our wedding wasn't about a fairy tale come true – it was just about us starting a life together. Our cake toppers reflected that, I think.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/epstarr/3745722015/
January 20, 2010 8:33 am
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@magdalena ah, no my dear. You are way oversimplifying me. I grew up (we grew up) in one of the most conservative parts of the US. I have thought and fought very hard for my opinons…. And most of our friends from high school we married (for better or worse) 10 years ago. But that is a different post…
January 20, 2010 8:41 am
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Such good questions. For myself, I arrived at this relationship after primarily being single my entire life. I met J at a very self-assured age 26, after I'd wrestled with a lot of my own demons and had a strong sense of my own path. So I don't feel like marriage, or the assumptions of its roles, is having a huge impact on me. I met someone who fits. And it also helps that I've NEVER fit what society wanted of me. In fact, this is probably the first time in my life where I've been perceived as "normal" or fitting into any prescribed roles. It's a little less exhausting to finally "belong"(ish), which is nice, but my experience as an always-outsider helps me say a big old eff it whenever the assumptions rear their ugly head. My marriage will fit for me and him, and I couldn't give a whit about the assumptions. They'll frustrate me, I'm sure, but it's hardly the first time.
Weddings were never particularly important to me, nor was legal marriage (though I feel lucky to have it) but I've always felt like a public act of commitment would be important if I met the right person. And I've always felt like the process of talking about who we are when facing the world from here on out was imperative. But marriage as defined by the state? Less important to me, but very important to him. And a big wedding? Less important to me, but very important to him. And so, here we are, planning a state-sanctioned marriage (for the kids and finances) and a big wedding (for my public commitment and his sense of weddings.) But I'm definitely ambivalent, even as I'm appreciating the process of preparing for marriage. The wedding is helping with the preparation and the symbolism and the feeling that it's something bigger than ourselves, but really, we've already married ourselves emotionally 80 times over.
Frankly, I try not to think too much about it. Our wedding is mostly for the community (family and friends) at this point and there's no way we could realistically do something smaller. It is what it is, and I'm dealing with the hand life dealt me, trying to focus on the marriage planning and not on the areas I'm conflicted about.
January 20, 2010 8:48 am
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I grew up in the Bay Area the child of a single lesbian mother. As it happened, though we would not forge a relationship until much later, my father is also gay. My mother has two siblings, one of whom is gay as well. As it was the early 80's I came up at the beginning of the wave of children of openly gay parents.
I like to think that I was raised somewhat by tribe. While I've always known who my family was, and there is some distinction, there has always been such heavy emphasis on community through the network of friends and lovers and children and supporters that were there through my childhood, that the relationships that would shape the way that I view relationships were incredibly varied.
Not a lot has changed since we have said our vows, ours has always been an easy sort of trust in each other. My husband and I got married in May because we could. Because for us there was very little question of the depth of committment that we were willing to make to each other.
I am eternally frustrated that not everyone has that choice, that marriage has become a question of legality, not of passion and faith in committment, and most importantly, love.
January 20, 2010 8:49 am
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"The Meaning of Wife" was a good book to get me thinking about this topic and roles in marriage. (I thought the book was a little dry and didn't quite do a good job of articulating clearly her point or suggesting an alternative.)
When I look back at my grandparent's marriage (married in the 30's), my Grandmother was "the control tower" and my Grandfather got stuff done. My Great Aunt (also married in the 30's) had a separate bank account set up only under her name which she openly and jokingly referred to as her "divorce money" which was used as an emergency savings account.
Something odd happened in our society in the 50's in how marriage and roles in marriage were defined in a way that has never existed before in history. We're still trying to find our way back to what we lost.
"Live like your grandma" sums up the organic, slow food movement. "LOVE like your grandparents" is now my mantra for a marriage where it is defined by the strengths and weaknesses of the people in it.
January 20, 2010 9:01 am
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If it wasn't for the ready-made, government-sanctioned, elitist advantages to my conveniently heterosexual union, and my desire to have children (for whom I think the social model of marriage makes for vastly increased ease and enforced stability), my future husband and I would've been quite happy to save our September wedding money and buy a house.
January 20, 2010 9:02 am
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I've been ambivalent about marriage for a long time. I like my relationship, but the commitment to spend the rest of my life with someone is daunting. I can't even imagine the rest of my life!
That said, I like what many here have said about community acknowledgment. My boyfriend and I are currently involved in a minor uproar because we live in a dorm at a religious boarding school. After some fussing, the school has finally decided this situation "will not work." They still haven't offered us a time-line or alternatives, so we're not moving just yet. At this moment, I almost want to just go get married so that it's not an issue anymore.
I really do think marriage, by and large, is about everyone saying "yes, you two are committed." Because even if the couple is committed and knows it, it's hard for everyone outside to know it. There's just a lot of social capitol and understanding around "they're married" that isn't present around "they're living together."
I'm still not quite ready for the big marriage thing, but I'm mulling it over now. A friend said something the other day that really helped — he told me to redefine my view of marriage as two people on a journey together rather than two people settling down. That helps a lot.
January 20, 2010 9:09 am
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I don't know if this a broader reflection of the 30-somethings of Dublin (I won't say Ireland because Dublin, like NYC as an American city, would not be totally representative of the whole of Irish culture), but as a newly married almost-30, I am definitely in the minority in my current workplace. Have the newly minted young of Ireland (having only just crashed out of their spend-like-its-going-out-of-style Celtic Tiger boom years) moved away from marriage, viewing it as old fashioned? some sort of obstacle to career advancement? an unnecessary hassle? I don't think there is much difference tax wise over here anyway. But the majority of people my age in my office are single, or partnered with children and not married. People seemed genuinely SURPRISED that I was getting married last year. Maybe they thought I was taking my love of retro to a new level?
Speaking only for myself now, I always had it in the back of my mind that I would someday get married, but wasn't living under any pressure to. Maybe I'd feel differently if I were 40 and still single. Or found myself pregnant years earlier? But something in me just always made the assumption that I'd get married THEN have kids. I pass no judgement on others that do it a different way, but those were just my thougths and then hey! I conveniently fell in love with someone who felt the same way.
Not much has changed since we got married. And we didn't even really think of it all that much beforehand – not that it was just a quick decision, more so that it was just a completely natural progression: meet, fall in love, get hitched. Is that a purely romantic notion? Perhaps. The wedding part we just really enjoyed for the party aspect. And the marriage part? We're both really looking forward to seeing how this adventure unfolds.
I have to say I just love being married and using the word "husband."
One last thought on this ever so intriguing subject – my hubby and I, so unconsciously attached to the seemingly natural idea of partnering up for life and making it a legal institution? Both raised in homes with undivorced, happily married parents. Perhaps that is the influence most responsible for our views on marriage.
January 20, 2010 9:16 am
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@Shebar I love that idea. And it gives such nice nuance for those of us who do consider ourselves fundamentally traditional (hence my lack of ambivalnce about getting married) but are unsatisfyed with the status quo.
January 20, 2010 9:21 am
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I had always wanted to get married at some point in my life, probably simply for cultural reasons. I was raised religious and I grew up in a community where marriage and having children was normal. I was lucky to be surrounded by strong content married, divorced, and re-married women, so nothing scared me off getting married. My husband felt the same way, so it was natural for us to plan on getting married one day.
We got married after 7 years of dating, co-habitating for more than 2 years out of that. In the months leading to our wedding many people asked us why we were doing it. And honestly, I never had a good answer. Yes, there are the legal benefits (no tax benefits in Switzerland though…and up to a year ago, married couples actually paid higher taxes than unmarried couples), but those don't seem to be that important until you have children. We were already committed to each other, so we could rule that out…wanting to show our commitment to others always sounded a bit silly to me…why would we need to do that…we're not religious, so a wow to (or in front of) god(s) was out. I ended up settling for viewing the wedding as a simple celebration of our love with people we consider family and with some legal perks.
I didn't think that the wedding would change anything between us, but it did. Our relationship feels stronger and more settled and the rest of our lives feels much more real. Like all this time we were climbing a hill, having a really good time, but now that we're on top, we can see all roads we can take and it's exciting (sorry, if that sounded corny). Also, turns out my husband's family takes us much more seriously now (not always a good thing ;-) ).
To sum it up, I guess the short answers to your questions would be
1.) I never felt ambivalence about the institution because I saw people making it their own, but I always struggled with what the good reasons for getting married are
2.) marriage did change our relationship and our lives in a good way
January 20, 2010 9:30 am
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@Meg. That being said, my sweetie and I are planning a June wedding three provinces away (yes, we are Canadian) so that we can have all of our friends and family there to say "Boom-shaka-la-ka" and acknowledge our commitment.
We've been committed and living together now for eight years and consider ourselves married. The government sees us as married as does our workplace insurance company. When we decided to formalize our commitment we discovered the most important thing to us was the community giving their blessing rather than a legal document so that is why we are not eloping or running to city hall.
January 20, 2010 9:35 am
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Great discussion! Many of your stories really already tell mine. I was always very ambivalent about marriage… now engaged I suppose I would say I am realistic about marriage (I hope), but no longer ambivalent about its importance and what it means to me.
It took several years of living together for our relationship to naturally mature to a level of committment that feels right for a marriage. Until then marriage had felt very unimportant to me – I didn't understand it. Once I realized I felt this deep committment to my partner but wasn't able to really convey it to those around me, I actually wanted to get married. I wanted to say the vows and make that promise in front my community and I want to introduce him with a word that instantly conveys what he is to me – my life partner.
And being from Canada, all the perks of marriage were already ours – tax benefits, shared health insurance and so on – so it really came down to the vows. Also, since gay marriage is legal here, I don't have the same guilt that many Americans feel about joining an institution that is not an option for some (sorry, couldn't resist another shout-out to Canada).
Love the thought provoking posts, they are my favourite :-)
January 20, 2010 10:01 am
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when i first met my fiance, i had recently gotten out of a bad marriage. not abusive bad, but bad in the sense that i got married for the complete wrong reasons. i was young; 19 in fact. one of my closest friends got married at 19 and i figured, well she did it, so i should too. plus i was tired of being at home and it was my way out. i didn't have the income to move out on my own. he was older and 'established' and also quite manipulative so it all just seemed to work. of course, once i realized what i had gotten myself into, i was over it. he was super controlling and as soon as we got married i felt like i had a second father. it was miserable. i left and not long after i met my fiance. at that point, i was over marriage. i felt that i could have what i wanted in a realtioship without committing to a piece of paper. i grew up in a very conservative home and the idea of being in a long term realtionship without marrying, or god forbid, moving in together with out being married, was a big no no. however, as soon as i realized i didn't have to live with the morals that were stuffed down my throat as a child, i felt this new sense of freedom. my relationshis could be whatever i wanted them to be! it was so liberating. so for once i went into a realtionship just wanting to be with my partner, and not necessarily scoping out marriage. as it turns out, we are in fact getting married. but only because we want to make that commitment to each other, not because we feel any pressure to. we genuinely want the sacredness of committing our lives to one another in front of our closest friends and family, and to be honest, i'm also really excited and honored to get his last name. i don't really feel any ties to the cookie cutter wife role. yeah i cook dinner and pack a lunch for him, but its because i want to, not because some stigma says i need to be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. i believe in being strong in a relationship as a woman, and he respects that. if he didn't, i wouldn't be marrying him.
January 20, 2010 10:03 am
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I never imagined myself as married. While other girls were (presumably?) imagining their wedding day, I was imagining babies. Two babies, twins, a boy and a girl. A father for them? Who cared? The father I imagined was just someone I maybe took them to visit or told them bedtime stories about.
I don't know why I assumed I would be single. Maybe selfishness about wanting those babies all to myself? I'm not sure.
But then I met Zack and now, after just under two years of dating and living together (because we jumped on that bandwagon fast), we're engaged. We've been engaged since October, and I am terrified of the planning process. We don't have a date. We have a guest list that is way too long. We have attendants picked, and I'm scared I don't want my younger sister to be my MOH, but it's kind of a sticky thing to change my mind on.
I don't know if I want this wedding or not. But I want to spend the rest of my life with this man. And his idea of a family includes a wedding before it includes babies. And honestly, here in GA, so does everyone else's. I can't imagine telling my grandmother that I was pregnant before I was married. I think I would just avoid her forever instead. So we're getting married, and I think I'm pretty excited about the marriage part, though I'm still working my fiancĂŠ into those baby fantasies. The wedding? Well… I could skip it.
January 20, 2010 10:04 am
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I've never thought to deeply about the institute of marriage or what that means in relation to my role in society, as a woman etc.. or how that effects how I define myself as a person. I've honestly never thought about any of these issues at all. I didn't think I would get married but I did and I don't think (after a year of marriage) that our relationship has changed all that much. Or rather that I've changed all that much other then growing older.
I can't say why we wanted to get married, I just knew that I did. I suppose one thing that's changed is I feel like I've gained a new family, or an additional family. I love my husband, and I love calling him my husband. I love our home and our life together which I feel is entirely ours. We've worked to set up our family, we've gone through moves and job changes, graduations, death… together. I like the together feeling. They're not his problems or my successes they're ours. Do I think this kind of intimacy is impossible without marriage? No. For us marriage has cemented that family feeling but I don't think that's the rule.
Actually reading the comments, I'm not sure if it's the marriage or just the relationship evolving. Hm …
January 20, 2010 10:17 am
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my ambivalence isn't towards marrying my person at all. nor to any added expectations we'll have each other (we already expect everything that i would think you would expect in a marriage, so i don't see how that will change, even though everyone says "oh you'll see, things will be different once you're married." why??)
it's more like towards society's expectations of what it means to be married, that i'm ambivalent. that one "you'll see" is just one in a bucket of manys. i've already gotten tastes of the expectations that his family will have of me once i'm "his wife" or that my family will have of me once he's "your [my] husband". (i.e. FMIL says, "people will blame you for things he forgets b/c you're his wife" – WTF, he is responsible for remembering his own family's b-days… i have enough to worry about, thank-you-very-much!, or "when is your husband going to start making more money already?" thanks, dad.) and of course, the proverbial expectation that b/c we are getting married, we must want kids soon… b/c why else would you get married? umm, because we love each other and want to spend the rest of our lives together?? isn't that why people SHOULD get married, anyway?
January 20, 2010 10:21 am
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I love that everyone has different ideas about weddings and marriage. How boring life would be if we were all the same.
I always wanted a traditional wedding. We went semi traditional. But things weren't clear to me until afterward. I'm lucky, I loved my wedding. But the marriage part changed for me once I hopped that broom stick. It's almost like something clicked inside of me once I was on the other side and I will never be able to explain it. That's why I never try to convince people they need/don't need a big lavish wedding. Maybe they do. And if they do, I love to look at the pictures afterward!
Loved this post. As I love all of yours anyway.
January 20, 2010 10:22 am
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I was ambivalent about marriage for most of my life. The show of a wedding didn't seem to make a lot of sense to me and the people I saw who were married seemed to, sadly, be missing something… something like that spark of life and love… It made marriage look like a sad institution.
After I met my now fiance, however, I started to think about marriage a little differently. I could see how it was a step I wanted to take with him, but didn't know exactly why.
Now that we are planning our wedding and discussing our marriage I have a little more perspective. I am not getting married for legal reasons. I am getting married to Trey because although we already feel like partners, we want to be family. And, I feel like when we have a wedding ceremony not in front of but, with our families and our close friends, we are creating the links of a united family of our very own. Their participation in the ceremony makes our (now) two person unit real to them and enlists their support when we are in need. And no matter how possible it is to rationalize that we know we are a unit without the support of our community, I think there is something of a positive feedback loop that happens when you bring the community into your union. And I think this is a good thing.
January 20, 2010 10:34 am
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Have you ever thought about teaching? Your questions are so well-put and thoughtful and probing… almost reminds me of the way some of my favorite professors used to encourage conversation!
January 20, 2010 10:47 am
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Those wedding cake toppers have always scared the **** out of me. I don't know why. Maybe it's because I'm not skinny with light brown hair and I'm not exactly five inches shorter than my groom. Those cake toppers never bothered me on someone else's cake, but thinking of one of mine always brought out my inner commitment-phobe (she's small, but she's in there).
Odd sentiments, I know, from someone who is so passionate about putting myself in a traditional marriage role. But I doubt I'd feel as fulfilled with my aprons and my blender if they were my only option.
January 20, 2010 11:14 am
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I think this is a really worthwhile conversation, because there is this expectation that we'll all choose marriage just "because", and it's helpful to talk about it being an actual thoughtful choice.
I never wanted to get married. People don't get married here much anymore (PS-Meg, it's more Quebec specifically where marriage is on the decline, as far as I know the rest of Canada still likes to marry), and I always thought that there were only two reasons to marry: 1) if you lived in a place where you didn't have good common law benefits, and 2) if you were religious, and thus attached a religious meaning to marriage. Since for a long time, neither applied to me, I didn't see the point.
G. felt similarly. Why should we do something that was pretty meaningless to us? Then out of nowhere, we just found ourselves talking about it a lot. There were various reasons it started seeming like a good idea: 1) We started moving closer to Judaism, and thus suddenly the religious reasons were feeling more relevant; 2) We were looking at moving around a lot due to my academic career, and it seemed like being married might facilitate that lifestyle a bit; 3) We knew that both our families would feel a lot more comfortable with us starting a family if we were married, and we felt so indifferent towards it that it didn't seem worth it to make them uncomfortable just to prove a point that we didn't feel so strongly about; 4) watching the marriage equality movement in the U.S. and the passion with which people are fighting for the right to marry made me rethink how glib I was about "opting out".
I am still pretty ambivalent about marriage. To be honest, if we were American, I don't know that we would have married due to the discrimination issue. I still feel weird about entering into an institution with such a spotty history but at least where I live it is one that is not currently oppressive, and THAT I feel like I can work with. That's a beginning.
But despite my ambivalence, marriage has meant more to us than I thought it was. It was useful in defining us to the outside world (i.e. making our parents realise that we are our own family now, officially), and it has given us a generosity of spirit in our relationship that is really inspiring. We've committed for life, so we don't sweat the small stuff as much anymore. It feels so secure. I don't think we NEED marriage to get to that place in our relationship, but it was a useful mechanism by which to do it.
January 20, 2010 11:30 am
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I was ambivalent (almost against) marriage up until I met TH. I grew up with parents who never married (but didn't stay together), and I just thought there wasn't much of a point to it.
Fast forward to TH, and something switched. It sounds cheesy and corny, but it's true. I suddenly couldn't wait to be married to him and HAD to have it. I'd dated men before that would have eagerly progressed to marriage, but TH was the first person with whom I wanted to plunge.
Of course, the original ambivalence sent me to therapy in the first few months after our marriage to deal with the sudden changes in my life. That being said, I also felt like I was the only person trying to find the "me" in "wife" and how to make my ideals/beliefs/dislikes of marriage/wife become a part of my life and who I am within a marriage. I think that if I had been privy to the discussions on this blog, I would have felt better at my mixed emotions.
January 20, 2010 11:37 am
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It's funny, The Boy proposed to me last night and I think I would've commented differently on this post even 24 hours ago.
I'm sure as we near the wedding, I'll have tons of ambivalence (and even now I am trying to figure out how to support marriage equality concretely at my wedding [something I feel very strongly about] without discomfiting my more conservative friends and family) but at the moment I am in love with the world.
I didn't expect to feel this way – I'm a fairly private, no-nonsense person and I thought I'd have no patience for the squeeing phone calls and having everyone in the world know about the engagement. But last night… I couldn't wait to tell our nearest and dearest and our friends. It felt so natural and important to throw ourselves open to our community at this point in our lives (partly because we are a bit bemused at how big of a deal they are making – we've felt promised to each other for so long already). The outpouring of love that we've been receiving has been like balm to my soul.
January 20, 2010 11:39 am
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Thanks for the great post and discussion. Reading the comments here reminds me of a great conversation I had with my best friend and then boyfriend, now fiance. We were on a car trip discussing marriage, what it really means, how/if it truly strengthens a relationship, if making a legal/public commitment is more meaningful than a private one…
I like two things about the institution of marriage:
1. It is participation in something bigger than you.
2. It makes it hard to leave. I have a firm belief that almost all relationships have rough spots, some so rough that you want to quit. Sometimes marriage helps you get through these spots so your relationship has an opportunity to return to its ideal.
I have wanted to share my life with someone since I watched my grandma at my grandpa's deathbed. 58 years, 4 children, 7 grandchildren later–they were family to each other. As heartbreaking as it was in that moment for her to lose her husband, I knew that I wanted to experience life in that way, with someone for the long haul. For reason #2 above, I think that marriage gives me the best shot at that.
I often wonder how much my parents' divorce plays into my personal desire to be successful in marriage. I feel more aware of the challenges of a marriage from the way I grew up, but for some reason I also feel compelled to not blame the institution. I'm not really sure why. I just read _Committed_ by Elizabeth Gilbert, and that made me think about why it was important to me to choose marriage and different cultures' functions of marriage.
I, too, really like what Shebar said: "Love like your grandparents." I think sometimes the mistake we make is asking the institution to hold us together when we don't do the work ourselves.
I think it's worth noting that I don't have many personal examples of women who were stifled by their marriages. They are either strong and independent or they got out.
Thanks again for the interesting questions and discussion!
January 20, 2010 11:51 am
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yep, having lived in three provinces across teh country, including Qc, I have to agree with Accordians and Lace. seems that marriage happens a LOT from my group of friend I grew up with…
I would say, that I notice more of a difference between education level- like you said Meg. :)
I didn't think about marriage much at all until the moment Andrew proposed- I had no idea he had been thinking about it.
I asked for a two year engagement so I could adjust, and am very thankful for that.
Like a previous commenter, I'm more ambivalent about the traditional cultural expectations of what being married will entail… like the "Mrs Andrew So and So" letters and cards…
or the weird connotations that "wife" still has…
you know. that stuff.
January 20, 2010 11:51 am
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Hmmm. Yes. My fiance and I both have divorced parents, and in my family (both sides) I don't know if there's been one happy marriage in the last century. Add to that the fact that we are both PhDs, and yes, you'll get some ambivalence. We have analysed the institution (historically, statistically, theoretically, etc) to pieces using all the critical weapons in our overstuffed intellectual arsenal. We have also thought critically about our personal experiences as children of divorced couples; and I myself felt a lot of pain about that.
So why are we doing it anyway? I think because we really value the structure, solidity, and guidance that this tradition provides. We like the idea of an organized, established system for having the kind of relationship we want to have: one in which each of us WILL make sacrifices and compromise for the other; one in which we will be bound to each other and helpful to each other even when it's hard.
Being giving that way is not always easy, and I'm glad to have a structure that will ask me to give, force me to give, and help me to give, even when I find it difficult to do so.
I think our desire to enter into a system that limits our freedom (if that's not putting it too harshly) is a reaction against what we saw in the preceding generation: the lack of structure, and a rather destructive readiness to break out of structures for the totally understandable purpose of seeking self-realization and fulfillment.
All this makes us sound gloomy, I fear. Actually though we're really happy and excited! Thinking through (and feeling, emotionally) the ambivalence is part of what makes the marriage powerful when we do it.
January 20, 2010 11:56 am
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Yes to the QuĂŠbec comments. (Hooray for QuĂŠbec representation today!) My husband is from QuĂŠbec and had no plans of getting married. Ever. I am from the south of the US, and had always planned on marrying. The two regions have quite the difference of cultures, especially related to the institution of marriage. In fact, it probably could not be more different!
January 20, 2010 12:07 pm
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I wonder what it means that when we told some people we were engaged they were like… "Really? we assumed you guys would just always live in sin" or his sister's response "that's suprising you're getting married, you guys seemed happy as you were…did…something change…!?!??" (NO, I'm not preggers…)
- I have to say I suprisingly really like having an outward, publicly recognized symbol that says "we're REALLY together".
oh, and as for waiting what some people apparently considered "forever" to make it official and not caring when/if we did…I don't think it was entirely ambivilence…a lot was being cautious… but both did play a part.
I fall into the live in major city, have educated friends category and based on my experiences I do feel "wife" has certainly doesn't have connotations or anything other than "female he/she is married to", or at least the reclamation has a pretty positive outlook. Thanks Meg for helping so many people look beyond what's in front of them and see that it doesn't have to be a weighty word.
January 20, 2010 12:15 pm
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Heh. My man & I have been together for so long, that when I told my sister that I had exciting news, her first guess was, “You’re pregnant?!”…it was rather annoying to say “No, we’re ‘just’ engaged”…like engagement is “JUST”, solely on account of her pregnancy-guess. Sigh. :P
January 6, 2011 9:44 am
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I love that you are asking these questions, Meg, and I really appreciate Team Practical's answers.
I was ambivalent about marriage before I got married. I felt queasy about marriage inequality in the US. The word "wife" seemed about as applicable to me as "astronaut." My husband never thought he'd get married. And then we ended up in a set of circumstances that changed our minds (1 and 2 being most important, but 3 and 4 also being serious factors):
1. we acknowledged to one another that we want to spend the rest of our lives together, that it's important for us to make a commitment to tend and grow our love;
2. we decided that we could do things our way, like deciding together to get married, no ring required (and eff everyone who thought I should be upset about not having a romantic proposal story);
3. I'm a Canadian and the mister is American, and immigration rights only come with marriage;
4. The mister was offered a job in CA (across the country at the time), and I couldn't work or carry my insurance under the terms of my student visa.
To be honest, I still have ambivalence about the word "wife" and about marriage. Not mine – I'm happy with where we are, and I like the fact that we have publicly stated that we're in this life together, committed to supporting one another. I think the rub comes from the continuing (and stifling) presence of the cultural myths about marriage that Meg has written about before. These are the cake toppers that REALLY kill me:
http://tinyurl.com/ybl9776
http://tinyurl.com/ychqyar
http://tinyurl.com/ydsyv8c
Oh, and then there's the zombie groom trying to escape the clutches of his bride:
http://tinyurl.com/ybx7dl9
It's possible that I'm just totally humorless – I admit that. But I shudder at the thought of having a marriage like that. I shudder when people talk about marriage as women trapping or catching men. I married my husband because I believed that we could grow together. I like who I am with him, I like that he sees and supports my potential. That kind of marriage feels hopeful to me. I want to talk about marriage in terms of growth and support and encouragement – not trapping and owning and "now we have one mind and one heart." I don't feel ambivalent about that.
January 20, 2010 12:29 pm
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Oh hell yes there is ambivalence.
When my boss (married 40 years) offers unsolicited marriage advice such as "just go along with whatever your husband wants, and then do whatever you want anyway" I am all like WHAT HAVE I DONE? WHY DID I EVER WANT TO JOIN UP FOR THIS CRAZY INSTITUTION?
It's very hard to challenge an institution from the inside, especially one that feels like it has very thick walls.
January 20, 2010 12:32 pm
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Fab post Meg. They come thick and fast.
I'm gonna need to think on those questions of yours. (Which is code for, I started responding, and I think it may have turned into a blog post. Sorry.) But they are ones worth asking.
January 20, 2010 12:53 pm
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Great post Meg, as if you post anything but.
I had much to say, so I posted over at my place.
January 20, 2010 1:35 pm
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Interesting stuff as always, Meg. I think there is a good deal of bonafide ambivalence about marriage out there (for all of the reasons you cited and more), but I also think maybe there's a lot of feigned marriage ambivalence.
How many times have you heard/read "I was never the kind to dream about my wedding day while growing up?" or "I never thought I'd get married?" It seems to be ESPECIALLY prevalent in the blogosphere, but certainly exists in the real world as well. I'm pretty sure if I had a nickel for every time I've come across these sentiments, I wouldn't have had to be so miserly about our wedding budget!
To be perfectly honest, YOU are the only blogger I can think of who has come right out and said something along the lines of 'YES, I've been thinking about my wedding since I was a little girl" (in the story you told once about saving money in a piggy-bank or something like that.)
Anyway, while I might characterize myself as ambivalent about weddings at times, I've never, EVER been ambivalent about marriage. Terrifying as it was in my younger, far more commitment-phobic years, it was always something I knew I WANTED, even if I didn't know if I'd GET IT.
I wonder if some women pretend to be ambivalent about weddings/marriage so as to not betray the image of a strong, independent woman who doesn't need a man (or a partner, period) to be happy?
January 20, 2010 1:38 pm
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While some people may be pretending, to protect their Independent-Woman image, I think a lot of people just saw a lot of nasty divorces [or nasty should-have-divorced] around as children & never wanted to go through that!
It is possible [probable?] that the blogosphere has a much higher percentage of women with these ambivalent feelings, and hence, writing about them. After all, for people who always knew they wanted marriage, there isn’t that conflict to work out and write about!
Also, there are differences between “I never thought I’d get married”,
“I went through times where I thought I’d Never get married”, and “I was never one to dream of getting married”.
I never *dreamed* of marriage, or wrote my name with boys’ names. There were times I considered marriage, certainly, and times when I thought, NO WAY.
Now, I haven’t started a wedding blog, but I did join the OffBeatBride Tribe. I’m still not interested in flower arrangements [too expensive for us, and he doesn't like cut flowers!], but it does seem that when the event in question is for you and your Special Person, the level of interest changes!
Just some thoughts I had in response to the above. ;p
January 6, 2011 10:40 am
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