The news buzz as of late seems to be about the death of marriage. I am surprised that some people are surprised by this.
I think marriage is on life support.
For years, Groucho Marx ‘s amusing quote about not belonging to any organization that would have him as a member always ran through my brain when the discussion turned to the pros and cons of marriage. I think that is why I never married…until recently.
I consider myself a keen observer of the human condition and I think us mere mortals have made a mess out of the institution of marriage. Maybe it needs to be broken so it can be fixed. Or maybe we need to start all over.
When I was a kid, my parents seemed to have a great relationship. I was brought up in a house where equality of the sexes was a way of life. I was one of seven kids and my parents did not have the time or strength to assign chores by gender. I am still grateful for that. So I didn’t run away from marriage because of some early childhood trauma.
But as I moved into my teens and early twenties, the last thing I wanted was marriage. I saw women being suppressed, viewed as sexual objects for the overinflated male ego, or doing the walking corpse dance. It seemed like a lot of women were walking down the aisle just to put Mrs. in front of their first names so that they could make someone else responsible for their happiness. That is a heavy burden to put on someone else.
Now I am not covered in warts and did not just escape from the nunnery. I have been in long term relationships and some were longer than a lot of marriages out there. Hell, I was engaged four times. I am a little embarrassed by the last statement, but they wanted it and I was confused. Okay, I will come completely clean. There was one man I did want to marry. But, as our relationship went on, I realized that I would not have the luxury of being able to trust him. And you know who you are. So for a short while, I got tangled up into thinking I was supposed to get married. But my inner voice would wake up me up and scream, “Do not walk. Run.” So I skipped out.
I think what really left me unimpressed with the idea of marriage was that there were no other acceptable alternatives in the eyes of society. Every other way for a man and woman, man and man or woman and woman to be together in a committed relationship is still considered scandalous and sinful. So I signed up for an alternative lifestyle. I always felt more comfortable living on the fringe then in the middle of society’s rules.
If you didn’t marry by a certain age then you were viewed as a threat by some wives and some of their husbands thought you wanted to sleep with them because you must be lonely and desperate. I didn’t want to sleep with any of pasty old fools and in most cases neither did their wives. How crazy is that? Just to get a complete service for eight of bone china, some people will and did sell their souls.
So now that I have depressed a few people out there, let me just say that I got married for the first time four years ago. And I think what worked for me was doing it on my own terms. So after 12 years of cohabitating, we married so that the cats could get health insurance.
I think all I am saying is to do what works for you. Get married, live together, have kids, don’t have kids, live alone, have friends with benefits (was unsuccessful in working that into my marriage vows) but just do what works for you. And health care for all living beings.
And then I woke up.
Next week I will bring world peace to the planet.
© 2010, Coach on the Edge ™
elizabeth’s Creativity Coach site is: Coaching for the Creative Soul
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where I help administer the tests? Don’t you catch people saying and doing stupid stuff, and hours later you find yourself riding by their house because you just want to go and flog them? I am not talking about brain freeze due to ice cream consumption – you can’t really fault a person when that happens. I know because it has happened to me.
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