I think it is the societal expectation that marriage and kids are required. I think being asked a question repeatedly or someone acting like you are abnormal wears on you. With me, when I say we don't have kids, sometimes people probe and probe and then say that we should. My gynecologist decided to probe me about it during an exam and the answer of we decided not to have any wasn't good enough for her. She is no longer my gynecologist. So I can understand. If people started asking married people why they are married(acting as if it were abnormal), then I can imagine they'd get annoyed after a while.
I can totally understand that nelie, it's like "I've answered this questions already, back off!" I get it. I guess personally I get a little confrontational and so people that know me know not to push me. I'm likely to say something like "are we having this conversation again?" or "gee, I love this question" or "having to bear witness to my friends' unhappy marriages I'm so glad we've decided not to" or "marriage may be good enough for you, but I want more out of my life" or "it's none of your business." If I'm annoyed enough by someone I just pretend like I don't hear them - then they look stupid because it looks like they're talking to themselves.
Wannabeskinny, my close friends no longer ask this question. They know that I am happy with my current situation and am in no rush. I am divorced from rushing into a marriage at a young age.
Nelie managed to articulate exactly where my annoyance stems from.
I couldn't tell you why but I would like to be married by 30 - but I am not ready for cohabitation with BF of almost 2 years and am about to sign a lease to live with my female friend/roommate for another 365 days.
I've been with my guy for 13 years. I often will refer to him as my DH or husband for simplicity but in reality he's my fiancé except it seems to be a permanent status. I do figure we'll take that final step someday, but we have no date set. He has kids from his former marriage, and I don't want kids. So that's not an issue. I got tired of people asking me, "Oh, when are you getting married?" which is why I often just refer to him as my husband.
I've been in an on/off relationship thing with this one guy for 3.5 years and we've never even said that we're officially "together". We just know we're pretty much each others' best friend and neither of us are ready to settle down for that kind of "forever" commitment -- we just really enjoy each others' company and we love each other and that's all that's really necessary for us. Why does there need to be an official title for a relationship for it to be a good relationship? To me, all that's really important is the bond you share with your partner and there shouldn't have to be a title. My relationship status is really no one's business but my own and I shouldn't have to explain it to anyone. I really care about this guy and he really cares about me. What else does there need to be?
Marriage is great and all but I don't think it's required for two people that love each other. Yeah it's easier for the legal/financial benefits, but why do you need a piece of paper to tell everyone that you love X person? Things like that just aren't that important to me.
i have been with my boyfriend for what will be 7 years in september. do i want to get married? of course. have we talked about it? plenty of times. but right now we're holdiing off. the main reason being finances which is very frustrating (my boyfriend had a serious back injury last year and hasnt worked since, yet). i get asked by family quite frequently, sometimes by friends. we've told everyone about our plans and whatnot, without getting too personal.
Sometimes I think about it and want it to happen tomorrow, other times it doesn't matter. the biggest thing for me is I know we're both with who we want to be, and we both feel the same way towards eachother. We have a mutual understanding and I know it will happen one day, but I'm not in a rush.
if your relationship is what YOU want it to be, nothing else should matter. If it makes any difference, we've been together since I was 16. I'll be 23 tomorrow.
My DH and I moved in together after knowing eachother for 4 months, and lived together unmarried for 6 years. It never really seemed that long to us. We knew we wanted to get marreid eventually but we were just waiting for when we were ready.
My BOTH of our grandmas were asses about it, because before we were married, they would not acknowledge each other at christmas, like my grandma wouldnt get him presents/cards anything and visa vera, it was very awkward and rude opening gifts for just me (or him) while the other sat there...they didn't even know eachother, they just both were stupid like that...generation or not, it was rude and we both had a talking to with our grandparents, they didn't have to acknowledge our boyfriend girlfriend, but we didn't have to go overthere either and have such a crumby situation.
I remember how rude some people were about not being married, even though we functioned like a married couple. When people ask how long we've been married, I say we've been together 13 years, instead of married 7...because I am not going to erase all that time just because we weren't married then.
Last edited by GlamourGirl827; 06-27-2013 at 07:30 PM.
We've been 'together' for 22 years. We don't live together. No children.
Our relationship has challenged many people through the years. on the one hand, many people think it's odd that we don't want to get married. On the other hand, some people think that I'm leading him on. On the other hand some people think he won't do me the honor of asking for my hand in marriage.
I rolled my eyes at all of it. It works for us. That's all that counts.
Two old dithering aunts would repeatedly come up to a young unmarried adult niece at every family wedding and say "Oh don't worry sweetie, you will be next.'
This really bugged the young woman.
So at the first family funeral after the most recent family wedding, as soon as she saw the old dithering aunts, she went up to them to console, "oh don't worry you'll be next.'
I think it's funny that people think 3 years is far enough into a relationship to take it to the level of marriage. I have been with my bf for 3.5 years and if he asked me to marry him, I'd think he was crazy! It's like, "I've only been with you for three years, NO I will not marry you!" Haha. It's not even a subject that is desired enough to be brought up.
When people get married so early in the relationship, I kinda feel like maybe they are doing it for the wrong reasons...generally speaking.
I think it's funny that people think 3 years is far enough into a relationship to take it to the level of marriage. I have been with my bf for 3.5 years and if he asked me to marry him, I'd think he was crazy! It's like, "I've only been with you for three years, NO I will not marry you!" Haha. It's not even a subject that is desired enough to be brought up.
When people get married so early in the relationship, I kinda feel like maybe they are doing it for the wrong reasons...generally speaking.
I don't think you can generalize the other way either. People get married for all sorts of reasons, I know someone who dated for 10 years, got married then got divorced a couple years later.
I had a few long term relationships when I was younger and marriage wasn't really a thought other than 'yeah maybe sometime in the future'. I dated a guy for a year in my late 20s and it was quasi broached but I didn't really have an interest. Then I started dating my husband in my early 30s and it just felt like the right thing to do so we got engaged a year after dating.
This thread is a great reminder not to assume that your mode of happiness will fit perfectly onto someone else's life. Like a lot of social annoyances, it comes from misguided well-intentions - an irony that I find really amusing. People generally want others to be happy, and they think X equals happy, so they push that notion onto others. But someone else's happy might be Y, or Z, or no alphabet at all.
I try not to get too offended by someone else's insistence about my life anymore (I got married young, so it's not marriage for me, but definitely the whole "kids??" question). I do get really amused when it becomes clear that someone literally can't conceive of different life choices making you happy - no malice, just cluelessness. Talked to a 18 y/o a couple months ago who had been a child prodigy, but also pretty sheltered/naive for all the adult things she'd already been exposed to. She honestly just could not comprehend why children weren't an automatic next step in my life checklist. Her repeated questioning wasn't pushiness, but from not being able to understand. You'd think I'd have told her the earth was actually flat! I realize a lot of times the judgment we get from others isn't so pure in its benevolent ignorance, but nonetheless -- it's really funny to step back and look at how firmly the brain can latch onto an ideal of "what's supposed to be" and then try to push that onto everyone nearby. It's funny, and it's also a good reminder to restrain oneself from doing the same thing.
