I should post on something, but I don't know what. So instead of posting about something, I'm posting about nothing -- the specific brand of nothing that is simply talking about the nothing I'm posting.
When one is cohabiting, the obvious next step is marriage. Once one is married, the obvious next step changes enormously, as it has much more to do with a general life pattern and partnership than it does with development of that partnership.
I was mentioning this to ursamajor the other day — that when one is unmarried yet ensconced in a happy relationship, the obvious next step is marriage (though not everyone chooses that, of course). But once one is married, the next steps are far more nebulous. Children? Yes or no? How many? When? Buying a home to share? Investing money? In what? Job changes, graduate school, compromising the demands of two families on your time, etc.
I'm not saying that we haven't faced many of these decisions as a couple already — but they take on a different meaning and urgency when "giving up on this for a while" is no longer an option. Dating and cohabitation generally are temporary states, and those who choose to cohabit permanently usually have a political reason for doing so (illegality of gay marriage, boycotting an institution that was meant to convey ownership of a woman by a man, & c.), all of which are valid, but force them to look at more permanent, long term issues immediately.
In this day and age, of course, matrimony is both not as drastic of a step — with the likelihood of being a virgin moving out of your parents' home and into a home with someone whose household habits you do not know being much lower — and much more so, with cohabitating with shared mortgages, joint mortgages, and children being on the rise.
Marriage is a public statement, and sometimes I don't think you've thought about that — you've told me before, "Oh, I made a permanent commitment to you when I proposed" — but I don't think you get how much of a change it will mean as this new status develops.
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Date: 2007-07-14 11:24 pm (UTC)When one is cohabiting, the obvious next step is marriage. Once one is married, the obvious next step changes enormously, as it has much more to do with a general life pattern and partnership than it does with development of that partnership.
I was mentioning this to
I'm not saying that we haven't faced many of these decisions as a couple already — but they take on a different meaning and urgency when "giving up on this for a while" is no longer an option. Dating and cohabitation generally are temporary states, and those who choose to cohabit permanently usually have a political reason for doing so (illegality of gay marriage, boycotting an institution that was meant to convey ownership of a woman by a man, & c.), all of which are valid, but force them to look at more permanent, long term issues immediately.
In this day and age, of course, matrimony is both not as drastic of a step — with the likelihood of being a virgin moving out of your parents' home and into a home with someone whose household habits you do not know being much lower — and much more so, with cohabitating with shared mortgages, joint mortgages, and children being on the rise.
Marriage is a public statement, and sometimes I don't think you've thought about that — you've told me before, "Oh, I made a permanent commitment to you when I proposed" — but I don't think you get how much of a change it will mean as this new status develops.