DesireeNevermind said:

Yep, I wanted to be princess's for the day.


Seriously, I... we loved each other. I hadn't plan on getting married or having a family, I shouted that to anyone who'd listen. I really thought I'd spend my life alone, he came along and that went all out the window to my deep deep fear.
I hyperventilated the day of my wedding.



I don't think it's kinda of sad and just a tad cynical to reduce things down to commerce when there's so much more involved. I would think if you are waiting for the other shoe to drop, than surely it will and you and your partner will be miserably. It would have been a mistake to allow him to slip through my fingers and it would have been a mistake not to have a baby/family with him. He's not perfect but neither am I and still, we want to be with each other.

The some of the things you mentioned have to be talked out length what you want, expect, and won't put up with. As my mother said, what you see is what you get...


Next week I'll come back telling you he or I want a divorce.

^ noooo...my heart couldn't take it.

DesireeNevermind said:

Three years.

PunkMistress said:

well dang hon...my grandparents would have called that the "newlywed" phase.

D, I'm usually down with your comments and stuff but this one I whole heartedly disagree with you on it.

MOST women get married because they either:
1) Want to impress their friends and family by having a big elaborate wedding to outshine somebody else's wedding they went to the year before
2) To please their family
3) Just to say "I's married now!!!"

SOME women get married because:
They really are in love with their soul mate and want to seal the deal with a commitment before God.

Now if you don't believe in marriage, then it's fine and dandy, your opinion, but yes some women, myself included, still do believe in the institution of marriage. All marriages don't end up in divorce.

missfee said:

same here I agree.

missfee said:

Will be married 23 years this coming may!

Well, more than anything I wanted to be married and raise a family. I was adamant about not having kids until I was married.
And yes, I wanted the big fancy wedding with the big white gown and everyone I knew to be there.

I got engaged at 37. I was FINALLY getting married!
Then one day I realized that I was miserable and didn't even really LIKE him... We broke up...
Now at 42, I no longer want to be married. I can't have kids, so I no longer feel the need to be legally bound to someone.

What I do want is for the man I love to just want to be with me as much as I want to be with him.
We go thru all kinds of drama... I often joke that well be 85, in the same nursing home still bickering about some old lady down the hall.

missfee said:

Aren't you kind of agreeing with me? That 1 through 3 are shady reasons to get hitched, especially for a female, and in this day and age a woman doesn't have to do any of that...she may want to but there are enough freedoms in the western world where she doesnt' have to impress, outshine, please either her family or society. With #3 that's just a hot mess thinking a title is going to make one happy.


Let's assume the latter is the norm...sealing the deal with a soul mate before God. What the heck happens? Why does that soul mate become the bane of a woman's existence? I'd like to be optimistic about marriage but when only 47% last and that 47% is questionable, I still wonder why women bother. Men seem to get the better end of the deal in marriage too..

face it ladies...you all grew up reading sappy ass harlequin romance novels.

If you both love each other and have a happy relationship...why not? I've been wanting to get married since high school, but not with just anyone of course.

chocolate1 said:

Well damn.

Adisa said:

He was a control freak... You couldn't do anything without clearing with him first, INCLUDING folding laundry and washing dishes. He had a "system" and God forbid you mess that up. He even had me on a budget, but wouldn't tell me how much he paid in child support to two different women. He was always preaching, "that's what couples do" to justify his behavior when it came to ME.

Then I started paying attention to how his ex-wife AND his 2nd daughter's mother seemed afraid of him, and neither one could take a breath without his permission where the girls were concerned. I started to see my future...

Adisa said:

I know...I was LMAO at that one.

DesireeNevermind said:

Nope. Not the case at all.

I grew up thinking I never wanted to get married. It's only in the last 4-5 years I've changed my mind. I realized much later in life that it's something I definitely want, should the right circumstances present themselves. I'm just not optimistic about my chances. And therefore will be quite happy to gorw old without it.

CarrieMpls said:

wow.

DesireeNevermind said:

We happily marrieds can be smug like that sometimes.

PunkMistress said:

Me and blackberry one of these days.


Trina


=====
[Edited 4/19/10 16:40pm]

3 I can identify here in Thailand:

1. They love their man and want to be together forever, feeling the marriage is a seal on that bond, a promise.
2. They want security, financial or emotional. To be taken care of, to ease burden. Not to be confused with a gold digger.
3. They want to be able to buy fancy shit. Often there's a burden they want to ease in this case too though, behind it all.

Fauxie said:

#2 and #3 aren't considered gold digging?

Harlepolis said:

Yea, Harle understands me, in spite of my typos.

chocolate1 said:

I missed this post. Damn chile, you could have been married to that dude from Sleeping With The Enemy.

tinaz said:

24 years as of last week, April the 12th.

TD3 said:

And Happy belated anniversary to you!!



.
[Edited 4/19/10 16:51pm]

I just have no interest in marriage, or even shacking up with a bf. I just can't be bothered to have to think about someone else. My caring quota at the moment is maxed out on caring about myself and my son.

But even before I had a child I never had an interest in getting married.

DesireeNevermind said:

3, certainly, though there's nearly always more to it, of course. What I'm talking about in 2, not so much. In 3 I'm thinking of some girl in Pattaya hooking up with a rich, old foreigner so she can get her Gucci sunglasses, party every day, and keep him pussy whipped to the point of being able to sneak around sleeping with handsome, younger guys without repercussions.

In 2 I'm thinking of situations where pressures of life, poverty, a need to support family, is so overwhelming that the woman craves comfort and security. Maybe some tough experiences in life, emotional scars and a desperate need to be taken care of. I don't think these are loveless situations either, or maliciously tendentious on the woman's part. Typically she could be a very loving, caring, kind wife, but the union on her part initially is born out of need rather than pure romance. You could surmise her being a good wife comes from fear on her part, not wanting to return to the daily struggle, but honestly I think a very real love often comes out of it for the man she marries and who removes her from all the hardship. She's previously been worn down and she's grateful for warmth, care and security, which in turn she grows to reciprocate genuinely.

Make sense?

A couple of elements of 2 are actually relevant to my relationship in that I think my wife definitely saw in me a stabilising influence that she was smart enough to see she wanted and needed. She definitely recognized that she needed a constant, and genuine warmth and care, to get her life on track and be happy. Not all in 2 applies though, but certainly some.

Fauxie said:

Ahh I see now. I think I've even heard something similar on discussion on marriage not too long ago. A discussion about the practicality of marriage versus the romantic till death us do part vision of it. It would seem arranged marriages fall in line with #2 as well.

DesireeNevermind said:

Definitely some parallels, though arranged marriages seem to be less about a woman's emotional needs than what I wrote about in #2 and more about family name, wealth, and cultural/class expectations. I'll confess I don't know too much about the arranged marriages of say Indians for example. Here in Thailand in some cases there's more of a mail-order or very practical and straight to the point dating website element to things, i.e. divorced older man decides very specifically he wants a Thai woman and to move to Thailand, looks up Thai girl's profile, her having decided very specifically she wants to marry a foreigner. What ensues I imagine is relatively brief, requires getting on well and some of those rudimentary elements of 'normal' relationships, but being so practical definitely resembles as much a business transaction as it does romance. They find they like each other and there's a mutual need. That's how I imagine it goes down, at least. A Thai friend of mine runs such a website and asked to use a couple of my wife and I's wedding pictures on the site, which obviously I wasn't too sure about (not that I've anything, per say, against people who find that kind of relationship that way, but yaknow:lol: ). Ultimately I decided it was of no great consequence our pics being on there.

kewlschool said:

seriously...

DesireeNevermind said:

It's not sad! Just realistic. I'm almost an old hag and I've got pretty high standards. There are only a handful of single men left in my key demographic and then you have to factor in attraction, compatibility and a willingness to be in a committed, monogamous relationship. It's only realistic to recognize finding a life-long partner at this stage falls against the odds.

But - If this is a goal I don't achieve in life, I can live happily ever after anyway. I was just pointing out that I never pictured it till much, much later, so it's not as if I've been fantasizing about some dream wedding all my life like the sterotype. If anything I fantasized about the everything the opposite.