Thoughts on Marriage

My boyfriend and I have been dating for just over three years. We were friends in high school, sort of dated our freshman year of college, and finally became “official” that April. I love him, and we have a really healthy relationship but I am always thrown off guard when people ask whether I think I will marry him. My grandparents in particular love to pose this question to me. Honestly, I can never think of a good enough answer. I’m twenty-two, and they were married when they were that age. Hell, one of my grandmothers even had children by that age.  For some reason though, the thought of marriage freaks me out. It’s something I’d like to do eventually, but right now it’s not even on my mind! Is that a bad relationship omen? Does it mean he is not “the one”?  When I’m asked if I think I’ll marry him, these thoughts pop into my head and make me all kinds of insecure. It isn’t that he isn’t marriage material: he is great! He treats me really well, and probably knows more about me than any other person, and he actually likes those stupid things that no one else knows. He even has the boring qualities people hope for like life ambition self-awareness.  I just don’t know what I want yet! I’m not afraid of commitment (or at least if I am I’m not aware), but I don’t want to tether myself to someone before I even figure out what I want to do with my life.  Maybe I’m afraid of being held back from doing something I really want to do by marriage, although I’m pretty sure that my boyfriend wouldn’t be the type of husband to hold me back.  Luckily, I’m not alone in this type of thinking because when one of our “couple friends” got engaged, Dylan broke into a cold sweat when he was told the news. 

Last weekend, I went to visit my best friend in Santa Barbara, a yearly tradition. This is her senior year of college at Westmont College, a small private school of only about two thousand students, and no less than sixteen couples are engaged. SIXTEEN! It seemed ridiculous to me that thirty two twenty one year olds had gotten engaged in the last six months (granted, this is a super Christian school where most of the students are “waiting until marriage,” so I’m pretty sure sex is a factor in a lot of these relationships).  My friend said that it is common for this to happen and she expects more engagements before the school year is over, but the divorce rate between alumni is around seventy percent. Most of them get engaged after dating for about six months or a year. When I told some students that I had gone three years with no ring, they all gave me really pitying, weird looks, which made me very uncomfortable. They all talk about how they just “knew,” that so-and-so was the right one. Is my relationship doomed because I am not sure yet that he is the “one”? Maybe my “the one” radar is clouded by my sensibility, I’m not exactly a huge romantic. 

I’m afraid of getting divorced. This is probably my biggest fear about marriage. I’m afraid of getting married to someone, then my life being the same as my family’s. My parents divorce was nasty, and at fourteen I was old enough to know what was happening. My stepmom wasn’t married until she married my dad when she was 45, and their marriage is the only good one I have ever really been exposed to. I’m terrified that I will fuck things up because I didn’t have a good model for what marriage is. I think I would be at least an okay wife, but using the term “wife,” when talking about myself is literally making my throat sweat. 

For most people who aren’t my grandparents or super bible-y, I generally say that I won’t get married until there is marriage equality, which is true! I’m all for it, and I would feel like a dick saying to my friends “hey, come celebrate a right you don’t have,” but I realized quickly that that question is usually followed by, “so would you get engaged?” Thats is basically the same question. So, I guess that until I become more articulate, when people ask whether I am going to marry him, I will rock back and forth with clenched fists and choke out “I DON’T KNOW,” over and over.