love, yes.. marriage?

so, i'm in love. i'm young. we've been together two years now. it's amazing..
i can't help but turn my thoughts to marriage these days.
i personally love the idea and can't wait to get married..
but my parents were divorced and i never want to go through that.
is it worth it? is it all just a joke? is there really the "right" person or is it really about who you are yourself??
i'd like as much input as possible. different perspectives.

 

Well, I for one, was married young. We had been together for years, and we were in love. I don't regret it in the least! We're still in love, and couldn't be happier.


Whenever you love you take the risk of being hurt. Usually the more commitment you make the higher the risk. I suppose you would just have to weigh the costs. Is you love worth the risk?

Being hurt and making mistakes is part of life, it's essential to learning.

I say do what you love, what makes you happy, what feels right. If you are in touch with yourself and your lover you'll just know. Look inside yourself, meditake on it, even with your partener. How does your partener feel about it?

Now if your question is about whether to legally marry or just live a commited life together there are a lot of things involved. For me it was benifical to be lagally married. For others it isn't, and others still do not lagally marry for their principals, or to make a statement.

HTH!

Peace, -Ana

 

i wanna get married some day...


also i dig your sig,, but i had heard it as love to live and live to love

 

Personally, I probably will never get legally married. I just don't see the point in it--standing in front of god-knows how many people and telling your partner something you both already know. I also hate being the center of attention, so that probably has alot to do with it. But even if you only have a civil ceremony without a wedding, I still don't see why anyone would want the government involved in their personal life. If I met someone I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, I'd just tell them, and maybe eventually after we moved in together we would get a joint bank account, etc. If I were you, I'd wait a few more years until you're at least out of college--people change so much in those years, you'll never know how you'll feel at the end of it.

 

Some people don't like the idea of marriage. ( I don't like formal marriages, like weddings.) I'm young and I'm engaged to get married when I'm 19. (I need some time.) We have only been together for a yr and a half, so if I were you and you feel sincere about it,...go for it. If you don't and have 2nd thoughts wait a yr. Do what your heart desires!

 

thanks for all your thoughts... keep 'em coming...
thing is, i don't know if this is typical male or what.. the idea of marriage just tends to freak my boyfriend out. i know he loves me, he says it and i feel it, but there's always that possibility of change and things just going to shit.. i think he's afraid of that, and frankly i don't like the thought either.
but damn, i'd like to be with him always...
grr!

 

Marriage is the number one cause of divorce.
You can be with someone forever and not be married. Marriage fucks everything up.

 

I've been with my man for 4 years now and I know I'm going to marry him - we still agreed to wait till we have our degrees to actually do the legal ceromony, which is another 4 years. But thats ok because we discussed it and are comfortable with the way things are moving.


Try talking to your partner about marriage - what do they expect? what roles will you play? All that is way more important than the number called age.

 

I think it can work. But is takes work, if you know what I mean. You have to spend quality time with each other and not take each other for granted. Be loyal and supportive, be best friends.
I think people give up too easily on their marriages. It shouldn't be so easy to walk away from. It has a serious effect on children.

 

I agree

Sometimes I quite like the idea of having a handfasting (pagan wedding) just as an act of commiting. But not bother following it through with all the legal stuff.

My mother married at 19. Her and my Dad are still together after 24 years. and for every marriage that fails one survives. So it can work out just fine.

I'm nearly 19 myself, but haven't fallen in love yet. To be honest I don't really care at this stage. Got better things to worry about, like getting through uni.

 

Boyfriend and I have been together for 7 1/2 years (although we are more than boyfriend&girlfriend to each other....those terms don't really do it justice)..and we've been living together for 4 of those years.

I don't see marriage in our future at all. A formality in my eyes that we can do without - and he feels the same way as we have talked about it on many an occasion. As mentioned before, I don't like the idea of going through the motions laid out by a load of 'official bods' and signing documents as proof of what we already know we feel for each other. As for a church wedding.....I feel that would be way way too hypocritical of us seeing as we are not church-goers and religion is not part of our lives. I know I don't like being the centre of attention either, so that would be a bit of a nightmare for me!

We did the joint bank account thing when we moved in together, and what's mine is his and what's his is mine and all that. We've seen each other at our best, and more importantly we've also seen each other at our worst. We are comfy together, and the ONLY thing we don't do in front of each other is take a dump! There has to be a little mystery right!? Haha!

Then again, I have full respect for people who do choose to get married....but it's not an option to be taken lightly. You hear so many stories of people meeting and getting married within 6 months....then getting a divorce within a year. Have patience people! Let your relationships grow and learn all there is to learn about each other. If you are planning to stick to your vows and spend THE REST OF YOUR LIVES TOGETHER, then it's knowledge you are going to need

 

Marriage dosn't have to be about signing on the bottom line, but a declaration in front of freinds and family, an oath to each other. It says keep your nose out of it to any who would interfere.

 

That's why I like the idea of handfastings, they fulfil the ceremony element without necesarily being legally binding.

 

Yes exactly! My parents celebrated their 29th anniversary last week, but I had an aunt and an uncle who have been together just as long, without being married.I still consider her my aunt though, because their love keeps them together, not a marriage certificate.

I had a teacher who just calls the woman he is with his, "life partner," because he doesn't believe in marriage after divorcing his wife. Since he has a kid, he does not want to make the mistake again of leaving a child wiht divorced parents.

 

My dh and I have been together since 1978. I was barely 16, he had just turned 18. For many years we NEVER talked about marraige. We were too young. We both knew we HAD to finish college. We both new we HAD to mature. We also saw other people in college, as we went to different colleges, and knew we would regret not playing the field, and knowing what dating other people were like, if we didn't do it then.

After dating for more than 7 years, we had both finished our degrees, Bear had been recruited by a major company, where we knew he would be able to support a family, and we bought a house. Shortly after the house purchase I got pregnant and we made it legal. I think legal marraige protects womyn and children in a lot of ways, as well as making things like health insurance easier. (When Bear and I got married, you HAD to be married to use your partner's insurance, we would have lost the house, due to cost of my difficult pregnacy, if we hadn't been married.

We have been married 18 years. I think waiting until we were mature adults, despite the fact that we started dating early, made the difference. We have both said, if we had gotten married in our teens we would probably not still be together, as we didn't have the maturity to work out our problems like adults. Not to mention the fact that being done with college made us much more finacially secure. It may sound "conservative" but once you are past your partying days, finacial security is something you NEED. If you have children, even more so. When we had our first two kids, we didn;t have a lot of money, but we did have a future. Bear had a good job, which he kept, even when things sucked there for a while, and I took care of the kids and did what I could to bring in some cash.

We love each other a lot. But there is a LOT more to a successful marriage than love. Tons more.

 

Have you bought a house together yet? Do you have credit cards together? It is hard to deal with this stuff when you are married, I can't imagine trying to own property, (or dealing with dividing it up, if you break up) without being married. What do you two do about credit? In the US, husbands and wives share credit records. So I can get a credit card, in my own name, despite the fact that I am self employed and really don't make enough to get any decent spending limit. I use Bear's income (because we are married) and can get a card with a huge limit, which works well, especially in emergencies.

Oddly enough, Bear and I have separate checking and banking accounts.

 

Marriage is a corporation. The more you love, the less share you got.

 

No, we haven't bought a house together...we're renting, which suits us fine as we don't like the idea of being tied down to a huge debt. Our joint bank account is a savings account - so we still have our own accounts apart from it. We share what we have and earn; pay the bills together, all the necessary stuff etc. So, what's mine is his and vice versa, by unspoken mutual agreement. I suppose you could say we are as committed as you can get - for a couple who rents their abode (a very cosy bungalow) and aren't married.

Then again, nobody knows what the future holds. I can imagine us growing old and grey together........but even if we end up going our separate ways somewhere down the line, we'll always be special to each other. Plus there would be no messy divorce to go through!

 

Well I'd say you need to give yourself another year or two before you just plunge right into it. I know you've been together 2 years, but you might wanna wait just to make sure it's right!

 

My husband and I got married 3 years ago, after living together for 2 years and dating for 1 year. We weren't sure about getting married traditionally at first, but we eventually decided to have a church wedding, as we are Christians. We got married in front of our immediate family (parents, siblings & grandparents) in a very small, century old country church. We kept it small so we could focus on each other during the ceremony.

I didn't think I would ever get married. My dad is on his 5th marriage, my mom has been married twice and has had more live-in boyfriends than I can count, my oldest sister is on her 6th marriage and my other sister has been married twice. As you can see, marriage is not a long lasting thing in my family. But I lucked out and met my amazing husband, who was raised in a family where marriages last a lifetime. He has taught me about true unconditional love and commitment. Divorce is not an option for us. It should be the last option in any marriage, after trying counselling, seperation, etc. Marriage is a lot of work, it's not like the fairy tales...not every day anyway. Good luck in love!