Emotions change from day to day. I feel marriage is Commitment.
Imagine telling a 60yo Indian couple that they’re under arrest for feticide or for murder.
We should have different values in civilized countries. Marriage shoudn’t be transactional.
Obviously. I’m not talking about transient emotions, but about lasting ones like the love between man and wife, their love for their children, and, needless to say, their beloved dog! These are emotions because they’re not based on calculated reasoning, but on deeply ingrained traits. It is, in fact, calculated reasoning that can change from time to time, not ingrained emotions. Love can indeed wane over time, but it’s a strong bond that’s hard to break.
Interesting this, your assumption that Indians aren’t ‘civilized’.
Marriage is also about commitment and willingness to make it. And for a successful long term marriage, to my view, that more than passion. Hell I’d place shared values and aspirations as more important for the successful long term marriage than “emotion.”
Love is important, don’t get me wrong, but love is not enough.
I’d say two years is plenty of time to evaluate if they both feel the love and emotion. And even share the less sexy attributes of compatible values, goals, and aspirations.
And if one has as part of their goals and aspirations a partner who is willing to be committed, maybe several kids spaced reasonably apart but not having to be trying to conceive at an age that it isn’t easy to, when pregnancy risks go up? Well how long is enough to realize that this person is not compatible with that?
To me two years is plenty to make that assessment, and continuing in a relationship with someone after that mismatch is clear? Dewy eyed at best.
I agree that all of those things are important. Those who enter a marriage based on pure passion with no reality check are probably not going to fare well. I just have a basic problem with marriage as a transactional process.
I’m not trying to condemn a whole nation or culture with a broad brush. But you brought up arranged marriages, and I’m just saying that this is the same culture that drowns newborn babies in the nearest river because the baby is female, or murders adult daughters over perceived “dishonour”. I’d rather we didn’t do that. Any of that. Am I wrong?
I’m fairly confident, even with my limited knowledge, that the lady in question was not setting a two year limit in order to fulfill an arranged marriage or join their kingdoms or acquire a green card or claim a tax break or win a sitcom bet or any other reason that falls far outside the usual concept of why young women in America typically get married.
There’s that old belief Love will come that the English Dukes and Barrons sold to those Rich American heiresses and their Fathers in the early part of the 20th century.
“Yeah sure, Father. But, I love, love the stable boy.”
Two years might not be enough time. But I bet two years is more than enough time in most cases. My objection to the story, if true, that a somewhat arbitrary time limit is brought up before they know what each other likes for dessert.
Despite thinking that it’s fundamentally reasonable to tell a date, very early in the relationship, that you are looking for a life partner, and that you plan to decide within two years whether to marry or move on, i agree that the story, as presented, sounds callous. And revelling in breaking up is a whole lot less attractive than saying, “oh well, this isn’t going to work long-term, so let’s move on”.
I guess that makes it good click-bait. There’s a disconnect between the facts of the story and the way it’s presented. I mean, if she’s really looking for a husband, they should be discussing that fairly early, and if it’s not working out, should probably be splitting before two years are up, not on some arbitrary anniversary.
Where does the “reveling” become apparent in what was posted?
I do not see a partying or even celebrating woman in the second picture. She chose a picture of herself that shows that she is content with her decision, with an expression looking off that to me is best described as “bittersweet .” Not crying. Not sad. Not angry. At peace with her choice and herself. An expression that could very well have just followed her saying “Oh well. “
What expression should she have in that picture? She should post one of herself crying in a dark room maybe?
Does she though?
Up front she said in effect “I’ll invest up to two years in finding out if we’re marrying material. I don’t know you from Adam just yet, so it might take 2 hours or it might take 23 months to decide we’re not a good fit. But we (I) will have a decision by 24 months.”
That’s not wacky and while I agree w your emotions-first approach to picking a marriage partner, nothing about what she said is incompatible with that.
Fast forward 23 months. They’re a stable dating couple. He’s made it clear he has no interest in ever marrying her. He’s totally happy w the status quo which includes her as GF, not spouse. Meanwhile she’s totally unhappy with this status quo continuing longer. Her deadline from long ago was created just to forestall this exact situation: the ease and emotional path of least resistance that amounts to pissing her life (or at least youth) away one day at a time idling in a cul-de-sac.
Current her is happy that prior her had the 'nads to make this promise to herself and that current her has the 'nads to execute on it. We coulda been a married couple, but he didn’t want her badly enough to make that commitment. Too bad so sad. It’s on him, not me. I am content in my fortitude.
Might she be a rigid thinker who will get divorced when her eventual marriage to somebody isn’t unfolding on the timeline she set for that? Maybe. But I don’t see that as guaranteed.
As noted by so many, the OP’s prompt is very brief and we’re all Rorschaching here.
I acknowledge that two people getting married need to consider practical matters like their financial circumstances and long-term interests and compatibilities. But this has nothing to do with that.
It all sounds far too transactional to me. There is, in fact, a fine episode of Seinfeld that parodies exactly that theme. The episode is "The Sponge*, wherein Elaine discovers that her most-favoured method of contraception has been discontinued, so she buys up all she can and then rations her stock. The classic scene in that episode is when she’s deciding whether to have sex with her current date. They sit opposite each other and she fires questions at him in a parody of a job interview while she takes notes – about his job, his career aspirations, whether he plans to shave his sideburns, etc. Satisfied at the end of it, she says “OK, let’s go” and heads for the bedroom.
That’s what this woman reminds me of. I don’t mean to imply that it’s about sex, but it’s about feeling – about emotion – not about engineering blueprints.
I don’t believe in this, but I did it because my (ex)wife’s father comes from a generation where it was the norm.
I did not consult him om the later divorce.
And a woman who wants kids has to consider her age, which is linked to her fertility and health. Pissing away time with a guy who doesn’t want to marry is a serious mistake. That’s why the deadline is, honestly, a good idea.
If it were a post by a 60 year old widow it would be a different story.
I think it’s weird to bring it up on the frst date, when you don’t even know if there will be a second or third. And it would definitely be weird not to even mention it again.
How can you possibly be so certain it’s an artificial, loony deadline? My husband got an ultimatum - not to propose but to start actually planning a wedding and putting deposits down. We had already been together nearly four years , we already planned to get married and he just didn’t seem to care about planning anything. It’s not like he wanted a city hall wedding and I wanted a thousand guest extravaganza - I couldn’t get him to even plan to the extent of deciding which of those or something in between we wanted.
I was 23 when I gave him the ultimatum. I knew I wanted kids, probably two, and I knew I wanted them by thirty and wanted to be married for at least a year or two before I had them.* I did not want to float along with him another two or three years and then find out he changed his mind (or maybe never really wanted to get married to begin with) and end up starting from scratch at 25 or 26. Which happened to more than one person I knew - they wanted to get married , brought it up after five or ten years and heard " I don’t want to get married" or in one case “I don’t want to marry you”
I don’t think I know anyone who took more than
two years to decide - some of them were wrong of course. I’m not quite sure when I knew I wanted to marry him - but I know I had an engagement ring inside of two years.
* Not for reasons having to do with morality, just practicality
I just find it a bit odd that she announced her intention on the first date. Unless I missed a part about them already knowing each other, but had just begun a relationship? I don’t think I did, so, I’ll stand by it being odd. They didn’t even know each other.
I also see it as a red flag. What next? We are going to live here, we are going to have x number of children… all because she says so?
No. Because that’s what she wants and he’s free to disagree. He gets a list too.
“I know we like to think of marriage as being about love and spending your life with your soulmate, but that’s all a bunch of baloney. As a family, you’re an economic unit. Your spouse and your children depend on you to contribute economically. You might want to consider what their lives might be like if something were to happen to you. Two years after you’re gone, where are your children living?”
That’s me talking to employees about life insurance during new employee orientation. Obviously I’m joking (mostly), but a relationship isn’t sustained by feelings alone. Sometimes two people want different things which make it difficult to stay together. I had some friends who got divorced, in part at least, because the husband had zero ambition when it came to his career. She wanted to get out of their apartment and buy a house, but he was perfectly happy with the status quo and after years of this she came to the conclusion he wasn’t going to change. They didn’t fall out of love, they just didn’t want the same things which made the marriage untenable.
More people should think about the practicalities of a relationship. i.e. Making sure their values align and that they want the same thing out of life. It’s not just about your emotions.
This, a thousand times this.