Hey everyone! Look at the bourgeois cuauhtemoc!
points and laughs, then returns to his gourmet coffee, french cigarette and Allen Ginsberg book, from time to time staring contemplatively out the window of a quaint little cafe no one knows about
Actually, Suspenderzzz, both you and your ex seem spoiled and selfish, you being slightly more so. I fully admit that this opinion is formed from reading your posts in this thread, so I could have the totally wrong impression, but that’s what it looks like from here.
paints a decorative birdhouse and waves to the kids as they come in from school*
Oh, and I lived in the 'burbs, grew an herb garden, AND managed rock bands and worked as a booking agent. What does that make me?
You’ve answered your own question. Of course you shouldn’t get married if you want to stay independent. Why on earth would you? (And, conversely, why on earth would he propose to someone like you? Did he think you were just kidding when you repeatedly described marriage as a lifeless, empty institution?) If your independence is priceless to you, why even consider giving it up for someone you are clearly ambivalent about?
Most people yearn for lasting relationships and stability. You do not. No, it’s not unreasonable for you to want absolute independence and autonomy. That is your prerogative. Nor is it unreasonable for your boyfriend to want a commitment. What you have here is an impasse. And you did the right thing by breaking it off. Because you can either go your separate ways now, or you’ll go your separate ways after you’ve both stopped kidding yourselves that this relationship has a future.
Ah, how sad that you’ll never do dishes for your spouse. I find that doing dishes (and other chores) is one of the happiest things I can do when I’m doing it for my wife. In fact, I find relieving her of drudgery when possible is one of the best ways to show her my love. Sounds to me like you don’t have objections to marriage, but to love. The kind of love that makes you want to share your future, give up your precious independence, and face life as one instead of two.
I think it’s probably a good thing you didn’t marry the guy. It certainly wouldn’t have lasted.
I’ll second that emotion.
Hi there. I live in New Jersey. I have a house, a husband, a dog, a station wagon, and a baby. I am the living embodiment of everything that you “make vicious fun of,” everything that you laugh at so hard that you cry.
But why would you make fun of me? I don’t make fun of people who live in the city. Why am I the subject of your derision? Why are you teaching your son to deride those who make different choices?
You sound like a very judgmental and unhappy person.
(I wonder if I’m going to be accused of being “defensive” or of promoting marriage by posting this?)
Maybe I am out of line, here, since I am single and I have chosen to BE single. For various reasons, but mostly because I never had very good timing. ie…when HE wanted to get married, HE wasn’t someone I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. When I wanted to spend the rest of my life with HIM, HE didn’t want to spend the rest of HIS life with me. For various reasons. Before you jump all over me, I realize that this probably means I have a fear of commitment. Or something.(Oh, and I am talking about DIFFERENT hims. And HISes.)
But what I am questioning here is…why can’t you KEEP your independence and STILL have a committed realtionship? I mean, I know people that LIVE that life, and seem quite blissfully happy. They share a life, (most of them are married) but they are STILL independent.
I don’t see why that isn’t workable.
I had a girlfriend do to me almost exactly what you’ve done, Suspenderzzz. I proposed to her, and she dumped me. Truth to tell (and yes, I did tell her this), I didn’t give a rat’s ass if we got married or just shacked up together, or something, heck, anything at all, just so that it was more of a commitment to one another than we had at the moment. She didn’t want that, and dumped me. Two years later (almost to the day we split up) she calls me up, and drops hints that she might be interested in seeing how things might work out between us again. This, of course, is welcome news to my ears because I still have feelings for her. It turned out that all she was doing was using me to get her current boyfriend jealous so he’d propose to her.
If you love your boyfriend, then tell him how you feel. If he can’t agree to continue in the way you want, then walk away and don’t ever have anything to do with him again. If you really love him, you’ll do this, if you don’t…
Maybe it’s just me, but from the OP it sounds like he wants to get married because he has some strange timeline in his head of where he should be at in life. That’s never a good reason to get married.
Whatever the rest of Suspenderzzz post says or doesn’t say seem to be irrelevant. She can’t make him want what she wants.
My ride-on lawnmower goes 30mph, would crush your car like a monster truck, and it can pull down trees.
I write poetry that makes 18 year old girls throw their legs in the air, old men cry, and bankers open their wallets.
My investment portfolio cavorts naked and playfully about the efficient frontier, quirking one slim hip and thumbing her nose at the Capital market line.
I have turned the world over in my palm and regarded it as nothing more than a marble with pretty veining compared to the glowing diamonds that are my friends and neighbors.
I am the son and grandson of cops and soldiers who have fought and died, and hardened themselves in the screaming fiery forge of war and tempered themselves in the festering entrails of society until they have become such fearsome of instruments of life that you would weep to see the love and gentleness in their eyes if only you had the capacity to see.
My wife is the living embodiment of the Angel of Death herself, terrible and fearsome to behold, and more beautiful than the night. My daughter glows like the Sun herself.
My best friends a plumber, a clothier, and a gynecologist would die for me and I for them.
I am he that dares drink of life knowing that to drink is to die yet who dares drink on, am I.
The world is full of that cynical lot in their coffee houses who “could have…” If they wanted to.
I am he who “could not have” but fucking did, anyway.
I am the bourgeosie. I am the middle class. I am the nuclear family. I am sappy Americana. I am your ride-on lawnmower and rancher in New Jersey. I am the velvet Elvis in the wood-panelled basement next to the Top Insurance Salesman in Essex County award.
I am the middle class.
You won’t see me by looking down.
Scylla,
You *know *you fucking rock!
That’s one over-achieving friend.
He needs to get centered on hunting for a good woman to share his life with. The right thing to do at this point would be to remove yourself from the picture as a fuck buddy distraction so he can focus on hooking up with a woman he can share his life with and who is willing to share it with him. If you care about him you should care enough to let him go. Hanging around is the worst thing you can do to him at this point.
Thank you, *Scylla.
Well said, Scylla, BUT:
"I am the bourgeosie. I am the middle class. "
Actually, you’d be the “petit-bourgeosie”. The actual bourgeosie would be the CEOs and the super rich. 
Not really. After plumbing school, gynecology was probably a snap.
Those would be my three best friends.
Y’know, the OP did not contain the word love in any form in the entire post.
From my perspective, that indicates a clear call for no marriage.
I’m not going to judge you, Suspenderzzz, your boyfriend, or the relationship, but I would say that if your boyfriend is in any way serious about this, the only ethical response is to send him off with a clear statement that he should never come back with commitment in his eyes. Anything that gives him hope that you might change your mind is simply playing on his desires in order to satisfy your own.
and those who own factories and set trust funds for their kids. Ahh , to not have to work and and mock those who do.
Like other posters have said; you certainly shouldn’t get married if you are so vehemently against it (and you are, by all indications) - the two of you would be utterly miserable and it would end quickly. I think you should remove yourself from the situation promptly.
Here’s my thing about your posts: I get a strong feeling of superiority & smugness coming from your tone and wording: They suggest to me, at some points, a lack of emotional maturity.
I don’t mean that you seem emotionally immature because you loathe the idea of marriage and/or cohabiting. I mean that some of your comments indicate to me that you feel highly superior to an entire group of people (whom you’ve categorized in a derogatory fashion) simply because what makes them content would not make you content. I don’t want to be the one who causes this to get sent to the Pit, but I can’t help but think that some of your comments come across as being very much the mindset of certain folks I knew in high school & my early years at university.
Case in point:
From where I’m sitting, it seems as though you’re more invested in getting your way in a relationship than having a healthy relationship - that your motto is, “When you get pissed off, bail out”.
Whether you feel that way or not, it’s your prerogative - it simply seems to me to be a bit immature, especially when you say that your kid has taken a real liking to this man. If your kid & this guy have developed a friendship or something akin to one, I wonder whether you and the guy are already “bound together in a serious way”, or at least a less-than-casual way, whether you like it or not.
My “lack of emotional maturity” theory may be total crap, of course - I don’t know you. Like I said: I’m not trying to get this thread tossed into the Pit, I’m just stating MHO based on my interpretation of your posts here.
I also wonder, as do other Dopers, why you feel that you & this man would, given your apparent disgust for all that is bourgeois, fall into the trap even despite being wed. Do you truly feel that the stifling legality of a piece of paper couldn’t be overcome even despite your desire to remain independent? I’m not being facetious, by the way; I’m genuinely interested in your response.