Settle down! No need to get huffy! I “jumped” to that conclusion because you used the word “can’t” instead of “won’t”. Not a big leap, sister. It wasn’t a condescending attitude (much less so than your statement that anyone who is married is pedestrian and way too uncool for your beatnik self).
I did know that you were well into your forties, but only because you mentioned it. I have a beatnik, counterculture brother, nearly 50, who doesn’t have a credit rating. Happens all the time, particularly to people who live on the fringe. Actually you sound much more mainstream than you think you are!
Nothing wrong with deciding marriage isn’t for you. Consider, though, that maybe he didn’t think it out clinicly and change his entire philosophy towards life and decide to become one of THEM, maybe he just loves you and wants to spend his life with you. People do have sincere feelings like that, sometimes.
Now sorry to hijack, but this thread inadvertently points out what’s wrong with rent control & rent stabilization. Middle aged trust funder who doesn’t really work and doesn’t have to and never did gets a rent stabilized apartment in a good neighborhood in Manhattan. Poor working stiff who’s never had anything handed to him in life doesn’t, and pays the same rent for a place in Bed Stuy. Not fair. Rent control & stabilization are terrible, terrible laws. Completely arbitrary, pointless, unfair and everything else bad.
Then again, I’m happily married, have 2 kids and recently moved from Brooklyn to Westchester, so my opinions can’t be worth all that much.
Suspenderzzz, I agree with you about the fact that people who choose not to marry are,
a) completely normal, and
b) increasingly acceptable by societal standards.
And frankly, these days the idea of what’s “non-conformist”, especially in terms of relationships, is completely subjective (aside from a few questionable activities involving goat/fish/cheese hybrids).
With that in mind, I propose that it would be totally radical and cutting-edge of you (especially considering your mind-set) to think outside your particular box and consider MARRYING this guy! It could be the personal revolution of the century!
(Hey, I’m making a tiny leap out of my own box these days . . . My SO and I have discussed marriage (with the possibility of maintaining two separate households :D), and I’m actually considering changing my last name to his, which is something I NEVAHHH! would have considered 10 years ago . . . He thinks it’d be kind of radical and quirky for us to have different last names (he doesn’t get out much . . . Hi, Hon! ;)), but dude, the whole “Two Last Names Marriage” is what EVERYONE is doing in my “crowd”, so taking HIS last name would actually be the non-conformist, shocking thing for me to do among my set–I’ll be the talk of the grapevine! :p)
In all seriousness, I do agree with others who’ve said that you seem to be at an impasse, here. I do wish you luck in figuring this out.
It kind of seems to me that some of your beliefs are based soley on the purpose of “getting away from the norm”. It’s great to want to be your own person, but the road less traveled is not always the best way. Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason.
If you LOVE this person, you will be willing to make sacrifices. Your life will NEVER be perfect. You will never have everything that you want, you will not be happy every day. Who knows, maybe your outlook on life will soon change, just like his did.
I am not trying to pick on you or belittle you in any way, I just said what I said based on what I read and what I inferred.
Sweet pea, I haven’t read any of the responses to your OP. And, I must qualify:
I just returned from an audience participation play called “Tony ‘n’ Tina’s Wedding”
I’ve been married to El Hubbo for 13 years
Yes. The fact that the guy who seems frikkin’ perfect for your makes you want to scream and run makes me think that there may be some deep hidden psychois goin’ on…
But I could be wrong. Lemme get back to you when I’m sober, 'kay? Big skanky love, girlfriend.
Well, I think it’s pretty bold of you to dismiss your former boyfriend as now “conformist.” Actually, that strikes me as extremely arrogant.
I can’t help but wonder to what extent you are actually the ‘conformist,’ here, except that you’re actually conforming to the countercultural, beatnik, bohemian society you’ve chosen to live among–and are just so wrapped up in you’re too blind to see it.
At any rate, going through life making a point of scornfully looking down on other people strikes me as a soul-deadening pastime.
Why would something such as marriage and family be something to “be viciously made fun of?”
And to suggest that he suffers from a mental illness because he’s interested in marriage?
No, that’s just arrogant and wrong.
It's fine to prefer being single to being married. It's not fine to ridicule, or hold yourself to be superior somehow for making that choice.
I suppose you were looking for a bunch of people to agree with you–to give you a big Nader-voting hug and say “Ohhh, how COULD he be so vile and self-centered as to actually EVOLVE.”
Well, to each his own. In my world, bonding through extensive making fun of others would be considered more tedious than washing dishes any day, but that’s neither here nor there.
I bump not to disagree, but out of genuine impartial curiosity.
What happened?
Did the two of you manage to come to an agreement?
Nothing happened. We are broken up now. I actually considered going through with it for about five minutes. Then I decided against it. (In reality, I agonized over it for a couple of weeks.) Once I had made up my mind, even though there was (and still is) a feeling of distinct sorrow, there was also this giant, tremendous relief. Like a big weight had been lifted off my shoulder. Like, “I’m free!” I knew then that I had done the right thing. Maybe I’ll regret it when I’m old and lonely, but that, in my opinion is not a good enough reason to get married. Too calculated. Like buying insurance.
Some of my friends and relatives think I’m crazy, but they are the ones who don’t know me that well. So their opinion doesn’t really matter. People who know me really well knew right from the start that I would never seriously consider getting married, even if it meant giving up a person for whom I have tender feelings and a host of shared memories. If it’s either one or the other, it’s blackmail. I will not be blackmailed or bullied, especially not into a major life decision.
My former BF has, during the past week alone, (allegedly) seen a lot of a certain mutual acquaintance who is about 9 years his senior. Yuck! I think he wants to get involved with women because he’s looking for a mother. As long as our relationship was not that serious, I failed to see that. Not my cup of tea. I want an equal, not a baby.
I just wanted to give you all a quick update on the situation, for closure’s sake. I’m really not interested in discussing it any further. You all are welcome to do so, of course, if you must. But that will be without my input. I have already put too much of my personal life out there. The thing with this type of subject is that you always end up revealing more about your life than originally intended. Not to mention that I have to take my former BF’s privacy into consideration as well.
I underlined the key word in there for you. Your presumption is pretty far off base. You have shown, and continue to show, a remarkably skewed view of what “marriage” is. The general tone of this thread is one of trying to get you to re-examine your perception of marriage, not one trying to get you to change your decision regarding it. At best one could say posters asking you to re-consider your decision might be a sub-tone. This is actually probably good advice because I don’t think very many reasonable people will believe it wise to adopt an attitude based upon a severe misconception and NOT revisit your stance when you re-evaluate your conception.**
The SDMB MORE conservative than the population in general? This claim makes my head spin, but I may have been spending too much time in Great Debates.
Anyhoo, the general population has become increasingly tolerant towards people who want independence. This does NOT necessarially tie into the marriage angle unless you believe marriage and independence are mutually exclusive(as you seem to, thus the responses trying to get you to re-examine this belief). Moreover there is no reason to think that YOUR marriage would stifle your independence because it sounds like independence is something both parties desire and would work towards making a “marriage of equals”.
Basically anyone who throws around misconceptions and stereotypes(conformist? WTF?) the way you did in your OP(and have pretty much continued to do in the whole thread) is going to get some flack from the SDMB. We don’t care what your opinion on marriage(good or bad) is, but if you demonstrate ignorance concerning the reality of what a marriage IS, then you’ll have people trying to tell you that your idea of marriage is off-base.
No one has told you to conform, nor does anyone seem to want you to. The most people have done is be a bit snarky to you for what seems to be your attitude towards marriage and “normal” life. Given that you seem to have some pretty big misconceptions about what marriage and “normal” life actually are then I absolutely marvel at how nicely you’ve been treated. People have been far nicer in their assessment of your character than you were in your assesments of the “bourgeois”(which many people, probably including yourself, could rightfully be called). Continuing to hold that marriage is a death-knell for independence in the face of evidence to the contrary flies in the face of your description of yourself as a free thinker. If you challenge conventional wisdom regarding relationships and lifestyles, why won’t you examine your own views with the same candor?
In any case, congratulations on getting out of a relationship which seemed about to take a turn for the worse. Just remember that life doesn’t like to be stereotyped and always be willing to re-evaluate your perceptions when confronted with new evidence.
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I have a beatnik, counterculture brother, nearly 50, who doesn’t have a credit rating. Happens all the time, particularly to people who live on the fringe. Actually you sound much more mainstream than you think you are!