Have any of you made a decision to avoid marriage/domestic partnerships during your life? What was your reasoning. This issue came up at work, and I am interested in the thoughts of others.
Well, you really wanna know what I think about marriage?
I think it’s an outdated institution, that’s what.
I used to live by a very old cemetary where a lot of the graves were from the 1700’s, and do you know how long people lived back then? They died in their 20’s and 30’s and in many cases much younger. They even included months and days on the tombstones cuz that’s how short the life span was back then!
So, when they used to say "till death do us part"back then, I’ll betcha nobody expected spending 50+ years with that individual! :eek:
Plus they needed marriage and big families back then to toil the farm.
Having said all that, I think the current marriage laws should be updated to conform to modern times. Since marriage really is a contract, I think it should be a renewable contract after, say, every 7 years.
Not very romantic, but 60% of people get divorced these days, anyway.
I’m not cynical, just realistic. 
Ya think I said the words ‘back then’ too many times in my previous post? 
After a divorce I decided that I would never marry again. Different than deciding not to do it in the first place, but it seemed an informed decision at the time. It didn’t stick.
Over time a relationship developed with a man who turned out to be a soul mate. We had one very rocky patch after which we decided to marry. It wasn’t a question of raising a family, we were in our 40’s. We could have easily lived out our lives as SOs not legally bound to one another. Financially it would probably have been better for us - especially as we approach retirement.
Marriage was our public commitment to one another. It was our statement to the world that each of us is willing to be responsible for maintaining that bond - that we are willing to do our best to accept one another’s flaws and work through whatever trouble those flaws and the exigencies life may throw at us.
Marriage isn’t for everyone - but neither is the alternative. Some marriages should be disolved. But if you have someone to whom you’re willing to make that commitment in bad times and in good times, marriage can be a great thing.
I don’t do marriage (don’t agree with the history, traditions, or underlying premise of the institution) but I am involved in an alternative domestic partnership.
Marriage made a decision to avoid me. I can’t get married, legally, in most places, and I don’t even date anymore (gave that up more than ten years ago). But I have no real regrets—I treasue my privacy, have lots of friends, and after listening to some of my married friends whine, I figure I am sittin’ pretty.
I could go either way. Marriage, in and of itself, is not one of my life goals or anything, though I like the idea of having a life partner (with or without the fluffy white dress).
I agree, however, that marriage involves certain, IMO, arbitrary and outdated traditions and practices.
For example, NO unmarried couples are allowed to share a bed (or even a room, with separate beds) in my mother’s house. They could be two people in their 30s who have lived together for 10 years, have two kids together, and are engaged, and still they would have to sleep in separate rooms Chez Nadine without that “little piece of paper”.
A second example is that marriage is often associated with procreation, so if you DO elect to tie the knot with your beloved, you can be sure the Baby Questions are coming. I am friends with a married couple who does NOT plan on having kids, ever, and with another married couple who chose to adopt two kids even though they are perfectly capable of making babies of their own (in other words, adoption wasn’t a “last resort” due to fertility problems).
My family thinks all four of these people are nutjobs.
Anyway, you get my point, which is that I’m all for revamping conventional ideas about marriage.
Let’s start with that 7-year contract idea… 
Not sure if auntie em was joking about her endorsement of the seven year idea, but I think it is a kick ass idea. Hell, I think it could be a very romantic idea too, renewal of vows and all. Oh yeah, I think you’ve got something there LolaCocaCola .
~t
I’ve been married. I’ve been divorced. I have absolutely no desire to ever repeat the experience.
I don’t know what it is about marriage itself - the ceremony and the little piece of paper - that I cannot stand. I do know that I felt suffocated and trapped by my last marriage.
Feynn and I have been together for nearly seven years. I feel like everyday I wake up beside him because I chose to, not because I have to. It feels like an important difference.
In nearly all respects, not being officially married as made no difference to our lives together. Legally, we’re considered common-law, and the Canadian government treats us as a married couple. He calls me his wife - I call him my husband. We’re perfectly suited for one another. Our visions of the future are intertwined with love, happy grandchildren and each other.
But will I sign that piece of paper? I nearly hyperventilate just thinking about it. I absolutely will not. Thank god Feynn and I are suited enough for each other that he doesn’t care if we sign the marriage papers or not. We’ve made our lifetime vows to each other, and we do not need a wedding ceremony to make it legal.
Eve, why can’t you marry?
Is ten or twenty years all that different from 50 when we’re talking about the majority of one’s life?
my partner has been married before, 11 years with his former wife , 6 of those married. i came along, divorce happened, and hes now very sure he doesnt want to do it again. which is fine by me. growing up marriage never appealed and it still doesnt.
i live in a country where de facto relationship hold almost as much wieght in the law as marriage, neither of us is religious, and we arent out to bond our two families together because frankly neither of us like our families all that much.
also marriage isnt cheap, and all that money spent on looking like a large puffy pudding could be spend on making our lives together more comfortable.
so if its not for legal/religious/family reasons, whats the point? to prove to each other we really are in love? we do that everyday, i dont need a special ‘dress up like a princess’ day to know im loved.
I never intended to marry … but 12 years ago I did.
We dispensed with the poofy, overpriced gown, the penguin suits for the men, and the party with our friends and relatives getting puking drunk. Simple ceremony, a combination of Baptist/Jewish/Pagan customs presided over by a Unitarian minister (like, who else would do it?). Witnesses were the minister’s wife and the friend whose apartment we were borrowing for the ceremony.
Never bothered to get a ring, either.
Why do it?
Well, we ARE intending to be together for the rest of our lives. It enabled me to put him on my health insurance. And when one or the other of us has wound up in the hospital there has never been a problem with visitation and so forth.
But the relationship we have is a partnership, not a traditional man-as-tyrant, woman-as-drudge marriage caricature. And it’s the relationship that really counts, not the piece of paper.
Yes.
I’ve been married and divorced twice.
Never again.
I’m 40 years old, too set in my ways and I’m just too tired to play that particular game. Both of my kids are special needs kids and I just don’t want to put any of us through the crap anymore of trying to find someone that can deal with them and me.
I have friends, decent relationships with my exhusbands, enjoy my kids for the most part, and have plenty of time to write.
LolaCocaCola, my sociology professor agrees with you. Maybe not on the 7 year contract thing, although he does point out that in many science fiction worlds, the contract marriage is a common thing, so obviously you are not alone in your thinking.
Broomstick makes a good point about health insurance. Since both of us have spent our careers in high tech, we’ve each been subject to layoffs and the occasional employer that goes belly-up. Having each other on our employer’s health insurance has been a very useful side benefit of that little piece of paper called a marriage certificate. An illness or accident requiring hospitalization can be financially devastating given that you can find a hospital that will admit you without insurance. My cancer was discovered when I was unemployed - I don’t even want to think of what I’d have done if there was not insurance to help pay for treatment.
It appears that some respondents here equate the words marriage and wedding and all the hoopla that often accompanies the ceremony. That’s something I don’t understand, but perhaps that’s because I’m not young.
It also seems that, unlike my marriage and Broomstick 's, some respondents also equate marriage with male/female roles that should have disappeared by now. Since most of you are much younger than I, that truly surprises me. Any long term relationship, whether or not it includes a legal document should be a partnership. (I suppose that even a master/slave relationship would be a partnership as long as both parties wanted it that way, but I can’t comprehend such a thing.)
We had two boys and then adopted two girls and another boy. That probably makes my wife and me nutjobs. I agree that there needs to be a revamping of conventional ideas about marriage, especially when there is such a big deal made over a piece of paper (as in this thread). I personally have never seen that piece of paper, don’t remember signing it (you don’t really sign it do you?). The 7 year contract is a good idea that won’t work. God, just imagine the drama, suspense and bull crap that would go on from about year 5 in some marriages. Also I do not think that the idea of marriages as partnerships is anything new. Successful marriages have always been partnerships, it is the bad ones that get all the press.
Thanks to the efforts of the gay rights folks, my unmarried hetero partner is covered by my insurance as my “spousal equivalent”. Thank you gay folks, thank you thank you!
I don’t believe in marriage as an institution because I don’t believe in marrying an institution or
institutional food 
(PS: as I said before, I don’t want to give up sex by getting married)