Should you marry for love or convenience?

[SerpentSun]

I've seen marriage ruin a lot of good relationships. The majority of marriages end in divorce, most of the conflict is over money, and the average wedding ceremony costs several thousand dollars. A courthouse wedding is cheaper, but it isn't worth the often-mandatory blood test for HIV. My soulmate and I did ponder getting married until we realized how pointless it is.

If you truly love each other, why must you prove it with a legal document? Why should the government know whom you've designated as your most beloved? Why waste that money you could spend on food for your family? Most of the unmarried couples I know are much happier than the married couples. I think there are two main reasons people get married: financial reasons, such as employee benefits, and insecurity in the relationship. Getting a divorce is much more difficult than just breaking up.

Both of those are silly reasons to spend $50+ for a piece of paper to sign. And unless the ritual of the wedding is that spiritually significant to you, I see no point in throwing a huge expensive party to impress your friends. It's like "look I have a boyfriend and you don't!" If you're so insecure in a relationship that you think marriage will seal the deal, that's a sign you might already need marriage counseling, and marrying for money is just selfish. Maybe unless you truly intend to use it to benefit your loved ones.

I get a lot of criticism for being a bisexual woman who isn't outspoken about gay marriage. But as I've explained, I don't really believe in straight marriage either. Monogamy is common in the animal kingdom, as is polygamy, masturbation, and homosexuality. Yet no animals except humans feel the need to ask others of their kind for permission to mate.

Marriage is just another manmade institution to make money and control people, not a sacred ceremony given to us by God or Nature. If you do ever choose to marry, I agree with others before me: there is no better reason than love. But I highly recommend never tying the not.

[taurmel]

Lots of interesting insight in this thread, I liked seeing differing opinions and experiences!

I married for convenience...then we split after almost a decade to find love. I never found it, and there have been many difficult days where I wished I could go back to the convenience. Then, I remember saturated in with that convenience was nothing but misery, heartache, and betrayals!

I'd say if you're going to marry, definitely do it with someone you have companionship and many different types of love with, because you're going to be spending a LOT of time with them, compromising and arguing, laughing and growing...make sure it's someone you can see doing that with for many years, choosing the good over the bad, getting everything out in the open yet knowing you can get over it together.

I know I don't ever need, nor do I want, that piece of paper again. If I do find someone again, I'll be content just shackin' up with them. Marriage brings so many expectations and concreteness, personally, I know I don't need that confirmation again.

[Lucky 1]

[quote=taurmel
I know I don't ever need, nor do I want, that piece of paper again. If I do find someone again, I'll be content just shackin' up with them. Marriage brings so many expectations and concreteness, personally, I know I don't need that confirmation again.[/QUOTE]


Well...I've been married twice and had a ton of girlfriends in between and my experience is if you are in a committed relationship with a woman, she will have quite a number of expectations about the relationship irregardless of whether you are formally married or not!

My own feeling is that if its just the two of you and you just want to shack up....even permanently shack up....fine!

But I also think that if the two of you decide to have children....its time to formally tie the knot because children need that level of commitment and stability.

[Really!]

Originally Posted by Lucky 1

But I also think that if the two of you decide to have children....its time to formally tie the knot because children need that level of commitment and stability.

I agree ...
I also believe if you want security beyond death then get the marriage certificate. It entitles the widow/er to Social Security survivor's benefits (married at least 1 year or divorced after 10yrs), burial rights, spousal rights to disconnect their life support - other medical decisions & the right to contest a spouse's will. It also makes lineage easier to trace ...
Marriage is work filled w/challenges & responsibilities ...

I know of far too many unmarried people who had everything from bank savings & home taken away from them by their deceased partner's family. They thought a marriage certificate was a trivial matter, but never considered the rights of family to strip them bare even when it involved the moral decisions in burying/honoring their loved one.

[seedoflight]

Old Fart With some Wisdom here Emphasis on some

Lots of people marry because they are lonely and do not want to be alone.

Lots of people marry because they feel incomplete and think they will find fulfillment with another...

Lots of people marry because "its the natural thing to do"...

And Lots of people marry because they know they are not happy and think
someone else will make them happy...

And lots of people get divorced and realized they married for a wrong reason.

Marriage is tough, it takes a lot of work, a lot of compromise, and a lot of putting someone else's needs and happieness before yours...
I have found that if you are truly comfortable with yourself, and they are truly comfortable with themselves then its got a good chance of weathering some stormy times.
And Love has deffinately got to be part of the package, if its not, that void will eventually be filled with RESENTMENT, and things will go sour pretty quickly.
The secret isn't finding someone you can spend the rest of your life with, its finding someone you cannot live without.

[Lucky 1]

Originally Posted by seedoflight

The secret isn't finding someone you can spend the rest of your life with, its finding someone you cannot live without.

Exactly! Well said!

[Espresso Bongo]

Originally Posted by Jared.L

As I'm currently single and living a busy life, at times I wonder if that's all marriage is, two people just making things work? Am I being duped into thinking there is a 'one' out there, when it's mostly companionship?

What do you think, is marriage supposed to be eternal love or a series of compromises between companions?

You've raised an interesting topic, and the high percentage of failed marriages suggest many haven't thought through the very question you've raised.

I'll offer my two cents worth by suggesting there is more than one out there you could happily spend the rest of your life with, but many more who might seem reasonable choices but wouldn't last much longer than the first challenge the relationship encountered.

This is a generation obsessed with instant gratification, and lasting marriages and instant gratification don't seem to have a lot in common.