Marriage isn't romantic enough

Another way of commitment

My partner and I have been together for 13 years and we’re not married.

It never gets old whenever we tell people about the whole not-married thing, because guess who they always look at first? The man.

“What’s wrong?” they banter with a wink and an elbow in his ribs. “Can’t muster up the courage to pop the question?”

To which my partner replies, “Don’t look at me.”

And I’ve gotta admit, I relish how the script gets flipped as their gazes swing to me and it dawns on them like, Oh. A woman might not want marriage?

Yeah. It’s possible.

I could tell you that I was never the type to daydream about weddings. Growing up I was a daddy’s girl, so I never cried (that’s changed) and I would always puff up with pride whenever my natural athleticism manifested in a ball well-caught or hit. But still, I wore the skinny jeans and the nearly see-through shirts and put on rudimentary make-up (I could never invest the time to do the more skillful things).

All this to say, I was never opposed to marriage. I always thought it would be in my future, even if I never imagined what color flowers would be at the wedding or if I’d have my hair pinned up or left down. (The closest I’ve ever been to being actively against marriage is because of my mom’s nagging. Has she even met her daughter? The more you tell me to look left, I look right.)

However, the longer our relationship went on, and the more questions we got about when the wedding would be, the more I thought:

But why? Because over the years I came to realize–I have yet to see a marriage that I want to emulate.

That might sound harsh, especially considering that my parents are still married after 30 years (they married when I was 5). So I’ve been really fortunate not to experience the heartbreak of your parents divorcing or–worse–being emotionally or physically abusive.

And still, and yet.

My dad’s well-concealed passive-aggressive remarks at the dinner table, like a butter knife under a napkin. How that’d make my teary-eyed mom stomp up the stairs and shut their bedroom door.

The grating, high-pitched tone in my mom’s voice when she complained to my dad for the nth time about some little thing the neighbors did, and the way he’d escape into the backyard to do more landscaping (that backyard became a paradisal jungle, eventually).

The half-a-dozen guys’ trips my dad would do with his friends, and the rare once-a-year dinner date he’d do with my mom.

The aching loneliness that enshrouded my mom when you weren’t looking, because her husband–and eventually her children–didn’t share in her devout faith.

What brought them together–and probably even kept them together–was their unwavering love for their children. Despite their mismatch, as a family unit we were close. But I never saw my parents kiss. Never saw them hold hands. They would frequently talk like they heard the other speaking a different language.

I still cringe to remember how, a few years ago, I was talking to mom about relationships. I thought that we were having a generic conversation about it, but somehow my mom misconstrued what I said into a direct question on their relationship. And what she said was, “I wouldn’t say your dad and I love each other. But we respect each other.”

Oh.

To this day, I still don’t know why that admission made me squirm. It was like she’d opened up a private door into their bedroom. Like she’d shown me an intimate piece of clothing that’d never been worn. Maybe it was because we don’t really talk about feelings in my family–especially not about each other.

Or maybe it was the way she said it. With such plain acceptance.

And it made me think: oh. This isn’t exactly the greatest marriage.

Then I thought: whose is?

I saw the way my aunts and uncles would put up with each other at backyard barbeques; how they’d bit words and feelings back. I saw how the exhaustion of jobs and raising kids and doing chores ate into my parents’ couple-friends, so that their partner merely faded into the background–becoming just another helping hand of labor to divide the work.

The amount of times I heard spouses complain about each other behind their backs when I was a kid, and they didn’t notice me grabbing a snack from the counter. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against venting–but for the life of me I can’t recall a single instance where someone gushed good about their partner, to balance things out.

I saw how other couples grew apart, their love becoming a shadow of its former self, because they never spent time together. My partner’s parents bicker so much it wears me down just from listening–and I know it only continues behind closed doors.

Not to mention all of the divorces I heard about or witnessed throughout the years.

I know that I might be judging others’ relationships too harshly, and that love can be less shy behind closed doors. And yet, I didn’t think it was too much to ask that a really good marriage–one that I’d like to have–would have visible signs. That you’d be able to see the roses peeking above the windowsill, even if just a little bit.

Not many people would call me a romantic. But looking around, I thought: marriage is not romantic enough. I was reflecting on all the love that must’ve pushed these couples to the altar and wondered: where had it gone? Why was its shape so changed? I didn’t just want love up until the wedding–I wanted love in the years and decades after it.

The more I reflected on my partner and I’s relationship, the more some gut instinct told me–that we’d actually lose something if we got married. Something vital. Precious, even.

Time, and choice.

You might think losing time sounds counterintuitive. Marriage is supposed to give you time: decades and decades of it, a whole lifetime together. Until death do us part. But it’s that stretch of decades that would make us lose the present–or at least, our focus on it. The importance of it.

My partner and I would lose urgency for the disagreements we have–the urgency to reconcile, to get right again, to feel the relief and connection of our lives overlapping once more like pages in a book, our edges perfectly aligned (okay–or as near perfect as we can get).

How many married couples have had an unresolved argument or disagreement and thought–later–because marriage stretched their relationship to the end of their lifetimes? How many preferred to sweep it under the rug, defer the argument to a later date, because “there was so much time”? As if time’s invisible fingers would somehow unfurl the knots itself while they were sleeping.

Improving our relationship doesn’t become some vague and nebulous concept that will work itself out in the future, in “all that time that is ours.” Instead, we’re committed here, and now, and the relationship feels misaligned. So let’s fix it now. Let’s figure this out somehow.

Marriage would make us endlessly kick “that trip together” down the road because–we have time. We wouldn’t indulge in that 5-star restaurant for a once-in-a-lifetime experience because–we have time. We’d save the romantic gestures for our 50th anniversary, instead of a random Tuesday next month because–we have time.

Not being married gives us the only time that truly matters: the present. Our relationship, instead of expanding out to an indefinite point far, far out into the future, is contracted to the here and now. This month. As far as next year. We are committed to each other, and yet, that commitment breathes deeper in a more confined space.

It’d be a different story if one of us was not fully committed–if they had one foot out the door, and was unwilling to do the work or compromise. But when both are committed, when both have two feet fully planted and facing one another in the dance, when compromise bends both ways like strong and healthy bamboo, then I argue that this day, this month, this year is infinitely more important of a commitment than a lifetime.

Another thing that marriage would change our perception of, besides time, is choice.

Or rather: it’d give us the illusion that we no longer have to make one.

The choice has already been made, married people might think. Remember? In that distant time in the past, on that one day?

And the lustre of that choice, perceived to be ironclad, rusts and withers away without anyone to tend to it.

Marriage creates this illusion that there’s no further need to prove commitment, that there’s no longer a conscious decision that’s required to stay. In my mind, people mistakenly and subconsciously end up relying on marriage–and that little piece of paper that they signed off on and got officially recorded–to do the heavy lifting for them. As if a legally binding certificate would become our “reason to stay” when it should be our love that’s our reason to stay. That divorce will be enough of a punishment to dissuade leaving–like a negative consequence is a better motivator than reforming love’s shape, day by day.

I started to think that I don’t want marriage to prove our love and commitment to each other. We have to do that work ourselves. We have to show that proof to each other, day in and day out–through acts, through words, through touch. Marriage makes you think you choose once, but you don’t. You have to keep choosing the person that’s standing right in front of you. Not the person you hope they’ll be in five years’ time, not the one that they used to be five years ago. The one here, and now. And you have to reach out and choose them.

So that’s it. Those are the reasons for why we haven’t gotten married yet. 13 years and counting.

Look, I’m not saying marriage will never be in the cards (but whew are weddings needlessly expensive). Ironically enough, I only want to get married when I’m sure that our relationship is strong enough to treat marriage like the pretty bow that it is. When I know that we’ll never be lulled into a false sense of abundant time, because we know that the most important time is right now, right here, with you. When I know that we’ve built an everlasting habit of choosing each other every day, and a shiny ring on our fingers wouldn’t make us complacent on that.

There’s something else I didn’t tell you yet, about my mom. Once, years ago, she told me when I was young: “I knew your dad was the one on our first date.”

For me, marriage isn’t romantic enough. In the light of our love, I won’t commit to you for a lifetime. I want to commit to you right now–and in all the right nows that come right after. I won’t choose you once but a million times and a million times more over. That feels more romantic. That feels like a love that will be with us, always.

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Thank you so much for reading. Honestly.

If this post meant something to you, I’d love to share a drink with you! Whether that be a coffee, a matcha, sparkling water or a pint—I’ll have what you’re having. 😉🧡 (And let me know in the comment what you “got” me!) You can do that here.

For those who want to get closer, who know that they want to commit to getting a drink together every month—you can do that here. I’m only opening up the chat to these friends, these regulars, where we can have closer conversations about our lives, progress, and updates! Also, at this table of regulars I’ll be sharing posts that are a little more personal, a little more vulnerable, and that have taken me longer to write. These are the kinds of stories I don’t want to share with just anybody—only with the ones who know they want to be here. Who are ready to get closer, and even open up themselves—because I want to get to know you, too. I hope to see you there.

—Reeze