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One of my partners has just asked me about marriage.
No, not ours --stop your squeeing or fainting or ramping up to say congrats or raised eyebrows or whatever. No, that partner is thinking about marrying a friend for various reasons (get the friend on my partner's superior healthcare is the main one, but also tax breaks) and wanted to know my thoughts1 on the idea.
( My thoughts on marriage are certainly not conventional and possibly not polite. )
But when it comes to marriage, I don't think true love everlasting has very much to do with it. You might not think my relationship is valid without making someone my spouse, but I will know it is. Marriage may be more than just a piece of paper, but it's still a whole lot less than any of the myriad things we call love.
~Sor
MOOP!
1: Technically, my parter asked "how would you feel if I married foo?". I recently read an excellent (albeit friendslocked) post about needing a guide for the Thinkers/Feelers from the Meyer-Briggs personality test, to go with the many guides about Introverts/Extroverts. Ever since, it's been lurking on the edges of my mind, trying to suss out how I self-identify on that scale --I pride myself on my mind and its ability to think things over and through, but I am also as emotional as they come. I react very strongly when I feel sentiment, anger, fear, joy, depression, emotions in general.
2: Because sometimes I'm an observant daughter.
3: Among the Sorcyress's potentially unpopular opinions4 is the fact that love is not found, it's created. It doesn't matter how compatible you are with someone you just met, the bond you have is nothing compared to the pull between two people who have actively worked to create a life that has room for each other in it. And I say this as someone who is supersusceptible to NewToyEnergy --I adore that rush of newness when you find someone lovely, but man, if it came right down to it, that feeling is nothing compared to the satisfaction of solving a problem with someone who I am committed to keeping in my life.
4: And I really should talk about these more sometime, so that people can poke holes in my thoughts, or I can poke holes in yours.
5: I hear there's also "marriage" as defined by the church, but as I am not a part of any churches, I don't feel able to make a statement on that.
6: I reeeeeeally think that marriage-just-for-coparenting should be a widely accepted thing. I would love to see a widely-accepted contract that boils down to "we will be together for x years (x being 18 plus insemination time, plus other children) and then if we want to make other commitments outside that, we will, but this contract is just for the kids"
7: I mean, plus or minus divorce, but I suspect I'm generally sorta anti-divorce in the same ways that I am anti-abortion --I am one hundred percent okay with them happening, and feel there shouldn't be any stigma attached, but boy, I would love to live in a world where no one needed to get a divorce (because they took enough time and built enough of a commitment beforehand to know that this is a long-term thing, or because they built contracts with a natural end to them instead of this "til death do we part" nonsense, or because TWOO WUV EVERLASTING or whatever) just like I would love to live in a world where no one got pregnant without intent.
8: Okay, fine, will "probably never".
No, not ours --stop your squeeing or fainting or ramping up to say congrats or raised eyebrows or whatever. No, that partner is thinking about marrying a friend for various reasons (get the friend on my partner's superior healthcare is the main one, but also tax breaks) and wanted to know my thoughts1 on the idea.
( My thoughts on marriage are certainly not conventional and possibly not polite. )
But when it comes to marriage, I don't think true love everlasting has very much to do with it. You might not think my relationship is valid without making someone my spouse, but I will know it is. Marriage may be more than just a piece of paper, but it's still a whole lot less than any of the myriad things we call love.
~Sor
MOOP!
1: Technically, my parter asked "how would you feel if I married foo?". I recently read an excellent (albeit friendslocked) post about needing a guide for the Thinkers/Feelers from the Meyer-Briggs personality test, to go with the many guides about Introverts/Extroverts. Ever since, it's been lurking on the edges of my mind, trying to suss out how I self-identify on that scale --I pride myself on my mind and its ability to think things over and through, but I am also as emotional as they come. I react very strongly when I feel sentiment, anger, fear, joy, depression, emotions in general.
2: Because sometimes I'm an observant daughter.
3: Among the Sorcyress's potentially unpopular opinions4 is the fact that love is not found, it's created. It doesn't matter how compatible you are with someone you just met, the bond you have is nothing compared to the pull between two people who have actively worked to create a life that has room for each other in it. And I say this as someone who is supersusceptible to NewToyEnergy --I adore that rush of newness when you find someone lovely, but man, if it came right down to it, that feeling is nothing compared to the satisfaction of solving a problem with someone who I am committed to keeping in my life.
4: And I really should talk about these more sometime, so that people can poke holes in my thoughts, or I can poke holes in yours.
5: I hear there's also "marriage" as defined by the church, but as I am not a part of any churches, I don't feel able to make a statement on that.
6: I reeeeeeally think that marriage-just-for-coparenting should be a widely accepted thing. I would love to see a widely-accepted contract that boils down to "we will be together for x years (x being 18 plus insemination time, plus other children) and then if we want to make other commitments outside that, we will, but this contract is just for the kids"
7: I mean, plus or minus divorce, but I suspect I'm generally sorta anti-divorce in the same ways that I am anti-abortion --I am one hundred percent okay with them happening, and feel there shouldn't be any stigma attached, but boy, I would love to live in a world where no one needed to get a divorce (because they took enough time and built enough of a commitment beforehand to know that this is a long-term thing, or because they built contracts with a natural end to them instead of this "til death do we part" nonsense, or because TWOO WUV EVERLASTING or whatever) just like I would love to live in a world where no one got pregnant without intent.
8: Okay, fine, will "probably never".