I finally admitted I don’t want to get married
Grief, freedom & why I’m with my boyfriend
Dear Reader,
I am in a loving, committed relationship, and last week the penny finally dropped that I don’t want to get married.
I was lying in bed next to A when the realisation landed, this time with a full stop.
It happened a few days before my oldest friend’s wedding, which undoubtedly brought all of this to the surface. The recognition that marriage seems so right for her was the unexpected puzzle piece in clarifying that it’s so not right for me.
The tug of war between the little girl who grew up watching Disney princess films and the woman who can’t help but tell the truth and wriggle free from convention was suddenly over. When the full stop came, I let the little girl cry.
As far as I could tell, marriage was something that I would surely do one day and certainly something I should want. In my mind it seemed like an undeniable a part of life - like birth or death - but the more I’ve witnessed myself as the complex, creative, restless woman I am, marriage just doesn’t seem to fit.
I had no examples of women like this where I grew up in rural North West England, so finding a love that repeatedly releases me from all my preconceived notions of what partnership looks like, and asks me to redefine this for myself, feels pretty dangerous at times.
Part of me wants to be like the other women I’ve seen throughout my life or on TV. I want to want the things they want - but I can’t - and there’s grief in that.
I’ve always had this sense that if I just tried hard enough, I could be like everyone else and lead a more straightforward life, but time has brought this into sharp focus as a lie. Turns out much larger parts of my soul demand freedom and authenticity than assimilation with cultural expectations.
Years ago when I plucked up the courage to tell an older female colleague that I didn’t think marriage was for me, she responded by telling me I probably hadn’t found the right person, throwing my relationship into question rather than accepting that I might just know what doesn’t feel right for me. The same thing happened 2 years later with an older male colleague.
Why is it so unfathomable that I would opt out of a social norm that makes me feel trapped? Why does my desire for a relationship that feels like a wide open field or an ever-evolving dance somehow signal a lack of love?
To me, the concept of marriage feels like another box I can’t squash myself into. I’ve been in too many boxes for too long, and now I need to stretch out like a dog after a long car ride. I need to feel into all the tiny muscles that you don’t even notice when you’re in such confined spaces.
I’ve come to realise that even when I want something, I need to feel free within it or I’ll grow to resent it. Demands repel me, I fear stagnation, and reject finality. I want A and I to actively choose our partnership each day. I want a relationship that is agile and honest - an ongoing conversation, never an assumption.
Some things feel dangerous to say out loud as a woman, and to me this is one of them.
My overriding feeling is disobedience, which sits right next to the fear that I’m making a big deal out of nothing. But this isn’t nothing to me, it’s a line in the sand and now more than ever I feel it’s important to express myself freely and fully as a woman. I need to exist in all my complexity.
Still, I fret about offending other women who have chosen differently, and about A’s family thinking I don’t love him in the right way or that I’m not a good enough partner for him, but these worries are significantly outweighed by my commitment to what feels right. For better or for worse, I can’t help but follow the thread of truth.
I have worked hard to stop eclipsing myself with the story of a relationship - interdependence is very important to me - and there is something about marriage that pulls at the thread of my codependent history. Right now I can’t seem to separate getting married from the cultural lie that we are completed by someone else, rather than being pockets of stardust that thrive on intricate webs of human and non-human connection.
After years of fantasising about who my would husband be, who we’d be as a couple and what our wedding day would be like, it is strange to have met someone who would bring me to an entirely different reality. Someone who would allow me to discover and admit that marriage is not for me. Isn’t it funny that being with A would pull this out of me?
Sometimes I wrestle with the discomfort around it. I think things like, if I love him that much shouldn’t I want to marry him? But the answer is no, and it feels more solid now. I know that this anxious voice is an amalgamation of all the cultural signifiers that have ever wormed their way into my mind and declared - THIS IS WHAT LOVE LOOKS LIKE. Acknowledging just how much cultural noise my own voice is up against does help.
The hill I’m willing to die on here is that the concept of marriage feels like someone else is defining my life, which I just cannot get down with. What I really want is choice, and while the choice I’m making may not sound particularly bold or transgressive to some, it feels that way for me at this moment in time.
When all is said and done, A and I are together because we grow into fuller expressions of who we are simply by being loved by one another. He pulls me into his orbit for a while and I pull him into mine, we teach each other something new without even knowing we’re doing it, we gain things, we are changed for the better over and over again. This is what I want - a partnership that feels spacious, nudges me towards bravery, and helps me to stand strong in what feels true.
Who knows, maybe I’ll change my mind when I am further away from my teens and 20s where I saw my partners as gods and equated worship with love. As it stands I’m just glad to have found a love that is freeing - one that makes both of us more courageous than we could be alone.
Speak soon,
S x
Things of note
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Thank you for this intimate look into a moment of scary clarity and your bravery to reside in it and allow yourself to settle into what feels true.
Marriage (at least in the US) is more about answering governmental questions about finances and health care agent responsibilities cleverly hidden behind a bunch of emotion-laden words. When you are younger and healthier - that aspect of matrimony isn't as pronounced. But marriage is a primary vehicle for spousal caretakers - and more women stay in marriages when disability sets in then men do.