Hello hello my amazing followers!… Okay….So…..today we are going 10 on the scale of realness an truth. This has been a topic that has been bothering me for so long and I’ve never really expressed how I feel about it. There are so many times where I wish I had a quarter for every time someone in the last month, let alone the last 5 years, asked me why my boyfriend and I aren’t engaged or married yet, I’d be rich. Like seriously… As soon as I meet someone new I often get asked If i have a boyfriend, or having a boyfriend get’s brought up. Of course, once that topic gets brought up, it’s usually followed with, “how long have you guys been together?”…To which I reply with “10 years, this May” …then it happens…. that uncontrollable resting confused face. It’s not quite a resting bitch face but it’s resting all right… they give the look of shock , and you can see the gears in their brain turning… Then I hear….”What?…10 Years?!!! Why aren’t you guys engaged yet?….” Now see, this is where I have to stop myself from going 0-100 REAL QUICK, and I’ll tell you why…
I have to remind myself, that…
1) You’ve just met this person and they have no idea what your boyfriend has been through in the last 2 years which has put a lot of our life goals as a partnership, on hold. For all they know, I might get engaged today (doubtful) but it could happen. And again. They don’t actually know you. So. Shake it off and don’t be dramatic Liv because they don’t even know your life.
2) 10 years truly is a really long time to have been dating the same guy and not be engaged, I won’t lie. I’m aware that we’ve been together for a decade. But…Some people move faster than others and that’s ok! Im not behind in any way! There’s no right speed or way to do life and there’s no specific order to do things. This isn’t the 1940s where i need to be married to experience sex, then live together and then try for a baby and only use sex to procreate. That’s not what this is But that might be the opinion of someone else.
3) Not all people realize that 10 years with the same person from the age of 16 means 10 years of growing up together, changing individually and trying to change together, and accepting each other’s new outlook on life now that you’re not 16 anymore and that takes a lot of work…and fighting…literally. You won’t agree together on everything, especially when it comes to your new outlook on certain areas in life.
While those 3 reasons are important for me, and I’m sure others, to remember, people need to also realize that everyone will chose a different path to take in their lives. Good or bad, and we are not to judge. Maybe the people / couple you are talking too don’t believe in marriage, and maybe they don’t believe in it because of reasons like they think marriage can complicate situations because it’s “permanent”… or maybe people can’t afford a wedding but want one and therefore they are deciding to wait until the time is right for their financial situation. But again… who are “we” to judge?… oh wait… we’re not! So that is why, people, even if you know me or have known me for some time, you all need to Understand that…
1) It is the year 2018…. Why the hell do people think it’s acceptable to “remind me” that living in sin is in fact a sin. Just because I’m Catholic and follow a specific faith, does NOT give you the right to guilt me into remembering that sex before marriage OR living with someone before marriage, is wrong. With all due respect to that person and their opinion, that’s just it…it’s an opinion that is yours and not mine, and even though you’re free to speak your opinion, I would appreciate it if you didn’t speak that specific one to me. Respectfully.
2) Marriage is defined by a piece of paper…literally…it’s just a legality unless you’re common law because then technically the government feels that what’s yours is his/hers and what’s his/hers is yours hers to be defined by the fact that you’ve been sharing a life and home for 6+ months…Do I want to get married? Yes for sure! I love the idea of being surrounded by my family and friends while they witness me and my partner uniting as 1. But who are “you” to tell me and my partner that we can’t “unite as 1” and have the same faithfulness and strength together as partners WITHOUT being married like we COULD have as legal husband and wife?… wether we are married by law or by faith, if we break up, we break up. And I get it…ok….I hear your thoughts…”but Liv, it’s harder to break up a marriage which means the couple will fight harder to keep each other because breaking up a marriage is awful”… what?…. breaking up is awful. But that’s it. Breaking. Up. Not breaking up a marriage. Just breaking up in general it’s awful and hurtful with or without the legal draw up.
3) Just because it’s something that you wanted for yourself, doesn’t mean that it’s something we want for us. It just might not be something that my partner and I are thinking about. Maybe we’re happy the way things are and we do not NEED to get married to be any happier because, imagine this, IT DOESN’T make you happier. At least I don’t think it should. I feel married to my best friend as it is. Being married doesn’t make me love my partner more than I already do. He’s the love of my life and has been for 10 years. Sure I love him more and more every day, but in 10 years, my partner and I are just as gross, mushy, cute and adorable as we were 10 years ago when we started dating. Marriage doesn’t make that for forever.
With all of that being said. There’s another thing that makes me even MORE mad and tweaked… That is when FRIENDS ASK ME THE SAME QUESTION! Friends who know that my partner has not been able to work for 2 years due to a massive brain injury. Friends who know we’ve been together since we were 16 and have spent 5 of our 10 years growing up and apart and finding ourselves again, going to college, and figuring out what we even wanted in our own lives, let alone together as a couple. We were babies. You biatches know that but still feel the need to be like “so Liv, is there wedding talk in the plans?” Like yes, of course there are…I have been planning our wedding since Jordan woke up from surgery. It was a done deal. Do I want to talk about the fact that I’m the last friend to have their relationship shit together, nope…I can assure you that I don’t at the moment.
Most importantly, people need to understand that yes, it IS okay to ASK questions out of curiosity, but people need to also think about how they are about to approach the question and ask it by starting off with “do you mind if I ask you something personal?” and if we don’t want to talk abut it, we’ll say no. It is totally okay for you to have an opinion on marriage and for you to think, in your head and not necessarily out loud, that a family unites as 1 via marriage… It is not okay for you to push that opinion on to people who do not agree with you.
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