I overheard a conversation between two twenty-something colleagues discussing their respective partners. The guy was a newlywed and the woman was engaged to be married later in the year. The gist revolved around how they came to be married (or, otherwise engaged).

”If you have a stable relationship - you pretty much have a yes,” the woman said.

Her observation peeved me.

I’m not implying that stability is not part of the equation in agreeing to marry someone, but the word seems absent of all the fun in why people decide to marry in the first place.

Cold practicality aside, her comment was devoid of any interesting decision behind her own reasons for becoming engaged.

I’m not trying to make any assumptions about why she’s getting married (since it shouldn’t matter). Nonetheless, I can’t help but imagine scenarios involving spreadsheets and charts that may have accompanied her answer of “yes.”

When you decide to answer the marriage question (or ask the marriage question) - do these thoughts flow into your head?

But, maybe that’s the response women should have when they agree to marry someone. Long gone are the ideas of marrying for love, passion and happiness, but figuring out who can best can deal with your emotional baggage and help pay the bills.

After all, that’s what stability represents - doesn’t it?

What about the fun, sexy wild adventures that comes with falling in love and marrying someone?

Marriage is more about the balance you strike with another person’s moods, hang ups, eccentricities, bad money management and nosey parents. Playing the lover, friend, partner, counselor, the cook on Tuesday nights and the person whose turn it is to fill up the gas tank - they all enter at different points. It’s not always about those fun, sexy wild adventures that everyone seems to be having in La La Land and Hollywood - if they ever existed.

Some parts are boring, unexciting and seem like you have a roommate of marital convenience. Then, some other times, it’s just harder than you ever thought it should be and that’s when stability matters more than ever. Perhaps I am naïve, but I felt that stability was implied because someone who loves you is asking you to be his lifetime partner - and you agree to be his partner as well.

Nevertheless, I guess it’s too much to assume even that when someone asks you to make a life long commitment. After all, the American divorce rate is at 50%.

Marriage for the Gen Y woman has taken a progression into dubious definitions teetering between exciting milestone to convenient partnership. Nowadays, when I hear young women say they don’t want to get married at all - I think it’s a way to avoid becoming unmarried in the future. Men wait for the right time to get married - women look for the right one to marry.

Have our standards and expectations “cooled” to the idea of marital commitment? Emotion might be what starts marriages, but the blunt facts of “irreconcilable differences” are what end them. I don’t think most women want to marry while having to seriously consider the idea of possibly becoming divorced one day - it scares the hell out us.

Wanting to tie the knot wanes as dreary marriage statistics, the Independent Woman movement and professional outpacing (in context to men) bombards the Gen Y woman like a hammer over the head.

Now that women are much more likely to marry for love (as opposed to previous generations), the “love” notion seems jaded - even dismissed. Some rather pursue a life without marriage than a world of joint custodies, child support, personal tensions, bitter resentment and lingering disappointment. Or, in the case of amicable divorces, referring to your 1st marriage as a “starter marriage.” Maybe even, taking a cue from Charlie Sheen, start referring to our past marriages as cons and frauds - until, of course, we find the “real” thing.

There’s a portion of us in the Gen Y population who have lived in divorced homes (me included). There are those who grew up with parents who were obviously unhappily married. We are much more careful and discerning about commitment - people sometimes mistake our hesitation for outright avoidance.

We genuinely feel that marriage can undermine an otherwise good and healthy relationship.

Why bother with the formalities?

I don’t know. But, I’m guessing not everyone is as jaded as they say (or pretend to be).

And, if marriage was declining in popularity - Bridezillas wouldn’t be on my Favorite Channel List.

Posted in Culture & Society   Tagged: Culture & Society, decision making, divorce, family, Gen Y, life, love, marriage, men, Relationships, women