I Don’t Want to Get “Married.”

When I was little I had a collection of magazine clippings that laid out my entire wedding. 

First there were the bridesmaids dresses. They were hunter green and deep red satin. They were overbearing like an aunt who wants to smother a child with kisses and neglects the fact that her lips are covered in hot pink lip stick.

But they were nothing compared to my wedding dress.

Think cupcakes. Hundreds of them. Pink, fluffy cupcakes. Cloyingly sweet.

That was this dress. I can still see it as I write this even though that was thirty years ago.

It was pink, the material looked like chiffon. And there were ruffles. So many ruffles. They spilled from the model’s hips and down to the floor and past the floor.

A tidal wave of cup cakes if you will.

But it was my vision and I clung to it for years.

And when I came to my senses and realized how hideous those dresses were I still clung to what they represented. Marriage.

At some point I am supposed to find a man and marry him. It’s the biggest most consuming agenda in the entire world.

It spans most (if not all)  countries, races, cultures and upbringings.

We are supposed to get married.

This fact is so deeply embedded in our framework that when someone doesn’t want it we say they are “afraid of commitment.”

For the first 28 years of my life I wanted it. Of course I did. That’s how conditioning works.

But then I started breaking out of the shell of social norms and for the first time I began to question what I actually wanted.

I wondered if marriage was something I really needed or even wanted.

When I met my fiance’ 6 years ago (oh yes, I didn’t mention that did I, I’m engaged) I told him I may not need to get married. Yet a few years into our relationship we started planning our wedding.

I couldn’t help myself. That little me holding the magazine clipping of the cupcake dress was tugging on my leg desperately trying to get my attention.

Here is a man you love, she cried. Who you want to spend your life with, you know what comes next!!! 

So I put myself on that track. The pull was too strong to question it. Well that and the fact that once we got past 3 years every family gathering included at least a few when are you getting married??? badgerings.

Next thing I knew I was asking Nick when he was going to propose. I was putting that female pressure on him. I was dutifully fulfilling my role as nagging, needy girlfriend whose clock is ticking.

The little girl inside of me was please. My fierce goddess rolled her eyes and then raged.

Looking back it’s hard to believe I simply slipped into this role so easily. I’m a strong woman. I’m aware of my own conditioning. But still. Marriage is the biggest one. Clearly I didn’t stand a chance. I lost myself to a societal norm that has deep and powerful roots.

By the time we got engaged so many things had changed. The biggest being we opened our relationship.

Less than two months after we did this Nick proposed to me.

And I said yes. Despite the fact that a month prior I suggested we wait a bit to get engaged since we were going through so much.

I said yes because I want to be with this man. I love this man. I wasn’t actually saying yes to the marriage shit. I was simply saying yes to him.

Then people got all excited and asked when we were getting married. I didn’t have an answer for them. I wasn’t as excited as they were.

It was like I was getting dragged along for the ride.

We finally set the date back in March and picked a spot for the reception and that felt good. But I didn’t become this bride-to-be with a backpack of bridal magazines and a crazed look in my eye. I barely talked about it.

But still I hadn’t connected with the fact that I didn’t want to get “married.”

It wasn’t until we were about to make a large payment to secure our photographer that I started to feel the truth creeping into my consciousness.

What followed was guilt. And fear. And shame.

And the questions from my own psyche poured in…

Does this mean I don’t love my fiance?

Does this mean we aren’t supposed to be together?

If it was someone else would I want to get married?

It was all so terrifying that I could barely speak it out loud.

But then something crystalized and my truth became clear.

That night I took out a notebook and started writing all the things I know to be true.

I confirmed my love for Nick.

I confirmed what that love feels like.

I confirmed what kind of relationship I want, which can be summed up by my all time favorite Osho Tarot Card, the Friendliness card:

In this card it says:

You don’t depend on others and you don’t make others dependent on you. Then it is always a friendship, a friendliness. It never becomes a relationship, it is always a relatedness. 

You relate. As long as things are moving beautifully you share. And if you see the moment has come to depart because your paths separate at this crossroad, you say goodbye with great gratitude for all the other has been to you, for all the joys and all the pleasures and all the beautiful moments that you have shared. 

With no misery, with no pain, you simply separate. 

THIS is what I want. I want there to be space for the unknown. I want us to have our own roots. I want our relationship to be a choice every single day and not one that was made for us by culture and agenda and expectation.

I hear people talk about “conscious uncoupling” when they separate, specifically when children are involved.

But what about consciously coupling?? It feels so easy to slip into these roles and ideologies of how we of supposed to be and what we are supposed to want.

Thing is I still want to have our ceremony. I still want to stand in front of our closest ones and declare my love and my commitment to my partner.

I want to celebrate and create a ritual and say yes.

But I want to say yes to something we both consciously decide we want.

For that to happen the stuff that has been preselected for us has to be stripped away.

I know that being with someone for years and years is hard work. I am not so naive as to think it is not. I’m not looking for easy. I’m looking for freedom. It is freedom that helps me to feel grounded and safe.

Freedom for me doesn’t mean being single. It simply means constantly being able to make my own choices. Birthed from my own experiences and my own truth.

And being ok with the fact that it will most likely look different than what I typically see.

After I wrote my list I read it to Nick. At first it brought up fear for him. He was worried he wouldn’t be able to give me what I needed because he wanted something else.

But then he realized that what I actually asking for mostly was to be in conversation about what it is that we are doing and understanding how we want to do it.

So now he is making his own list.

And together we will decided what we want and how we want it.

To me THIS is where freedom lives.

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