Committed: The Ties that Bond
with Angella Dykstra
I'm a mom of three, a professional accountant, and an amateur photographer and writer. I am not a marriage expert. But my husband and I take "Til death do us part" seriously, and here I'll be sharing how we keep our marriage strong while we both do that insane work-life juggle.
Check out my Work It, Mom! profile and my blog, Dutch Blitz.
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It seems as though my last post struck a nerve with a few people, and it had nothing to do with why I appreciated the article I linked to. I am a huge proponent of marriage. I’m not saying that YOU need to be married, if you don’t want to be. I’m just saying that I love being married and I put the effort forth (as does my husband) to keep it fun and enjoyable and awesome. I am better for it, he is better for it, our kids are better for it. We have a very happy family unit.
Hence, why I write this column. To encourage and support and provide resources to support marriage and committed relationships.
You can have that same happiness as a family if you are not married, I know. I just speak of my own experience and I know that I would not be as…content? settled? secure? if I were not married. A lot of it is faith based, for sure, and part of it is that marriage is a covenant. A contract. A legally binding commitment. We promised to be together forever and were willing to sign on the dotted line to cement that commitment. I have friends who have lived together before they were married and once they got married they said that they noticed a difference. A positive difference.
That may not be the same for you. Our very own Leah left this comment on that post:
I don’t know…I take issue with the concept that “marriage”–a religious and/or legal status–is any better than, or even *different* than, any other permanent committed relationship. I feel absolutely no more committed to my husband now that he’s my official, legal husband, since our committment was cemented long before we signed any papers or had a ceremony. I don’t feel marriage has changed the way we feel about each other or our relationship, i.e., that we’re any stronger or more secure for it. We were strong before we were legally married, we were secure before we were legally married, and really the only thing that changed when we got married was that I was allowed on his health insurance plan.
As long as legal issues like health care and hospital visitation are tied to marriage, and as long as tradition is valued by the community (whether it’s religious tradition or otherwise), marriage will always be relevant. But otherwise? For many of us, being in a committed relationship has very little to do with marital status.
I live in Canada (Hello, eh?) and the law here is different. Once you’ve been living common-law for six months, you are considered married. You file your taxes together, you are a “family” for health care purposes, you can sign your common-law spouse up for all of your extended benefits through work. And, if you split up, your common-law spouse and you have to split everything in half. You are pretty much married, whether you signed a contract or not.
And yet, people still get married, even if it’s not for faith-based reasons. I have a number of friends in the U.S. aside from Leah (She is a good friend - we were roommates at BlogHer last year) who got married because they wanted to “make it legal”, whether it was for faith-based reasons or not.
This whole topic has made me wonder why you all got married. Was it your faith? Your culture? Pressure to conform? Health insurance? The fact that you get to wear a pretty dress and have a party? That your beloved is a hunk of burning love? Do tell.
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I love this question because I think the reasons are as varied as the people involved. I got legally married for legal reasons (health insurance, taxes), I had a wedding–six months later!–because I wanted to wear a pretty dress and celebrate our relationship publicly in front of people we love and throw a fun party. But I’ve known people who’ve gotten married because they “had” to, because everyone else was doing it and they didn’t want to feel left out (really), because it was the only way they could get out of their parents’ houses, because they were too young to know better, because they were too old to wait any longer…the list goes on. I think WHY people enter into long-term relationships is a big part of whether they stay in them for the long haul, not whether they actually got officially married or not. It’s not the status of the union, it’s how people behave within the union that will make it successful or not.
Leah K | July 12th, 2011 at 1:03 pm
Interesting question. I am getting married to make my long-term relationship official for faith-based and legal reasons I guess. I also want to have kids and would not want to welcome children into my family unless I’m married. I know others do this without any problems but I guess this is where I’m more traditional. I agree with your convictions that marriage is forever.
K | July 12th, 2011 at 2:58 pm
Then: Pregnant. 19. Wanted our whole family to have the same last name.
Now: 3 kids. We’re 39. Whole family has the same last name. 20 years later, we have no regrets.
Procrastamom | July 12th, 2011 at 3:40 pm
I think I got married in my late 20s to prove our committment to each other. We’d both been in failed common-law relationships before and we were living together when we got married. Then, I felt the legal marriage would be a bit more of a guarantee that we’d stay together. Now, I’m not so sure I feel the same way. We are still married, yes, but I think if anything ever happened to our marriage - if it ended (death or divorce) - I’m not sure I’d need to be legally married again, the same way I needed to be married before. I do feel I could certainly commit to someone in the same way though.
Angela | July 12th, 2011 at 7:07 pm
I want us to commit to one another in front of our friends and family, forever. Though it was hard at points, marriage prep really solidified that we are here for one another, forever.
I’m very excited to have so many of our friends and family in attendance at our wedding. At the same time, I cannot wait for wedding preparations to be over.
Heather | July 14th, 2011 at 12:25 pm