6 years and counting

If you are or have been in a long-term relationship, then you have probably been asked on numerous occasions why you haven’t married your partner yet.

In fact, you may have even found yourself getting married to your partner because of those ridiculously personal, judgmental questions/assertions from nagging friends and family. 

But, if you haven’t decided to tie the knot with your long-term partner, then you may find yourself in the same boat as me. If this is the case, welcome aboard!

A little background...

I have been with my boyfriend for six years. We both started dating when we were 21, him a sales associate at Staples who made a little over $8.00 an hour, and me, a student at a junior college who worked at a sandwich shop 10-15 hours a week (if I was lucky). In addition to my not so busy life, I was also about to transfer to a state university. I'd give anything to go back to the limited responsibility I had then: living rent free with my grandparents, easy job that ended when I clocked out, and endless amounts of warm (and good) home-cooked meals. But I digress.

The point is, we started dating young when neither one of us had a lot of money. Flash forward 6 years and we still don't have a lot of money. 

Even now, I feel like I’m giving all of this background information about my boyfriend and my relationship as justification for our not having wed yet. It's just a habit I guess from years of dodging the "hows" and "whys" of our relationship.

Just last week, my boyfriend’s co-worker started asking the dangerous question of how long he and I had been dating.

“Six years,” he replied, proudly.

“Six years? And you guys aren’t married?”

“Nope!” he said, once again proudly.

“Well, don’t you guys want to, like, make it official?” she asked again, probably confused and picturing us as swingers now. Or devil worshipers, which she might see as one and the same.

“Like Facebook official?” he said. 

I think the conversation ended there.

 

In the past year, I have also been asked similar questions, my favorite being: “Well, why don’t you guys just get engaged? You could have one of those long engagements, ya know?”

“No, I don’t know. What is a ring going to magically change?” I ask.

“It just lets everyone know that he’s committed to you."

  

Usually, I stop the conversation right here by getting myself pretty drunk.

What I should say, and never end up saying, is that a ring is not going to change a damn thing in our relationship. If we were the kind of people to cheat on one another, the ring wouldn't make us change our ways and consider the other person’s feelings. Instead, it would make us look really stupid when we had to change our status from “Engaged to” to “Single because we cheated.”

The idea of being engaged for a really long time just so we can be happily welcomed into the “right way to live your life” club makes me sick to my stomach.

It seems as though some people believe the engagement is the only way to declare that your relationship is strong. In the past 6 years, we have faced many obstacles, but we pulled through and are much stronger together now.

And just because marriage isn't in our foreseeable future doesn't make our relationship any less valuable to us. Our love does not grow weaker because we are "just" in a committed relationship.

Now, I’m not saying marriage should or should not happen in a couple's journey together. I have tons of friends who have known for a long time that they want to be a husband or wife someday, and I think it's wonderful.

I'm not even saying that we don’t want to be married someday, because for the record, we do, but when it happens, it’s not going to be because we need to fix something in our relationship that’s broken, or I need him to prove to me that he’s committed. 

Marriage will also not change the fact that I can be extremely selfish from time-to-time (he’ll say all of the time), or that he never closes the shower curtain after he’s taken a shower (it causes mold when left bunched up). 

It won’t change the fact that sometimes, I would rather not see him for a couple of days because I’m a person who needs space. 

It also won’t make me love him more than I already do. 

So, to those who feel it's well within their right to ask these personal questions to unwed couples, I encourage you to think twice because it's annoying, sometimes hurtful, and most importantly, none of your business. I can guarantee that you wouldn't like it if people started questioning some of your most personal life choices. So just stop.

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