It's sometimes difficult to distinguish between nature and nurture, but being the product of a divorced family, as a kid I vowed to never get divorced and to be sure that I could find a guy I could settle down with. While I've always been a bit plan-obsessed, I realize that part of my desperation to settle into the suburban, white-picket-fence, minivan routine was due to the fact that I didn't grow up with that life.
That's not to say that my parents didn't give me a blissed out childhood--they went above and beyond to ensure that my brother and I never got caught in the middle of their divorce and that we had easy access to both houses. But there was something about one house, one family, and the normalcy of it all that appealed to me, and I wanted to rush into that as soon as possible.
The biggest paradox in my last relationship was the fact that I could have easily fallen into married life. While I knew that being pressured into marriage at age 21 was the worst mistake I could possibly make--there was no way that I was ready to handle that kind of responsibility--it was so enticing to have that kind of stability. And while everyone craves stability to a certain extent, coming from a divorced family, my need to "experiment with normalcy" seemed to overpower my gut that was screaming "are you kidding me, you're 21! You don't know what it means to be married! Explore the world before you trap yourself!"
Besides my irritation that my gut used so many exclamation points, I knew that my instincts were right. I was torn between wanting so desperately to claim the title of wife and mother and knowing that I had to process what marriage meant to me, and that I'd have to be sure that the man that I marry is the one I could spend the rest of my life with.
Upon reflection, I've realized that it's a dangerous mindset to believe that you have to get married--that if you see yourself potentially being happy with someone, you should hold onto them and never let go. Because my last boyfriend came from a one-home family with happily married parents, it was clear that he thought of marriage as the next step, the logical explanation. But I only recently realized that the pitfall is when you marry because you can or should--it's only when you cannot see yourself spending the rest of your life without this person that you should even consider marriage.
Being the product of divorce (and anxiety probably isn't doing me any favors either), I've romanticized stability. Instead of growing up with the notion that "love conquers all," I thought why would you ever want to leave when you have one home, when your family is together? And when the option to have said stability is right in front of your face, it's difficult to consider the other aspects of marriage: the compatibility, the differing views on raising children, the chemistry between two people.
Leaving the option to have a content relationship/marriage was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. Just as some people have need to experiment with travel or dangerous relationships, I had a taste for the "all-American family." But, in the end, stability does not conquer all, even if it seems to beat the paralyzing fear that you will never be married. That fear ultimately trumps complacency.
Namaste.
No comments:
Post a Comment