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I Didn't Want Marriage
13/8/10 10:40I figured out this morning, while showering, that what I didn't want to be married. What I wanted was to live together with Rachel for the rest of my life, doing what we wanted, caring for each other, but not feeling responsible for the things she did in her life, and having her not feel responsible for the things I did in mine. I think that the fact that marriage is commonly understood to be the way that people who care about each other live together for a lifetime blinded me to the fact that I didn't actually want the structure of marriage as it was commonly understood, where you also are supposed to take on some large responsibility for the life the other person leads.
I think, in retrospect, that this was utterly obvious. Since I was 14 or so, I've been telling myself metaphorically, and not in a subtle way either, that I didn't want marriage. But I thought that marriage was the only possible way to live with and love the person(s) I cared about, and since I wanted to live with and love the person(s) I cared about, I picked marriage (and the attendant social baggage and responsibilities that came along with it). I confused the socially sanctioned way of living with and loving others for the only possible way of living with and loving others by conflating the two (and I'd been conflating them since I was 14, too, with the same metaphor I used to tell myself that I didn't want marriage).
Wow, no wonder I felt so lonely. I didn't want the socially sanctioned way of having partner(s) for life, but I thought that was the only way to have a partner. I don't necessarily want the socially sanctioned way of having any relationships, but I thought that was the only way to have any relationships.
I am utterly sure I also had this problem with other relationships, too: my friendships, and my family. Why do I have this problem? I think I had it instilled in me by my family that the only permissible relationship to have with them was the socially sanctioned "loving child/parent" relationship, so no wonder I was struggling under a crushing guilt-burden of social sanctions and appearances when the relationship we actually had was not loving at all. Furthermore, once I was finally able to acknowledge that the relationship was actually abusive rather than loving, I still struggled under the guilt-burden of social sanction, unsure what to do with the social-sanction concept now that it was not tethered to the relationship anymore, but social sanction still remained the most important factor in how I understood relationships.
No wonder I worried so much about what everyone else thought of me and my actions--my relationships with myself--if was monitoring that feeling of social sanction, rather than the love present in any actual relationship, all the time. I felt a lot of pressure to take only socially sanctioned actions, be a socially sanctioned person. And I'm just not, most of the time. :D
That was why I was happiest when I was alone--there was no "social" for me to feel was sanctioning me or that I had to monitor for appropriateness. But after I realized I also needed and deserved humane, loving relationships, to get them I kept putting myself into social situations, and during any interaction with any other person I would put all this social sanction pressure on myself, and manufacture it where it didn't exist. Because without social sanction, I couldn't see a relationship as a relationship, since social sanction was what I understood relationships to be.
[Addendum: I think that I started being able to see that relationships were different from social sanctions of relationships when I came out, but since I still had very little idea that what I ought to desire from a relationship was the relationship rather than the relationship+social sanction, wherever any of my relationships were not socially sanctioned I kept trying to make them be, which came at the expense of the relationships and therefore also at my own expense.]
This is really important. I feel really freed and happy.
I think, in retrospect, that this was utterly obvious. Since I was 14 or so, I've been telling myself metaphorically, and not in a subtle way either, that I didn't want marriage. But I thought that marriage was the only possible way to live with and love the person(s) I cared about, and since I wanted to live with and love the person(s) I cared about, I picked marriage (and the attendant social baggage and responsibilities that came along with it). I confused the socially sanctioned way of living with and loving others for the only possible way of living with and loving others by conflating the two (and I'd been conflating them since I was 14, too, with the same metaphor I used to tell myself that I didn't want marriage).
Wow, no wonder I felt so lonely. I didn't want the socially sanctioned way of having partner(s) for life, but I thought that was the only way to have a partner. I don't necessarily want the socially sanctioned way of having any relationships, but I thought that was the only way to have any relationships.
I am utterly sure I also had this problem with other relationships, too: my friendships, and my family. Why do I have this problem? I think I had it instilled in me by my family that the only permissible relationship to have with them was the socially sanctioned "loving child/parent" relationship, so no wonder I was struggling under a crushing guilt-burden of social sanctions and appearances when the relationship we actually had was not loving at all. Furthermore, once I was finally able to acknowledge that the relationship was actually abusive rather than loving, I still struggled under the guilt-burden of social sanction, unsure what to do with the social-sanction concept now that it was not tethered to the relationship anymore, but social sanction still remained the most important factor in how I understood relationships.
No wonder I worried so much about what everyone else thought of me and my actions--my relationships with myself--if was monitoring that feeling of social sanction, rather than the love present in any actual relationship, all the time. I felt a lot of pressure to take only socially sanctioned actions, be a socially sanctioned person. And I'm just not, most of the time. :D
That was why I was happiest when I was alone--there was no "social" for me to feel was sanctioning me or that I had to monitor for appropriateness. But after I realized I also needed and deserved humane, loving relationships, to get them I kept putting myself into social situations, and during any interaction with any other person I would put all this social sanction pressure on myself, and manufacture it where it didn't exist. Because without social sanction, I couldn't see a relationship as a relationship, since social sanction was what I understood relationships to be.
[Addendum: I think that I started being able to see that relationships were different from social sanctions of relationships when I came out, but since I still had very little idea that what I ought to desire from a relationship was the relationship rather than the relationship+social sanction, wherever any of my relationships were not socially sanctioned I kept trying to make them be, which came at the expense of the relationships and therefore also at my own expense.]
This is really important. I feel really freed and happy.
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