A to Z: Tying the Knot

Are you married? How old were you when you got married? Why did you get married? If you're not married, are you planning to?

Cor & I at the Taj Mahal
September 2008

Most of my same-age friends (I'm 39) are either married or single, and by single I mean they're not in a relationship. As a matter of fact, I can't think of anyone I know that isn't either of these two right now. I have some younger friends (early 30's) who aren't married but in a relationship. Most of those have been in said relationship for less than a year, and most of those relationships are still in the "going steady" stage; only very few couples (two, maybe) share households.

Whereas my dushi and I have been co-habitating for--oh, eight years.

Did we consider marriage? Yep. In 2008, when we spent a few months in India for work (how lucky are we to have done that together?), he proposed. At the Taj Mahal. And I said yes--naturally.

Why are we still legally single? Why haven't we tied the knot?


There were, uhm, logistic issues. Pig flu struck Mexico hard--we wanted to get married there. Some family issues came up, too--my family is sociopathic and psycho in too many ways to explain here, so I'll just say thank high heavens it's a small one--and the original plan to have the party at the house where I grew up fell apart.

We postponed. For a year.

Our beautiful house, 2010

And then we bought a house. The budget we'd made for the wedding (not big, sixty-some guests, no huge typical Mexican three-hundred-person affair, but unique nonetheless--we wanted to provide an experience for all the Dutch and Curaçaoan guests who'd never been to Mexico) suddenly seemed ridiculous for a party. That money could go such a long way if invested in the house--we wanted a new porch, maybe put in a pool, turn the garden into a paradise, maybe redo the kitchen.

Maybe someday we'll make the fifteen-minute drive to Kranchi, Curaçao's version of City Hall, and tie the knot, sign papers, with little ceremony and only a few of our closest friends as witnesses, for legal purposes.

There's undisputed advantages to being married--tax-wise, for example. We both live at least a day's travel from our families, so having a "legal" family member here isn't a bad idea. The issue of joint property doesn't exist for us: we always planned to marry under separate property law, and the house is the only significant asset we hold jointly, but it's already in both our names.

And we're not planning to have children. I may be old-fashioned and a backward Mexican, but I do believe marriage, when at all possible, is a prerequisite for parenthood.

So why not just get married and have it over and done with?

Truth?

Scares me to death.

More than the H1N1, more than the cuckoo family, more than the ridiculous amount anything related to a wedding costs (my dress was around USD 4,000!), during the nine months or so the wedding was on, we fought. Over little things, over which things were little and which weren't, over--well, stuff so meaningless that I can't even remember it anymore. But I remember the fights. The stress, the pressure.

Mysore, August 2008

We love each other, deeply and irrevocably. We want to spend the rest of our lives together, grow old and senile and still sleep in the same bed. Laugh over the same things, have stupid arguments over the same nonsense. We are partners, lovers, best friends. And, from where we stand now, we're pretty sure that won't change.

We've gone through rough times. Epic fights, profound disagreements, the shock of realizing our life plans didn't quite match. And we survived. Sure, love conquers all, but you know what else does? Respect. And under this deep and irrevocable love, there's a solid foundation of respect that means the world to both of us.

I still wear my beautiful engagement ring. I believe that thick circle of white gold is the perfect symbol of our commitment to each other: full of hope, not obligation.

No piece of paper, no ceremony or white dress, can give us that.

But it can destroy it. Why? Because, as mature as I thought I was--I'm no wide-eyed twenty-something--as soon as there was a white dress in my future (and centerpieces and five-course menus to choose), I reverted back to should be mode.

I stopped being myself and became instead a bride-to-be. My beautiful, wonderfully quirky relationship became an engagement, and the magic of our dreams and plans acquired a social context that has no place in here.

Yeah--marriage terrifies me. Not because of marriage itself, or because of the commitment. I'm as committed to this, to him, to us, as I have ever been or ever will be to anything. No--it terrifies me because it comes with baggage--the baggage of centuries of tradition, of expectations that land with a solid thunk into your life as you slip that first (horrible, let's face it) wedding dress you try out while your girlfriends squeal outside the dressing room.

Marriage isn't for me. It's a weakness, a shortcoming. I agree--I admit it. But this beautiful thing we have, this imperfect perfection we've achieved, doesn't fit into the mold, the framework of tradition, of regulated expressions of affection, of certified-and-notarized permission to love.

Mine is a rogue relationship. Like a pioneer of the Old West, although I understand--even appreciate--the benefits of lawfulness, I know I'll start throwing longing looks at the setting sun over the horizon as soon as this town gets a sheriff and a court.