Marriage, schmarriage!

I've gotten to that age where I'm getting invited to a number of weddings. It started with my second cousin Dawn's wedding in May. Then it was Steven's cousin's wedding, then one of his best friend's wedding, and the last one is in about a month. This one will take place in Ireland and is the wedding of his other best friend's sister. With all these weddings Steven and I have been feeling the pressure: "When are you two going to get married?"

The thing is a) I definitely do not want to get married NOW, b) I'm not sure I ever want to get married, and c) if I do get married, it is not going to be some lavish affair.

I don't want to get married now because I have too much stuff going on with my life right now. Some would call this selfish. The thing is, for his own reasons, Steven isn't in any rush to get married either. My main goal for the next two years is to succesfully enter and finish a masters in counseling program. This is about all I can handle for the moment. I take school very seriously, probably too seriously for my own good. I'm not going to go about applying to grad school in a half-ass manner. The program I'm looking at right now usually has about 50 applicants which get narrowed down to a field of 25. Out of that 25, 15 are picked to be cohorts in the program. I already feel like I'm at a disadvantage because my undergrad is nowhere near the same field as the grad program. Getting into the program will be a challenge, not to mention that if I do get in, the program I want is extremely intense. [Ha, what grad program isn't intense?]

I don't believe in religion or that God would care if I am or am not married, so I wouldn't do it for that reason. I also, deep down, kind of think that marriage is just a legal institution. I love Steven. I don't think my love will become any stronger because we've legally linked our two names on paper. We're already tied together, and I don't need a ring, a piece of paper, or a fancy party to tell me that. I don't want to get married because society tells us that's the next step. It doesn't have to be the next step. We can be committed to each other and not be married. It's that simple. I will say that if I ever decide to have kids (that's another blog post completely), I will get married for them, because in this society it's easier to be married and have kids than to not be married.

The other thing is, and no offense to anybody who wants a large, fancy wedding that they've dreamed of since young girls, but that is NOT what I want. Neither Steven nor I like to be the center of attention and standing up in front of a room full of 200 people is not my idea of a fun evening. I personally would want a very intimate affair of just me and Steven somewhere with two witnesses. This would probably upset some friends and family, and maybe even Steven, so I could see us having a slightly larger affair, but definitely not more than 50 people.

I also have decided that I would like to keep my name. People have insinuated to me that I am yet again being selfish by not taking Steven's name. What's the big deal? Why do I have to give up a piece of my identity? I've been Julia R**** for the last 25 years. Why do I have to give that up? Why doesn't the man have to give up his name? Why can't we both just be who we've always been? Quite honestly that's all I want.

Of course, when I tell people I want to keep my last name, they inevitably ask, well what about your kids? First of all, don't assume I want to have children. I may or I may not. The thing is, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. We're adults, we're smart people, it's our decision and we'll figure it out.