On Marriage... Again

Bartender and I have had several discussions on marriage. Although he seems to be opening up to the idea of marriage, there was a conversation that left me thinking. (Let me stop here and note that I have not been trying to convince him to marry me; I've got too much pride and too many options to beg for something like that! LOL) The majority of the conversations have been about why he was fearful or weary of marriage. He gave the typical "Women change/stop giving head/having sex on the regular" excuse for the longest, before finally saying that the commitment was huge and not something that he'd want to go into lightly.

Understandable.

But then he asked me, "Why do you want to get married? What's the benefit for you?"

Initially I wanted to dismiss it as a silly rebuttal, but once I thought about it I had to ask myself the same thing. Really, what is the benefit of me getting married? If I was thinking of starting a family, I would definitely want to be married; but kids are out. Can't really say it's for the financial security; I'm working on that on my own. Plus the likelihood of marrying someone whose credit is as high or higher than mine is low, so that would mean I'd take a hit. I love the emotional security that marriage is supposed to afford, but we all know that marriage is no guarantee of that (just like not being married doesn't mean you won't have it). Tax break? Meh, from what I've read it doesn't amount to a whole lot. I've got insurance from work, got guns for protection. And of course I could look at it from the religious standpoint of needing to be married to do the do without working about eternal damnation and hell fire, but considering my... evolving religious beliefs, I'm not sure how that ties in. Plus, wouldn't marrying just to have sex be wrong? While I still need a man, what is the need for a husband?

But like so many things, even though I feel like I don't need it, I want it. The "want" of marriage for me is knowing that I have such a strong connection (spiritually, physically and mentally) with someone that he is willing to say "You make me so happy that I want to stand before God and the world, vowing to make this work until I take my last breath."

Bartender says I'm still young and naive to how the world works. I tell him that marriage, like anything else, is what one makes of it.

pic courtesy of iamsassychic.com