My Boyfriend’s Theory About Marriage

My boyfriend has a theory about marriage. It goes like this: when a couple gets married, they are at the pinnacle of their relationship. Therefore, what comes after it is always downhill.

Let’s pick that apart in some more detail. He believes that a couple’s wedding day is full of love and excitement and joy for the relationship. Perhaps after the initial loved-up phase has worn off in the relationship, it gives a new, renewed focus for love and passion. Oftentimes, the couple are so excited about planning the big day itself, that they haven’t thought so much about the marriage, about the commitment, about the daily pleasures and frustrations of what it’s like to live with another human being. They haven’t thought so much about the actual marriage.

For many couples, the wedding day has so much anticipation and build-up. Every detail has been thought out with exact precision. There can be a wait as long as two years to get married. That’s a lot of pressure on one day. I remember a friend saying to me that she and her husband to be only seemed to talk about their wedding plans in the run-up to their big day. She confided in me that she wasn’t sure what they would talk about when it was all over. Then she laughed and said, “I guess that’s when we’ll have kids.” I moved away and we lost touch, so I can’t go and ask her if that’s how it worked out.

So my boyfriend’s theory is that the actual marriage becomes a bit of an anti-climax. There was all this build-up to this special moment, and then there was just a return to normal life. Or there might be an expectation that something will be dramatically different once you are married, when the reality is that if you were already living together, probably your day-to-day life doesn’t change so much, except that you might have a different name now and a ring on your finger. Maybe there’s a slight sensation of disappointment. Maybe it’s lovely and joyful, but not quite as lovely and joyful as in the build-up to the big day. Maybe some of the old frustrations that you ignored or hoped would be different “once you were married” haven’t changed.

So, my boyfriend’s theory is this: we won’t get married and have this huge pinnacle in our relationship. Instead, we will continue to ebb and flow in our love for one another, moving through periods of more intense joy and love, and other periods of frustration, but slowly and steadily being closer to one another all the time. Slow and steady wins the race if you believe in all that.

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Do I agree with his theory? Some days yes, some days no. I can consider it on a statistical level — of all the weddings that I have been to or known of in my 34 years of life, about 50% have already ended in divorce, and around 20% of the remainder who are still married, are unhappy — at least from what they’ve told me and what I’ve observed.

So that leaves 30% or roughly 4 couples that I know that are really, really happy together in their marriage. Those aren’t great odds.

Sometimes I think that I’d like to have a wedding and have all the fuss be about me for a change, but then I think about my boyfriend who would absolutely hate to be the centre of attention and I remember that it would be our wedding, not mine. Then I think about the logistics — the potential expense, the fact that we’re from different continents and not all of our family members would be able to come to wherever we held it, then I think about the traditional connotations of marriage and I don’t like them.

Ultimately, what I want from a wedding is different from what I want from a marriage. From a wedding I want to fit in with society and have my opportunity for attention, but from a marriage? From a marriage, I just want to be with my boyfriend happily for a really long time, and I have that already, so is it really worth the odds?

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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