Notes on a Scandalous Life

Newsflash, y'all: I've been with the same wonderful guy for almost a year-and-a-half now (But who's counting? Oh, thats right - me.), and, while I'm perfectly happy to just live with him and our ill-behaved dog, Little Bear, it seems like most of my friends are either married off, or getting ready to walk the aisle. Actually, scratch that: most of my friends have already walked the aisle, and are now getting ready to hit up the delivery room. Frankly, I'm just not sure if all that's in the cards for Mandy.

Now, first, let's get a few things straight: I am not anti-marriage, nor do I not ever want children. I just have a healthy appreciation for the way things are right now, taken into consideration the fact that I blindly rushed into a doomed marriage just after my freshman year of college - among other things.

Every time I tell someone I have no plans to get married, I either get a "You go, girl!" or, much more frequently, "You're just going to let him keep on getting the milk for free, huh?" All I have to say to that second response is, that, if I considered my vagina to be a commodity, I would be making a lot more money as a prostitute as we speak.

The fact that I refuse to believe that sex is a chore for me and an account payable for my male partners aside, here's what I learned from getting married at 19: it's a big step. A step that most, in my opinion, stretch from a step to a leap when they're too eager to be married. I'm certainly not saying that you HAVE to live with someone in order to know you want to marry them - I'm just saying that a relationship cannot progress naturally if it does so by miles at a time. And signing the rest of your life away to someone whose bathroom habits you hardly even know about seems kind of a stretch, to me. Why leave so much to chance, when you can begin by spending a few nights a week together, followed by signing a six-month lease, then signing a year lease, and take it from there? Does anybody really need to make a lifelong commitment to someone else before they even get a chance to truly exist in the relationship they're committing to?

My mom is one of my favorite people in the world, and she's also probably the number-one reader of my blog. She is my best friend and I love her dearly, but (sorry, Moms!) I still find myself occasionally warding off the "You'll fall madly in love someday, and THEN you'll want to get married." My response always is: why can't I fall in love madly over time? Or, maybe I am already madly in love, and, for good reason, I'm cautious to fully act upon it? And last, but not least, is it really even possible that marriage could be hardwired into my brain? Just in case my Moms is wondering, I always provide her with the answer to that last one myself: I don't think so.

All that said, living together doesn't have to be a trial-based probationary period from hell. Au contraire: I love my life with Barry and have no plans of ever being without him. Honestly, that's probably more than I could have said about my ex-husband, and it's just as much as what most would say about their spouse, as well, if they were being realistic. You might reply "Oh no! We'll be together forever!" But would you honestly stay with someone who cheated on you, or committed some heinous crime? Every relationship has its limits.

Sure, marriage might be in the cards someday, but the real question is, if we walked the aisle now, would it really change anything? We are both monogamous and we love our life together - do we really need jewelry and an expensive ceremony to make that official (Not that I don't condone jewelry in any way, shape or form! Oh, no.)? The fact is, a lifetime does not happen on your wedding day. It happens day-by-day, for the rest of your life. And, to me, one day at a time doesn't sound too bad at all.