somedaybitch

No really, you want to put it *where*?! Seriously, WTF?

As for the starter husband thing-why does one have to be married in the first place?

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you mean to "test drive" a husband? or in the larger philosophical sense?

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In general I mean in the larger sense. But really, the idea of test driving someone really makes me annoyed-not in my ideal world of marriage.

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no one *has* to get married, but certainly because so many people do it puts a stigma at the most, and a kind of pressure at the very least, on the ones that don't. marriage isn't for everyone...and the world would be a better place if more folks in the "do" category could figure that out.

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I really wish that people who *did* get married would realize that it wasn't just for fun-as it seems to be at least portrayed a lot these days. And you're right, there is a lot of pressure; not only to get married, but to have children. Here in Texas, especially in church, I get the feeling that a single person is just someone in transit to marriage, not their own person.
Not that I don't have my own wedding/happily ever after fantasy, I just don't see it happening soon, and don't see why I should have to get married to someone not right just to please people. (So I don't.)
(And then there's my gay friend who wants to find me a gay houseboy, so he can clean my house while I have liaisons. lol projecting much, Sam?)

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and don't see why I should have to get married to someone not right just to please people. (So I don't.)

and that makes you wiser than many. ;)

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"As for the starter husband thing-why does one have to be married in the first place?"

er, well because you don't get the expensive wedding, the house and the alimony, unless you make it legally binding first...

but that could just be the opinion of a bitter, walking checkbook...

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no, no...i think that's spot on. it's half of the WTF????????? i mean, it's like these women think they're owed this or something, which just, you know...see earlier GET OFF MY SIDE.

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OMG, that totally sucks. Someone I know works with military men and their money, and she often tells me stories of how they get freaking screwed by marrying these harpies. Makes me so sad.
As for the wedding...expensive to be expensive doesn't make sense to me. Why not use the money on something that'll last? Of course, men don't really get a choice, do you?

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"Of course, men don't really get a choice, do you?"

nope. and it begins with spending 2 months salary on a carbon matrix shaped into a form to brag about...

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that you'll never see again, ever.

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sorry, but i disagree. everyone has a choice. doesn't mean it's necessarily an easy choice but my ex was totally involved in our decision making. and for financial reasons, we had a civil ceremony at the court house.

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mmm, yes, and yet you know how much a pressure a person you love can bring to bear on you. "I've been dreaming about this kind of wedding or that kind of ring since I was a little girl..." The choice is easy for that, it's only a little thing after all. But sometimes you take a lot of little steps and get somewhere else than you wanted to go...

It's glib to say that the guy has no choice, I know. That's just the way it seems when you are constantly asked to "prove" your love.

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then it's up to the man who *does* care to say so, and work out the relationship's first big compromise.

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it's hard to compromise when everyone in the room looks at you, like YOU are the one making trouble, like you are the one being unreasonable. This is why women talk about "training" us. It's not that our concerns are just in opposition, it's that they are assumed to be invalid. I have seen it numerous times in both the successful, and unsuccessful marriages... From going on a business trip, and coming home to find much of the house redecorated... "aren't you happy it turned out so well?" That was my office-mate at the time. Her comment to me later was that he wasn't happy but he'd get used to it. I had several friends whose future brides families dropped $20K on the wedding. The protestations about using that for the down payment on the house were both met with "it's not your money/ your concern..." One marriage has lasted 17yrs, and is continuing, the other lasted 2, and she took him for everything he was worth, and destroyed what she couldn't take.

It all seems to revolve around asking for the unreasonable in a reasonable way. There is a flip side with control freak guys... though that seems like the cultural negative anomaly, rather than an accepted norm...

dunno... one of my own sisters commented last night that since men are less emotional, their emotions aren't as important as hers. I almost dropped the phone, because I have no clue where she got that from. It certainly wasn't the way she was raised, and isn't the way my mom ever operated. I explained that not showing emotions is different than not having them, even though that is self evident to me. I finally just hung up when it was apparent that I was going over the same acreage with a backhoe. I thought I would have a similar frame of reference with my own sister, but it isn't true.

:shrug: the world is a powerful strange place...

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never said it was easy, sugar. nothing worth having is. you know that as well as anyone. and there's no doubting that there is a deeply seated pathology to weddings but quite frankly i neither understand it nor buy into it.

as to your sister....that's both disturbing that she believes it, and also deeply wrong. that's like saying, because i can't see the bottom of the ocean, or the backs of a mountain range that they they don't exist. how self-absorbed and self-deceptive can you get, girl?

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Around here, I've heard of a lot of low cost weddings, and even have been to one in absentia wedding (it was weird. the groom was-still is-in prison). So I agree, a wedding is what you make of it.

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they do if they choose to exercise it.

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Ah, you think? They don't often have much input because they usually don't care, and traditionally the woman's family pays for it, so there's no monetary reason?

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i don't believe that's true anymore. and if men don't care then, like people who don't vote, they don't have a right to bitch.

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as for the other... how the frell am I sposed to get that image outta my head, now that I can't use bleach?

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