7 Reasons Why I Don’t Want To Get Married (Again)

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I was married at 25 and divorced at 26. Basically the year either side of my wedding day was filled with stress, tears, heartache, uncertainty, angst and confusion. I wanted to get married but after tumbling out the other side and realising that there wasn’t a happily ever after, I don’t want to do it again.

These days about 91 per cent of us get married for love (ref link: www.relationshipsaustralia.com.au). This very notion renders the institution of marriage even more fragile than ever before. And sadly, the divorce rate also shows that about 50 per cent of us are kidding ourselves when we marry for love and for ever. I know I was. So why would I do it again?

Here are 7 reasons why I will never (and when I say never, I mean NEVER) remarry:

  1. A lifetime is a long time. My sister captures it brilliantly when she says ”I can’t promise to love someone for the rest of my life. I could look at them and tell them that I can’t imagine a time in my life that I won’t love them, but I’d never promise to love them always. I will grow (hopefully), they will grow (hopefully), and we may grow in opposite directions (hopefully not, but if it happens, I’d rather that we both had the freedom to leave).”
  2. If it didn’t work the first time, why do I think it would work the second time around? I was in a fairly happy relationship with my high school sweetheart for eight years before we decided to get married. And you now know how that story ends. I am in a new relationship now … why would I want to jeopardise that with another marriage?
  3. I like my name. Okay, this doesn’t have to change when you get married but there’s a general societal expectation that it does. Earlier this year Zoe Holman reported that despite the European Court of Human Rights overturning an archaic, patriarchal, Italian law preventing children from adopting their mother’s surname, Australian women were still overwhelmingly volunteering to take their husband’s name not only for their children, but also for themselves (Ref link: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/10/marriage-feminism-weddings). Holman referenced a 2013 survey that revealed around 82 per cent of married Australian women still assumed their husband’s surname and around 90 per cent of children were registered under their father’s name, an inequality that we both clearly find baffling.
  4. I like being a little different. People always give me funny looks when I tell them I don’t want to get remarried … like I’m a loveless, cynical freak. I kind of like getting people to think outside of their comfort zone (naturally, when they realise I’m full of love and optimism!).
  5. Divorce is a bitch. Breaking up is hard enough let alone having to go through the paperwork trail of divorce as well. If you’ve changed your name it makes matters even more difficult when you’ve got to change it back (and you get heaps of condescending looks to boot). No one really likes paperwork to begin with so why create more of it?
  6. My life is perfectly wonderful as it is thanks. I’ve had a wedding—and it was one of the best days of my life—but I don’t really want to do it again. Aside from being stressful, it was expensive and emotionally draining.
  7. Nothing significant really What is a marriage these days other than a party and a piece of paper? Yes, that was slightly cynical but you can still happily live with your partner, have kids, share a bank account, buy a house, get health care, pay your taxes, and all that other grown-up stuff married couples do. So um, why bother with the big expensive party and the piece of paper you’re going to file away with the rest of the crap you don’t care about?

I don’t want to sound like the Grinch of marriage. I just don’t see the need to get married again. You can go and do whatever you like … so long as I haven’t ruined it for you. Sorry.