My boyfriend and I were discussing marriage. The topic of people eloping came up and I told him that I am not interested in a big wedding at this point in my life. I couldn’t care less about spending tens of thousands of dollars to impress family/friends/guests when that money could be invested into something that contributes to our financial freedom and living our best life. I am absolutely fine with a courthouse or Las Vegas marriage as long as I understand and believe in the marriage I am entering into.
Our conversation got me thinking about how, as a society, we have the marriage thing ALL WRONG!!! Not once in my life have I ever thought about marriage or been interested in what marriage is about or why I would want to be married; however, I have absolutely thought of my wedding. At various stages in my life, starting at a somewhat young age, I have had visions of wedding dresses, wedding cakes, guests, seating arrangements, food, drink, how I would be proposed to, honeymoons, etc… But, NEVER ONCE, had I thought about what it would look like to be married. I never have thought about why I would want to be married. I never once thought about what makes a good marriage… UNTIL NOW!!! I can only hope that is a sign that I am truly ready and have found the right person (I believe so)!!
I decided to ask other women who I believe to be intelligent and wise women. I asked married women, divorced women, single women, and women on their 2nd and 3rd marriage. I cannot believe that not one of them have every thought about what a marriage is but all of them confessed to having thought about a wedding. One of the girls even shared that she went for drinks this past weekend to celebrate the engagement of a close friend and the only thing the friend really talked about was what to feed the wedding guests (i.e caterers, pot luck, buffet, taco truck, etc…). I cannot find one woman who thoroughly thought through what it means to be married or why they wanted to be married. This is super sad.
I suppose I am blessed because after my boyfriend and I had the conversation, I thoroughly thought through a few things including the following:
What a marriage looks like to me: I envision marriage as spending the majority of my time with my best friend. I see us hanging out (alone and with friends and family), traveling, cooking together, sharing music and memes and just hanging out. I see us having fun making money together, investing together, and creating a life of freedom through while having fun making money together. I see us traveling, A LOT, because we’ve created a life (and income) that allows us to travel while still making money.
I want to be married because I finally found someone who I truly enjoy spending time with. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t want to do with him. We watch sports together, we can go anywhere together, we can travel together… anything! Yes, of course, I still want to have my girlfriends but I can chat with him about everything and do anything with him.
Why I believe I found the right one… He is reliable and consistent. I appreciate his calmness and his values. Why wouldn’t I want to be with him forever. I have fun with him even when we are doing nothing but laying around flipping channels or sitting 2 feet away from one another sending social media posts back and forth.