love and marriage.

Relationships consist of compromises and negotiations. Some of these are harmless and require only a small amount of thought – you want Chinese for dinner but he’s in the mood for seafood. Solution: order take out from two different restaurants. Some, however, require a little more attention. For example, you want to get married, he doesn’t. Or vice versa. If all you’ve dreamed about since you started dating was finding the perfect partner and having the perfect wedding, it can be hard to imagine something else. So what happens if you do find the perfect partner, someone who ticks all the boxes, but they don’t believe in marriage? Do you stay with them, happy that you found someone you love or do you leave to find someone who wants what you want? To me, the sensible answer seems to be stay. If they’ve agreed to be committed to you long term and are simply against the idea of marriage, does it really change your relationship? Does it change the fact that you found someone you want to spend the rest of your life with? You don’t need a marriage certificate to be able to do that. But then, at the same time, I understand wanting to find someone who wants what you want, who wants to marry you, who wants to offically declare their committment to you and you alone. And if a wedding is what you want and what will make you happy, shouldn’t the other person be willing compromise and give you that? Why do you have to be the one to give up your dream for them? And would a small part of you wonder if it really was that they don’t ever want to get married, or that they don’t want to marry you? I imagine that would creep into your thoughts, and be pretty hard to escape once it was there. Love and marriage are not the same thing, but would you give one up for the other?