Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site decwrl.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!sdcsvax!dcdwest!ittvax!decvax!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-curium!jackson
From: jackson@curium.DEC (Seth Jackson)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Marriage and Commitment
Message-ID: <583@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 14-Feb-85 17:01:37 EST
Article-I.D.: decwrl.583
Posted: Thu Feb 14 17:01:37 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 17-Feb-85 04:45:48 EST
Sender: daemon@decwrl.UUCP
Organization: DEC Engineering Network
Lines: 43

> 
> Face it -- I have needs now, and I will have needs in 5 years and
> I will have needs in 10 years. I have no guarantee that the person
> who fills my needs now will fill my needs in 5 or 10 years. I have
> no guarantee that the person who needs I fill now I will be able
> to continue filling in 5 or 10 years.
>
> I can work at it. But the minute I start *expecting* it, I am
> not loving, I am *clinging*. And clinging is bad news.
> I find it incredibly unreasonable of me to expect that any other
> person should sacrifice himself or his needs to meet my needs or 
> for the sake of a ``relationship'' or for the sake of a ``marriage''.
> How can I love an institution more than a person? 
> 
> This is all a viscious con. Relationships end. Marriages end. Some,
> of course, don't end. But, for the life of me, I can't see how it is
> possible to plan out your psychological, emotional, social and 
> whatever needs so that you can keep having them met by your partner,
> and I can't see anything so wonderful about the institution of
> marriage itself which makes it worth sacrificing your needs.
> 

I'm not married myself, nor have I ever been, but it seems that it
*would* be pretty wonderful to have someone that you *could* count
on through thick and thin, for better or for worse, in sickness and
in health, etc. Having this would certainly involve a serious 
commitment on the part of both partners, and would involve an 
awful lot of giving and sacrificing, but I believe that it is 
possible. 

I would like to make two comments about "needs". The first is 
that I'm afraid too many of us confuse "needs" and "wants".
The second is that I believe that the institution of 
marriage exists to satisfy a certain very basic need: the need
for security, both of the partners and of their children. If 
you are not capable of the kind of giving (giving up "wants",
not "needs") required for such a commitment, then certainly
you shouldn't get married.


Seth Jackson

"We used to play for silver, now we play for life..."