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Path: utzoo!watmath!watnot!watdragon!wasaunders
From: wasaunders@watdragon.UUCP (Alec Saunders)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: Greener Pastures and Topics,Bitte!
Message-ID: <473@watdragon.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 26-Feb-86 19:26:04 EST
Article-I.D.: watdrago.473
Posted: Wed Feb 26 19:26:04 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 28-Feb-86 06:01:20 EST
References: <11952@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <3172@sdcc3.UUCP> <901@felix.UUCP>
Reply-To: wasaunders@watdragon.UUCP (Alec Saunders)
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 40
Keywords: New topics.
Summary: 

In article <901@felix.UUCP> daver@felix.UUCP (Dave Richards) writes:
>
>I'm a strong believer in very long engagements, but even so, I have yet to
>seriously consider marriage.  Why?  Because I can't imagine making the
>promise to love someone the rest of my life.  Isn't it a lot to ask to
>expect two people not to change over a 60 year span?  

I'm getting married soon, so I'll try to explain why ...

First of all I love my fiance. After two years of living with her I think I
can honestly say that. This isn't to say we don't have our disagreements (read
scraps!), but we function well together in normal everyday environments. The 
problem of loving someone the rest of your life can be resolved by asking 
the question "Are you likely to love your family members the rest of your
life?" . I think that if you don't feel that way towards the person you *do*
marry you're deceiving yourself.

My second reason is that I want a family - and I want my kids to have a stable
environment. I know that there are lots of unmarried couples out there who have
children, but my feeling is that "normalcy" is healthier - the norm in this 
case being the nuclear family (with married parents). I think that children,
if you are planning to have any, are a reasonable excuse for getting married.
You have to be a pretty together kid to handle your parents splitting up, and
marriage makes it that much harder for them to do.

Finally I'm an optimist. I can't guarantee that I'll always want to be married,
but I think that there are strong odds on me staying married to the person I
have chosen. I plan to include "'till death do us part" in my vows, and I 
hope I'll be able to live up to that. Both of us take these kinds of promises
*very* seriously.

One other point - I'm sure everyone realizes this, but I'll say it anyway so
that nobody else posts a rebuttle using this as an excuse. I'm fully aware of
the fact that you can live with someone and not like them, and that you can love
someone but be unable to live with them (my younger brother is a case in point).

Alec Saunders.

P.S. Whoever it was who flamed me about not leaving my path the last time
     I posted - try reading the message in VERBOSE mode.