I never expected to be married. I had three cohabiting relationships that ended. The fourth one became a marriage after a year or two.
I loved the first three. I loved the first one most of all and when she broke my heart, I couldn’t get the pieces back together for several years. I never mingled finances with those three.
I don’t know what happened, but a week or two after I met my wife, I knew she would be my wife. It just thought to myself that people change. I was a people.
Eventually, she realized she wanted to marry me, too. We were living together by then. Soon after we married, we commingled finances and started thinking about children. I never did either of those things with my previous three cohabitations.
For me, it was an issue of certainty. I knew I would always love this woman. We’ve had some serious difficulties in our relationship, but the love never went away.
It is different. At least for me. It was kind of more so. More serious. More committed.
I had always thought you didn’t need anyone’s piece of paper in order to have that level of commitment and seriousness. I still don’t think you need it, but in my case it changed things. Maybe it would change things for others, too. Or maybe others don’t need any formal ceremony in order to feel like they are serious.