The Fairy is engaged!
I found out yesterday that the Fairy is engaged to her new live-in boyfriend. When she told me, I thought she was kidding. Not only because this is not exactly a long-term relationship (I mean 6 months of a long-distance relationship and 3 weeks of living together do not a potential marriage make in my opinion!), but because she's always maintained that she didn't see the point in getting married.
To some extent, I agree - I see no point in getting married unless you're planning to have kids in the near future. There's a couple of parts to this opinion:-
1. I'm not religious, so a ceremony in a church means nothing to me.
2. But I think the piece of paper is still (even in this day and age) worth getting for a certain degree of stability with a family. I listen to the way kids talk and they still talk to each other about Mum and Dad being married (or used to be married, for those with divorced parents). There still seems to be a certain stigma of being the product of unmarried parents.
3. Considering it's likely that I will be giving up a couple of years of my career in order to produce and bring up the kids, I want a public ceremony where the future father of those children tells all of our family and friends that he's dedicated to me and wants to spend the rest of his life with me. I'm committing myself to him by giving up my body to have his kids - I think he should also make some tangible sort of committment.
4. You still have better rights in Australia, legally, as a wife than you do as a de facto - once again, I'm going to be reliant upon the father financially for a while, and I want the most complete set of rights I can possibly have.
I suppose, in a nutshell, it's a security thing for me. I have a successful career and earn well at present and don't need the security of a wedding certificate in order to have a fullfilling relationship with someone. However, if I'm going to give up any part of that, then I want the security of that piece of paper and the ceremony to feel comfortable in giving that up.
The only other reason I can think of for getting married is for overseas travel - marriage will often get you a work visa where de facto won't.
However - the Fairy and her boyfriend don't have either of these reasons. She doesn't want to have kids for another 7 or so years and both of them are young enough that they don't have to worry about age restrictions in getting work visas in Europe (which is where they want to travel to). And the about face about getting married is confusing me as well - I'm a little worried that maybe he's pressuring her into it.
Something I found amusing though was that she said that she insisted on a long engagement... and then said that they are talking about October next year! I think her definition of a long engagement is a little different to mine. For me, a 15 month engagement is about standard - after all it usually takes about a year just to organise the wedding anyway. A long engagement would be a couple of years - maybe 3 or 4.
The problem for me is that usually I'm bubbling over with happiness about good news like this, but I just can't be happy for her in this case. Firstly, I think they're rushing things and she does tend to make decisions with her heart without thinking through the consequences of her decisions (like whether they'll still want to be together after a couple of months living together). Secondly, of course, is that I don't like him. And everything further I hear just reinforces that.
I did a bit of a probe with some of the people that I know have met him and my opinion of him is pretty much matched by everyone else - so it's not just me.
The last time this happened was B and her boyfriend N, who I also though was a pretentious prat. Admittedly, I disliked him with much more passion than the Fairy's boyfriend though. But my dislike of N meant that my friendship with B just faded away. I never told her that I disliked him, I just stopped making any effort to catch up with her because she would either bring N with, or spent a lot of time talking about him and I'm just not two-faced enough to be able to make "I'm so happy for you" noises when I'm not. Anyway, I can see this happening with the Fairy as well, and it makes me sad.
On the other hand, we have been growing apart for a while, with her study and all - and I was very hurt that she didn't make the effort to come to my 30th (which was also my first day back in Australia after 7 months away, so most of my friends made the effort to be there) - so I suppose that I may have stopped making the effort to see her anyway, even without the boyfriend. It's a shame though, because I've always valued her friendship - she is very different to me and keeps me in touch with the "arty" side of my personality.
On the upside, I ran into S (of G&S) in the street yesterday and I'm hoping to catch up with them soon. Their son is now 3yo! I can't believe it! But they'll keep me in touch with my "arty" side... they're even artier than the Fairy.
And maybe some of these guys I've been dating will help with that as well - a few of them are into the artier side of things.
Listening to: No Doubt - Tragic Kingdom
To some extent, I agree - I see no point in getting married unless you're planning to have kids in the near future. There's a couple of parts to this opinion:-
1. I'm not religious, so a ceremony in a church means nothing to me.
2. But I think the piece of paper is still (even in this day and age) worth getting for a certain degree of stability with a family. I listen to the way kids talk and they still talk to each other about Mum and Dad being married (or used to be married, for those with divorced parents). There still seems to be a certain stigma of being the product of unmarried parents.
3. Considering it's likely that I will be giving up a couple of years of my career in order to produce and bring up the kids, I want a public ceremony where the future father of those children tells all of our family and friends that he's dedicated to me and wants to spend the rest of his life with me. I'm committing myself to him by giving up my body to have his kids - I think he should also make some tangible sort of committment.
4. You still have better rights in Australia, legally, as a wife than you do as a de facto - once again, I'm going to be reliant upon the father financially for a while, and I want the most complete set of rights I can possibly have.
I suppose, in a nutshell, it's a security thing for me. I have a successful career and earn well at present and don't need the security of a wedding certificate in order to have a fullfilling relationship with someone. However, if I'm going to give up any part of that, then I want the security of that piece of paper and the ceremony to feel comfortable in giving that up.
The only other reason I can think of for getting married is for overseas travel - marriage will often get you a work visa where de facto won't.
However - the Fairy and her boyfriend don't have either of these reasons. She doesn't want to have kids for another 7 or so years and both of them are young enough that they don't have to worry about age restrictions in getting work visas in Europe (which is where they want to travel to). And the about face about getting married is confusing me as well - I'm a little worried that maybe he's pressuring her into it.
Something I found amusing though was that she said that she insisted on a long engagement... and then said that they are talking about October next year! I think her definition of a long engagement is a little different to mine. For me, a 15 month engagement is about standard - after all it usually takes about a year just to organise the wedding anyway. A long engagement would be a couple of years - maybe 3 or 4.
The problem for me is that usually I'm bubbling over with happiness about good news like this, but I just can't be happy for her in this case. Firstly, I think they're rushing things and she does tend to make decisions with her heart without thinking through the consequences of her decisions (like whether they'll still want to be together after a couple of months living together). Secondly, of course, is that I don't like him. And everything further I hear just reinforces that.
I did a bit of a probe with some of the people that I know have met him and my opinion of him is pretty much matched by everyone else - so it's not just me.
The last time this happened was B and her boyfriend N, who I also though was a pretentious prat. Admittedly, I disliked him with much more passion than the Fairy's boyfriend though. But my dislike of N meant that my friendship with B just faded away. I never told her that I disliked him, I just stopped making any effort to catch up with her because she would either bring N with, or spent a lot of time talking about him and I'm just not two-faced enough to be able to make "I'm so happy for you" noises when I'm not. Anyway, I can see this happening with the Fairy as well, and it makes me sad.
On the other hand, we have been growing apart for a while, with her study and all - and I was very hurt that she didn't make the effort to come to my 30th (which was also my first day back in Australia after 7 months away, so most of my friends made the effort to be there) - so I suppose that I may have stopped making the effort to see her anyway, even without the boyfriend. It's a shame though, because I've always valued her friendship - she is very different to me and keeps me in touch with the "arty" side of my personality.
On the upside, I ran into S (of G&S) in the street yesterday and I'm hoping to catch up with them soon. Their son is now 3yo! I can't believe it! But they'll keep me in touch with my "arty" side... they're even artier than the Fairy.
And maybe some of these guys I've been dating will help with that as well - a few of them are into the artier side of things.
Listening to: No Doubt - Tragic Kingdom
posted by OLS |
Thursday, July 15, 2004 | 9:30 am
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