Marriage

When I hear news that someone is pregnant, the question that pops into my head is "am I supposed to be happy for them, or sad?" That's bad, but not all pregnancies are greeted with equal anticipation and, technically, this could be bad news.

Likewise with marriage. Since I've been divorced, I know that all marriages are also not greeted with equal anticipation because some are made in such bad judgement at the time that when I hear the news, the question that pops into my head is "I wonder how long this one's going to last." It's sad, but the national average on marriage longevity and the "it's just not working out" mentality justify the thought. Most engaged couples are carried away by romance and have unrealistic expectations anyway.

Knowing this, it is still irritating when people ask me "are you still getting married?" I guess people either don't expect an engagement to last more than six weeks or expect me to come to my senses and decide that the lending my eight year relationship the cultural credibility of marriage is a bad idea afterall. And when someone who hasn't talked to me in a while asks, "are you still with that same boyfriend?" it reinforces our expectation for failure. What happened to our society? Why are we so cynical? Why is it a social anomaly that both our parents were never divorced? What happened to making an effort?