Monday, 09 April 2012
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Can Friends Get Married?
I was talking to my brother the other day and he told me something that completely surprised me. He said that he had made a deal with his ex that if within one year they didn't fall in love with anyone or were single, they would get married. A thing about my brother and this girl: They dated for three years, their relationship pretty much sucked, and after they broke up they kept in contact with one another and became good friends. They began talking about what they hated about the relationship and came to the conclusion that although they care for one another they are not in love with each other.
Yet they both want to get married someday and have kids. My brother is 27 mind you. Yet he believes love is an irrational emotion that he cannot handle. To defend himself he told me to look at all the couples in today's world that get married out of love, how many of them actually last? He has a good point here I will give him that much credit. So many of today's marriages end in divorce.
Anyway, He believes a marriage of two individuals who are not in love but are great friends will work. We see it in movies and back in the day this was done a lot. But can it really work? I think this kind of marriage will be a very lonely and miserable one. The worst thing is what if one day, you meet that person? The one who you can fall in love with and would want to spend the rest of your life with?
What would you do if that person showed up during your loveless marriage? Infidelity is gonna look really tempting. What's worse is you don't love the person you're with so there is no real commitment. Marriage isn't like a work contract between two people and it shouldn't be viewed as such. It's a serious commitment.
This is the person you are committing to be with for better and for worse. Love is like glue when hell breaks loose and the person you're with is driving you insane. What exactly is stopping you from walking away? Friendship is important in any relationship, but so is love. But this is my opinion, perhaps for other people this sort of marriage can work.
What do you think? Can friends really get married?
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- From: RomanticFantasyGirl@xanga
- Name: RomanticFantasyGirl
- About Me: I'm this really silly sometimes innocent super hyperactive maybe quirky girl. I can be extremely random, I have really weird dreams. I like coconuts a lot. I'm a Caribbean girl who loves soaking in the deep blue waters. Writing is my passion, my dream. Reading is my guilty pleasure. I like to go on rants from time to time, but overall I'm a sweet person who loves making new friends.
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Comments (12)
You can "love" the person all you wish but if you aren't willing to put the effort into the marriage, then it's not going to work.
I think friends can be married, but the part that concerns me is that your brother made a deal with the ex and putting a [short] time limit. Love isn't, and shouldn't be the only reason people get married. I believe friendship accounts for a part of a marriage among other things. Like Quantum Storm put it, effort put into making the relationship is the key.
Marriages don't last because everyone thinks they need to be married before age 30, they settle, they pick the wrong people, and even if they do pick partners who are good matches for them, they don't really know how to maintain a relationship. No one thinks about how much effort and work it can require. They give up and divorce. I really hate it that people think marriage is doom. It's not. People are just doing it wrong. Your brother seems to believe into the idea that because other people have failed marriages that he won't be able to find someone or make it last. It's also that mentality that furthers the divorce rate. To me, I think the whole "If all else fails, marry your friend" attitude is disrespectful to the idea of marriage and completely contradicts everything vows are meant to be.
That's a perfectly legitimate reason to get married if it works for them. They're adults and can make decisions contrary to (relatively recent) marital traditions.
it probably fails because they are pressured into getting married just to be married. one doesn't neccesarily have to get married to have a "complete" life. but some people want to, so...
A year isn't long in the grand scheme of things. People need to stop rushing their lives. Getting married isn't the be all and end all of life. Go, live, travel, work, save, experience life - if you fall in love, you fall in love, but getting married to someone for the sake of it is a recipe for disaster.
NO! Biggest mistake of my life; we both 'longed' for romantic love and had crushes on other people during our marriage. After 12 years we called it quits (it only lasted so long because we got pregnant RIGHT after marriage). We're both remarried now to people we are actually in love with and are so much happier.
Circumstances varies for other people. I'll marry my best friend (10 years of friendship, 2 of relationship) and it's the best decision ever! Of course love is very important but there are also other factors such as communication, keeping the friendship and trust one another, among other things :)
Well, marriage takes much, much more than love to keep it going. I was friends with my husband before we became romantically involved, and our dynamic is pretty cool.
Just depends on the people and what you can live with.
on the bright side... a tax break!
It's all about expectations. If you go into a marriage without (unrealistic) expectations of undying romance and passion, things will probably turn out for the best, regardless of whether you start out in love or not. Like you said, people used to do this all the time and it turned out ok, because they didn't expect a lifelong fairy tale chick flick- they expected a lifelong partnership, and that's what they got.
I am married to my best friend. We've known each other for over 10 years and eventhough we broke up for about 4 years back then we eventually came across eachother again and decided to get married and yes,being married is different from dating. We still fight once in a while but we get over it and make up.Our fights causes a lot of tears most of the time (from both parties) but we patch things up and move on. We're still very much in love with each other ^_^