First Comes Love, Then Comes Marriage, Then Comes... uh oh...

After thinking about this for a blog post the past few days, I came across this article on marriage and the family dynamic.  I'm going to speak for myself, and then speak to the article.

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My significant other, Rob, and I, are not married.

Now that the initial shock and typical reactions that come with being appalled have passed, let me continue.

As I write this, I realize that I'm sounding MUCH more negative than when I started writing this post yesterday.  That's because today I received a letter from someone much more traditional and judgmental than I am asking, "when's the wedding?"

It begs an answer.  And I don't think that I have to give one.

Rob and I are desperately in love (sorry, I know, puke... haha).  We've known since very shortly after we started our relationship that we'd be spending our lives together.  We fell in love deeply and quickly.  We talked about getting married one day, and about 2 years into our relationship, we planned a wedding.  We know all the details, all the way down to an estimated cost.  We also decided at that point that we weren't in any rush to get married.

Rob moved from Colorado to be with me.  We are part of each others' families, each others' lives, and we are as into this relationship as any two people could be.  We communicate better than a lot of people I know, and even though we seem to bicker a lot, a lot of it is playful bickering.  [Sorry to be a middle school girl about our relationship, I just want to give a little insight to people who don't know us that well.  Hopefully I'm not being too girly.]

Okay, ready for this?  I'm going to throw another shocker at you..  Prepare yourself, this next one is a doozy.

Rain Elizabeth and Rogue Lillian were not planned.

Please untie your panties from the bunch they're in.

When we were originally mapping out our lives, Rob and I had a five year plan that included getting married and buying a house before we decided to try to have kids.  But life, as many of you know, doesn't always work out the way you plan.

In case I need to remind any of you, Rob and I could not be happier to have our twins on the way.  We are enamored with them already, and ecstatic at their existence.  We are so happy that they're coming, planned or not.  We love them equally as much, or maybe more, than a planned baby (I say more because the fact that they're unplanned twins means they're meant to be!) and wouldn't change a thing.

The fact that we are so happy to have them coming leaves me thinking: I have no qualms about not being married.  The only thing that concerns me is that my girls will [temporarily] have a different last name than me.  And that's not a big deal.  And why should I have qualms?

The first thing I was asked by a few of the more "traditional" people in my life was "oh, you're pregnant?  When are you getting married?"  But what about babies means marriage?

I'm not going to lie and say that these babies are not changing mine and Rob's relationship.  Of course they are.  Babies change any relationship.  But why is our relationship less valid if we don't have paper that says it's valid?

I know people who were married less than six months.  Was their relationship more valid than mine?  I know people who are my age and YOUNGER (I'm 24) who have been married and divorced twice.  More than one of them are on their third marriage.  Are their relationships more valid than mine?  What makes a relationship valid enough to have a child?

The other concern for many of those more "traditional" people is the religious aspect of marriage: the "no pre-marital sex" thing, you know, because it's a sin and all.  But I'd like to argue that God knows me much better than even I know myself; he knows my intentions and he's aware that I plan to spend my life with Rob, ring and a piece of paper or not.

On top of that, God's not going to love me or my children any less just because Rob and I are living together with children out of wedlock.  I refuse to believe that any god would love a person less, especially for such a silly reason.

Yes, Rob and I will get married.  Our target is next summer.  And our daughters will be a part of our wedding.  But I feel no obligation to rush into it, to speed up our date, or do anything of the sort just because our babies are coming a few years earlier than we planned.

I love the father of my children, and we have a stronger relationship than many people I know, married or unmarried.  I plan to marry him, and heck, sometimes I even call him my husband.  But he's just as much my "husband" right now as he will be when we sign the papers and pay the government.

The judgement from others makes me sad and it makes me uncomfortable.  I'm pressured to want to make people happy, and I'm discouraged and easily affected by others' negativity.  But when I think about it, I almost get this "screw you" attitude.  We will be married.  We are a happy family already, and God recognizes our relationship, even if we haven't both signed a paper saying we're legally married.

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As for the article (linked above), the only thing I really have to say that is the direction it took is kind of sad.  "many feel that living together and having a family only gets more complicated—and more expensive—if you get married and end up splitting." This is a really uncomfortable dynamic of our society.  I would not have moved in with Rob if we had any notion of splitting.  That was a commitment we made to each other.  On top of that, if we didn't plan on spending our lives together or had a fear of splitting in the future, we would have taken MANY more precautions to make sure that we didn't have babies.

We aren't choosing not to get married because it gets complicated if you split.  We aren't choosing it because it's hip (the article also mentions celebrities opting out of marriage).  We are just content right now.  We will get married and we will spend our lives together.  But these babies don't mean we have to rush it.  In fact, that seems less responsible to me than just waiting.

You can picture it in these two ways:

SITUATION A: "Rain, Rogue, we DID have this beautiful wedding planned in the woods with all our friends and family, but we decided instead to pay a courthouse 2 months before you came so that we'd be married when you were born."

SITUATION B:  "Rain, Rogue, look at these beautiful photos of you at our wedding when you were 7 months old!  We were so happy that you got to be a part of mommy and daddy's wedding!"

I definitely prefer situation B.  Sorry mom.  Sorry grandma.  We'll get married next summer, with our out-of-wedlock babies in tow.