I've been living with my sister in the family home for the last six months. The same male-female differences and conflicts come up, but they don't have the intensity that they seem to develop within a romantic relationship.
Institutions that confer benefits like health care and visas for someone I love sound okay.
I often used to daydream about living in a big house with four or five of my friends, two of whom are single moms. The flaw in this plan seems to be that all but one of the women involved now have significant others with whom they want to set up house, including, possibly, me. That is, the problem is the pull of the conventional for everyone involved.
I mean, come on, isn't that what breaks up Madonna and Rupert Everett in The Next Best Thing?
The unfortunate effect being that Tiatine will never shake the "hippie" label among classmates. But it worked out well enough for Nicole, at times to hilarious and/or heartwarming ends.
Am I the only one now humming Fine Young Cannibals? Yes? Okay. I will now have to see if they're on iTunes.
I don't know about your situation. In general I think the most fruitful course is a marriage with explicit understandings, made on the basis of mature knowledge, which address your concerns about divorce, infidelities, responsibilities and so on. A kind of moral prenuptial agreement; a partnership agreement, if you will.
I'm in a happy marriage, but one defined by conventional implicit understandings on all of these issues. In general I admire people who address these issues prospectively. You sound like a good candidate to me.
Mind you, many people are disturbed by the idea of conventional pre-nuptial agreements between young first-time marrieds. And those are only about property, as a rule. The more mature and experienced you are, I would say the better your chances of making it work.
I'm humming that "you can count on me" song
I'm humming that "you can count on me" song
Me too, now. Fuckin text.
(You're talking about the Barney song with that lyric, right? Because I am.)
I don't think it's impossible to have a happy marriage, or that you can't work out, but there are certain kinds of anger that build up around sex and also around the gender gulf that can degrade a romantic relationship in ways that friendships would be immune to. There are other kinds of anger that would arise from any domestic arrangement, but I think the relationship would have higher odds of being resilient and lasting.
I think text was talking about the "My Two Dads" theme song.
Living with a friend would afford us more sexual freedom
But is sexual freedom really that important? It could be for you but that's something I'd be willing to trade for never having to go on a bad date again.
It probably evens out--if you love someone, you can be far more tolerant of their foibles. And don't you think one of the reasons friendships work is that there's a limited amount of pressure on them?
11: being married and faithful does not preclude the possibility of a bad date.
I was thinking of “Like a Stranger,” which, as this review notes, “incongruously ends with a female chorus shrieking ‘You've been too long in an institution!’”
I think it's almost always a mistake to underestimate the power of conformism to undo perfectly rational arrangements like the one you suggest.
8: At least give me an assist for 7. And this is the response you're looking for.
And don't you think one of the reasons friendships work is that there's a limited amount of pressure on them?
Yeah, I just happen to have one relationship I don't think that's true of. It strikes me as being as strong and resilient, especially if I invested a lot of domestic commitment in it, as any romantic connection, and probably more so because of the sexual anger thing. But no other friendly relationship I have could possibly work.
But is sexual freedom really that important? It could be for you but that's something I'd be willing to trade for never having to go on a bad date again.
I want a stable home with someone I'll be with my whole life who will help me raise kids. If I could have all that and be able to end a relationship when I felt like it, that would be cool.
I love the idea, Tia. A girlfriend and I have decided that when we're old, we're going to live together, probably with a few other girlfriends.
The problem with marriage, of course, is that no matter how progressive you try to be with it it inevitably comes with a bunch of baggage that's hard to completely ignore. I recently had a conversation with, I think, a blog reader about the way that, on getting married, suddenly we cared about shit like housecleaning that simply hadn't been an issue before. And then of course there are the in-laws and the friends who will raise their eyebrows if you do unusual things (like live apart for a while for career reasons, say), and dealing with that kind of stuff takes a toll, too. I think the biggest problem, though, is the expectation (which I for one haven't gotten rid of) that in addition to being committed and fair and all that, you're also supposed to somehow be responsible for your partner's happiness--so that if said partner is unhappy about something, even if it's something that's not your fault or your creation, you feel responsible, somehow, for fixing it. With friends, it is easier to be supportive but to still maintain a kind of healthy detatched recognition that this is their issue, not yours. Sex is, I think, a major manifestation of this: if spouse A just isn't interested in sex for whatever reason (childbirth, stress, depression, career, etc. etc.), then spouse B, if not having the same issues, is going to feel neglected within the marriage even if, I suspect, spouse B is allowed to go elsewhere (and then of course that introduces problems like conflicting coupling desires and so on). And even if neither partner is much into teh sex for a while, I suspect that I, at least, would "worry" that this signalled some underlying "problem" that I would have to figure out.
Coupling up is great. Committment is great. The legal benefits of marriage are great. But yes, I often wonder if marriage, as institution, is inherently flawed.
I read an item recently about data comparing single-parent homes with two-parent homes featuring one nonbiological parent, and the counterintuitive conclusions would apply to this discussion, if I could recall them or find the link.
Grrr...I totally remember reading the post/article I think you're talking about, Armsmasher, and I can't remember where it was. I am very disappointed in my back pocket right now.
I don't know; I kind of like my friends more when I don't have to be with them all the time, and I tend to choose roommates with whom I'm not great friends (cordial, friendly, but often nearly strangers) rather than best buddies.
I think I'd get annoyed living with anyone for long periods of time, though, but at least if you're married/dating them you can have sex with them, which I hope would stave off the annoyance.
have sex with them, which I hope would stave off the annoyance
Nope. It just becomes a new arena for exercising your passive-aggressive muscles.
Apostropher, as always, your back pocket is the best.
My memory of a recent counter-intuitive result of the type you describe is that a two-adult household is looks very much like a single parent household if the two adults are not both bio-parents: adding a step-parent to a single parent household doesn't change outcomes.
But I don't know where I saw this or if I'm reporting it accurately.
I don't know; I kind of like my friends more when I don't have to be with them all the time, and I tend to choose roommates with whom I'm not great friends (cordial, friendly, but often nearly strangers) rather than best buddies.
Of course, it depends on the relationships you tend to have. I shared a bedroom with Clementine for a year in 2004-2005 and it went swimmingly; we have just the kind of relationship to make this work.
I guess you didn't have to see anybody interacting with her vagina, then?
I mean, come on, isn't that what breaks up Madonna and Rupert Everett in The Next Best Thing?
Oh, Lord. That fucking movie. I'd forgotten it existed, but now that you've evoked its memory I'm ready to drive around forcing people at gunpoint into repressive, stereotypically 1950s-ish loveless marriages, simply to spite the people involved with producing that film. What a piece of crap.
That is true. I suspect at heart, I'm very asocial. I have to remind myself to bother with friendship. For me, the ideal roommate is one who I can have fun with, and be supportive, and all that, but generally does her own thing and doesn't worry about mine, and I wouldn't want to raise children with someone I wasn't all that attached to.
I once accidentally saw her boyfriend naked, but no vaginal interaction was involved.
I've lived with my randomly assigned roommate for six years, and we became very close friends within the first two years, even forming a kind of partnership on social occasions. However!
In the past couple of years, we've drifted apart, largely because we have a conflict of interest over some apartment-related stuff. We just don't have a sufficient motive to do the difficult compromising that our conflict entails. It's so much easier to one of us to leave---and for now, we're taking turns: she's spending this year abroad, and I'm going to move out for good in a couple months.
The emotional spirals that the conflict of interest led into might be similar to those one gets into with a marriage. Wait, this is a more long-winded way of putting Kotsko's 15.
I've had this thought about co-op living -- developing a household as a boardinghouse full of friends. It seems as if it would be compatible with both coupled and single parenting rather nicely, if you could collect a good group of people.
33: Out of context, that's pretty funny.
33: Out of context, that's pretty funny.
As is 25.
Re 35: That may resolve a lot of babysitting issues, or you could be subjecting the young'uns to a houseful of indulgent uncles buying them cigarettes, etc. You'd practically need a child-rearing constitution. And lots of bathrooms.
35/39 -- it's been tried, without promising results.
The oddest thing about that article was the lack of reference to the possibility of interracial marriage.
whoa, i'm in such the minority here with the subtext of your comments. i think of sex as something that *defuses* anger and solves bad situations with a lover, not creates them. so it can be easier to resolve fights in such a way that no grudges are left over with a lover than with a friend. incl. in long-term relationships.
um, the married people with children do not agree??
tia, the kind of thing you're describing used to be pretty well-known, for spinsters at least, and was called a boston marriage.
I totally can't have sex when I'm mad. Ever.
42: I thought a boston marriage included lesbian sex.
I agree that with us, tensions have to be resolved first, and not immediately before, either. Trying to go ahead when we're not at peace never works out.
Does "never works out" mean "someone gets their ass kicked"? Because that's what would pretty much happen in this house, I suspect.
While I'd agree with 45-47, the prospect of not getting laid can be a powerful force for defusing an argument. It throws the question of "how badly do I really want to win this one" into sharp relief.
44: no, no, not necessarily. it was a 19th c. institution, usually very affectionate, but not necessarily sexual at all. it was at the time a way for women to leave their parents' houses without having to get married, and have a little freedom of their own.
(if they were under a certain age, it would have been scandalous for them to live alone, and also would not work out with a lot of economic & practical customs of the time. this way they had company and independence).
45-48: huh. interesting. i wouldn't touch a ragingly angry person, no, but sometimes non-verbal communication is so much better than talking. maybe it has to do with not wanting/being able to put certain things in words. having no word-equivalent.
I walked in this morning and saw "Who wants to be in an Institution?" on the recent comments list; and I thought, is that Regis' new game show?
This is kind of the arrangement my husband and I have. I mean, we *are* married, but it was kind of an accident (can't explain); we have other folks for sex partners (who often take a while to adjust to our situation) and, y'know, we are happy. We realized very early that nothing would ever cause us to fall out with one another to the extent that we'd have to end the marriage. We continue to be each other's best friend, and don't expect it to change. We've passed 20 years and are motoring into the future.
Older (aka Mrs. Nice Guy) and I are probably not a good example, though, because we do have an unusual sort of relationship. Maybe what's worked for us for so long wouldn't work for most people. But it does, in fact, work for us.