filed in Happy Ever After
The Marriage Pressure Cooker Survey
A few days ago, I posted about my mother, and her overzealous campaign for me to find a husband. (For the record, in almost all other ways, she was smart, generous and forward thinking.)
Two questions:
1) Do you feel pressure to marry?
2) If yes, does it come from family, peers, work, religion, desire for children, media culture, bridalwear envy or anything else not mentioned?
Please share your story.
Discussion
7 comments for “The Marriage Pressure Cooker Survey”
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I used to feel a lot of pressure to marry. I felt that if I got married, it would be proof that I had finally made something of myself, that there wasn’t anything wrong with me after all. It was internal pressure really . . . this feeling that I needed to somehow prove myself.
But where did I get the feeling that by being married, I would have proven myself? Even if I had an awesome career and lots of money and did lots of good things in the world, I’d still have felt like I hadn’t arrived.
For a woman, even in this day and age, getting married is growing up. Then you’re a woman, not a girl. Only then can you really be taken seriously. Only then will more traditional family members accept the fact that you have sex.
So there is that. I know that I am taken less seriously because I am single. I know that people expect me to eventually settle down and come to my senses.
And maybe I’ll settle down. But I am not going to settle for less.
I felt the pressure to get married in my 20’s, but only because it was the thing you were supposed to grow up and do. Not because I was in love. I’ve never been one to dream of my wedding, the dress, or anything.
I no longer feel that pressure now because I’ve learned to do what makes ME happy. I’m not against marriage, but I’m happy with my single life and feel totoally comfortable if I never get married. Surprising now, my religious mother is pressuring me about grandchildren. Funny how now, marriage is an afterthought to that” “Oh, yeah, well, I want you to get married too…”
I felt pressure from my mom and my dad. I was living with someone and at the time they didn’t approve so i got married in part to please them. Then I got a divorce. If my mother were alive today and she could see the options women have (i.e. – the stigma not so intense on being a “single gal” – I think she would feel some relief that I haven’t remarried.
I have, at one time or another, felt pressure from all those sources, but, as Singlutionary said, the majority of the pressure probably came from myself. For a long time, I really believed that I wouldn’t be happy in life if I didn’t find a man to marry. Also, because I hadn’t found success in other areas of my life, I saw that as one area in which I could be successful; I could land a “catch.”
The turning point came when I took a long, hard look at my life and realized that if I was usually happier by myself than I was when in relationships, chances were I’d be happier on my own than if I married. But it wasn’t until I finally accepted that I had to take responsibility for my own success in life and committed myself fully to achieving it that I felt the pressure really subside.
I still feel the societal push to marry–it’s deeply ingrained in our country’s mores–but the absence of that internal pressure has been a huge weight off my shoulders.
I’ve felt some pressure from my grandmother to marry and have kids. While I’m in college she knows neither is going to happen, but soon after I’m expected to. Then again she got married right after high school, she’s still married to grandpa and has 8 kids, and a multitude of grandchildren and great-grand kids. Some people think that no immediate family of your own means automatic loneliness.
Being Asian and single and in your late twenties will always get you some flack for being unmarried.
The other day, I was at a cousin’s wedding and I found myself suddenly asking other unmarried singles when their turn is which has turned me into the biggest meddling aunt out of all of them all.
Unfortunately, the biggest pressure comes not from meddling aunts, my mother, or general excitable Asian culture, it’s me that’s giving myself grief!
http://thelasthappysinglegirl.blogspot.com
Not sure where people get these ideas from, but marriage is about finding a companion. A friend with home to share life’s journey. Problem the world has become sooo complicated. People have become to selfish to compromise and SHARE LIFE with others. How tragic! When my mom worried about us getting married it was because she wanted us to have a person to share life’s journey with!