LITTLE ROCK — DEAR CAROLYN: I have been with my boyfriend for 2 1/2 years, living together for one. Things have been really great, and while a lot of our friends have been getting married, we have managed to keep out of the “timeline” craziness. Our approach has been “Things are great, so what’s the rush?”
But my feelings are starting to change. It’s not that I suddenly feel I want to be married, it is more that I suddenly feel the need to decide about getting married - in general and to him. I feel I don’t want to “waste our time” if there is some objective way to determine if we will work out in the long run.
Rationally, I know there is no way to guarantee this 100 percent, but I am putting our relationship under a microscope, trying to find a 100 percent type of answer. I want a guarantee that he and I won’t end up yelling at each other about who needed to get the milk (as some married friends recently did in themiddle of a dinner party).
I want a guarantee that we won’t take our stresses out on each other forever (as we have been lately, with my career change and his adjustment to our new city, far from his friends and family). I’m sorry this is rambling. I’m scared. And my boyfriend, by the way, frequently tells me (happily and proudly) he is not scared - he is content and committed for the long haul. Is there something wrong with me that I can’t just relax?
- Boston
DEAR READER: It’s great that you recognize herd behavior (marriage duringthe magic window of age-appropriateness), and see other people’s meltdowns as lessons you can apply at home. But then you hit a wall.
That’s because studying your relationship won’t reveal guarantees - for example, that you won’t take your stresses out on each other forever. You need to put yourself under that microscope, to make sure you manage your stress well and refuse, compassionately and firmly, to be the dumping ground for someone else’s stress.
Likewise, your home life with your boyfriend won’t tell you whether you’re destined to yell over milk. Your ability to articulate what matters to you, and speakup when you feel wronged, is what will keep your hard feelings from mutating into snippy competitive rage. People who feel understood and appreciated don’t argue their marital cases before a jury of their peers.
To see where you might have room to grow, look at your recurring fights, and challenge the assumptions you bring to them. Challenge, too, the value of staying with someone knowing you won’t budge for your reasons, and he won’t budge for his. Are you strong enough to make peace or break up, or will you fight till the lawyers step in, needing only to win?
It’s essential to have compatibility, sexual chemistry,mutual goals - but they’re easy to spot. Spotting your dysfunction takes the kind of maturity that successful marriage demands.
Once you’ve organized your emotional basement, then look to your boyfriend - see if he responds well to your limits, your honesty, your intractable flaws, and you to his. See if the maturity is mutual. See if he offers an emotional place where you’d feel lucky to live.
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Weekend, Pages 35 on 10/28/2010