Tying the knot that’s hard to undo

{It’s not in depth, it’s not meant to offend any married people and I have never had a divorce or been married so this is totally from my inexperienced, jumped-up perspective.}

(Plus, a lot of it is still really un-edited because I’m lazy and I should go to bed so you’re just gonna get an idea of how my mind works while I’m standing in a cold off-licence staring at drink I can’t drink)

Marriage counsellors – think about how weird that concept is. Marriage is a completely man-made concept and is unnatural; animals don’t get married, even ones that mate for life, and its unnatural to expect or force someone to stay with you until you die.  Either you work well together or you don’t, or you do for a while and then you don’t, or you do forever, whatever, but it’s okay if you don’t…

But it becomes not okay when you have to involve outside parties such as solicitors and courts and counsellors and money. Your relationship should be a private place really. That’s how I’d want to conduct mine at least.

The idea that people need counselling to help them stay together… counselling or convincing, or bending, or reminding..what’s the difference. Do both partners ever really want to go to those things?  Isn’t one of them usually too gutless to say what they really want so they have to go and sit in front of a stranger who spends an hour stating the obvious at them? “So you have a communication problem, that’s why you’re here” is what it could all be reduced to instead of “he never talks to me” or “she never gives me space.” Surely they need individual therapy to help them understand what they want out of life and to help them or enable them to communicate more openly with their partners about what it is they want, and then see if its compatible or if they want to grow together or compromise, and if not agree that it would be healthier if they went their separate ways for now and maybe come back to each other when they’ve been out and explored themselves as individuals, before they commit to forcing themselves into a partnership where they need a third party to help them talk to each other about what they want out of a relationship and fucking pay them for it.

It seems like divorces mean break ups become even messier than they are on their own and the very fact that divorce and marriage exists in the first place makes splitting up so much harder than it makes sense to; it makes a big deal of it when in actual fact its normal to fall out of love with someone for a myriad of reasons.

You cannot own anyone. You cannot hold onto anyone. We just come into each others lives when we are ready and leave when we are ready, we shouldn’t be made to feel like a criminal for wanting or needing to do that because its a wonderful thing, life is fluid.  The SNAILS.  Patricia Highsmith – the woman who wrote The Talented Mr Ripley (Which is a film I didn’t particularly enjoy to be honest, but I’ve never read the book) used to keep snails in her handbag and take them to parties because they reminded her of “the fluidity and hermaphroditic nature of life” i mean I’m not really going on about gender here but the fluidity thing reminded me of her.. plus i just think this is weird and cool enough to mention.

Anyway, a legally binding relationship, one that isn’t based on business or property or land or possessions, but love. And feelings? And emotions? And the ever changing nature of the self? What an absurd concept! Human beings’ feelings are so unpredictable that you can’t tie yourself to a contract of love or commitment or behaviour and feeling, in the same way that you would to a job or a mortgage, (even those things are volatile) that’s not how life actually works.

It discourages people from being honest. There are plenty of kids who would have a happier home life if their parents could or just would split up and live as separate happy individual parents, with or without new partners and with their own lives. This would show the child how happiness is possible, when you don’t force yourself into a box you can’t crawl out of without breaking all your limbs and other peoples limbs in the process. I know divorce isn’t always that bad but why should it even exist? Because marriage exists, why does that exist?

It’s not that I have a problem with the union of two people… or monogamy, and I’m not saying I think it’s wrong for people to stay together forever and I’ve seen people who met at 15 and are still happy 50 odd years later.  Just the nature of the union.  I haven’t brought bringing religion into this either because that would make it even more complicated, the closest experience I have of marriage is my parents and they didn’t marry before the eyes of God, they ran away and did it in secret with me in tow.

ANYWAY.

You should only promise to love someone for as long as you do and to always be honest about how you feel. There is nothing else required or in my opinion possible for a true relationship. Then little girls wouldn’t grow up with the false idea that someone will come along and look after them forever, or be at your side til you die… so that they can start developing ideas of freedom and individuality and the confidence that they don’t need a relationship to be happy, that they can make themselves happy and pursue their own ideas without guilt or the nagging feeling that surely in order to be complete as a person they need to be in a fucking relationship with a ring on their finger and a 10 year fucking plan.