1. Because not-married doesn’t mean all alone.
Being not-married doesn’t mean you’re alone. It means you’re living your life with friends, lovers, sisters, brothers, neighbors and co-workers. You’re just not living with a spouse. Maybe you opt for no romantic partner at all. Instead you connect with friends, go on road trips, work for social causes, etc. You don’t need to be married to have all the things marriage is supposed to give you — a life rich with experience and intimacy.
2. Because love is a mystery…
And marriage, by definition, is a contract, plain and simple. I neither want nor need my love defined in business or legal terms. The beauty of love is that it’s undefined to begin with — and always changing.
3. Because real security comes from being known for who you are and cared for no matter what.
Upsetting stuff in life happens, and marriage doesn’t stop it. Security, on the other hand, makes those rough times endurable. I get mine from my children, I get it from my partner... I get it from my best friend... Feeling known and adored by the people around you — be they lovers or co-workers or chums — provides the greatest security of all. And you don’t need a spouse to rely on it.
4. Because you can still have the ring.
After my boyfriend and I had been together five years, I found myself yearning for something surprisingly traditional: a tangible symbol of our connection, something I could have with me at all times, something I could touch. I shyly announced I’d like a ring, and he went out and found me a beauty. It looks like fairies made it from twigs and moonlight: tiny and bumpy with little specks that wink in the sun.
5. Because you can break up.
My boyfriend and I have been together 10 years now, and whenever we’ve hit an especially rocky patch (as all couples do) it’s been a relief to know there’s nothing holding us together except our desire to make it work. We’re at liberty to break up in an instant if things become unbearable. What sweet, paradoxically empowering knowledge this is! During our saddest, ugliest, most hopeless moments, I have taken comfort in this fact, which has given me the willingness to re-dedicate myself to us.
6. Because you can always get married next year. Or the next. Or the year after that.
My boyfriend and I haven’t ruled out getting married someday. We remain open to the possibility. In a way, that’s the whole point: remaining open. Both in our attitude toward marriage and in our relationship itself... It doesn’t matter whether you’re in a long-term relationship, grieving the end of one, just starting a new romance or contentedly flying solo: none of us knows what the future will hold. And so we let ourselves move forward into it, clear-eyed about the limits of our certainty and invigorated by the adventure.