k r i s a n d r o

As I approach the dreaded big 30, the topic of marriage always lurk around corners. There will be friends of similar age who are getting hitched and are waiting for their HDB to be ready within the next few years. There are those who are already married with a kid or even two. And then there is the girlfriend like mine who is just waiting for me to pop the question.

The thing about marriage is…… I don’t believe in it if it’s about love.

I always have big notions about love and relationships and it might seem contradicting to my view above but I think marriage is one of the worst things that can be done for most people in love. It makes leaving each other harder if the love is gone.

“The root cause of divorce is …… marriage” - heard over the radio

In many ways, doesn’t it ring true? A marriage is a contract. If two are in love, why is there a need for a contract to bind them together? If one cheated on the other and decided to stay together because of a contract, is it love? If you know of an old couple who has been married for the last 50 years, would you think that they truly love each other? If you know of an old couple who stayed together for the last 50 years without marriage, wouldn’t you think that the latter couple is DEFINITELY much more in love than the former?

If you love someone, you just do; you don’t need to be legally bound to remind you that you should love him/her do you? Marriage is an administrative procedure that allows a couple to do many things legally but does nothing really good for the relationship in the love department. Some might say the marriage protects the woman. When the relationship turns south, the woman is helped legally in many ways. I say, unless the woman is a money grubbing one, she loses more than she gains from a divorce.

Divorce and the social ramifications that stem from it makes it troublesome and difficult to go through.

My point is that marriage is not the ultimate nor the final thing one can do for love. Marriage and love are mutually exclusive. Love can exist without marriage and marriage can be kept without love.

If you want to know if a person is available, don’t ask if he/she is married. Ask if he/she is in love.

I love KuKuNehNeh, and thus I shall comfort her, honour and keep her in sickness and in health and forsaking all others, be faithful to her, so long as I shall live. Sounds familiar? It’s an adaptation of a version of wedding vows that one will take in Singapore and it’s ALREADY true for me. Note that I love her and thus I am/will do all that follows (comfort, honour, faithful….). If I am already doing all that without marriage, why do I have to marry her, take vows of love, promise of eternal faithfulness and care when it can all end with divorce.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ll marry my dear KuKuNehNeh in the not so distant future. In fact, I’ve been constantly thinking of ways to propose to her for the last year and more. I know she’ll say ‘yes’ of course but my motive is to make her cry buckets with the proposal. So why do I want to marry her when I don’t believe in marriage?

I’ll marry her not because I love her. I’ll marry her because of all the advantages that society only gives to those who are legally bound by marriage; kids, housing and all. Sounds shallow doesn’t it? But if you really think into what I said, KuKuNehNeh is a very lucky woman because I love her and already treat her as well as a husband should.

Now, to save up for the money sucking activities that society demands for a piece of paper.

Almost every relationship is conditional, even the strongest ones fall prey to conditions; parents and their children, wives and their husbands, and even more so for fragile friendships.

As much as we like to walk the moral high ground and say “No matter what happens, he/she is my mother/father/child/wife/husband/friend and he/she will always stay so.”, the truth is that most of the time, it isn’t true. We are all human and we all want to be treated the same as much as we treat others. We bear grudges and we desperately hide them in the depths of our minds but the grudges never fail to rear their ugly heads in times of uncertainty and stress in the relationships.

It’s interesting to see the mechanics of relationships in a group of close friends. And the conditions of such a group and the direction that the group takes are usually set by one or two influencers in the group or by a majority. And in order to stay within the group, one has to agree or at least be neutral about it to be able to stay within the group. And more often than not, the followers within the group unknowingly have the sheep mentality and follow the general consciousness of the group in order to stay within the circle. It’s laughable but it’s a survival instinct. Stick together or be alone. We are all guilty of it at some point in our lives.

Lucky are those relationships that survive despite conditions and even luckier are those relationships that crumble due to conditions. Why so? Those that do crumble weren’t worth keeping anyway and it’s best to realize it sooner so that the time can be spent on those that really matter.