Why I'm Never Getting Married

So I’ve finally figured out the main reason why I need not ever get married. It came to me in the form of a question that someone posed on Facebook. The question was…

…after you get married, who should be the most important person in your life: your mother or your spouse?

The one disclaimer is that the question assumes you have no children yet.

I’m going to say this as clearly as possible: no one - and I mean no one - will ever come before my mother. That will not happen. My father is second, and I’m third…but no one will beat my mom out in that category.

She’s been with me through everything that I haven’t gone through alone (relationship issues mainly fit into that category). That kind of loyalty gets discarded for no one.

One of the things I imagine you do when you get married is trade the support system of your parents for that of your spouse (at least in a primary nature). There is no chance of that happening - really, with either of my parents. Obviously, there are two sides to this.

The first is that my parents have been, and continue to be, so supportive of me. I haven’t needed their financial support, but they provide it voluntarily sometimes. They also provide the only real stability I have in my life, and stability is important to us Cancers. Most everything I know to be true and comfortable in life revolves around 2200. I think that’s part of why I don’t want my parents to move or sell the house, but that’s another story.

The second is that I have never met anyone who halfway interested in me whose support system would be anything but a huge downgrade from that which my parents have provided. It’s in much the same vein as the woman saying that she’ll never accept a man who treats her with any less care and concern that her father does (an idea I obviously support).

I guess a “2B” is that I don’t feel anyone will ever think highly enough of me to warrant me giving them a sufficient support system. I’m very reciprocal in my romantic endeavors. Matter of fact, I’ll spell this out. At first I am the rose-colored compliment-giving fool. Even women that I wasn’t interested in can co-sign that. After a certain amount of time - probably two weeks - the way I treat a woman can be best described as “slightly better than the way I believe she treats me”.

The problem with that? There’s always (been) a downgrade. It’s not even about getting used to someone. It’s just that I fail to see the point in being on the wrong side of an imbalanced situation, since I know that will do nothing but upset me. Sooner or later, I will feel like a fool for putting forth 100% effort and putting up with 50…and when that happens, breaking things off is often the path of least resistance (not that I ever follow it).

At any rate, no one is ever going to make themselves important enough for me to marry them and no one will ever consider me important enough to marry - and I have too much respect for myself and the institution of marriage (no, not in a DoMA way) to consider any other alternative.