The complexity of human relationships never ceases to amaze me.
What's even more stunning is why do people subscribe to modes of relationships which have proven not to work on more than a few occasions.
Isn't that insanity?
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I love to ask newly-wedded couples about their newly-inked marriage.
"So how? Now that you are married?
Any difference?"
And the answer is most often than not,
"No difference leh..."
This triggers a huge silent debate in my brain whilst the subjects sit a few metres away, sipping on their beverages.
- "No difference? Then go through all that hassle for what?"
- "Maybe they feel the difference, but dunno how to verbalise it?"
- "Maybe the difference is intimate and they dun wanna talk about it"
- "Maybe they are trying to adjust with some teething problems."
- "Maybe they are trying to cut this conversation short coz Blinkymummy is a kaypoh with a blog."
- "Maybe... there really isn't any difference?!"
I dunno about these couples...
But there is certainly a huge difference before and after 'Good Fren' and I started staying together.
EMOTIONAL DIFFERENCEWe now have more time and space to work out our differences and get ourselves in-sync with each other.
This is a huge step, and enormous amount of effort/energy/patience is required.
PRACTICAL DIFFERENCEAlso, staying together eliminates the need to go home separately after dinner!
I hated that feeling of having to meet up in a hurry after work, spend some time by having dinner together, then rush home to shower and sleep in preparation for the next working day.
Dating is really tiring.
I think the above is more than enough to demonstrate that getting together ought to make a difference.
May not be a long list of differences... Just a couple of significant ones will suffice.
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Eh... What ever happened to the Gay Debate?
Everyone went off for XMAS or something?
Have been reading up on the difference between (A)
Marriage and (B)
Registered Partnership.
The Scandinavian countries are over-represented in the list of countries/states which have adopted (B).
So what exactly is the difference between (A) and (B)?
A netizen summarises the difference succinctly as follows:
"Marriage is a religious bond between two people as well as a social contract in the eyes of the law.A civil partnership is just a social contract in the eyes of the law."Immediate reaction to the above statement is:
'Why is a union more real only after it has been witnessed by God, Law and other people?
What happened to the minds/wills of the 2 people involved?'
Another related thought...
If one studies to the fundamentals of a partnership, it ought to be clear that a partnership is the generic umbrella model of 2 people wanting to spend their time together.
This means the traditional 'marriage', which takes into account religion, law and other people's take on the union etc, is actually a
subset of the generic partnership.
What's going on now is that our society (or so says the leaders) is unable to accept the generic partnership, and only accepts a niched form of union, i.e. between man and woman (and a significant portion of time, to be witnessed by God, Law etc).
Think about it.
We reject the generic and insist on only the niche?
It's like ordering Char Kway Teow without Kway Teow.
'Good Fren' says it's more like rejecting plain bread and going for raisin bread. I think not, because in the current situation, they are talking about raisins, and not bread anymore.
While we reject the generic, and insist on the 'better' niche, we ain't doing that well with the latter hor!
In the US, about 1 in 2 marriages ends up in a divorce. In Singapore, I read that it's about 1 in 4 or 5 marriages.
The raisins are obviously not good enough either!Hmmm... Count the no. of wedding dinners you have gone for this year and extrapolate a little using the abovementioned statistic.
Do include your own wedding, if applicable.
Then imagine the union of 2 people as a precious little being.
Using the current definition of 'marriage', it means the little being is getting itself wrapped in layer and layers of gloss, rules and glitter.
So much that one doesn't see the beauty of the precious little being, because too much time is spent on getting the wrappings right, by studying theoretical and precedent wrappings.
Which layer goes first? Is it arranged according to a hierarchy of colours, size of glitter etc? Is this a competition of stringent adherence to the so-called norm? What will other people think/say?
At times, suffocating the little being in the process.
Oh wait... Then after all that rah rah ruckus, some just say...
"No difference leh..."
HUH?!
I dun get it.
Maybe I take this partnership thing too seriously. =_=
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'Good Fren' made a good theoretical point about the US and Singaporean divorce rates.
While it is instinctive to think that divorces = unhappiness, the US ratio of 1 divorce in 2 marriages may mean that there are possibly fewer unhappy couples hanging onto their failed marriages for whatever crazy reasons.
Now... Doesn't that make you wonder whether the Singaporean ratio of 1 divorce in 4-5 marriages is a under-representation of failed marriages.