What Athenae said after seeing wedding cake toppers with the bride dragging the groom:
God Almighty. Thus ends my lusting after all things Wilton, and buying their baking accoutrements, because fuck them.
I really, really, really loathe the cutesy little cottage industry devoted to maintaining the impression that not only does marriage suck, but it’s okay and actually hilarious that it sucks, and it sucks because Teh Wiminz is always dragging the freedom-loving men into it, in this case by the tuxedo. Fuck that noise. In the first place, dude, you didn’t have to get married. In the second place, your marriage doesn’t have to suck. You can make it not suck, or end the marriage, and thus deal with the problem instead of making funny fucking jokes.
I don’t know why this kind of thing annoys me so much, except for maybe the fact that I fucking love being married, so I sort of have the reaction people have when you say their football team sucks. Mostly, though, I just hate people letting themselves off the hook for stupid shit, pretending misery is unchangeable and inevitable, and trying to make out like it’s marriage’s fault their marriages suck.
I’ve been around people who talk like people who would laugh at this shit, and the undercurrent of desperation is just painful. If you are in a sucky relationship in which one of you is the jailer and the other one’s the guard (not like that, perverts), if you feel dragged to the altar, if you think of yourself as having been coerced into something you didn’t want, IT IS TIME FOR YOU TO LEAVE THE CAKE TOPPER AISLE AND GO GET SOME THERAPY. Possibly a restraining order of some kind. It’s not a joking matter. We have a limited amount of time on this planet. You shouldn’t spend it with someone who is angry and unhappy and punishing, and this shit comes from an angry, unhappy, punishing place.
And this is on top of your wedding cake? This is how you START the marriage? No wonder divorce rates are through the roof.
Actually, I like the togetherness of “marriage”. I mean the institution itself sometimes sucks because the laws surrounding it are prohibitive in this country (see gay/lesbian marriages). In fact, if most of the marriage laws were eliminated altogether, maybe the divorce rate wouldn’t be so damn high and folks could work things out. Hell, relationships of any kind ain’t easy: see most families in the USA; they ain’t all lovey-dovey either, you know. So yeah, marriage without all the fucking prejudices of Anglo-Judeo-Christian Law could be much happier.
Well, Athenae likes marriage, too — obviously. She’s just talking about people who are so very cynical about it from the get-go that they persist in images such as this. I agree — if that’s how you feel, don’t get married! It should mean SOMETHING — other than “someone got pregnant and now I’m trapped.” If you feel trapped, DON’T GET MARRIED. It doesn’t work.
I wish people would spend as much thought, effort and money preparing for the marriage as for the wedding.
When I was a minister I hated participating in weddings, especially the big fancy ones. Of the 30 or 40 wedding I officiated for, I doubt that 5 are still intact. I am a great non-believer in marriage. It only complicates the separations and ends up costing more than the wedding in legal fees.
I’m a romantic. If/when I ever get married again, it will be because I’m head over heels.