There has recently been a huge uproar surrounding No Wedding, No Womb, a movement started by a single mother who wants to end the supposed destruction of the Black family. But while I am not a supporter of #NWNW, I do see where the premise could be something positive in the community (before all of the name-calling and epithets that made it a comical event at best). But as women put off marriage for their careers and other “obligations”, how long is too long for cohabiting? When is it time to get married?
This was also brought to my attention during Bravo’s Flipping Out. In the reality series, Jeff Lewis’s sister-in-law assistant said that she had ben living with her beau for ten years and had not gotten engaged. 10 years?! How long does it take before there should be a marital commitment on the part of the relationship? In my opinion, 10 years is way too long.
There are those who do not believe that living together is right before marriage. But I think that the water should be tested before you tie the knot. Tested. But not ran into the ground. Ten years living together and no sign of commitment from a man is a sign that it isn’t going to happen.
Now true enough, at the end of the Flipping Out episode, the assistant was proposed to. But this is television, however, so who knows what role that played in him popping the question?
I think there should be a time limit in place to make sure you cohabitation does not become a common law situation. I think a year of living together is long enough to know if you want to truly spend your life with someone. Anything over that is, pardon the cliche, getting the milk for free.
Before I was married, my husband and I lived together for two years. We were engaged one year of that two years, and that was even stretching it.
Susan Sarandon, who had an “un-married relationship” with actor Tim Robbins for 20 plus years, went on the record saying: “I thought that if you didn’t get married you wouldn’t take each other for granted as easily,” she told the Telegraph. “I don’t know if after twentysomething years that was still true. You bring people into your life at certain times. Maybe you have a relationship to have children and you realize that it’s fulfilled after that point.”
Blah, blah, blah. After 20 years, he just wasn’t that into you, Boo!
I am so over No Wedding No Womb but the premise of women allowing men to have the trappings of marriage without marriage is played.
Speak on it….
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