Confusing but candid post

This is one of those topics which I find complicated to tease out in my mind.  However, in terms of marriage it is extremely important, so I definitely want to make every effort to understand.  It might well be the most important post I will ever write on here regarding my own attitude to marriage.

Because it is a little complicated, as always I have a little trouble in knowing where to start.
So I’ll start here.
I was just reflecting on it a little earlier today, and I realised that I don’t find marriage compelling in and of itself. Looking back, I don’t know whether I have ever found marriage compelling in and of itself.

Before I go any further, let me talk about why I do not find marriage itself compelling.
I will list out the different things that marriage provides and/or the reasons why people might find it compelling, and why each of those things fails to work for me!

Things that marriage/a man might provide

Money/financial stability:
Actually I am working hard to have my own money

Children:
I am not particularly broody and never have been.  Actually I utterly adore children, and I always have done. However, I also grew up looking after children and babysitting so I have never been remotely deceived by the supposed romanticism of having children.  Children are adorable, but they are also a lot of hard work.  Furthermore, the actual process of giving birth seems like sheer hell.  In my recent readings, there was one storyline that went like this, (of an ebook that I did not actually read):  A sworn spinster witnessed someone giving birth, then decided that actually she did need to get married, so that she could experience that “miracle” for herself.  And I laughed to myself and thought: “Yeah, that would never happen!”  In fact, in my cultural background, when someone is having a baby, they do not allow another woman to attend the birth unless the other woman has herself previously given birth.  Because otherwise, as a childless woman watching someone else give birth, it would likely put her off from having children, perhaps forever. Because let’s face it, the act of giving birth is deeply traumatic.  Even merely watching it would make me feel traumatised.

Furthermore, I have of late been reading lots of forums on the website “Reddit”.  I accidentally stumbled upon one forum specifically dedicated to people who regret having children.  Actually, this is a topic about which I have noticed an increasing number of posts in the last few years. In short, many people, many women, regret having children.  Many women find it overwhelming to look after their families. A large part of that seems to be that many of their spouses seem to be irresponsible or inconsiderate. Another aspect of it is that community spirit seems to be largely eroded in our own days, that same community spirit which would have greatly helped our own parents back when we ourselves were children.  And/or childminding is a lot more expensive, which our parents often enjoyed for free. So on this Reddit forum, people essentially cry with regret through their written words.  They will overwhelming say, or affirm, that they love their children.  However, with that, they apparently still regret having them.  In some cases, the circumstances were wrong.  In other cases, it sounds like they would go back, if they could, and ensure that they would not have children altogether. Ever. Wow.
So no, from considering my own attitude, and from considering the honest experience of other people, the thought of children is not compelling to me.  I am not saying that I don’t want them for myself at all, I am saying that they are not the be-all and end-all of my life.

Friendship? Companionship?  Other things?
This is a little bit tricky, because I do find these things compelling, in fact, deeply compelling. However, they do not need to be provided within the context of marriage!

Character?  I have spoken endlessly on this blog about character. And I stand by everything I have said.
However, I was reflecting on it today that even if there was a man who had all the most amazing character imaginable, that would not make me want to marry him. Really.  Actually, wait, I was also reflecting that I cannot categorically say this, because I have never actually seen it.  Who knows, if I were to actually see it, I might find myself really compelled that I had to be with him – but I don’t think so.  So say that there was someone literally glowing with holiness, radiating kindness, truth, sincerity, integrity, it is not that those things would not move me, because they would! It is just that I would not automatically equate those things with marriage. I would definitely want such a man to be deeply involved in my own life.
Ultimately though, no matter how lovely he is I would rather keep him as a friend, so that I could carry on living my own life, and not having to submit to anyone.

All the positive things that a wonderful man could provide in marriage have to be weighed against the need to have to make space for someone else to take up lots of room in my life, and also the need to submit to him, and on balance I would always prefer to live my own life and make my own decisions.

Let me tell you a little about the Christian community I grew up in:  basically, it was full of lovely people treating one another in a lovely way. So we were all there for one another, we all helped one another out, we all loved one another sacrificially.  Reflecting on it earlier, I realised that this is one of the reasons why I have been so burned in different churches.  I would go to a church, and take my sacrificial community-heartedness with me, and I would find there people who were all too ready to take advantage of my efforts towards them, while giving nothing back in return.  And it is because of this that I have been forced to realise that not everyone in church has the same community-heartedness as I do, and I have had to learn to say “No”, rather than “Yes” as my default to other people’s requests. The community I grew up in seemed to be all about love and other expressions of Christlike character.  The churches I have been to for the last 16 or so years have definitely not been like that – she scoffs. (Some people are undoubtedly lovely, but it was not like people were giving their utmost to be like Jesus. In fact, I would say that most people, including pastors are absolutely normal. So you would meet exactly the same expressions of character in church as outside it, which is not a good thing.) So at earlier points of my life prior to the last 16 years, when church people truly represented something lovely, on the whole, when I did meet lovely guys who showed me kind and sacrificial love, I did not think: “Ooh marriage!” What I  thought was – absolutely nothing. I simply took it for granted that this is how things should be and would be. I could have a million such friends without the need to romanticise – or marry – any of them.

The only reason why I would marry someone because he is outstanding is to have closer or exclusive access to his kindness or all-round great character.  But that is assuming that such a person is highly unusual. If church community looks like it should, full of lovely people all dazzling in their character, then I do not need to have particular access to any one individual person’s outstanding character, because I would have access to everyone’s character.  If my garden was full of roses then I would not need to fixate on any one particular rose, would I?  Even if each rose was snipped off and carried off to be planted in someone else’s garden (to symbolise each man getting married), then the perfume that each rose leaves behind would still linger in the air, wouldn’t it, especially if it is only in the garden next door. (I have to work on this analogy a little – how naughty of me to use floral imagery to represent men!!!  I’m sure that there is a more manly analogy that I can think of.  However I’m feeling just a little contrary just now, and it also humorously subverts the passivity that is tacitly ascribed to women, when we are so often described as beautiful blossoms patiently waiting to be plucked. Yeah, I’m the one going to be doing the plucking around here – baby!!!  (She whips out her ever-handy list of essential criteria.) Oh very well, if that annoys you Mr Grumpy Head then let’s mutually pluck (select) one another!!!)  The only reason I would fixate on one particular rose is if there were no other roses to be seen, or available to be grown.  Looking back there were some lovely “roses” that I came across when I was younger, but old enough to start thinking about marriage. However, I did not think anything about it because I just assumed that my whole future was going to be similarly full of lovely roses, so what was the big deal?!  That clearly turned out to be a very wrong assumption!

So what I am trying to say is this: that as lovely as beautiful character is, that does not compel me in and of itself to marriage, as it is possible to benefit from this lovely character without having to tie myself into marriage.

So what do I find compelling about marriage?  That would be something that I find inherently compelling AND can only be accessed in marriage. And interestingly, there is something that ticks those boxes.  What could this be?! Deep emotional intimacy and physical attraction.

Having acknowledged that, I’ve realised that this is why my whole thinking about marriage is confused. I have sat here writing these posts, and I have worked out at length the criteria that would make a man marriageable. And all these criteria are correct, by the way.  Relentless pursuit of Christlike character is absolutely what you need to insist on for your spouse.  And yet, if a man showed up “only” with Christlike character, that in itself would not make me want to marry him.  Writing this post, I’ve realised that “the question of Christlike character” is a way of evaluating someone that I am already attracted to. But then that complicates things.  Because if I am already attracted to him, then that is already lurking there in my mind while I am evaluating him for the course of two years. From experience, I know that if there is strong attraction, then I struggle to honestly evaluate someone.

What I am trying to say is this: that strong Christlike character truly has to be paramount in a spouse. That is what would make the marriage actually succeed. However, as amazing as that is, I don’t genuinely find that enough to marry by itself. What my heart truly yearns for,  let’s be candid, is deep emotional intimacy and physical attraction.

Proviso:  I have not actually experienced this,  that is, a man who is that deep in Christlikeness. So I cannot categorically say for sure that I would not find him compelling enough to marry. Perhaps if I were to find such a man, I would indeed find him utterly compelling to marry simply by virtue of his character. So at the moment I feel as if I am arguing about a theoretical possibility of a man with Christlike character, versus the reality of my own feelings.

So what could be the solution to this then?  Perhaps, if I were to start with a man I found attractive, it is about acknowledging the reality of attraction, then trying to put that to one side while I evaluate him.  This might indeed be contrary, but if he is so attractive that I cannot evaluate him then I might need to walk away altogether. Conversely, if someone does not immediately appear to be compellingly attractive, in my life that has never changed; it has never yet happened that I have grown to become attracted to someone if that was not there from the beginning. So it tends to be that I find someone attractive to start with.  All the same, I could still evaluate him. Say someone actually passes the test of striving to be Christlike. In theory, any Christian should be able to pass this test. In practice, no-one does.  But let’s say that we’ve actually found someone who does pass. Then maybe we could start finding out whether we could actually be on the same romantic wavelength.

So another way to express the confusion: what I really want is one thing. However, I have to throw out or ignore the guys who offer this thing, and I have to concentrate instead on the guys who offer something else entirely, without even being sure that they will eventually offer what I do want…