marriage

My mother got engaged to my dad when she was just 16 years old. By the time she was married and already a mother. This is only about 26 years ago. And although they lived in India at the time, India was not that different then to the United States. People still had love marriages, went out with their friends on weekends to party and stuff. However, I look at my life now and I realize that 19 is way too young to get married. I beleive in monogamy, if not for the sake of my beleif but if you have children, seperation of parents just tears and demoralizes children. Maybe I see it this way, because my grandparents were married for 51 years before my grandmother passed away. My parents have been married for 27 almost 28 years now. Also everyone around me, though they may not have the most perfect marriage, they find a way to make things work and that is exactly how I want to be....just not yet.

In my last 19 years and 7 months, I have met many guys my age and some even a bit older than me, but I cannot see myself being with any one of them for the rest of my life. I feel marriage is a huge commitment, and something that two people should come together to make successful. However, a marriage can only be successful if people dont get bored of eachother. This is my biggest fear. I fear that not only now, but even down the line in the future, I would spend every single day of life with just one person. When I wake up they will be there, when I go to sleep they will be there. I would have to tell them, what I'm doing, who I am with, how I feel all the time etc etc. Maybe right now I am just too immature to understad this, or maybe I havent fallen in love or met the right guy to see myself making all these commitments to for the rest of my life.

However, my parents marriage was an arranged marriage. It's not like they fell in love and knew from the start that they could spend the rest of their lives with eachother. They took everything how it came. They fought through all the misunderstandings, the confusions, not only for their kids but also because eventually they fell in love with eachother. Maybe things back in their day in India was a little different than what I know of. Perhaps, if I was in my mothers position back in her time I would accept everything just like she did. However, I know for a fact that if someone told me that I was to get to know someone and marry them in the next 2 years and live with them forever, I would not be able to comply with the commitments. Today's day and age has shaped us to beleive that we should be able to chose who we want to be with, and see how marriage can be like. THis is perhaps why "live in relationship" are becoming very popular. They give people a sense of what living with someone would be like, without having the religious, and legal commitment of marriage.