I just wanna know when it's the right time to get married...when you know you've met the right person.

That is, if you want to get married in the first place.

I guess it's all just gut instinct...right?

You're not gonna like this, but it's not even gut instinct. Your gut lies to you all the time. Look at all those people getting divorced! You think they all went against what every fiber of their body was telling them to do? Not a chance.
The basic problem with marriage that I see is marriage is proposed and entered into during the initial 2 year phase where you are 'in love'. This 'in love'-ness could be anything, or a wild combination - happy you finally found someone who can tolerate you, fear of being alone again, wild lust, happy you're not lonely, feeling like you've acheived some social status by having an 'other'...who knows?? After the desperation/crazed fucking/'love'-ly feelings are gone, what is next? Oppressive life, time to think about what you've done, temptations in the way of other women...or worse, kids, which makes the work of a marriage increase exponentially. Now you're not dealing with a couple kids in love, but two people trying to be adults, trying not to be a statistic - or, worse, becoming accepting, then resigned, then bitter about their life choices. The initial gut instinct - all those suckers saying "I KNOW they're the one for me, so shut up" - is long gone.

Nope, it's luck. It's sheer fucking luck. On Saturday my wife and I are celebrating our 13th anniversary of being married. We've had crazy-ass pitfalls, some worse than 'average' couples but we got through them. But our marriage was almost doomed to fail from the start, and everyone told us so. It's not that we knew this from the beginning, either. It just so happened that when the chips came down and the new sheen wore thin we still liked being around each other, found ourselves compatible as living partners, and are happy with the marriage. I've watched other much more solid, less troublesome marriages of my friends and family collapse around me all the time, and that's what I've come up with - luck.

The alternative is to live together for 10 years. If you can still tolerate the sight of each other, get married.

M_a_x wrote:

The alternative is to live together for 10 years. If you can still tolerate the sight of each other, get married.

or get married and not live together, just for the tax bennies

As far as I can tell, there is no tax benefit to being married. I think to people filing separately do a bit better. You do get a kickback if you have a kid. I did not take that one for awhile, cause I thought it was wrong, but now I do, and we are giving her the difference in the return from what it would be if we did not claim her as a Dependant.

Johnny 13 wrote:As far as I can tell, there is no tax benefit to being married. I think to people filing separately do a bit better.

Really? The deductions, exemptions, and actual tax rate are different, and it's always seemed to me that I've done a lot better married. (This does not constitute a position on the fairness of any marital tax advantage.)

My wife and I were together for 6 years before marriage and have now been married almost 6 years. The tax benefit is negligible.

bigc wrote:My wife and I were together for 6 years before marriage and have now been married almost 6 years. The tax benefit is negligible.

well that sucks, i kept hearing you got a better rate... i'll check w/ my new accountant before proposing

not crap. first was utter crap with personality disorder from hell. i'm on my second. i can't believe i get to spend my life with this woman. i'm a very lucky man.

I sometimes daydream about this- should the occasion to get hitched come along-it'd be a costume wedding on Halloween.

That being said...never happen. Feel free to take this idea if it interests you.

Institutionalized monogamy? Pass, thanks. And to you married men I say Come on man, stop bogarting those vaginas.

Thing is, my parents are still together. People say, "oh...you're one of the lucky ones." Rrright...I was gonna go into it but decided not to.

Still, I like going to friends' weddings, mainly just to drink.

And I like the Descendents song.

But the institution itself can eat a bag of dicks.