Today is our anniversary. We’re not married. One of the disadvantages with not marrying is not formally celebrating your relationship, your luuurve. You can create it, but you have to set out to create it, it won’t just happen. We noticed somewhere along the way that we were missing out and we decided to pick an anniversary date. Actually, that was probably me deciding that. He isn’t very good at celebrations and ceremonies, although he agrees that they are important. We picked a particular memory, a special occasion for both of us and we celebrate our anniversary on that date.
This year we celebrated by seeing The Simpsons Movie. (Favourite quote: Mr Burns saying For once the rich white man is in control). We took Lauca with us, she ate enough twisties to pickle a part of her brain in MSG and then she passed out on his lap. He and I exhanged gifts last night and Lauca looked heart-broken to not be part of it, so I snuck off and found something from the Christmas stocking gifts I have stowed away for her.
I’m not dead-set against marriage but the combination of my doubts about the institution and his are enough to prevent us from getting married. For a while there I wanted a ceremony to celebrate us, but then we had a baby and a naming ceremony and that kind of fulfilled that, or so I thought. Recently when we were facing a health crisis I suddenly thought maybe we should be married and I wondered where the hell that came from. It hasn’t come up since.
He can drive me a.b.s.o.l.u.t.e.l.y crazy, he can piss me off no end but I’ll save that for another post, right now I’m thinking good things about him. He wouldn’t call himself a feminist and he’s never made his entire way through a feminist text but here are 10 feminist things I love about him:
- He calls my feminist discussion group my coven, but he does everything he can to make sure I am able to get to them each month.
- He loves vaginas, he doesn’t think they need to be waxed or surgically improved or disguised in deoderant.
- He has only one celebrity crush and that’s Kathleen Hanna; he introduced me to Bikini Kill and Le Tigre.
- In over ten years I have never once caught him perving on another girl.
- He says he could never have a relationship with a non-feminist woman. I don’t believe him because his exes weren’t feminists but, you know, its a nice thought as far as thinking about your partner having a relationship with someone else goes, which isn’t exactly koo-koo-kachoo.
- He doesn’t want his daughter to be Daddy’s Little Princess, he wants to teach her how to do an oil change on a motorbike, how to pick up creepy crawlies without hurting them, and how to light a fire. It must be said that he does go along with her Little Empress routine quite a bit though.
- When the yacht toilet was blocked and we were all playing a waiting game to see who would break first to unblock it, he saw our friend dry heaving in her efforts to confront it and he just went in quietly and took over the dirty task. And even though he got covered in shit in the process, there was no grand-standing about how he was the only male on the yacht and the only one able to handle the toilet unblocking. Not one dig.
- He has never hurt an animal or a child, and he owned a very trying horse.
- He has never tried to justify to me men raping; never, ever, not in any circumstances. He can recognise misogyny and he doesn’t try to excuse it.
- When heavily pregnant and shy about the prospect of labouring in front of him, he got down on all fours and enacted a most embarrassing labour for me. Now, it can’t be as bad as that, he said. And it wasn’t.
Congratulations!
We made up an anniversary based on not clashing with anyone’s birthday or public holidays. It’s roughly the time of year we started going out, but neither of us remember dates. Your way sounds a bit more romantic.
My brother got married on his tenth anniversary, his wife suggested it was hard enough getting him to remember the anniversary of the beginning of their relationship without adding a second date to the mix.
Kathleen Hanna is indeed an attractive lady.
Congratulations.
We got married for six or so years and then divorced before living together for the past five years. We don’t celebrate our wedding anniversary – seems a bit redundant – but we do acknowledge the date we met, which, handily, was the night John Hewson lost the election everyone thought he would win. Okay, I don’t actually know the date – Al’s the one who does that in our fmaily – but it was March some time in the early 90s. No exchange of presents, though
Congratulations! We married twice (once in the US – the feminist agnostic ceremony and in DK – the patriarchical institutional ceremony, though it wasn’t like a US patriarchical gig, if that makes sense). We mark both days, though I think the cultural affinities we have, and noting which ceremonies featured one of us crying, we think of those dates differently.
Instead, we have our happier shared celebrations named, appropriately, our kissaversary and nookieversary. They’re dates just between us, and are always causes for celebration.
Fascinating stories, thank you. Kris, your story is amazing.
That last one had me rolling on the floor!
We are married, and I have become pretty disenchanted with marriage since. But what’s done is done. Now we are just fumbling around in this institution, trying to make it somewhat egalitarian (not entirely possible, since, like your man, mine is not a feminist. I’ve taught him a few things, but he could live without my ranting).
Radicalmama, I suspect it’s not so much the marrying but the kids that make hetero relationships difficult places to find equality. There’s other reasons too, but small children (particularly when Dads aren’t consciously trying to maintain equality in housework etc) make a big difference. Two adults, both working outside the home fulltime, don’t have such a hard time being or feeling equal.
Now I have to go and make an appointment to make our wills so that I’m not left high and dry in the event of my partner’s untimely demise. I don’t want to find myself explaining to a magistrate that we really were a couple. Really. Please Your Honour give me all his money (not that there’s very much). So there’s one reason to get hitched – smooth out the inheritance process!
kate & radicalmama – I agree, I think a lot of our relationships were doing pretty well approaching equality until we added children to the mix and suddenly we seem to be reverting to some very traditional old roles. I’ve noticed as our daughter gets older that we’re able to re-negotiate equality better in our relationship. You need the time and the mental energy to negotiate labour division with your partner… but it also helps when the child itself is not so mother-centric.
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