I have believed for a long time that marriage is really just a commitment to attempt to have a life-partnership. So once a couple is dating either monogamously, or if they fool around with other people but have a very solid primary relationship around whom they really revolve their lives, then I call it marriage, which, of course, upsets a lot of folks. But once I see through that whatever the reasoning or labeling or technical arrangements are, if the thing looks like an open-ended attempt to stay together for the long term, I call it a marriage. She and I were planning to actually get a legal marriage certificate at some point, depending on how taxes and welfare and other stuff were affected, but after about a year and half, we just started calling each other spouses. And if I have a party and I'm inviting friends to come over, and if they're living with some guy or gal, I just say, "And you're welcome to bring your wife," or, "husband." At first people will be all squirmy about this, but I don't care, since I have to say it the way I see it. I have no hangup against legal marriage or official marriage. A commitment is a commitment, and I can sense it even if the folks involved don't label it that. Put another way, if the people involved can't envision breaking up over any but the most catastrophic problems, then probably they're attempting to stay together forever. This says nothing about whether they will succeed at that, or whether they will ever want to phrase it that way. I'm just an odd critter this way, I suppose. My guess, and it's only a guess, is that monogamy is probably healthier for most people, and I have no resistance to it. But I, for instance, even if I wanted to be "faithful", would only do so because I wanted to be that way for myself. I would never force another person to either love only me or get out of my life. In the case of the woman I lived with, we were technically in an open-relationship, but that was largely a technicality. When you're really committed to someone, who has the time and energy to do all that running around. So the whole thing more or less came off pretty darn traditional.

I remain,

Melvin.