MeghanIsMe

In other news, I resent the fact that legal marriage makes my partner responsible for any incurred debt. Is that patriarchal? Or just opportunistic debt collectors? My partner should not be legally responsible for my financial choices. If I make a choice that could incur debt, she is legally responsible for that debt, and it is unethical for me to make such decisions unilaterally. This should not be the case. It's not fair to anyone involved. The more I think about it the more it makes me angry.

Erik lives in a house he's been trying to buy for some time. Originally, he was going to take over the owner's mortgage and started by paying owner so owner could make the payments. Surprise! The owner didn't make the payments.

So the house got foreclosed on. This was most of a year ago, and for whatever reason the banks involved have all been dragging their feet on everything and would barely talk to him at all. At least he's been living there rent free...

They have finally made an offer to let him buy the house. His credit isn't *quite* good enough for the loan with the downpayment he has. A mutual friend was originally going to cosign the loan (how many months ago now?) but cannot because he's dealing with identity theft issues right now. Erik makes enough money to cover mortgage payments, and has savings. But because he is paid partly on commission as a photographer, the bank is not including his full income in their calculations. He just needs someone to cosign the loan for a couple years until he can refinance on his own.

He asked me last night, which I know was hard for him to do. I would do it in a heartbeat. Danae and I, though, have different relationships with money. This is one instance where I think that I would go ahead and cosign, even if she strongly disagreed with me doing so, if it was just about *my* finances. But we're legally married, and it's not. She'd be stuck with any debt I incurred, and my doing this against her wishes or without her knowledge is really unethical. But I'm just so frustrated and upset with this whole situation. Erik is such a good, giving, caring person who's done more for me than I can say. Why do bad things happen to good people like this?

I even called my parents to ask if they would be willing to cosign. They were sympathetic and listened to me and really wish they could help, but they just aren't comfortable doing that. It makes sense. I feel like maybe I shouldn't have even put them in that position, but I just wanted to do everything I can do to try to make this work. And it seems like it isn't enough and I'm just sad and angry about all of this.

And hopefully I can manage not to dwell on it too much because I'd like my headache to not come back please...

In my case, there's a financial decision that I would make if it wasn't going to affect my partner. It may be unwise, but I don't care honestly. Someone I know needs help and maybe I could help them. Except that will make my marriage partner liable for any debt that decision might incur. I would be a terrible partner, and an unethical person, if I did it anyway, and even more so if I didn't tell her about it. But I feel like a bad person because I'm not going out on a limb, one which I would be happy to go out on, for my other partner because of this. It just puts everybody in a bad position.
My marriage partner and I have different relationships with money sometimes, and that's ok. It's just not fair that we are legally tied to each other in ways that make our decisions affect each other so directly.
And the fact that we got legally married for bureaucratic reasons when we were perfectly content with the meaning and intimacy of our commitment ceremony makes it even more aggravating.

Danae and I decided, after analyzing our immigration situation, the most reasonable thing to do is to get married. If I were to move to NL with her as an unmarried domestic partner, we'd need to provide documentation of length and 'exclusivity' of our relationship. Rather than having to go through nine years of emails and photos and redact appropriately before sending, we decided to simply get hitched.

We were both annoyed about the necessity of this, but it turned into a really positive experience. Erik talked to his friend Aiden, a Dudeist priest, and arranged for him to officiate. Aiden read through our commitment ceremony from some years back and used it as the text of our vows to each other in a short, sweet, to-the-point marriage. It was perfect! I hadn't really intended to get dressed up or make much out of the event at all because it felt like a bureaucratic necessity. Then Danae's parents asked to Skype in, and then my parents and brothers asked to come in person, and it turned out that Erik could come too so he decided to take video of the event, so Danae and I decided we wanted to dress more nicely... I was really anxious about it becoming unnecessarily complicated! But when we were all together for the ceremony, the renewal of vows and the presence of our families felt unexpectedly positive and meaningful. We couldn't have asked for a better fit to our needs and hopes, both expressed and unconscious.

So there we are, a married couple now!

The other comment I have to make on gay marriage is on the topic of the conversation happening around it.

I'm a little bit annoyed by people saying that the legalization of same-sex marriage will have absolutely no effect on hetero marriage. That isn't true, and making that statement is dismissive of the opposition. Dismissing people's feelings doesn't help to create dialogue; it creates hostility.

Non hetero marriage changes hetero marriage by bringing to light the unexamined privilege inherent in marriage as it has been practiced in the US. It fundamentally changes the social construction of marriage by changing what social groups may participate in the institution. To some people, and to use a sports analogy since it comes to mind, it's like changing the rules of a game and then continuing to hand out the same awards. People can continue to break home run records, say, but no one will ever do it with the same equipment under the same conditions that it was first done.

In this case I think it's a good thing. But I also think that it's up to us to talk about how the rules change really benefits everyone rather than telling people who don't like it that nothing's really changed and they should just shut up. No, things have changed a lot, and it's never going to be the way it was. That's a cause for celebration. We should understand that and help others to understand that as well, rather than tell them that their feelings don't matter. The latter is a good way to make enemies. The former might just make a friend or two.