Happily unmarried

Rosanna is a 40-year-old social development consultant who has been living with her boyfriend for the last 15 or so odd years. Rosanna shares the realities of living together as a happily unmarried couple.

We never pegged the start of our romantic relationship on a date, so we both don’t celebrate an anniversary. But I’m definite that our relationship started sometime in the early 1990s. When people ask how long we’ve been together, I just estimate about 15 years.

We started off as friends just talking about lots of stuff before we became a couple. We were working for the same company. I was already an employee when he came in as an intern. After he graduated college, he came back to work with us full time. We were good friends for a while.

Back then, we were also both with other people, but my relationship wasn’t working so I broke it off. After some time, he and his girlfriend broke up as well.

I believe we were together at least five years before we moved in together. We got an apartment that doubled up as our own home-office. The apartment was actually his. We’d stay up late working and when I asked him if he’d mind if I share the apartment with him, he said no. That was it. It happened quite naturally—there was no big discussion.

We were in late 20s to early 30s then. I actually had a bit of marriage fever, but he didn’t. Admittedly, I was initially crushed when he said he wasn’t ready to marry. I took it personally because to me, it meant he didn’t see a future with me, despite his assurances to the contrary. But, I got to thinking that maybe this marriage thing is just something that society (or religion) imposed on us—as if a relationship, or even a family, is not valid if not sanctified in church or documented on a couple of pieces of paper.

I didn’t snap out of that crushed feeling immediately. I’d weave in and out of feeling okay and not okay for some time. I’d ask myself: it’s instinctive for humans to want to reproduce or at least nurture another human being, but is it also instinctive to want to have a ceremony symbolizing and sealing the romantic relationship? But, I’ve gotten over that already. It helped that his immediate and extended family was very welcoming.

Besides, marriage wasn’t that important to me. It wasn’t like I was clinging to the idea that one day he’d marry me. There was no talk about our living together being a prelude to marriage. Things were going well, there was no need to legitimize things just to prove we loved each other and got along. We felt like we were practically married anyway.

Friends respected my choice. They didn’t say anything, even though I had a feeling that they disapproved. I’m just glad they’re my friends, and they’ve become my partner’s friends as well.

As for my family—if my dad were alive, I don’t think I’d get away with it. My Mom still feels it’s wrong. She doesn’t reprimand me, but she keeps asking when we’ll get married. She tells me she doesn’t know what to say when family and friends ask where I live and with whom. She can’t seem to bear the idea of telling others that I’m living with my boyfriend because that will mean that she’s a bad mother because her daughter is “living in sin.” I’m just guessing, but I feel that she thinks the world will judge her for not teaching her daughter the right values. She also has this image that at a disadvantage because I’m not a legal member of their family yet. My mom is also afraid that because we’re not married, it’s easier for him to discard me. I keep telling her, I can do the same to him.

I know my partner’s mom keeps badgering him to marry me because “kawawa naman siya.” She probably has this image that I’m this martyr who’s waiting to be proposed to by her son. I get along with his whole family. But I cringe at the thought that they think I’m this person who has no self-respect and is clinging to him, waiting for nothing.

That said, throughout our relationship (and until now), I didn’t act like a “wife.” I was careful not to behave like his wife. His family welcomed me, but I didn’t delude myself into thinking that I had certain “rights” like sharing his money and all that. What was important to me was that he treated me with respect, treated me like an equal, and made sure that his family did the same.

I’m much more self-assured about living together now that I’m older. In fact, there are times when I catch myself saying, “Thank god I’m not married to him” because there were a couple of times that I’ve come close to ending the relationship because I was losing patience with how he’s running his life/our lives. That feeling has passed and I guess feelings like that can also be present in a married relationship. It’s just that because we are not legally bound to be together, the idea that I can just bail out makes things seem less complicated—emotionally complicated maybe, but no additional legal complications. Although I must say that there are provisions in the Family Code that recognizes common-law relationships.

I don’t see a need for marriage now, although as I’ve said before, in the off chance that he proposes, I may not reject it after all. We’ll see.

Having kids is another thing. When I was younger, I wanted kids. Then in my 30s, I wasn’t so sure. Now the maternal urge is not very strong. I can be nurturing, but I’m not sure if I want a child of my own anymore.

Our parents are not negating the arrangement as much, but they probably still don’t approve of it. People from our generation are still getting married (with some probably thinking of the status of their kids when they start a family), but there are also who are not. Just look at Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy, Oprah and Stedman too. They all seem to be doing well as couples who, like us, are happily unmarried. –Ana Santos, Manila Times