I’m Engaged With Two Kids And In No Rush To Get Married

shutterstock_107749958Recently, I got sucked into one of those silly, but very entertaining Yahoo lifestyle stories. There was a story about celebrities with long engagements. And, recently, of course, there was the movie The Five Year Engagement (which I haven’t seen yet”¦too busy seeing Wrecked Ralph with a 9-year-old).

I’ve been engaged for almost a year now, which isn’t too long, considering my first engagement was three plus years. I have one child from each man. And this engagement is looking like it’s heading in the direction of the five year engagement.

I get incensed when people comment on my so-called ”bastard” children, or comment that people are so opposed to having children out of wedlock. Wake up and smell 2013. In fact, not too long ago, a so-called acquaintance of mine commented on a blog she wrote about me that I have two children with two different fathers and was never married. I couldn’t believe it, since the story wasn’t about that, that she would even bother mentioning that.

Obviously, we have totally different ways of looking at the world (ironically, she writes a blog with the word ”modern” family in it.) What also incenses me is when people think, for whatever reason, that it’s the man who is holding off actually getting married. Jason won’t marry Britney!

In my case, this time it’s not. My fiance isn’t technically divorced yet. At a party, I asked a lawyer what would happen if we got married anyway. Of course, it made me laugh when this lawyer told me it would be considered a polygamist thing and could have a jail time of up to 15 years (And that’s in Canada. THAT kind of made me want to marry my guy immediately just to see what would happen.) But it’s not even that that’s holding us back.

With my first engagement, I basked in the compliments of ”Congratulations!” for months and months and months. I basked in it probably as long as most people could.

First off, I ENJOY being engaged. It’s like marriage, but still with the heart pounding excitement of knowing you are one day going to get married. What’s the rush? I probably could wait for that day in 20 years.

My daughter, who, yes, was only three when I separated from her father never asked us to get married. And, now that she’s nine, she still has never asked why we never got married. My fiance who has a 13- and 11-year-old do ask if we’re getting married BUT only because one wants to be the photographer, the other a flower girl, and they all want to buy pretty dresses. It really has nothing to do with my fiance or me.

I don’t care what any study may say. I do not believe that delaying marriage is going to affect my own children. I already call my fiance my husband most places we go when I introduce him. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not opposed to marriage at all. I cry at friend’s weddings.

But maybe, just maybe, there are people (like me) who are not marriage people but engagement people. This could be because I don’t really see any fun in planning a wedding and I am almost 40. So don’t really see the difference between being engaged and being married. We are just like you. We work. We raise our children. We live together. He changes my oil in my car. We do chores.

I just know love is love. Do I want to marry this man? Does he want to marry me? Yes. Will it happen? Who knows? And there is something super selfishly fun about people asking time and time again, ”So when are you getting married?”

We have absolutely no plans as of yet. And knowing us, it could take a while”¦like years. Like I said, maybe I’m not the marrying kind. But I do enjoy being the engagement kind.

(photo: Rashevskyi Viacheslav / Shutterstock)

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