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From: zhahai@nbires.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: commitment
Message-ID: <183@nbires.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 21-Jun-83 02:46:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: nbires.183
Posted: Tue Jun 21 02:46:00 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 22-Jun-83 03:28:35 EDT
Lines: 48

One of the more suble balancing acts I've experienced is between commitment
and freedom in a relationship.  At one level, You HAVE to be in it for your
own sake, because it is good for you, not because of the other person.  Ie:
no martyrs.  But on another, you need to focus somewhat more on giving than
on getting (assuming the other person does also).

Put another way, my foremost commitment must be to myself.  I absolutely do not
believe in promising what my future selves will do, in limiting my future
choices to do what seems right then.  If a relationship does not enhance me, I
must leave it.  YET, I have a great deal of commitment to keeping a relationship
alive and well.  I won't promise to never leave, but I can promise to try very
hard to work things out, to take the risks, to be willing to really care.

Thus, much of conventional marriage has always seemed a mental trap to me.  
There is in this culture some idea that by binding oneself tightly to another
by hard to break legal and social bonds, one can guarantee a secure future of
not being alone.  That seems illusory, as the divorce statistics and the perhaps
even greater number of couples who make each other miserable show.  I feel that
only when both partners are freely able to leave (financially included), and 
are kept together ONLY because they want to be together, are they in a good 
position to be honestly committed (actually, I'm overstating the strength of
my feelings on this, to get the point across).

I expect that somebody at some keyboard is thinking that this means I really am
just afraid to make a commitment.  Actually, I have been in a permanent (in
orientation, not contract), committed, close relationship with a MOPS for about
7 years now, and I predict for the rest of our lives.  I plan to try to keep it
nourishing for both of us that long.  Luckily, co (sic) has a very compatable
attitude.  We have not sought the blessing of the state (ie: formal marriage),
as it has been irrelevant - but we may if practicality favors it sometime.

I guess that makes me not really single, but I thought you might be interested
in what makes one relationship work well - living commitments only, no dead ones

Disclaimers: I speak for myself - others may want/need other forms of security
or relationships.   

By the way, we handled the surname problem (whose name to use, or hyphenate,
etc.) by choosing a joint middle name to represent our union, and both
adopting it legally.  If we were going to have kids, we would (maybe) give
them that surname - since they would be products of the union, not of my
great**n grandfather or of cos great**n grandfather.  Sure, it loses the
"family name"  tradition, but that represents only 1/2**n of your true
prognitors anyway.  (pick n generations).  Needless to say, we won't change
names if we wed.

	Zhahai Stewart (allegra, ucbvax)!nbires!zhahai