Hello, Kage (cool name, by the way!) I so appreciate that you were willing to read what I’ve written—and discuss it further!—though your perspective may be different. Now THAT is a compliment.

You make great points. ‘Security’ and ‘stability’ and ‘happiness’ are not tied to marriage. Some people derive security and stability and happiness from LTRs. Some people don’t have security and stability and happiness though they are married. I have security and stability and happiness in many non-marital forms. For example, I have financial security without marriage, and I derive much happiness from my work that I’m passionate about and my friendships. If I ever re-marry, my form of marriage will not involve me losing my security or stability or happiness and marriage to me certainly will not involve my person being deprived of his security and stability or happiness.

Like you, many people perceive marriage to be merely about governments, religions, and status symbols. My version of marriage isn’t about governments, religions, and status symbols. I’m beginning to think what it all comes down to is that we need to be ok with seeking relationships with people who share our view of marriage. Maybe people who are anti-marriage need to forgo having relationships with people who are pro-marriage, and vice-versa, instead of trying to convince each other that they should or shouldn’t feel the way they do about marriage. I kind of think…it would be quite silly of me to try to pressure someone who is anti-marriage to be married to me. Likewise, it would be silly for a person who is anti-marriage to try to convince someone who is pro-marriage to be willing to be ok with a LTR.

Sometimes it takes exchanges of thoughts like this to help us crystallize our beliefs and realize: It’s quite ok for us to have different beliefs on this topic but not ok for us to try to force someone to go along with our beliefs. When I was writing this, it was in the spirit of presenting “Here are reasons some people feel this way about marriage in case you wondered why they do” definitely not in the spirit of convincing someone “You should feel this way, too!”