Pagan Blog Prompts (PBP): 'tis the season for handfastings & weddings.

I do occasionally get some emails from Pagan Blog Prompts. I think they pop in around every Thursday. So if you see PBP in the title, you'll know when I've explored a topic they share on their blog.

Faelyn & The Boyfriend
@ Friends Wedding

This weeks hit close to home - in a certain sense of the phrase. This weeks topic is Handfasting. My boyfriend's friends got married yesterday. They are a cute couple. But who doesn't say that about someone they just saw get  married.
The wedding was quite funny -- cute and beautiful too, but very funny. The groom is known to be a funny character. He knows how to turn every serious situation into a humorous one. During their vows the gentleman that married to two of them asked the Groom to repeat after him... and he did - up until the very end where he asked the groom to say "I love you, (insert bride's name here)" and the groom said "Me too!" instead of repeating the phrase. It caused the crowd to laugh and the bride to smile really wide.

You can tell these two love each other. A lot. They've been together for a long while, they have a house together, they have a few dogs together and I know that children are in their future.

When I was younger I always thought that if you loved some one, marriage was the best route to take to prove that love. And I held onto that belief for a long time. But then my dad got sick. I remember sitting in my room a few days after I found out and thinking - "okay, now I have to get married before anything happens to him, so he can see me during the happiest times of my life before he's gone..." I had a very depressing way of thinking back then... After I let that thought sink in for a while, I would cross my fingers and pray that my boyfriend at the time would ask me to marry him. We got close to that - we talked about it all the time. He even went as far as asking for my parents permission to marry me.

But, it never came... After we broke up I dwelled on that thought I had when my dad first got sick. I was hoping, and wishing for marriage so bad - that I was willing to throw myself into something that probably wouldn't have worked - just so my dad could watch me get married. I was quite upset with myself. But I was still sad. I wanted someone to care about me that way - I wanted someone to love me that way...

My current boyfriend and I get pounded by our parents constantly about "when are you two going to get married...?!" -- Mind  you, we've only been together for a year - I'm just about 23 and he's going to be 26 this year.

He doesn't want to get married at all, and he doesn't want kids. And even though I go around saying I'm okay with that - I can't help but feel a little sad, and hurt. Am I not good enough to marry? Am I doing something wrong? --- He's told me not to think about it like that - he's always said that a piece of paper doesn't prove anyone's feelings... But I still cannot help but feel a little self conscious about the whole thing.
Is there something wrong with me? He has never said I love you. Granted, I haven't either - but I refuse to say it first because anytime I even say that I really like him, or care about him his response is "I enjoy our time together..."

He's going away for three  weeks, alone. I've asked him to move in, he says he doesn't want too because he likes his space. Sometimes I just feel like giving up. But I don't, because I do really care about him. I do love him. I do see myself with him in the future - but should I even be able to see that, if he doesn't?

Wow, I've gone off on a little tangent. Here I'm suppose to be talking about what I think about marriage and hand-fasting and I go off into my own little world and how sad I feel for myself...

Marriage may just be a piece of paper. But after the wedding I just watched - the ceremony does matter. It's a confession of ones love to another - so in that sense I think hand-fasting's are important. The ceremony ties us all together. I don't think it's necessary to GET married if you love someone - but I think that if you are going to at least get the piece of paper - the ceremony itself is important. And that's where I'll leave that...