Actual conversation that just transpired at work:

Me: "Thank you for calling ____, this is Meg."

Telemarketer: "May I please speak to the man of the house?"

Me: "Pardon?"

Telemarketer: "May I please speak to the decision maker or the man of the house?"

Me: "I'm sorry, this is an equal opportunity business and I've decided that we don't want whatever services you are trying to sell."

Telemarketer: *hangs up*

That, my friends, is how you get it done.

As many of you know, marriage is a touchy subject for me in which I am torn in two, and the two pieces of me have completely different feelings towards the subject.
There's the me that grew up in a reformed evangelical/charismatic cult (it was NOT a church, I won't sully "church" by saying SGM was one. They are a cult through and through.) where girls didn't go to college, they didn't get a job outside of the home, and they lived with their parents, under their father's complete control, until a guy came along who wanted to court them and then they got married, power transferred from father to husband, and wife was expected to stay and tend the home and pop out babies. It was highly frowned upon for a woman to pursue any other life calling other than being barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. Think I'm joking? HA. One woman was lauded in front of the whole church on Mother's Day for quitting her job as a very well off attorney and staying home to make their house nice for her husband, even though he struggled to make ends meet because he didn't have as good a job as his wife. Didn't matter that now her husband is worn ragged. Nope. She realized women need to stay home for their own good and that is something worth rejoicing.

ANYWAYS

Then there's the other me who woke out of the stupor and the brainwashing that I endured my entire life. I realized that marriage in and of itself doesn't mean ANYTHING. It's just a piece of paper. It's just a legal status. It's the relationship that matters. I am in a committed, long-term relationship. We are tied together legally through many things; our lease, our utilities, etc. Both our names appear on all these things, even though we don't share a last name. We split all financial responsibilities right down the middle, and whatever we each have left in our bank account afterward is our own to do as we please with (we do not share all our money, his is his, mine is mine). I don't need a piece of paper to tell me that this guy is committed to me, I see it every day by his actions, his words, his whole being. This half of me is very cynical of marriage in light of how it was portrayed to me my entire life. It's not the end all be all. 99% of my friends are married now (all between ages of 20-25). One of them is already getting a divorce (right before their second anniversary). 90% of my friends who are married only dated/courted their spouse for a few months before getting married. Maybe. MAYBE a year in some cases. Most of their engagements were 3-6 months long before the wedding. Most of them got married because they figured it would help whatever problems they were having in their relationship. Maybe if they got married those problems would go away. Maybe it's because they are struggling too hard with wanting to bone each other so they should just get married so they can and then it will be all fine.
Stupid.

So here I am caught in the middle and I finally figured out where my biggest insecurities were coming from (outside of the pressure I have been getting for years from my family and friends, to which I tell them to kindly fuck off since it's not their business).
I've been engaged before. In fact, when I started this blog I was 2 months away from my first proposal. I wrote about it here and though I'm not sure how many people are still around who remember that day 4 years ago, it's still fresh in my mind (it was beautiful and it was perfect). I was supposed to get married September 14, 2009. I was dumped July 7, 2009 after "giving away" my virginity 3 days prior to my ex-fiance (who was also a virgin). I had my wedding dress picked out. I was only a couple of days away from buying it. I had my decorations. I had my registration. I had all the things a bride-to-be should have had.
But I didn't get married. I never bought the dress. I never got to where his grandmother's wedding band. THANK GOD.

Fast forward to today.

I still struggle with feeling insecure. I get angry sometimes, really angry and I didn't know why until I was driving home last night.

I realized I went from being in a relationship with a man who said he wanted to marry me but didn't, to a man who is in every way but legally married to me, but won't actually propose or go ahead and get married already.

That's the big issue I think. That's what bothers me the most and I didn't know it until I connected the dots last night. One man said he would marry me but didn't do it. The other does it every day, but won't say it (even though we've been talking about it for 3 years). And yes, I did pulse that he left his browser history page up and that he had been looking at rings, but there was only 3, and less than a minute spent on any of the pages (hey, it's not my fault, he left it open for the whole world to see and no, I didn't go through the rest of his history, that'd be stupid. That's the thing that made me mad because I know he still really has no intention on proposing any time soon. He has it in his head that you have to date for 8-10 years before getting married like his parents did. Only his parents met and started dating in high school.)

In the end, I still don't need that piece of paper. I don't need that change of relationship status on Facebook. I don't need it because I have everything I need right now without those things. I have everything I've ever wanted in this man. He's everything I wanted, needed, and so much more. Even though I am dreading going to his cousin's wedding next week with every fiber of my being because I know I'm just going to get bombarded with, "So when are you two going to married?????" Seriously, why can't people mind their own business?

I don't need a diamond ring to know that he wants to spend the rest of his life with me. I know that from how he treats me every minute of every day.

And I think that's the most important thing.