Why do we marry the people we do?

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deer of the dawn
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Why do we marry the people we do?

Post by deer of the dawn »

A big part of my life is music. I've been playing guitar, singing, and writing songs since I before you were born. The older I've gotten, the more opportunities I get to play and to lead others-- mostly not for pay, but because I love it. For me there is just nothing quite like singing solo or leading a couple hundred people in songs. It is a thrill that others may get from driving a motorcycle or cliff-jumping...

Yet, I'm married to a guy who is a truly good and great man, but
  • 1. cannot carry a tune in a bucket
    2. has no idea why a $100 guitar is simply not acceptable
    3. doesn't get "into" music even the way most regular, non-musicians do.
This is just something I live with. He tolerates my musical thing, but if I never took the guitar out of the case again I don't even think he would notice. Yet, it's something others admire and appreciate.

I no longer feel bitter about this, although I used to. After all, he was that way when I married him, I can't blame him now. :roll: I guess I should be glad he fell in love with me for other reasons. (Of course back then, I was a hottie. And I could cook, and he was young, skinny and always hungry. Maybe that's it.)
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Post by Iolanthe »

Big question :D

Like you, I have always lived with music, played the piano since I was 4, parents into amateur operatics, and I accompanied the same choir for 30 years - the choir folded last April. He rarely came to concerts apart from when the children were small and he brought them.

When I was teaching piano, he would take over the children when he got home from work, always did the washing up as I didn't finish till 9 at night. We've always mucked in together.

C is totally unmusical - apart from Pop - he can name everyone in every group I've ever heard of, and some I haven't.

Most of my time is spent on family history, but he has no interest in that whatever, although he did drag me into Mullingar Library to look up his mother's family, and insisted that I look round the churchyard at Fore - where we did find four generations of his family buried - but that is as far as his interest goes.

His other interests are totally different from mine. Perhaps that's why we get on so well. I cannot remember any kind of big argument in almost 40 years. He gets on with brewing his beer, and he has the parish centre at the local Catholic church - he more or less runs the bar there, and can pour a mean guiness, with a shamrock on the top :) Oh, and I am a proddy, didn't convert when we married, so that's another big difference. We have had words now and again about St Paul

They do say that opposites attract. :wink:
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Post by DoctorGamgee »

One can't help but wonder if it would make any difference to you if they DID share your interest.

My wife and I are both Professors of Voice and sing opera. We actually met at an Opera program in Salzburg and eloped there the second year we both attended. We have both sung Opera and Oratorios, and except for the different schools, we both have basically the same job. In fact, our choirs are joining forces (as they have for several semesters) to do a concert tonight where I am conducting some Brahms Waltzes and she the other half of the program.

We rarely discuss music at home. We don't perform together too often, due to scheduling babysitters for such things, and most of the time when we do it is when it is for some function that we never have enough time to rehearse for and are slamming things together at the last moment.

I have a great love for fiction and things with plots; she loves exercising and news chanels. We have two great kids and are exceedingly happy.

But if you judged us by how much music we actually did together...except at church where I play organ and she leads hymns--next to nothing. And our lives are so filled with music all day that when we come home the house is quiet (as it can be with two kids...LOL!).

She has grown to love my friends from the Lord of the Rings board (we meet yearly and they love her) and she has listened to the books on tape (mostly to humor me, which I appreciated), and has planned to let me and my son go to a Moot in September, while she and my daughter stay home. She is going to Louisiana to perform in a week when I have the opening of my Show. I got to go to Panama and sing at the Teatro Nacional a year ago. We have our lives, but they are somewhat separate despite our similar training and interests.

And yet, for all of the reality 'Ho-hum' in this message, we are also exceedingly happy.

In case you didn't notice...this is your happily ever after. Perhaps things would be different if...but then again, maybe not ...

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Post by Iolanthe »

If music be the food of love, play on.

Perhaps that is the answer :D

My greatest regret is that Jane Eaglen was in our choir, but left just before I joined so I never got to accompany her. She did come to our anniversary dinner though and had me in fits of giggles all night. :biggrin:
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Post by Cameraman Jenn »

I married Jeff because we had been dating a while and my grandmother and mother were pushing me because even my younger cousins were all getting married and starting families. I let them take over my life decisions because I just didn't know what I wanted at the time. A part of me DID know then that it wasn't what I wanted and yet I did it anyway. A part of me still loves Jeff, he's a good guy in many ways, he was just never the right guy for me and I think a part of me always knew that as well. Even when he proposed, which by the way was very unromantic, I hesitated, said I needed to think about it and when I went to my family for advice my mother was all over it and got my gran to push me into it as well. I shouldn't have listened. I'll not regret it though. I learned a lot about who I am and what I want from that experience. I'll never again date anyone who does not fully appreciate my whacky sense of humor to the point of finding it embarrassing, nor will I date someone who doesn't like the majority of my friends. Then again, I didn't find this out until AFTER we were married but hey, I'll pay closer attention next time. The big test? He's got to be willing to have a pirate wedding. Yes I said PIRATE. But guess what, I get to be the pirate. Rent a boat, I'm the pirate and I marry him while he's held at blunderbuss point and we serve grog and spit roasted pig. That's my plan. It's also probably why I am 43 and still not remarried yet. :P
Now if I could just find a way to wear live bees as jewelry all the time.....

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Post by Sunbaneglasses »

I don't like getting nekkid in front of people so I married Ashley in hopes that it would insure that from that point forward I would only have to be naked around her and possibly a doctor or two.
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Post by Rigel »

I got married because I didn't know how to say she didn't make me happy.

Several years later I learned how to say it, and now I'm single and loving it.

I hope to remarry at some point, but I'm finally getting to a point where I'm ok if I don't. Life has so many twists and turns, I'm just going to enjoy it while I can, and not worry too much about it not working out the way I had planned.
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Post by Avatar »

What? You're too young to have been married aren't you? :lol:

Anyway, on topic, the GF and I, (14 years and counting) are pretty much as opposite as can be.

She loves music, I have no interest in it. She's vegetarian, I'm pretty much carnivorous. We do both love to read, but we don't read much of the same stuff.

If she likes something, there's a better than even chance that I will dislike it.

*shrug* Go figure. :D

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Post by lucimay »

well deer, here's an even odder thing...

i am a musician and i married an even better musician and yet
we are musically not very compatible when it comes to making music.

we like many of the same kinds of music (blues derrivative rock n roll, fusion, roots, etc), have many of the same musical influences and reference points (beatles, stones, 60's and 70's stuff, steely dan, chris whitley, radiohead, floyd, traffic, jethro tull, clapton in all his incarnations, motown, otis redding, aretha, etc)
we have never found (in nearly 35 years of friendship) been able to write a lick together or really even play much together.

oh we have a catalog of tunes we can pull outa the hat on occasion (he learned some rickie lee jones songs so i could sing em, i learned to play rythm guitar for a couple of tull tunes so he could play leads and such, like that) but really we never could write or get a band together or even record much in the way of just jamming on anything.

there was just never really any kind of creative chemistry between us in that way.

sad for both of us but...as you say, it is what it is.

our "marriage" such as it was, ended a pretty long time ago, tho we are still roommates (for the time being) and i'm now involved with a wonderful man who is not a musician at all. in fact, i think he sort of missed our generation's music nearly altogether (even tho he's only barely a year younger than me)!!
he likes music that i would never in a million years listen to (being the somewhat musical snob that i am :oops: )
dude went to a foreigner/night ranger/ journey concert with his cousin and enJOYed it!!! 8O he likes songs and usually has no clue who is actually even singing them!! :lol:


as for why we marry the people we marry...good grief that question has so many myriad answers i wouldn't know where to begin. :lol:

ya don't choose who you love. it just happens. ;)
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Post by lorin »

Cameraman Jenn wrote: The big test? He's got to be willing to have a pirate wedding. Yes I said PIRATE. But guess what, I get to be the pirate. :P
If you are the pirate, does your future husband get to be the pirate's booty? :wink:
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Post by deer of the dawn »

:LOLS: :goodpost:
I'll never divorce Bob (I would be an idiot) but if I had to do it over again, maybe a Lord of the Rings wedding would be my thing. :) My preciousssss...... Where would I find a minister who will dress up as Gandy? :gandalf:
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Post by DoctorGamgee »

Iolanthe wrote:If music be the food of love, play on.
...though they never say on WHAT...?!?! (Thank you Anna Russell for that one!)
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Post by Cameraman Jenn »

Yes, Lorin, he is my booty. I'm thinking he should be dressed as some sort of banker or lawyer type in a suit fashioned like something out of the early 1800's and he will appear to be my prisoner and I am forcing him to marry me for legitimacy and social status... 8)
Now if I could just find a way to wear live bees as jewelry all the time.....

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Post by sgt.null »

i married julie because she said yes. :biggrin:

we both love history and art. but she loves Botticelli and other Renaissance artists, I tend to favor Kandinsky and other such types.

when we met she listened mostly to country, me alternative - but we have met on that issue. and now i like country - but alternative and way classic. :)

she has fallen for David Gilmour and Grant Hart on my urging.

we both love books. she prefers biographies and real life matters. i love comic books and fantasy novels.

she loves travel - andi hate crowds. :)

but we learned compromise.. and we have learned so much from each other. who else could tolerate me?
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Post by Cameraman Jenn »

But Sarge, you told me at efest that you got her drunk and kept her drunk for two years and by that time it was too late for an annulment. :P

In all seriousness though, I met and got to know Sarge apart from the watch via the phone when I was going through some rough personal times which had nothing to do with anything watch related and I can see why Julie said yes. He's a very intelligent, compassionate, funny and kind man, what's not to love about that? He helped me put things in perspective and was patient and caring and listened to me and offered me sound advice and made the things I was going through much easier to endure. I know I have a great support base but sometimes you just really need an outsider opinion or perspective and he offered to listen and he did that and more. I can't leave out a shout out to Julie though because she was confidant and caring enough to let her man talk on the phone a bunch of times to some unknown whiny internet tart he met on a forum... 8) Thanks GF! I still owe you.
Now if I could just find a way to wear live bees as jewelry all the time.....

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Post by MsMary »

Wow, that gave me a warm feeling to read that, Jenn. 8)
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Post by Cagliostro »

Cameraman Jenn wrote:I married Jeff because we had been dating a while and my grandmother and mother were pushing me because even my younger cousins were all getting married and starting families. I let them take over my life decisions because I just didn't know what I wanted at the time. A part of me DID know then that it wasn't what I wanted and yet I did it anyway. A part of me still loves Jeff, he's a good guy in many ways, he was just never the right guy for me and I think a part of me always knew that as well. Even when he proposed, which by the way was very unromantic, I hesitated, said I needed to think about it and when I went to my family for advice my mother was all over it and got my gran to push me into it as well. I shouldn't have listened. I'll not regret it though. I learned a lot about who I am and what I want from that experience. I'll never again date anyone who does not fully appreciate my whacky sense of humor to the point of finding it embarrassing, nor will I date someone who doesn't like the majority of my friends. Then again, I didn't find this out until AFTER we were married but hey, I'll pay closer attention next time. The big test? He's got to be willing to have a pirate wedding. Yes I said PIRATE. But guess what, I get to be the pirate. Rent a boat, I'm the pirate and I marry him while he's held at blunderbuss point and we serve grog and spit roasted pig. That's my plan. It's also probably why I am 43 and still not remarried yet. :P
It's posts like this that I am glad to call you my adopted twin sister. If anything ever happens between Carla and I, I'd love to be your abducted banker. Would it be wrong to marry your adopted twin sister?


As for me, my first wife and I got married because we had been together nearly 10 years, and was getting pressure to shit or get off the pot. So I shit and a little over one year later, I got off the pot. I know I was fooling myself and kinda went with what I felt I should be doing rather than do what I knew in my heart was the best thing for both us - to end the relationship. It wasn't pleasant and I was a coward.
My next girlfriend and I got engaged, but she dumped my ass about 6 months before the wedding after we had dropped a bunch of money that was non-refundable on things.
Carla and I got married because she was pregnant. We probably would have done so anyway, and were talking about it, but were in no rush before that news. I still remember how she presented it. She brought me up to near the top of Mount Evans, and sat me down, and said, "I think we ought to get married," (emotional WHAM) "because I am pregnant" (WHAM WHAM WHAM). I proposed to her once we got to the top after realizing nobody really asked the question, which is just the silly businesslike way Carla can be. And the romantic in me felt it was necessary for one of us to ask the other. It was a pretty crazy day, that'n.
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Re: Why do we marry the people we do?

Post by Linna Heartbooger »

deer of the dawn wrote:...And I could cook, and he was young, skinny and always hungry. Maybe that's it.
This was past y'alls "wild-child" days though, right?
Because if not, that description makes me think of...
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My four-year-old saw this thread title, and informed me "That's easy!"
I asked him what the answer was: "because those people are likely to be wise enough to take care of the children."

SBG- you cracked me up.
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Re: Why do we marry the people we do?

Post by deer of the dawn »

Linna Heartlistener wrote:
deer of the dawn wrote:...And I could cook, and he was young, skinny and always hungry. Maybe that's it.
This was past y'alls "wild-child" days though, right?
Because if not, that description makes me think of...
Image
:lol: You have him exactly!!! At least back then. When we were dating he would go through the Mickey D's drive through and get 2 cheeseburgers to hold him over until dinner arrived at whatever restaurant we were going to. Now that his 40s have almost passed him by, he hardly eats anything because he's bound and determined not to get fat. I still look at his rear sometimes and say, Thank you Jesus. :P (maybe that's why I married him!)
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ahhhh... if only all our creativity in wickedness could be fixed by "Corrupt a Wish." - Linna Heartlistener
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Post by DoctorGamgee »

Cagliostro,

Yeah, sometimes folks don't end it, which is a shame. I had to tell an absolutely lovely girl that I didn't think that I could marry her. She was mad at me for about 6 weeks...until she met her current husband. Then she came and told me that I was right. We are still friends to this day. Ah youth...wasted on the young.

I knew within six weeks of meeting the missus that I was going to marry her. We had spent six magical weeks in Salzburg, but she was headed to the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, UK to do some post-grad work, and I was heading back to Texas to teach. We spent my spring break in England while I visited her, and she came home for Easter weeks, and I got to meet her family.

Her Aunt Vicki told me she worked at a jewelry show so when it came time to pick a ring, give her a call. I asked when the next one was, but it was the same weekend as the church retreat I was scheduled to attend so we let it go.

But when I got home, I confirmed that her show went through Monday (my retreat ended Sunday afternoon), and I sent her the following email:

Natasha,

Is Boris. I vill be arrivink (itenerary to follow). I vill be vearink purple carnation, you vill be vearink orange blouse, fuschia pants, and three in lime-green pumps. Vait unteel moose and skvirrel go by, zen come to me and visper, "Zee black cat valks sofly sroogh zee moonlight." Do not vorry, Dahlink, novone vill hear you; outfit ees too loud.

So i flew out to New Orleans, she met me at the airport, WEARING that outfit, and we went shopping. Got the ring, which I kept for a month and a half (and she and her family kept the secret!).

My wife showed up on July 4th in Salzburg. We went to dinner and a stroll through the Mirabel gardens, where I proposed. She accepted, and 12 days later, her pastor and church choir came through town and we had the wedding. It was held on the balcony of the Opera Program Director's apartment, overlooking the Bavarian Alps, and then we had a ton of receptions. One at the wedding, then dinner with the choir, then late dinner with the Program folks. We got stateside and had one at Laredo (where we were married again, rendering unto Clinton what was Clinton's; having already been witnessed by God in Germany), then in Louisiana with her family, then one in Ohio with mine.

Twelve years later; two kids and a mortgage and life couldn't be better.

Life is crazy sometimes, isn't it?

Doc
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