> Again, you can just not get married! Or do some kind of poly/open/whatever relationship if that's your thing. Or be asexual. Or be so undesirable that nobody wants to nestle down with you and saddle you with a family. Or just find some sort of ethical way of getting what you need from sex workers. (That last one may be tricky)
IMO any of those can be tricky. Relationships in general are, at any part of the spectrum, including a lack of them.
Poly/open/casual/whatever isn't easy unless your partner (or potential partners) also wants to be in one of those. Leaving an existing relationship for one of those probably isn't easy (unless it's meaningless), and can be anything but if one is already married with kids. Non-exclusive relationships may also need to deal with potential feelings of jealousy etc. in a different way than exclusive ones, and again, it's not down to just oneself.
One probably doesn't really choose to be asexual either, and I'd wager that trying to make such a choice is generally unhealthy. And if you actually are asexual but want an otherwise romantic relationship, finding one (where both are satisfied) is probably harder than it would be more conventionally.
Most people (or all of us?) have mutually conflicting desires and needs for their relationships. That makes relationships tricky in general. It's probably even more so for someone who's less comfortable socially or with themselves than you would seem to be.
I don't think it's always even possible, psychologically or emotionally, for everyone to solve those conflicting needs and desires in a satisfying way.
It sounds quite cynical to see marriage or long-term relationships largely as a burden, and seeing the possibilities can be an antidote for that for some people. But trying to make it out as everything being possible and choices that you can just make feels a bit like it can trivialize the difficulty of actually doing it.
But trying to make it out as everything being
possible and choices that you can just make
feels a bit like it can trivialize the difficulty
of actually doing it.
Well, you're certainly right: no relationship options are easy.
When I listed those options I was specifically referring to the parent poster, who equated middle age with automatically being in a stifling marriage.... as if marriage is just some inevitable thing that happens to you, rather than something you choose.
Which was certainly not to imply that the alternatives to marriage are easy. I mean yeah, relationships can be hard. And the lack of one can be hard too.
IMO any of those can be tricky. Relationships in general are, at any part of the spectrum, including a lack of them.
Poly/open/casual/whatever isn't easy unless your partner (or potential partners) also wants to be in one of those. Leaving an existing relationship for one of those probably isn't easy (unless it's meaningless), and can be anything but if one is already married with kids. Non-exclusive relationships may also need to deal with potential feelings of jealousy etc. in a different way than exclusive ones, and again, it's not down to just oneself.
One probably doesn't really choose to be asexual either, and I'd wager that trying to make such a choice is generally unhealthy. And if you actually are asexual but want an otherwise romantic relationship, finding one (where both are satisfied) is probably harder than it would be more conventionally.
Most people (or all of us?) have mutually conflicting desires and needs for their relationships. That makes relationships tricky in general. It's probably even more so for someone who's less comfortable socially or with themselves than you would seem to be.
I don't think it's always even possible, psychologically or emotionally, for everyone to solve those conflicting needs and desires in a satisfying way.
It sounds quite cynical to see marriage or long-term relationships largely as a burden, and seeing the possibilities can be an antidote for that for some people. But trying to make it out as everything being possible and choices that you can just make feels a bit like it can trivialize the difficulty of actually doing it.