Questioning Love’s Contract

A Reflection on Marriage, Logic, and the Contradictions of Commitment

They say when you know, you know. So why do so many marriages end in divorce?

It is the kind of phrase people repeat with conviction, yet it collapses under even mild scrutiny. The older I get, the more disenchanted I become by the mandate of marriage. I have developed a distinctly autistic resistance to the idea, knowing full well that it cuts against the grain of my peers.

My mind has always wanted things to make sense. I tend to pull at the loose threads of tradition until the logic unravels, and marriage is one of those threads. What fascinates me most is not that people do it, but that they rarely stop to question why.

I am surrounded by admirable examples of lasting partnerships. My parents have been married for almost sixty years. Marriage can be a wonderful foundation for raising children too, yet my mind keeps twisting the logic until it contradicts itself.

The Social Discomfort of Choosing Otherwise

One aspect that intrigues me is how uneasy married people become when you consciously choose not to follow suit. I hear countless stories from friends and acquaintances about midlife divorces, about second marriages that bring new complications, about blended families and the endless complaints about their new partners. My partner and I listen to these stories with a kind of detached empathy, while gently enjoying each other’s company with little to complain about.

Then the attention shifts.

“Why don’t you get married?” they ask. “You’ve got such a great relationship.”

Precisely.

Why would we want to screw it up?

It is easy enough to excuse our position. One of us already has children, so the supposed purpose of marriage has largely been met. I am not religious, and while religion is not solely responsible for pair bonding, it certainly shaped it. A younger me would have said, why would I cherry-pick systems from faiths I do not believe in?

Marriage remains a practical way to organise kinship, inheritance, and social order. It is also a clean route to losing half, if not all, of everything you own if things fall apart. To my mind, the marriage contract provides a roadmap of the pain and anguish that so often follows when one or both parties decide to break it.

The Contradictions

I prefer a contract of character and promise that can stand without the state’s involvement. Yet the idea persists that only a legal document proves commitment. You can still bow out, of course, but now the consequences are neatly itemised and enforceable.

It is not that marriage itself does not work. It is that the contradictions, where my mind naturally lives, are too many.

Till death do us part, unless we change our minds.

What is mine is yours, until it isn’t.

It is for the kids, until they meet their new step-siblings.

Let’s grow together, often while growing apart.

Change and Time

We all change. Think of an album you once loved but no longer listen to. The tattoo you wish you could laser off. The summer romance you are glad you escaped. You have not yet met your future self, and neither has your partner. Ten years from now, the two of you could be complete strangers to each other.

Some couples evolve together, moulding and shaping until they become an unbreakable force. A melding of souls can be beautiful, but it can also mean an atrophying of personal growth. When a couple becomes so entwined that they forget themselves, their drives, their unique experiences, they risk dissolving into a soup of familiarity. Growth requires struggle and separation as much as union.

I often wonder if anyone can truly comprehend their future self. When you do not know who you will be at eighty, how can you sign up to share that life with someone who faces the same uncertainty?

Divorce rates are high. Infidelity is higher still. Yet society insists that marriage is the answer. Why?

Cultural Inheritance

Perhaps marriage is simply a cultural consequence that could have developed differently. Imagine if the system had evolved to require renewal every ten years, forcing people to consciously recommit or part ways. It might have offered both a light at the end of the tunnel and a built-in mechanism for honesty.

Marriage was conceived in eras when we lived half as long. If someone suggested a 180-year marriage contract today, the institution would collapse overnight. Surely those who wrote the vows centuries ago would hesitate if they knew the contract would be extended by several decades of human lifespan.

The Performance

Then there is the discomfort of the performance itself. I have attended enough weddings to know they are not for me. The attention, the small talk, the logistics, the dancing, the financial flourish. It is not that I dislike celebrating others’ beginnings, but I know my own limits. My autistic algorithms would be running so hot that I would miss the presence of experience. Half the day would blur into exhaustion.

Emotion and Obligation

I understand the appeal of coming together in a shared commitment, an us-against-the-world approach to living. Too often though, that brilliance dulls into apathy. The vow of forever turns into a resigned endurance. The pressure to stay because everyone witnessed it can breed stagnation. When the decision to remain together rests only between two people, without the weight of an audience, a more authentic partnership can grow. One built on choice, not obligation.

Marriage can represent security or stagnation, devotion or domestication, power or partnership, depending entirely on how it is lived. My alien-like brain beams in from the side and asks, why. Why sign up for a future that cannot be predicted? Why copy what so many others have failed at? Why need a piece of paper to prove love, the one force that forever eludes containment? Why assume I could succeed just because my parents did? Why economise love?

Emotional partnership evolved long after marriage’s pragmatic beginnings. The social conformity of marriage often values the appearance of stability over emotional truth. I can see why people crave its security, but I cannot ignore its contradictions.

I know only that I cannot sign up to something that resists reason, longevity, and change all at once.

Whether you climb together or take separate routes, the summit remains uncertain. Ascending does not guarantee you will reach the top, no matter your commitment, but the journey itself is surely worth the effort and the view worth the climb.

Life is full of contracts that eventually expire, yet many of us have that lifelong friend who never needed written proof.

Perhaps that is the essence of it. My kind of mind is drawn to what feels honest, not what feels expected.