marriage isolation
Before I got married, I’d firmly be on the side of people who complained that society is too amatonormative and people prioritize romantic love too hard and neglect their friends, and how people disappear into marriage and don’t make time for friends or new connections anymore when married. Now that I am married, I wonder if it’s some self-fulfilling prophecy and something also facilitated by the people outside of the marriage.
My friendship situation has never been better among irls, but I noticed a dropoff in people reaching out to me online since married. It could be many reasons:
- People really do only mostly message people they’re attracted to and may have a chance with, and they assume marriage means there’s no chance.
- They assume you have no time anyway because they expect you to be very busy with your marriage even when you’re not (especially when no children are involved and there’s as much time as before).
- They assume reaching out to married people to talk and/or call and/or meet up is somehow forbidden, immoral, close to cheating or cheating, and that others or the married person could think they’re trying to hit.
Marriage changed nothing for me. I’m as available as before, time-wise and ethical-nonmonogamy-wise. I’m not busier, I’m not immoral or unethical to message. I’m not a conjoined twin with my partner, you’ll have me on my own. Not one of these couples that do everything together only, never were.
You can’t just assume that person is now married and unavailable; don’t make that mistake, then not reach out and wonder why married people are so secluded. They seclude themselves when there’s no one else because everyone assumed something changed. You don’t have to talk to both, you don’t have to see the couple as one person if you don’t want to.
I even notice it in small details of how people will now refuse to react with heart emojis to my stuff, at least most people. It’s like they think heart stuff is just reserved for my spouse now? As if heart-emojis were flirting? Kinda weird.