Growing Apart
Last year when I got married, I was fully prepared for the idea that marriage was a merging of two separate lives and identities. My husband and I were both marrying for the first time in our early (me) and mid (him) thirties, and we had established careers and social circles. We both recognized that balancing social obligations and family responsibilities would take some juggling and we agreed to work hard to be fair about splitting our time equally. What I was not prepared for was the way our social circles would veer into almost entirely opposite directions, or the effect it would have on us as a couple and the way we interacted with our friends.
According to the US Census bureau, in 2006, the average age of a first-time bride was 25.5 and the average age of a first-time groom was 27.5. More women are having their first children over the age of 30, with 26.6% per 1,000 births occurring to women in their 30s. This puts a couple who marries later than the American statistical average squarely in a social circle that is likely to be beginning their baby production. Or in an even more complicated scenario, one group of friends may be marching resolutely into the white picket version of suburbia (see: my husband’s friends) while the other group is busy dating and discarding partners while dancing on bars until 2 AM (see: my friends).
It’s an interesting dichotomy, these two separate social circles and their completely different world views. Sure, both my husband and I have friends who are married without children, and socializing with them is infinitely easier. Last minute plans are always an option, and there’s no negotiating around a child’s mandatory naptime. Suggesting, even subtly, that the child be left at home with a sitter is always difficult. At some point, you start to wonder if socializing with parents is even worth it. Sticking to married or coupled friends who are childfree is infinitely easier, but those couples are few and far between.
Complicating the problem of socializing, of course, is the fact that your life as a childfree couple is moving in a different direction from the childed couple. First you go weeks between phone calls, then months because of “busy schedules” and other life demands. Suddenly you’re down to the once-a-year holiday card exchange and the occasional odd “touching base” email. You might mourn the loss of the friendship, but what you mourn more is the loss of the way things were – simpler, more casual and easy. What I struggle with most is my sadness for my husband and these changes. His circle was a group of guys he knew in college. Now they are nearly all married, and half of them will be childed by the end of the year. Already the opportunities to socialize as a group have dropped off precipitously, and we’re moving ever closer to the semiannual social gatherings that will probably disappear entirely within the next five years.
It is complicated with my single friends as well. No longer do I want to hang out until late at a trendy restaurant, surveying the scene on a Saturday night. I don’t make a good “wing woman” anymore, because the ring on my left hand is an immediate buzzkill to any man with a sense of decency, and I feel odd sitting there while my friends accept free drinks and make small talk with total strangers. I found my Mr. Right, and I’d rather be home with him. I know I am excluded from some plans because I have said no too many times, and I feel conflicted about the change in status with my friends. To them, I’ve moved firmly into another phase of my life, one that separates me from them, despite my attempts to keep things the same. Things are different – the inherent societal implication is that I’m following the life plan, despite my insistence that I’m not. I’m bucking convention and society on one front by being childfree, but embracing it on another by choosing to get married.
My husband and I don’t fit into any of the recognizable social categories that would make it easier to put us in a neatly defined box. And we’re in a completely different place in our lives from nearly all of our friends. There are no easy answers for how we go about defining and negotiating our place in others’ lives, and we accept that for some friendships, the strength of our history with these people will not be enough to hold the friendship together and allow us to be part of these people’s lives in the future. We do our best to stay connected to people, even as our life choices are working to drive us apart. It’s a challenge that so many who chose to be childfree face every day.
Copyright Kathleen O'Connor. Published 1 October 2008 in Editorials.
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