Pinky Swear

The boyfriend and I were having our once-every-few-years conversation about marriage. It’s more of a conversation about not getting married. Really it’s about keeping promises or our ability to not keep promises.

He used to be very deterred by the fact that I’ve been divorced. Also, I don’t feel especially bad about the divorce. To him, it means that I don’t feel bad about breaking my promise to stay married to my ex. It’s true. I do not feel bad. Divorce sucks but so would staying married to my ex. Besides, if I stayed with my ex, I wouldn’t be with the current boyfriend and that would really be terrible.

It doesn’t seem to matter that I’ve only been divorced once. The promise was still broken. My grandma was married four times. We know people that were on their fourth wife before they reached the age of 40. I feel like I’m doing alright in the marriage/divorce department.

We also discussed the idea that if we get married that one of us won’t be able to keep our promise.

I don’t remember who brought up pinky swears. I know that I said I only pinky swear with my kids and only something that I know I can promise for sure.

This is the furthest that we’ve ever gotten in the conversation. There is a reason that we only discuss it once in a blue moon: one of us feels defensive. Tempers flare, again, just the one temper. Still, the conversation always screeches to a halt and one of us doesn’t talk for several hours about anything. (i.e. I feel on the defensive about being a promise breaker. I get pissed off. Then I don’t want to talk about marriage for another two years.)

We talked about commitment. We’ve been together for almost 7 years. I asked if he was committed to me. Clearly, he is. Then I wondered what was really keeping us from getting legally married.

Then he brought up spirituality and being together in the afterlife. I was honestly stumped. Spirituality is one of those topics that brings out the awkward in me. The thing we don’t know is what spiritual being are we saying is cool enough to be involved in a wedding ceremony. The five winds? I’m voting for a Hawaiian God in case we have a destination wedding.

The Afterlife? Together forever and ever in the afterlife. Seven years is the longest that I’ve ever been with anybody. Do I have what it takes to be together with someone for eternity?

I asked if that meant I couldn’t make out with dudes in the nursing home if he dies first. He said it was okay but I have to stop seeing them after I die.  There will be no flirting in the afterlife.

Then he said, “This should be a blog post.”This is when I definitely knew that our chat would not end badly.

Sometime in the conversation, he wanted me to take a picture of his pinky. Howevre, there were no pinky swears made that day.

I think it’s progress. I can totally see us getting married in another five years. It will take that long for us to get through the spirituality conversation.  Apparently, Thor is not an option for our spiritual being at the wedding. I asked already.