insurance day
Sometimes major things change in my life but I don't get around to posting them. Particularly in the last year since I've barely been on LJ. So I realise that the fact that I'm married will be news to some of you. What will be news to even more of you is that I've been legally married for almost a year. If you think I'm wrong, that surely it hasn't been that long, I have the marriage certificate to prove you wrong.
Bear and I have been together for more than five years. The marriage thing came up a few times, and we decided at one point to never get married. The plan was to become domestic partners, since New York is a city that allows couples to do that. Then we were going to have a big domestic partnership party.
Unfortunately, I don't currently have a job with health insurance benefits, and Bear's employer doesn't cover domestic partners. It does however cover spouses. We talked about fighting his employer, but we realised that that might take a while, and even if we won that would be years that went by with me not having health insurance. So we gave in.
We went down to City Hall with our roommate eyeteeth and my mother. For reference, City Hall ceremonies are incredibly short, as in under five minutes and probably under two. It pretty much consisted of:
Do you want to marry her?
Do you want to marry him?
Give her a ring.
Give him a ring.
Does anyone object?
Congratulations, you're married.
We didn't have rings at the time, so my mother lent us my grandmother's wedding ring. Bear put it on my finger, and then when the judge asked me to give him a ring, I took it off of my finger and put it on his.
A few months later we had a wedding ceremony with some of our friends and family, and that's the day we refer to as our anniversary. Bear doesn't want to celebrate our legal anniversary, or even refer to it as our anniversary. After all, we already have the other day, and we still celebrate the anniversary of when we first started dating. Who needs three? He refers to the legal anniversary as "insurance day" and it's understandable. As far as he's concerned, it's the day we got a piece of paper from the government stating that we're a couple, which isn't very romantic. I'm all about celebrating every anniversary we have, because I'm like that. Bear jokes that I just keep using anniversaries as an excuse to spend time with him. The first year we dated, I insisted on hanging out every month-aversary, so I can understand why he feels that way.
Anyway, married life is remarkably similar to dating life. Or at least it's similar to dating life when you live with your partner and had already agreed years ago that we were stuck with each other because neither one of us planned to ever leave the other one. His aunt now introduces me to people as her niece, that's one change. And I think my mother takes our relationship more seriously now. Bear now turns up in her will, which wasn't true a year ago. And of course I have health insurance. And I get to refer to Bear as my husband, which is still bizarre to me. It sounds weird whenever I say it. Bear doesn't always call me his wife, he still occasionally refers to me as his girlfriend.
Bear and I have been together for more than five years. The marriage thing came up a few times, and we decided at one point to never get married. The plan was to become domestic partners, since New York is a city that allows couples to do that. Then we were going to have a big domestic partnership party.
Unfortunately, I don't currently have a job with health insurance benefits, and Bear's employer doesn't cover domestic partners. It does however cover spouses. We talked about fighting his employer, but we realised that that might take a while, and even if we won that would be years that went by with me not having health insurance. So we gave in.
We went down to City Hall with our roommate eyeteeth and my mother. For reference, City Hall ceremonies are incredibly short, as in under five minutes and probably under two. It pretty much consisted of:
Do you want to marry her?
Do you want to marry him?
Give her a ring.
Give him a ring.
Does anyone object?
Congratulations, you're married.
We didn't have rings at the time, so my mother lent us my grandmother's wedding ring. Bear put it on my finger, and then when the judge asked me to give him a ring, I took it off of my finger and put it on his.
A few months later we had a wedding ceremony with some of our friends and family, and that's the day we refer to as our anniversary. Bear doesn't want to celebrate our legal anniversary, or even refer to it as our anniversary. After all, we already have the other day, and we still celebrate the anniversary of when we first started dating. Who needs three? He refers to the legal anniversary as "insurance day" and it's understandable. As far as he's concerned, it's the day we got a piece of paper from the government stating that we're a couple, which isn't very romantic. I'm all about celebrating every anniversary we have, because I'm like that. Bear jokes that I just keep using anniversaries as an excuse to spend time with him. The first year we dated, I insisted on hanging out every month-aversary, so I can understand why he feels that way.
Anyway, married life is remarkably similar to dating life. Or at least it's similar to dating life when you live with your partner and had already agreed years ago that we were stuck with each other because neither one of us planned to ever leave the other one. His aunt now introduces me to people as her niece, that's one change. And I think my mother takes our relationship more seriously now. Bear now turns up in her will, which wasn't true a year ago. And of course I have health insurance. And I get to refer to Bear as my husband, which is still bizarre to me. It sounds weird whenever I say it. Bear doesn't always call me his wife, he still occasionally refers to me as his girlfriend.