The Spacefem.com Poll of the Day a few days back was about relationships. It basically asked, "what's your situation" and the options were like:

• Happily in a relationship
  
• Not quite happily in a relationship
  
• Single and staying single
  
• Getting over an ex
  
• Seeking someone out
  
• ...
  

I picked the first one, obviously, but I read through the options several times because I couldn't get over this feeling that "married" should be its own option. I mean yeah, I'm in a good relationship but that doesn't really seem to tell the story, there's more going on. a LOT more going on. I feel like when you date someone, you're always in these places or buckets of status, then you're married and you're... married.

I asked my husband about this and he agrees, but also can't put it into words. It's like reading a poll written by someone in Houston about what part of a city you live in, but you don't live in Houston, and your city doesn't map out the same AT ALL. In fact marc said that if anything, marriage encompasses little bits of every part of those statuses and that's what makes it so hard to pick one.

Ever since I got married I've been trying to put into words what's different about being married. Most married people are no help. To start off, a lot of people get married young, and don't have much to compare it to, I think. I was in several relationships that went for a year or longer just dating. Happily dating. Never needing to be married. Then Marc happened and it was this totally different plane, and the marriage changed something huge about our relationship that I've never been able to express very well. Before August 4 2007 people would tell us that we might as well be married or acted like we were already married or any of those things... but they were quite wrong. Familial bickering or cohabitation might make people think "married" but they're not it, once you know the difference.

Nah. A marriage is its own thing. There's me, there's marc, there's the apartment, there's the bookshelf... there's the marriage. When you're dating there's always your own personal assessment of how the dating is going, but when you're married it's more like a river that you swim in. If that makes sense. No, it really doesn't, does it?