Guest Post: The 5 Year Itch
This is a guest post in a series on feminism and relationships. If you’d like to submit a guest post for this series, see the guidelines here and submit your post to samsanator(at)gmail(dot)com.
Laura Smith is a student of BA Media, Culture and Society at the University of Hull in the UK. Laura writes for several publications and is the online editor of Hullfire.com. After university Laura plans to move into a writing career in New York, where she spent last summer travelling. Outside of university Laura is a social media enthusiast and organises local events for Twitter users in the Hull area. She is also due to begin a teaching a Twitter workshop this October and also enjoys updating her blog, www.notebookandpen.webs.com to exercise her writing skills.
The term ‘the seven year itch’ is usually used to describe a married couple stuck in a rut. They’ve trapped themselves in a boring routine and day to day life is becoming a chore. But there are some halves of couples that would love to have an itch to scratch in the first place. What I’m describing here is what I’ve discovered to be ‘the five year itch’, something else entirely. While the seven year couples have been there, tied the knot and got the monotonous routine to show for it, some of us would just appreciate having a knot to tie.
Cohabiting couples are a thing of the now, they’re as good as married, apparently. But what if some of us still want the shiny, diamond ring and want to spend as much time considering place settings, invitation designs and which family members you like best as we do wallpaper or Laura Ashley bed sheets? Many couples, myself included, set out in their relationship happy and sure they’d found the one. And their ‘ones’ had found their ‘ones’ too, cosy as can be. Until half of them decide they’re so cosy sitting on their joint-purchase furniture that they don’t see a reason to move from it, not even to go further forwards.
Marriage is a big step, there’s no denying it. But it’s more than just showing off you’re relationship to your friends and family too, it’s a bit like asking someone out again in a really official way. You go from ‘shall we try this out?’ to ‘shall we make this permanent?’, which is what marriage partly is. It’s a permanent view of your relationship, until then you’re two people who don’t have many ties to each other and as far as paperwork go, are pretty much unofficial (unless Facebook relationship statuses count for way more than that initial declaration). You’re in a relationship, yet you are constantly being told you’re not. Applying for financial products, completing surveys and various other depressing forms, we’re forced into ticking the box marked single, despite the fact we’ve been committed for half a decade. Recognition please?
Some say marriage can spoil a relationship, the pressure and worry can become too much, and plenty of women just don’t feel the need for it at all, playing the casual equal to their male counterparts, which is fine, but the point to note there is ‘equal’. Married or not, thinking on the same level as your partner is the vital bit, and while many of us are on the same horizons, half of the couple are slightly closer to the sunset. So what to do? It’s pretty simple: you should do whatever you feel comfortable doing in your relationship, and in your life, because ultimately, this is about you and your partner.