How Marriage ruined our Love

So, Callan and I have been married since 2011. We started dating In February of 2010. So, we had a quick courtship, and a short time to really get to know each other before we go married. We were also VERY young when we got married.

Where we are from, and how we are raised, its the norm to get married between the ages of 18-24. We both came from strong LDS households (Mormon). Where young men are just getting off of their missions, at age 21 or so, an young women are either on missions or waiting for their missionary. There are other situations where the young people of the LDS church are not doing these things, but the vast majority are getting married young, and popping out babies.

Anyway, Callan and I are NOT LDS. We are not Christians either. We are human beings who don't believe in religion. I believe in a higher power of some sort, whereas Callan does not. He is atheist. Not that this has anything to do with what this post is about, but it will just give you an idea of who we are as people if you do not know us personally.

Well, back to our LDS "culture"... When Callan and I moved in together when we were dating, we were obviously breaking every rule the the Mormon handbook, our families were not happy about it.
My parents were upset, and so was Callans dad and step-mom. It was hard on them to see us living together, and breaking the whole chastity thing, or something like that. So needless to say, our families put a lot of pressure on us to get married.

In my heart I knew I loved Callan, and he loved me. But we didn't want to do the whole marriage thing. Its just a piece of paper. (that argument could go both ways) But, for us, our love, and being in what we considered a committed relationship was enough. But, something that weighed on us was the guilt we felt for hurting our family.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love both sides of our family. But, what works for them in their lives, doesn't work for us. I really wish we would have stuck it out, and stood up for ourselves more. We made the BIG leap to get married after only dating a year and 4 months.

And as beautiful as our wedding was, I wish we would have never done it. From the second we said "I DO", things changed. This piece of paper told us what we already knew, that we loved each other, and wanted to spend our lives with each other, but it also put a new weight on our relationship. It told us we had given in. We had let ourselves be talked into something we didn't necessarily believe in, all for the fear of disappointing our families.

We don't blame them, they only wanted for us what they thought was best. But we should have listened to what we knew was right for us. We should have done it our way.

Callan and I seriously started to resent each other, this stupid piece of paper was ruining what was once, in my opinion, the greatest love story ever told. I am thinking, if getting married changed us so much, that we wouldn't have made it anyway. Right? Wrong.

After Archer was born, Callan left for the Air force. Being married makes everything in the Air force a little less complicated, but so does having a kid. We contemplated divorcing, but staying boyfriend and girlfriend. Silly right?

Over the past month our relationship has deteriorated even faster than usual. Callan was ready to move out, I was ready to get a job, be a single mom, start over. Everything was falling apart. Then Callan, pulled me aside, handed me our demon, that piece of paper. The monster that had been pulling us apart, that had been eating away at us, the thing that had almost destroyed us.

He handed it to me, and said, we are putting this away, and everything from our wedding. We are going to put it in a box, and not look at it again. I love you more than everything, and this is our demon, we can't let this symbol of conformity destroy us any longer. So, we packed everything up. Its now in a box in our storage room, to be looked at when we are ready. That could be a month from now, a few years, or never. We took off our wedding rings, and with that we took away the pain that had been in our lives since 2011.

Callan is my boyfriend, and I am his girlfriend. We may be legally husband and wife. And to our families we may be husband and wife, but to us we are just Callan and Aubrie. We are working every day at loving each other, at rebuilding each other and ourselves. We can do this.

Never again, will we conform and change who we are and what believe for the sake of another persons feelings and beliefs.

From now on, we do what we want. We no longer need to hide who we are.

I am Aubrie, I am 22 years old. I like tattoos, cocktails and trashy romance novels. I have an amazing son, with my boyfriend. And we have never been happier.