Are the straights okay rule

I'm so glad younger people are largely abandoning the "wife bad" garbage. Maybe it's not so bad to, you know, openly enjoy being with someone you love without having to make a joke about it.
- No one has to "get married by 23 and if they ever get divorced they're massive failures" anymore.
  
  Depends on the part of the world you live in. I'm that age and coworkers (!) constantly joke about having to find me a wife and find it a bit odd that I'm not even in a long-time relationship yet.
  I had this colleague a few years back who was 28-29 at the time, and people were bad-mouthing him because he wasn't married, saying that something must be wrong with him. Societal pressure is very strong here.
  You wouldn't believe this is happening in the EU, right?
- It's so bizarre. My models for a successful marriage growing up were my grandparents, and they adored each other. Comfortable enough to tease each other, but I couldn't imagine them ever doing something like using a wedding or an anniversary to make these kinds of weird "Wife bad" jokes.
- The biggest reason for declining marriages is that people can actually make choices now and people don't want to be shackled to someone they hate their whole lives.
  People had radically different attitudes about marriage in olden times, when marriage equaled survival in many ways, and survival of your family, your connections, your career and your status, which was held through generations. It wasn't thought of normally in terms of love and that's a very modern view of marriage.
  Romance and marriage for love certainly existed, but that was usually considered fantasy or stageplay.

When I married my wife almost 15 years ago my mother-in-law gave me a shirt that said game over with a happy bride stick figure and a very sad groom figure so I took that shirt and I wrote a :-) over the guy's :-( and I wore that shit under my tuxedo and as soon as the wedding was over I opened my jacket and walked around with that shirt proudly for the rest of the night. Yeah game over, I won.
- Well, not really game over but ng+13 now
  
  Just putting off that Kolmi fight so kiddo can have a dog

Feeling pressured into marriage is a common issue for aromantics dating an alloromantic, regardless of sexuality.
- Is alloromantic the opposite of aromantic? I tried to understand this by reading online definitions but am not sure at all.
  
  The prefix Allo just means other, so when you have a pair of things the other one will normally become Allo-thing. Because we don't make words the culturally accepted default position until there is something to contrast it with, most instances of Allo will describe the culturally accepted default.
  Aromantic - Alloromantic
  Asexual - Allosexual
  Autistic - Allistic
  
  yup!
- How does an aromantic even get to the point of being pressured into a marriage (at least in a society without arranged marriage)? Why are they dating in the first place? Am I misunderstanding how that works?
  
  Same ways gay people get 'straight married'.
  Could be family pressure. Could be internalized hetreonormativity making them feel like they 'should' do this. Could be they haven't really realized, come to terms with, or accepted their own identity.
  I mean, think of a 'stereotypical' aromantic guy. He's interested in women, and sleeps around a lot, but despite not getting feelings, might 'settle down' with one partner because its 'normal, respectable', even if it's not something that makes him happy. Probably won't make the wife happy either, but that's it's own issue, why she might marry a guy that 'doesn't do romance'.
  
  Mainly social expectations and lack of awareness of aromanticism. I know in the US that's common in the deep south (where I'm from), but I'm sure you'll find it anywhere that's socially conservative.

I had a low opinion of marriage even as a kid but [then] the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints invested millions (in 2008 money) to back Prop 8, to enshrine in the Constitution of California a ban on same-sex marriage. The amendment is still there.
It was interpreted by the California Supreme Court to outlaw the act of marrying two same-sex persons, but same-sex marriages from outside the state are still respected for accommodations purposes. That was a little relief.
At that point I decided that marriage is just a state thing, a license I'd get to acquire benefits, or not, and is meaningless outside the boundaries of state or federal law.
I have a wife and she has me, and just had our eleven year anniversary, but we are not married according to any nation or state, because fuck 'em.
- Just be careful that you’re both designating each other as a beneficiary on any insurance, 401K/other retirement vehicles, or other assets (stocks, bonds, housing, accounts etc). If she’s not legally your spouse, she’s not going to be automatically entitled to any assets if she’s widowed or vice versa.
  You both may also want to have a will or power of attorney clause given to each other in case of medical issues which prevent someone from communicating their own will. Family members get the right to act on behalf of their family, but they can’t do anything to help or protect if they’re not legally related in some way. Some places have clauses for common law spouses, but not all do, and not for all circumstances.
- Does that not hurt you on your taxes/government forms? For instance, for a period of time, my wife was making far less than me and that helped us with our taxes by giving us deductions since our combined income was under a certain threshold. I believe it helps with other things as well.
  Just trying to call you out, just curious because I saw this as a net benefit overall.
  
  We're among those households for whom the combined reporting rate actually costs us more.