An atheist wedding

I got married!  Here is the script of the wedding, in its entirety.

[DANIEL, OFFICIANT]

(opening)

We have gathered here today to witness the union of Greg and Jeanie. Thanks to technology, we in this room bear witness to this ceremony along with people from all over the world. On six continents, people who have watched Greg and Jeanie grow in their love are now witnessing their pledge to a lifetime of love and commitment to each other and their children.

(Daniel reads the essay on marriage)

Why do people get married? What makes a couple sign a marriage license and legally bind one person to another?

Sure, there are benefits and protections involved. It’s easier to do things in the name of your spouse. It’s easier to get insurance, it protects the assets you’ve built together, it assures that you have a say in medical decisions, and it makes any process involving children easier. It makes your taxes slightly easier to do.

It’s more than that, though. It’s announcing to society that you are committed to building a life together, that you are on the same page, that you have the same goals, and you are going to spend your life working to achieve them. It says to everyone you meet that you’re proud to call your spouse your husband or your wife.

It’s no longer “boyfriend” and “girlfriend”. It’s no longer “significant other”. It’s not simply “partner”, “love interest”, or even “fiancé”. You love each other enough to take the next step into the most challenging adventure of human relationships.

So what is marriage? It’s dedication and perseverance; it’s talking and listening; it’s helping and supporting and believing in each other; it’s intimacy and laugher; it’s learning to forgive, learning to appreciate your differences, and doing little things every day to build each other up. . As you begin your married life, it is my hope that your family gathered here, that your family not present today, and that your friends from all over the world will support your commitment and look to your love as an inspiration in their own lives.

____

Greg and Jeanie have prepared some words they would like to share with each other.

[JEANIE READS HER WORDS TO GREG]

Greg, how can I express how happy you’ve made me?

You make me feel safe. You accept me with all of my weirdness. You and I have similar goals and ideas, and that’s important when we’re staring a life together. We can always be ourselves with each other.

You don’t just say you care about me; you show it, and it’s not with expensive presents or over the top displays, but with all of the little things you do every day.

It’s when you stroke my hair and hold me close when I come to sit down next to you. It’s the times you say “I love you” out of nowhere. It’s you taking care of me when I’m sick or have a headache, doing the dishes without a word when I’m in pain, and when you kiss my nose to make me smile. It’s when you write expressions of love for me out of the blue and make me so happy, it moves me to tears. It’s when you stop what you’re doing to spend time with me, not because I complained, but because that’s what you’d rather do.

It’s always the little things that matter the most.

I promise to love, honor, and cherish you, as long as we live.

[GREG READS HIS WORDS TO JEANIE]

Jeanie, I fell in love with you early on, within eight days of talking with you. We talked almost around the clock for all eight of those days, learning a great deal about each other. The more we spoke, the more I realized that I could not see a down side. There were only positives. On day nine, I told you that I love you. I can’t tell you how elated I was to hear you say you love me too.

Words are words, of course, and no one can be sure until those words are tested. Everything I learned about you in words passed each test with flying colors. It did not take long to learn that you are completely genuine.

I never knew I could be so happy with anyone. I thought I knew what love was, but you proved that everything I labeled “love” in the past was a shadow of the real experience.

Love is not just a feeling. Love is a blend of emotions, trust, cooperation, affection, intimacy, and bliss. It is holding hands on car trips, cuddling on the couch during a movie, getting lost in each other’s eyes, raising children together, making long-term goals, building each other up, and growing old together. It’s making each other laugh and supporting each other through both good times and more difficult ones.

I promise to love you, cherish you, adore you, and never take you for granted. You make life better, and I promise always to strive to make life better, too.

[DANIEL READS THE VOWS]

Dan: Do you, Greg, take Jeanie to be your lawfully wedded wife? To have and to hold, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, to love, honor, and cherish for the rest of your life?

Greg: I do.

Dan: Do you, Jeanie, take Greg to be your lawfully wedded husband? To have and to hold, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, to love, honor, and cherish for the rest of your life?

Jeanie: I do.

Dan: By the power vested in my by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.

How do you know when it's love?

I didn't think that I would find love in my life.  I thought I'd found an approximation of it when I got married the first time, but hindsight has taught me that it was more a relationship of convenience, and less something based in love.  

So what is love?  How do I know I've found it?

Here's what the dictionary says about it:

love

  [luhv]  Show IPA

noun

1.

a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.

2.

a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend.

3.

sexual passion or desire.

The dictionary has these definitions separate, but I think they all fit together.  When you have a tender, passionate affection for another person, when you have a warm personal attachment, and when you have sexual passion and desire for an individual, you've found love.

How do we tell love from strong infatuation, though?  A person could feel these things, but not really be in love; it might just be a strong, fleeting, desire that feels like attachment.

Here's how I recognized my current relationship for what it is:

• I was happier than I'd ever felt in my life.  Again, could be a sign of infatuation, but I'd never felt happier.
• I could list reasons I felt the way I did, rather than describing a general, nebulous feeling that  couldn't be defined. 
• Nothing was awkward.  Not our conversation, not our first kiss, not the first time we had sex, nothing.
• Her passions interested me, whether or not I shared them completely.
• The "chemistry" was there.  Looking into her eyes triggered deep emotion.
• I went out of my way to make time to talk to her and see her.  I did everything I could to make sure I kept getting together with her, and she did the same with me.  More so, even, because she drives to my place a lot more often (it just makes sense for us right now).
• We were incredibly sexually compatible.
• We were both contributing to the relationship in lots of different ways, and the efforts we made didn't feel like effort at all, even when we were making sacrifices to see each other and do things for each other.  
• She's constantly on my mind.  Still, six months later, my every decision involves thoughts of her.  

I define what we have as love.  If love can't truly be defined, let's call it incredible compatibility, resulting in intense pleasure and prolonged happiness.

Life as it stands right now

In six days, my current relationship will be six months old, and it's going strong.

Anyone who has followed this blog from the beginning knows I was married, but I haven't really talked about the end of that marriage and what's happened since.  I could write about what happened between the time I met my fiancee back to the time my ex decided she wanted a divorce, but it's in the past, it's not going to change anything, and things are going so well right now, I don't want to dredge up the negativity.  To summarize briefly, we had terrible marriage counseling, I immersed myself in gaming, had a lot of deaths among friends and family, let things get a bit out of hand, finally regained control of my senses and finances, and figured out that I was better off without her.  It was just me and my daughter for awhile, then I moved back to Ohio from Michigan, near my mom.

     A few months after I moved, I met Jeanie in a mingling group on Facebook, and we found love.  We fell quickly and deeply, and it continues to grow stronger.  There are so many reasons we're together, but one of the points of compatibility is that she has a son on the autism spectrum.  He has Aspbergers.  Knowing the signs of autism, I could tell when I met him, but if people don't know, they just think he's a goofy, quirky, funny kid.

    Anyway, it's awesome enough that Jeanie and I get along the way we do; we have been told we inspire people to find true love, and we absolutely enjoy each other's company.  We both agree that we've never been happier.  I've never laughed more or harder, never had more affection or passion, never had so many reasons to love someone as I do Jeanie.  But the fact that her son and I hit it off is a huge bonus.

     I've taken him to the store with me a few times and once to get a haircut, and we've gotten to talk and laugh together.  He embraced me on the first visit, and he enjoys sharing jokes with me.  I helped him with his computer, as well, and he wants me to teach him programming.  Jeanie says it is not each for her son to get attached to strange men, but it happened pretty quickly with me, and I love the kid.

    My own daughter hit it off with Jeanie, though she does have problems with breaks in her routine, and we've had some issues when Jeanie was staying at my place the first few times.  When we went to Pennsylvania before that, she loved Jeanie right away, and got along with her very well.  Now she looks forward to the visits from Jeanie and her son, and asks when they're going to be over.  The aids at her school tell me that she talks about them all the time, excitedly.  Caitlin really wants to move to Pennsylvania, and she said it the first time we were there.

      Having a woman in my life who understands the autism spectrum and is such a great advocate for her own children is a huge benefit to our relationship.  It's not why we're together, but it sure makes life easier.  Jeanie has been great about looking into autism resources in Pennsylvania for Caitlin already.

     Jeanie has a daughter, as well, whom I've met, but I've not had much opportunity to interact.  She's a brilliant girl, into art and language, and I think we'll be fine.  It's hard to relate to people when you're really smart, so having someone else who is on her level around the house will be a welcome change, I'm sure.  Eventually.

     Anyway, I'm head-over-heels, crazy in love, and I've been riding that emotional high for almost six months now.  It's been wonderful.  It's done wonders for my outlook on life.  She makes me a better person.