We’ve reached Day 10 of #LoveBlog! Today’s topic is on Deal-breakers. Find the rest of the topics at the introduction.
When I was still single, I had a few deal-breakers for a relationship, although not for casual dating. Most people should have a deal-breaker about kids, which was a big one for me. I’ve always wanted to have kids one day, but I’m also fiercely protective of my own reproductive health. I could only be in a relationship with someone who wanted kids, but who wouldn’t pressure me to get pregnant before I’m ready and who wouldn’t pressure me to have more pregnancies than I want. That’s a little bit more detailed than “kids or no kids,” but honestly, if you have a uterus, then you should probably figure out your own deal-breakers regarding your uterus.
Most people also have a deal-breaker about sex. Of course, for the majority of young Americans, that deal-breaker is wanting to have sex before marriage. For many people, they actually want sex before an exclusive relationship. They need to know the sexual chemistry is there before committing.
My deal-breaker on sex was a bit different, in that I wanted to wait until marriage to engage in coitus. My deal-breaker on sex was really different since I also think Purity Culture is sexist bullshit.
Before I met Dan, I thought I had a deal-breaker of only wanting to be in a relationship with a theist. I didn’t care if my significant other identified as Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or even another religious followers. I just wanted him to believe in a Greater Being. Then I met Dan and realized he was the perfect atheist match to my Christian feminist self.
These deal-breakers were easy to figure out with OKCupid since Dan and I had both answered many questions. Religion, sex, and kids are deal-breakers that I hope most people consider when they’re dating.
But I had one more deal-breaker, and I wasn’t sure how to bring it up with Dan.
When Dan asked me to be his girlfriend on October 16, 2011, I was already in love with him. Within a few weeks, I was pretty sure I wanted to marry him. Obviously this worked out, but at the time, my growing love and commitment to me caused quite the conundrum.
I have NEVER planned on taking my husband’s last name one day. I was never the little girl doodling Mrs. Crush’s Name in my notebooks. I never fantasized about being called a Mrs. one day. For awhile I was interested in both me and my husband hyphenating our last names, but I never felt as attached to that idea as I did to keeping my last name.
About 70% of American women change their names upon marriage. Understandably, many heterosexual dudes living their blissful lives of male privilege tend to assume their future wife will take their husband’s name. This male privilege often takes sexism one step further. Many men don’t just assume their future wife will take their husband’s name, but feel entitled to their future wife doing this. And then they get pissed when they fall in love with a woman who has different plans for her name.
(If you don’t believe me, that’s why I included over 10 links with examples of male entitlement on this topic. Some of the comments are even worse than the articles and reddit posts themselves).
I knew that Dan could easily fall into that trap of sexist assumptions. I knew that keeping my last name upon marriage was a deal-breaker for me. But how exactly do you tell your boyfriend of 2 weeks that you plan on marrying him, but you also plan on keeping your last name?
You test him.
On November 4, 2011, I posted this to Facebook.
Dan responded appropriately. The next time we skyped, he mentioned that his new sister-in-law, Emily, had kept her name when she married Dan’s brother Patrick.
Phew! I was golden!
Almost two years exactly after asking me to be his girlfriend, Dan proposed. The rest, as they say, is history.
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Do you have any deal-breakers for dating or relationships? How soon in a relationship do you bring up deal-breakers? Would love to hear your thoughts!
Oh I second you in the kids thing!! I want kids but I want to stop when I reach 35. Definitely something we (Brian and I) talked about a lot! I am glad to have a husband who is flexible. After labor I told him no more kids and he was totally fine with that but now I do want more (don’t make decisions right after intense pain!) and he’s okay with that too!
Ha, my mom told me that after she had us twins, she told the doctors to just go ahead and close her up. Her nurse laughed at her and said new moms say that all the time.
I hope you mean you were planning on stopping when you reached 35 years old and not 35 kids… If you did mean 35 kids, I recommend investing in a bus!
I think deal breakers are a must! People need to have these conversations at the beginning of relationships (or somewhat near the beginning) to avoid hurt later on. As for the taking control of your uterus statement? BRAVA!
My uterus, my decision!!!!
The number of guys I met in college who wanted a half dozen biological kids… I laughed in their faces. I know some women really want that (my husband comes from a Catholic family, so I’ve met some of these women!), but I feel like that’s a really naive perspective for men to have. I’m not opposed to one day adopting or fostering a lot of kids, if that ends up being an option for us, but I only want 1-2 fetus parties in my uterus.
Ooh, I like that. From now on, pregnancy is a fetus party in your uterus.
FETUS PARTY….now that I LOVE!
It’s funny b/c I wrote a post a few months ago about how I’m a feminist and I took my husband’s last name. It was never a thing for me. I didn’t feel committed to my Dad’s name. I don’t feel committed to my husband’s name. My first / middle is all that is truly mine so changing my last name didn’t bother me a bit. I’m super glad that you stood by what is important to you though and I’m glad that your husband was supportive of you. That’s the #1 thing to me. I need a partner that is fully supportive of me, my dreams, my goals, etc and who is there to encourage me to chase what I want for my part of our life.
My husband is pretty great. You’re so right that a supportive spouse is the most important thing. Luckily he’s also cool with giving our future kids two last names. I’m just not okay with the idea of carrying something around in my body for 9 months and then it not having my name!
You know, there are good and bad things about marrying your high school sweetheart. When Pearson and I started dating at 16, I wasn’t thinking about marriage at all (obviously). So I didn’t worry too much about these kinds of deal breakers. Granted, we were both raised very similarly in religious and social aspects. And we attended the same church and youth group. So we had the religious part down. And sex was included in that. But it wasn’t until a few years later when we started seriously talking about the possibility of marriage that we talked about other things such as kids. Luckily, we were on the same page and Pearson was very flexible. Having kids is something we still talk about a lot. The plan is to wait till he’s out of school and since that’s still 3 years away, we still have time to talk about it. It’s was sort of a compromise but I’ve convinced him that two is enough. 😉 Also, we want to foster and adopt if possible.
Anyway, great post! I think your “test” was a perfect way to bring the name thing up! Great idea!
I probably wouldn’t have considered Dan long-term potential in high school because he was still Catholic then! There’s no way I was willing to get married in the Catholic church. But I could have dated a Catholic just for funsies.
But if he’d known me that long, I wouldn’t have needed to test him on my last name issue. I was literally the only person in my high school classes who identified as a feminist (this was sometimes even true in college in my WGS classes). People loved needling me for it. My stance on my last name was pretty clear.
Aww! That’s a cop out! You should have tried asking him to his face! 😉 (I also didn’t take my husband’s name.)
I really didn’t want to ask my boyfriend of 2 weeks to marry me…
No, I meant asking how he felt about last names. I feel like that can be brought up without talking about marriage… It’s controversial enough to make for an interesting conversation without actually being like “Marry me!”
Eh, maybe? Neither one of us discussed any marriage-related topics at all until we’d been together for 2 months. I wasn’t willing to wait that long to find out his opinion because I was already emotionally invested in our relationship, but wouldn’t continue it if he had strong feelings about women changing their names.
I was 24, in my first-ever relationship, gauging how my long-distance boyfriend felt about his own future marriage. Maybe now at the old age of 28 I could come up with a way to casually drop that into conversation, but at the time, our skype conversations were anything but casual.
I know it wasn’t your main point, but I like that you included that one of your deal-breakers didn’t ultimately end of being a deal breaker for you. I agree that there are certain areas that we need to think about and know where we stand, and be able to talk about those things with someone who has relationship potential, but I think that openness and flexibility (at least in some areas) can be good as well. 🙂
Growing up I never really thought about deal breakers. It was only until I was a single mom that it really hit home for me. It was one thing for me to continue to put myself in not the best relationships but I could not do that to my son. Once I established who I was I was able to make my deal breakers. Then I met my husband. I think it is important to establish who you are and what are your so called deal breakers in order to find the right person for you.
Loved your candidness and sincerity, wishing you all the best in your journey together wherever that might take you.