There seem to be two stories that I am hearing from our generation when it comes to our outlook on marriage.

1. They are strong and independent and don't see plans for marriage, and sometimes even kids, on their radar.

2. They plan to get married but not for a long time and until they know that he or she is really the one and only one.

I have been thinking about this dialogue that is so different from that of our grandparents who married in their early 20s and started families soon after. The change has occurred, I presume, because the number of marriages in our parents' era that are still going strong are much less than the generation that came before them. Our generation and many of those younger than us come from divorced parents. Splitting your weeks and holidays between your mom and dad seems to be more normal than having one strong family unit. Everyone handles divorce differently and when it occurred in our lives might be different, but I can tell you that I have more friends with divorced parents than with parents who have been happily married for years. This concerns me because it seems to have created a fear in our lives of getting married. In some cases, I see people my age who have jumped into marriage and are starting families soon, much like it was some 60 years ago. On the other hand, I am surrounded by people who fear commitment and the idea of marriage. Whether it's a religious one or just legally official, it seems to scare us. I do blame our parents for this, as those who grew up in the divorced household know what it is like to be a kid in that world, and don't want to put any future children through that.

I do want to say to our generation, though, that we have a chance to change this. Get married or don't, but we should change the culture of marriage to be something that when you do decide to make that commitment, you are willing to make it work. Our parents fell to the weakness of a growing world and gave up on making things work for something different. I believe that if we as a group decide to make sure our future families are strong and do not break when things get hard that we will have a good thing going. By all means, do not get married if you don't want to. It is something big and serious, so don't make it into a game and something to be played with. If you aren't willing to make it work and to keep the promises you make, then don't bother going through the motions to make something official simply because it is what society tells you to do.

I have heard a lot about life partners recently — you are practically married, have a family and all the rest of that stuff but without the religious or government ties. This saves the trouble of an actual legal divorce if things go wrong, but it also seems to me to be a way of avoiding commitment because I think when people are bound together by a title it causes a fear inside that I don't quite understand. It is the same way with simply dating; the title of boyfriend and girlfriend or whatever other combo you prefer can cause a pressure within the relationship, and that is why our generation is more into the culture of being a "thing" or just having an exclusive open relationship or whatever we want to say to make ourselves feel OK to be with one person we enjoy. These pressures are imagined because how is it that a word can have so much power over us when it is just a word? Because we give it that power. It is time we start embracing commitment and stop accepting fear, avoidance and failure. Let's make a change and show our parents that we know what it is like to be with one person and that growing up around divorce didn't affect us negatively but for the better because now we know what not to do.