Thanks Fry, You have the best posts on this thread, much better than the personal attacks from people who don't know me from adam. I know that Im not good at explaining my feeling behind this, and that's part of the problem, it all makes sense to me in my head but when I let it out it comes off wrong.  I hope that what Im going to say will help shed light on the issue.

I understand why marriage is important to a lot of people. They need that extra bit of commitment for security and like you said, to make them think twice. Its the same for a wedding ring, its a physical reminder of the commitment to that other person. On the other hand, I don't feel like I have to have those things to have the same commitment. I would have put the same amount of effort and commitment into the relationship whether I had a wedding ring or not. I would guess that some of that comes from watching my parents, in 27 years I don't ever remember my dad wearing his ring, not once. But mom wears hers everyday, and I know that shes never doubted his commitment once in 30 some years.

One of my core beliefs is something most everyone here can understand, its loving and being totally committed to one person for the rest of your lives, through the good times and bad, but for me personally, I don't need that physical reminder to do it.  I hope this has all made sense.  I would love to hear if you have more thoughts on this and if you have a question go ahead and ask