Everyone keeps asking us the same question: “When are you two getting married?”
So we finally sat down and answered it. No script, no rehearsal — just the two of us on the porch in Atenas, talking through something we’ve circled a hundred times in private. What does marriage mean to us? Do we want it again? And if we do it, why are we doing it our way this time?
We’ve both been married before. We’ve both been divorced. And meeting each other here in Costa Rica gave us the space to rethink what commitment actually looks like — not for the world, but for us.
Here’s where we landed.
We’ve both said “never again” — and meant it
If you’ve been through a divorce, you know the feeling. When it ends, you plant a flag: I am never doing that again.
Shawn said it. Nina said it. And honestly, a lot of people feel exactly that way right after — it’s almost a rite of passage. Then time passes, you meet someone, and slowly the door you swore you’d nailed shut cracks open again. Not because you forgot the pain, but because you start wondering if the problem was ever the commitment itself.
That’s the question we actually wanted to sit with.
Shawn’s take: it’s the government part he can’t get past
For Shawn, the resistance isn’t to lifelong commitment — it’s to who’s in the room when you make it.
His view is that marriage was originally meant to be two people coming together, united by their community, their family, and their faith. Somewhere along the way it became a transaction: a fee, a license, a piece of paper that makes your relationship “official” in the eyes of the state. He’d rather find a way to commit fully without the government being a signatory to something that private.
That’s not a loophole. It’s a distinction — and it matters to him.
Nina’s take: oneness over paperwork
Nina believes deeply in the institution of oneness with a partner — a real, lifetime bond. What she’s less attached to is the specific way the wider world packages that bond up and calls it “marriage.”
She’s spent time thinking about how to be someone’s lifelong partner while questioning the traditional script that surrounds it. She and Shawn landed in a surprisingly similar place from two different doors: for both of them, the real question became why does the government need to recognize what we’ve already decided belongs to us?
Life partnership: what it actually looks like day to day
Here’s the part people miss. Choosing not to rush a legal marriage doesn’t mean choosing less commitment. For us, it’s the opposite.
We already treat each other like husband and wife in every way that counts. The daily choosing, the showing up, the loyalty — that’s the substance. Too many relationships pour their energy into making sure the outside world approves of the relationship, and far less into what’s actually happening inside it. We’d rather get the inside right.
And to be clear — there are times a legal marriage makes complete sense. We have friends here in Costa Rica who married legally for practical reasons: property rights, taxes, benefits that come with the paperwork in certain countries. That’s a real and smart decision. If it’s right for you and your partner, it’s nobody else’s call to make.
Skip the big wedding — invest in us
One thing we agree on hard: the big wedding, in front of a room full of people who don’t really know you? Neither of us needs to do that again.
We’d rather take what that would cost and put it into something we’re actually building together — our future, our plans, our life. That’s the version of “investing in the relationship” that feels honest to us.
Creating our own words
This is the part Shawn feels most strongly about. So much of what we drag into a relationship comes pre-loaded from the outside world — including the words themselves.
“Baby.” “Love.” Even “marriage.” They get used so often, by so many people, that Shawn feels some of them have lost their weight. So why not create language that means something just to us? He’s started using words that are ours — small, private things the rest of the world doesn’t get to define. It’s not about rejecting love. It’s about making sure the words we use to each other still carry real volume.
“He’s just trying to get out of it” — he’s not
We already know some of you are typing it in the comments: He’s just looking for a way out.
He’s not. Shawn’s been married twice — 13 years, then 18 years. That’s not a man who’s afraid of commitment. That’s a man who’s committed deeply before and wants to do it differently, and more intentionally, this time. Wanting to redesign the container isn’t the same as wanting to avoid the contents.
Married on paper vs. married in action
If there’s one line that sums up this whole conversation, it’s this: plenty of couples are married on paper and not married in real life.
They said the words, they signed the document, and behind closed doors the connection is gone — held together by the kids, by habit, by the fear of undoing it. So the real measure was never the certificate. As Shawn puts it: don’t let the words dictate how you feel about someone — let the actions be the blueprint.
So… will there be a ring? A ceremony?
Yes. Here’s the honest part.
Nina does want a ceremony — some moment that marks this, that says this is real and it’s ours. And Shawn wants to give her that, on his terms and in his timing, because it comes from him and not from peer pressure. (Nina would take a tattoo over a ring, for the record — Shawn’s fingers swell. We told you it was unscripted.)
The point isn’t if. The point is that whatever we do, it’s going to be uniquely ours — built to mean something to the two of us, not to satisfy anyone keeping score.
The real answer
So, for everyone who keeps asking: we’re already committed. We’re two and a half years in, we’re not going anywhere, and we’re in the early stages of a covenant that’s being built on our own terms.
Whether that ends in a ceremony, a ring, a tattoo, or a word only we understand — it’ll be ours. Built on Friendship. Fueled by Love.
Your turn: Are you team “big ceremony” or team “keep it just between us”? Tell us in the comments — we read them.
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