Haha, pulling a b_b; I love it.

More seriously though, there are two things I can say. Firstly, I wasn't being disingenuous all these years that I maintained that family life was not for me. I really did feel that way. Then a couple of really cliche things happened to to. First, this:

That is my niece. She is the most adorable creature on the planet. When my brother told me they were having a kid, I asked him why he wanted to ruin his own life voluntarily. I don't feel the same now. I have that picture on the lock screen of my phone, and it makes me smile like a 100 times per day (and no, I don't care how lame that sounds). Making a connection with her definitely changed the way I feel about children.

Next, I met (or, more correctly, reconnected with, as we've known each other since high school) the "right" person. I have a connection with my fiancee that I never thought I would share with a woman. I've cycled through a number of girlfriends over the years. Even though I enjoyed my time with all of them to some extent (some more than others), I couldn't wrap my head around what it would be like to want to spend decades with the same person. Now I can. It's that simple, and it's not something I can explain any better than that. I'm house shopping in the 'burbs today. Seriously. And I don't really even mind. I thought I would live in the ghetto forever, but circumstance has somewhat dictated a new path, and, really, I'm more excited about it than anything.

Looking back, I don't feel ashamed or embarrassed for going back on my word to never have a family. I'm glad I felt that way. Had I been inclined toward marriage, there's a possibility I would have jumped the gun and married one of my ex girlfriends (three of whom probably would have married me, had I asked). That would have led to a life of misery, I'm sure. Only when the feeling was strong enough to make me not care what my own stated principles were did I have the courage to say, "Dammit, I do want to marry this girl; she's perfect." (Nobody is perfect, obviously, but she is perfect, for me, and that's good enough.)

So I would advise anyone to be skeptical of marriage. At the very least it leads to forcing oneself to be patient. All that said, I still fucking hate weddings beyond words. I don't envision that changing.