Getting married when you already live together, have children and the rest anyway!

Mely

Surely its important for the children in the relationship to know that their parents have made a lifelong public commitment to each other,to stay together the rest of their lives? If marriage is 'just a piece of paper' to you, then you dont know the meaning of marriage,and shouldnt bother.

lynzpower

Torby wrote: »

If the reason for not getting married is the expense....then its an "excuse"...its not expensive, can be done for very little money....so don't kid yourself or make excuses....I have yet to hear one good reason/excuse for not getting married (apart from bigamy)...so you're either fooling yourself or your partner.

If anyone cares to post "good" reasons for not getting married....feel free...you're obviously not that comitted to your partner anyway....its not as though when you split you won't suffer financial hardship....lol....

I'm looking forward to see if this thread gets bigger...

Iam totally in love with my OH. He is the most wonderful man, he is everything women complain their man is not, he ispositive, proactive, opern to change, supportive, kind, generous, does more of his fair share, hard working, romantic :j:jI have really dropped vvvvv lucky

i propsed to him within a few weeks of meeting him and we started living together immediately ( we had been living together a few days before I proposed, all v quick, I knew I wouldnt be able to live without him)

We are here now just pased our 4th anniversary of meeting, we are still dedicated, all the more than ever.

We did think about getting married, after all thats the intention when you are engaged.

My parents have no money to support a wedding. If we had a wedding the guest list we started with has over 120 guests ( family and a few freinds we both have huge families) The cheapest wedding we have been able to price is about 6k including one ly one catered meal ( ie no evening do) I am not getting married in Brixton registry office without my family there, my family woud be 100% DEVASTATED if I didnt invite them because we couldnt afford it.

I dont want to get married witohut special people there to "see me off" and nor doesd OH. We firmly believe its the merging of families, and you cant do that without the families being there.

We will only do it the once, and there is no chance im doing it with a few stangers in a reg office so more strangers can tell that hes important to me and im important to him.

If the oney fell out of the sky Id do it tomorrow, but we are more concerned with ensuring we have enough moeny for me to stop working for a while to raise our first baby , rather than one day of feeding family and buying flowers

IS this wrong, really??

Mely

Dave101t wrote: »

im getting married in october, we already live together tho there are no kids involved.
i also dont 'get' it as such. i dont see the point aside from the commitment it demonstrates, but that commitment is already demonstrated by the time you have been together!
she says its a public thing, to let everyone see, but whats the point in that, i coudnt care less what other people think.
that said, she wants to, and making her happy makes me happy!
and the wedding is a registry office affair, with a pub/restaurant buffet on the evening. all in - less than a couple of K. she gets her wedding and i get to keep most my money!

How can you make vows to your other half, as you say you 'dont get it'! That makes the whole concept of marriage meaningless and pointless. Regardless of it keeping your oh happy.

Mely

lynzpower wrote: »

If the oney fell out of the sky Id do it tomorrow, but we are more concerned with ensuring we have enough moeny for me to stop working for a while to raise our first baby , rather than one day of feeding family and buying flowers

IS this wrong, really??

So you cant afford to get married,but can afford a baby?
Im sure you could get married for much less than 6k, as you have a loving family, couldnt they do a buffet style wedding breakfast for you? There are a lot of ways to have a nice,romantic wedding that doesnt cost the earth.

gorgeous_gwen

zippychick wrote: »

I have highlighted the bits that jump out at me. No offence meant here, but from what you have said, he doesn't sound in the slightest bit intetrested in getting married, or at least not at this stage in the game.

Sounds like you need to have a heart to heart and both work out a joint plan - so you are both reading off the same page. Perhaps he does want to get married, but doesn't see the urgency or feel the need in the same way you do.

Suggestion - an open conversation where you discuss your opinions and how you both see your future. If he says he is distracted by other things, perhaps you could chat outside the home environment . If you had the kids minded and went out for the night , then he can't really plead the distraction card.

Some men simply don't see the need for marriage and they don't feel it changes anything. They think "what would be different from the way we live our lives now?"

What is it about getting married that appeals to you? Do you want a big white wedding? if not, you could suggest getting married in a registary office in two months time. Price it, and work out a way you can afford it - again if this would be suitable for you - and see what he says. Then you will find out if money is the real issue.

Regards the "feeling a bit neglected", again you need to do something about this. You could always draw up a list of nice things you can do together, and you agree to do one a week or something? Like quality time things. These can include stuff as naughty or as nice as you like. You could make it into a game, so each week one of you picks. You can pick by selection, or leave it up to fate and pick randomly.

Either way, communication is the key I think. Good luck either way.

When we first talked about marriage, he said he felt the same as me, that he'd always wanted to get married to "the one" and that was me I think I envisaged him being as enthusiastic as me once we'd both said we wanted to get married in that converation, but whilst he does talk about "when we get married", he's not said anything definite about it... I know a few things he'd like but we never seem to set a date, or even a year except in at least a couple of years.

I just find it odd that he doesn't recall me talking about weddingy stuff when I have done quite a bit and then stopped doing so as much because I didn't want to come across as pushy, or him to get annoyed

I think the quality time issue can be easily solved, I did say to him that from my previous experience when DS was little that babies do affect the relationship and we'd need to make an effort as it will be more difficult both with feeling tired and arranging a babysitter. I have been out a couple of times with friends so getting out as such isn't a problem, it's US getting out that we need to work on.

RoxieW

Mely wrote: »

Surely its important for the children in the relationship to know that their parents have made a lifelong public commitment to each other,to stay together the rest of their lives? If marriage is 'just a piece of paper' to you, then you dont know the meaning of marriage,and shouldnt bother.

The thing is that a piece of paper cannot keep people together. People change, fall out of love (or werent that well suited in the first place), make mistakes, stop making an effort etc etc. Marriage is a sign of commitment at that time, but I think the statistics (2 out of 3? end in divorce) show that having that piece of paper does not solve any of these problems.Is it better for a child to come from a broken home as sooo many do - or have unmarried parents together in a loving relationshi[? I for one never felt secure in my parents relationship as they argued all the time - they were married - divroced 8 yrs later.
If children cant keep a couple together then a piece of paper wont.

pls forgive any errors - baby on lap
A relationship will work because 2 people rright for each other and r commited to the effort it takes to maintain - not because they r married. I personally prefer being married but would b very wary of being a smug married as i know it very very ofte does not work out in the long run.

Reds-on-Sea

My OH is "the one" for me - if there's such a thing, he's it. Together 3 yrs, bought a house together, talk about kids - it's inevitable, but I really don't see the point in getting married. I don't need it to know he's committed, and I don't care what everyone else thinks. I'm not religeous, and I don't want to spend money getting married.

There's only 2 reasons I'd get married:

1. so I have the same surname as my baby when one comes along, and,

2. the financial benefits.

I know that sounds "unromantic" or whatever, but I'm happy and secure in my relationship as it is.

To OP, you've got a child together! Surely that's MUCH more of a commitment than marriage. I wouldn't dream of having a baby with someone unless I was sure that I wanted to be with them for the rest of my life! It's a shame that you feel as if there's something missing from your relationship -

do you really think it'll make ANY difference to how you are with eachother?

BallandChain

Dave101t wrote: »

im getting married in october, we already live together tho there are no kids involved.
i also dont 'get' it as such. i dont see the point aside from the commitment it demonstrates, but that commitment is already demonstrated by the time you have been together!
she says its a public thing, to let everyone see, but whats the point in that, i coudnt care less what other people think.
that said, she wants to, and making her happy makes me happy!
and the wedding is a registry office affair, with a pub/restaurant buffet on the evening. all in - less than a couple of K. she gets her wedding and i get to keep most my money!

You get to keep it for now....

Reds-on-Sea

RoxieW wrote: »

The thing is that a piece of paper cannot keep people together. People change, fall out of love (or werent that well suited in the first place), make mistakes, stop making an effort etc etc. Marriage is a sign of commitment at that time, but I think the statistics (2 out of 3? end in divorce) show that having that piece of paper does not solve any of these problems.Is it better for a child to come from a broken home as sooo many do - or have unmarried parents together in a loving relationshi[? I for one never felt secure in my parents relationship as they argued all the time - they were married - divroced 8 yrs later.
If children cant keep a couple together then a piece of paper wont.

pls forgive any errors - baby on lap
A relationship will work because 2 people rright for each other and r commited to the effort it takes to maintain - not because they r married. I personally prefer being married but would b very wary of being a smug married as i know it very very ofte does not work out in the long run.

I think the divorce rate is more like 1 in 2 now unfortunately.

I also think it can depends on your peers. mine are all in long term relationships without marriage (doesn't affect me, but) I'd imagine if all your friends are getting married, one might question their own relationship.

RoxieW

I have a mix of unmarried, unhappily married and divorced peers. I cannot think of a single happy marriage (apart from my own lol!) My best friend doesnt agree with marriage (her parents are unhappily married) but is in a wonderful long term relationship. I wanted to get married for I suppose wishy washy reasons ie the same name as husband/kids, to celebrate our relationship and to have the 'big day'. I'm under no illusions though that a [iece of paper will bear any weight with whether our marriage lasts or not. Another friend is very 'pro' marriage and wants to be seen as doing everything in the 'right' order - but cheats. Another friend got married because she got pregnant and it was expected. 5 years on she's miserable. I'd rather be in either of the first 2 scenarios then the last two, married or not.