How important is marriage?

meritaten

Marcheline wrote: »

I agree with your sentiments meritaten, but I wanted to point out that you dont have to have your children's named double barrelled if you're not married. You can choose whether to double barrel them, give the mother's surname alone or the father's surname alone.

yes you are quite right sorry i didnt make it as clear as you have. I meant that there are quite strict rules about whose name the children have. and in one example, for instance if you arent married and you go on your own to register the children you cannot register them in the fathers name as their surname (as I understand it). you can give them his surname as a first second or seventy second name if you wish. its quite complicated but the registry staff will always help you where they can.
thank you to everyone for pointing this out

uzubairu

Person_one wrote: »

I've told OH (and anyone else who'll listen) that I'd never wear an engagement ring. If its a 'symbol' then to me its just a symbol of ownership, gender inequality and excellent marketing by diamond companies.

3 times salary is ridiculous. I'm sure it used to be 1 months and I thought that was insane as well, what if it goes down the plug?

I said the same, but it didn't stop OH spending a month's salary on mine in 1996.
I added his surname to mine to keep MIL quiet.

Steel wrote: »

I didn't believe in marriage that much but hubby did. It wouldn't have mattered to me if we never got married. I just didn't care that much one way or the other because I felt we were so solid a couple.

However, hubby wanted to marry and it was very important to him so we married.

As it was so important to him I put aside my ambivalence about it. I was happy before we married. I'm happy now we are married.

A wedding doesn't have to be expensive. If your BF doesn't want to ever marry and you will be unhappy with him knowing that, you need to find someone else. Otherwise you'll be hanging on hoping in vain getting more miserable as the years pass.

Same situation as you.

Been together since 1990 and we celebrated our 10th anniversary last year.
It really meant a lot to him to introduce me as his wife (not girlfriend/partner), so I gave in.

choccybuttons

Its funny, I only ever saw myself getting married if I wanted to have kids. Infact I was quite anti marriage considering I was raised by parents who have a great marriage. However when my then BF job got moved to another country it was get married or I stayed in uk. So I took the plunge. At first I was terrified and so unsure but as the weeks past I knew it was the right thing to do and it made me love him even more. So 4 months later I walk down the isle and it was the best feeling. Marriage is the best feeling and makes us so much stronger but that just us, loads of people work well without being married.

Person_one

uzubairu wrote: »

I said the same, but it didn't stop OH spending a month's salary on mine in 1996.
I added his surname to mine to keep MIL quiet.

I honestly think I'd say no to anybody who tried to propose to me with a ring. They either don't know me well enough to get married or they don't care about my deeply held beliefs.

Don't even get me started on surnames. Its taken me long enough to feel happy with my name, I'm prepared to stand my ground for it!

Brighton_belle

euronorris wrote: »

I looked at ringenvy.com but wasn't that impressed. The ring doesn't bother me to be honest. So long as there is one, as a symbol, I don't care about how much it cost, how big it is, etc. I know, I'm the odd one out, I guess.QUOTE]


Nope, I'm the same euronorris - can't get this obsession about 'the ring' and personally diamonds leave me cold. Don't care if it comes from a cracker in the short term and not interested in anything costing £100's , let alone a £1000:eek:.

kezmumx4

Marriage has never been important to me. My boyfriend of 10yrs says that he wants to get married 'one day' We were engaged for 4 yrs and we were due to get married and then he suddenly decided he didn't want to as it would cost too much.. this happened twice.

I moved from London to Norwich knowing no one except him simply to be with him. I'm committed.
We now have 4 children together. It's not an 'important' thing to me to have the same surname as my kids, they know i'm their mum and the 2 eldest know and understand that my name is not the same as theirs and it doesn't bother them. To be honest I don't think i'd change my name anyway!!
I'd be just as happy not to be married as I would to be. But recently one of my best friends partners died they had been together for 7yrs and had a child.
They weren't married and the child didn't have his surname. He was not a legal next of kin for his partner and she didn't have a will. Luckily social services saw sense and let him keep his little girl. But everything was up in the air and he has had to go to court to fight for the things that should have been given to him and his daughter.. I don't want any of that to happen to me, my partner or our 4 children... and it is because of this that I now want to get married and make sure that the people I love most in the world are looked after properly, the way they should be.
We won't have a big wedding or an expensive wedding, something very simple.
We love eachother and that wouldn't change if we are married or not. But this wedding is a security blanket for my kids future.

Steel_2

*Louise* wrote: »

I can't help thinking that if someone genuinely thought that marriage was 'just a piece of paper', then surely it would be no skin off their nose to get married if it was something that meant a LOT to their partner??:o

That's exactly how I felt. I really didn't care about it strongly one way or the other but hubby did so we wed.

fishie2

I think people get confused with getting married and a "wedding". Weddings can cost a fortune but you can get married cheaply.

CelticStar

I generally think that when one partner doesn't want to get married it usually signals that they just aren't that 'into' the other partner. I know there are exceptions, but in general it's quite common to see people who have been living together for years break up and the partner who was so against marriage go on to marry a new partner. It stands to reason that if marriage is only a 'piece of paper' then why such resistance to it if it means something to your partner?

I never understand women who have a child with someone and who say that they see that as more of a commitment from the man than marriage. Men leave children all the time (not all men, I am generalising of course) so if he can't commit to his partner then why would would he be committed to his children. If a man wouldn't marry me then I sure as hell wouldn't be having his children, both for my sake and theirs.

I also get tired of hearing about the one third of marriages end in divorce statistic as statistically (as recently reported on the news) it is far more likely that a cohabiting partnership will break up than a married couple.

magicgirl

my h2b was with someone five years before we met. she wanted marriage and kids and he didn't. he never lied about it. we have been together ten years and he only recently asked me to wed. At the start of the relationship when i was feeling insecure, i wanted to be married. partly for the kids sake but partly cos i wanted the fairytale wedding and to be the fairytale bride. now i am older and no longer living a fairytale, i am not fussed about weddings and whatnot - i always said i wouldn't marry after i turned thirty and i really did mean it at the time but when he asked me on my 30th birthday, he made it clear how important it was to him. The kids had already told me they wanted us to have the same name (I offered to change by deed poll!) but although i am stressing about the logistics and finer details, i don't really want to be. I am quite happy with how things are and finally have the feeling of commitment that i craved when i was younger. i didn't need the marriage but now i kinda have to go thru it and its not as exciting as i once thought.