How important is marriage?

bugbabe1970

Lunar_Eclipse wrote: »

It was very important to me and I didn't want to have children outside wedlock.

I love being married and am quite sure I'd do it all again in hindsight. I took my wedding vows seriously and have a very strong urge to make it work, which is in another league to my level of commitment pre-wedding. I have also always said I will only marry once.

I totally agree with what you have said.

My OH was in the army in Germany when we met, we were not permitted to live together so if we wanted to be together we had to marry. It was a complete no brainer for us both. We had only known each other 6 months before marrying but we knew we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together and have a family. 16 years later and after a lot of struggles in our marriage we are still happy and in love.

benb76

Marriage seems pointless to me unless you have religious beliefs. Many women want to get married for the big wedding there are a
fair few who spend 1-2 years planning their wedding, but not so much thought to the supposed lifetime of commitment to their current boyfriend.

Marriage may be a legal contract be it gives no emotional obligation to either party, only financial obligations, which almost always favour the wife. I know of a number of men who have been shafted by divorce settlements, and often when it is the wife who has caused the split.

I can fully understand why many men don't want to get married, it provides no additional security to the relationship and leaves them open to financial shafting!

morocha

I got married when i was 21 and oh 26, i was one of those people who thought will never get married. I love being married, although my oh has deppresion and sometimes can be difficult.. overall is a nice feeling for me, i feel protected, i have a new mom and dad and a new brother.. i have been married for 4 years now and i will not change that for anything.

Margaret52129

When we were just starting out, it was really frowned upon to 'live in sin' and my OH took his time in deciding to get married. We had bought a house and done it up to our tast (took 2 1/2 years) before he decided to finally marry me! I didn't get any proposal, but we did get engaged and our marriage was in a registry office with only 13 guests (including us) on a weekday to make it even quieter. He didn't want any fuss (didn't get any either!) nor photo's, but I ordered them anyway. I would have liked the church wedding and all my family there (lots of them) and friends at an evening do but didn't get any of that. He has said that he's glad I got the photo's and he wished he had a bit more of a do (a bit late now LOL)!

Now 30 odd years down the line, I still feel like I missed out, but at the end of the day, does it really matter that I didn't have all the works? We're still committed to ourselves, and I do (and always have) like being a Mrs ..... Neither of our DD's are married but live with their partners, and one of them has a family. I would like them to get married, but at the end of the day, it's their life, not mine and I have to accept what they want to do, not what I want them to do.

So in a personal way, yes, I do think that marriage is important, as it shows committment and love from both sides and if there are arguments (no-one never has arguments) you will fight that little bit harder to stay together. But that's only my opinion.

Good luck in whatever you choose, because it's your lives and you both have to be happy with your choice.

Loopy_Lobes

My other half (of 17 years with 3 children) has always refused to get married and this has ended up with the breakdown of our relationship (yet we still live together as cannot afford to do otherwise). We were engaged (laughable) and I guess he thought I should have been happy with that. I always wanted to marry and have given him 3 lovely children, yet he has always refused to see the importance (to me) of being a married couple and having the same name as our children. I have never been bothered about a 'wedding' and have said many times that we should just go to the registrary office and do it so cost isn't an issue at all. It's simply his refusal to do something that would make me happy. Very selfish of him, and it made me realise how selfish he has been in all over areas of our life together. After all this time asking him to get married I have now given up and realised that I'm just not that important to him.

If I was the OP I would get out now, if he's not willing to do something for you that will make you happy then he doesn't truly love you. Might sound harsh but why should he hold all the cards? I have learnedthe hard way. I love my three children to pieces but if I could go back in time I'd ditch him and find someone who appreciated me.

Stephb1986_2

Hi Leona,

I am 23 so not much older than you and my OH is now 27 at the beginning of the relationship I knew that he was the one for me but I knew about his feelings towards marrige. He said he didn't want to get married or have kids, now nearly 3 years down the line we are engaged we do have our ups and downs and strops at eachother all the time where we have a row and not talk properly to eachother for a few days but thats relationships for you!

What I am trying to say is don't pressure him into marrying you as really when he does ask you, you won't be sure if he's asking you 1, because he wants to or 2, because you want him to ask you. I'm sure that if you leave the idea alone for a while he might come round to it maybe make him watch don't tell the bride ect ect lol.

All the best for your future together please let us know how things pan out.

Steph xx

gwhizz75

I'm in the same situation with my OH. 6 1/2 years together and he still changes the subject or pretends not to hear when someone mentions marriage. I've tried talking about it with him but essentially I just get fobbed off with "it's not the right time". I don't want him to propose because I tell him to, but I'm quite sure that if I don't force the issue, it'll never happen.

We own a house together, have a cat together, have joint bank accounts and share all of our money/possessions. So he is committed... he just doesn't seem to want to marry me. Marriage is very important to me, most of the reasons have been mentioned already so I won't rattle them off.

I don't really know what to do to be honest so I can't give you any advice. I guess we can leave things as they are and hope our "boyfriends" have a sudden change of heart, or we can push it, insist on getting married and either end up married but feeling like they married us because we told them to, or they will refuse to get married and we will have to leave our relationships. Pretty much a lose-lose situation.:(

Margaret54

Hi My husband and I are very happily married. We married late as we had both been married before, and my children all love him as their Dad. It was so important to us both to be married to each other. Our friends and family were delighted we married. The wedding was a very low key budgeted affair as money was tight, but we had a wonderful day and the weather was beautiful too. We are very close and are each others best friend. We are married 8 years in May but together 14 years and were childhood sweethearts from school. We had a big misunderstanding many years ago and parted, but we never knew how to talk to each other when we ought to have done. We were so young then, but we never forgot each other.We are in our late 50,s now and our love for each other grows and grows. I think marriage is a wonderful commitment when two people really do love each other.Warmest wishes Margaret

Nenen

Slightly OT but related to the OP and from the perspective of the wider family... my oldest son has been living with his girlfriend for two years now (and dating for a year before that). She is a lovely girl and I am very, very fond of her, so much so that when I am talking about her to someone I find it very difficult to say 'my son's girlfriend' or 'my son's partner'. I really want to acknowledge how strong and permenant I hope our relationship will be by saying 'my daughter-in-law'. They may well have made a private commitment to each other, I assume as they were recently talking about buying a house together they must have some sense of staying together, but because it has not been made public, i.e. by getting married, I feel as if I am left in limbo with my relationship to this lovely young woman. Obviously it is their lives and their decisions and I would never tell either of them that I hope they get married but I do feel that by getting married it makes a statement to the extended family and integrates them in a way that simply living together does not.

I must admit I am rather biased because I have been married for 29 years and LOVE being married. When I met my dh we were at university together and in a group discussion he stated that marriage was an outdated and unnecessary convention... 5 weeks later he asked me to marry him! He told me that before we dated he had never thought he could be 100% sure he wanted to stay with someone for the rest of his life and we have both continued to feel that despite all the ups and downs. I feel my son is only 99% certain he wants to stay with his girlfriend and I feel very sad about that.