How important is marriage?

Person_one

I hate to be morbid, but being married makes things a lot easier if one of you is seriously ill or injured or dies.

Leona1295

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the replies - it has given me a lot to think about!

I guess a little bit of background about us would be helpful -

I am 22 and my boyfriend is 24, we have been together for 5 years this August, I see him as my soul mate and I know he feels the same. I come from a large close knit family who all still live in the same city (many of us still live in the same town). All of my cousins are much older than me and 8 (out of 9) are married, one has remarried after being divorced. My dad is one of 5, he and his 5 brothers are all married. My parents have been married for 25 years and some of my uncles have celebrated 50th Wedding Anniversaries! I see marriage as a lifetime commitment to another person.

My boyfriends family is also large but there are many feuds and almost all of his relatives have been divorced. His dad is on his third marriage (has been happily married for 15 years now), his mum is twice divorced, his aunts and uncles are all on second or third marriages, his grandparents are divorced on both sides. Even his brother is getting remarried this year at the age of 29!

Chinkle - he has said exactly that, that getting married wouldn't do anything for our relationship so the process is pointless. I have always thought of marriage in the same way as SkintGypsy.

Steel - That's how I thought he felt and then last week we were talking about the future and he said he didn’t think he would ever get married. I wouldn't end our relationship over this issue. Marriage means a lot to me but he means more so I would have to get over it.

Euronoris - I think you have hit the nail on the head with family background! I know this is why he thinks marriage is pointless but to me his not wanting to get married means - "I think one day this relationship will fail".

I know that he means it when he says he will love me the same with or without marriage. We have started saving for a house and there is no question of his commitment to me. Part of me feels that I am being silly and irrational. I know deep down that getting married won't change our relationship but for some reason I can't seem to shake this idea that I need it to validate our relationship.

Sorry If I am being very rambly and not making a lot of sense. This has left me very confused and I'm hoping that expressing my thoughts and hearing other people's opinions will clear it up a bit in my head.

LJM

me and my other half have been together 16 years we are not married and have 2 beautiful girls, we love each other very much i personally cant see what would change if we got married. we know how we feel about each other/we share things house/bills etc as a married couple others class us as married i dont think it would make any difference to our relationship at all. i dont think as i know people i know do think that being married is some exclusive club lol but each to their own. if you are happy as a couple the way you are why change it

honeypop

SkintGypsy wrote: »

I love being married. I love that my children and I will all have the same name. I love having a husband instead of a boyfriend or partner. It feels different, and more permanent.

Me too, I love knowing that we all have the same name and I much prefer referring to him as my husband as in our opinion it means more than 'my partner' or 'my boyfriend'.
For example, when I was in hospital having our baby, nurses always referred to him as my husband (I didn't have my rings on, so they had assumed) and I would have felt very awkward to correct them all the time and say he's 'just' my boyfriend. Also, a couple of ladies on the ward said to me they felt embarrassed saying 'my boyfriend will be here soon' or 'my partner is getting my things' to the staff, as it seemed to others like the men were 'new partners' and perhaps not the babies fathers, and they wished they could say husband instead and people would assume the right things. Not saying this happens to everyone, just my experience.

Calling each other husband and wife makes the relationship seem more permanent in a way.

Not sure if I have explained very well but those who know what I mean and feel the same will agree.

Person_one wrote: »

I hate to be morbid, but being married makes things a lot easier if one of you is seriously ill or injured or dies.

And this is another reason it meant a lot to us. If anything happens to us, the other one has the say of what happens medically etc, being next of kin.

downshifted

His family aren't exactly big on commitment are they? Whether married or not they tend to move on. Is that what he is really telling you?

Having seen my daughter in a subsequently failed relationship with a very pleasant young man from a very unsettled family background it is clear to me that commitment is a big issue for young men these days. Settling down long term is less likely where people have not had a good example of strong life-long commitment in their background.

I think the question of marriage is secondary to the very big question of commitment and I hope your belief (or is it hope?) on this is the right one

Lotus-eater

When I was younger I really wanted to get married, I got engaged to my present OH, then a while later decided I didn't want to get married, changed my mind.
My OH wanted to get married, but changed her mind as well and now doesn't care.

I saw it as something you had to do, move on the way society wants you to move.

In essence, marriage is as important to you, as you make it, or want it to be.

jcr16

i love being married. it is the most amazing feeling ever.I feel so honoured that hubby chose me to be his wife, to take on his family name. all our children and i share the same name, we have so much love . To many it may be a dying tradition or just a piece of paper but to me it is so much more. It is a promise i have made to my husband in front of our family and friends. I find people treat you with so much more respect knowing your married. I got married at 20 , 8 years of marriage later and it is still as good if not better than the day we got married.

i wouldn't dream of not being married, but it is something both hubby and i wanted. it wasn't long after we were engaged we were married. but we wanted it that way. we wanted to be husband and wife and wanted to have that bond of marriage. I think also having the marriage vowel makes you work harder, because you have made that promise to each other. so if you do have a problem then you work it out.

Aparently the honeymoon period of a marriage is the first year then it goes after that , but that is so wrong. after 9 years together were still def in the honey moon period and it is a complete fairytale. but why shouldn't it be.

My children love the fact were married and my daugther tells me that daddy rescued mummy for the big tower and he was the knight and mummy is the princess and they got married and lived for ever happy. but she asked wheres daddy's horse then . so cute.

I Love my husband so very very very much indeed he is the most amazing man ever. i am so proud to be his wife. and to us being married is very important.i will be with him forever.i love being a wife.

stroumph

Neither my partner nor I were interested in getting married, despite being together nine years. However, when he almost died I wasn't treated like his next to kin at the hospital or at the bank when trying to get money to pay the rent (our system used to be that he would pay half the rent into my bank account - never again!). As we were pretty young (I was 23 and he was 25) most people assumed we weren't anything serious so not worth phoning to inform me of changes. It made me realise how important that little piece of paper is. We were engaged pretty soon after and recently got married.

People just don't think about the bigger picture - you can go the registry office and get it down pretty swiftly.

Jo_R_2

I had a very convoluted situation a while ago whereby I really wanted to get engaged but he didn't want to/ wasn't asking/ he wanted to ask but it wasn't the right time/etc etc...

I got myself wound right up about it, so much that it was pretty much all I thought about for months. I mentally somehow connected his reluctance to my self-worth, ie I thought I wasn't 'good enough' in his eyes for him to make that commitment to, and it became a sore point, tbh.

Ironic because in my late teens/early twenties, I never wanted to get married, I too thought it was a waste of time, meaningless. Now I have him and children, my feelings have changed, and like you, I feel marriage is the mark of a committed relationship for me. It's something we can have with each other that we would have with no other person in the world ever, and is a declaration to each other that we commit the rest of our lives to us and our family, undividedly.

Now, through various stages of our relationship, we both want to get married, it's not going to happen now, but it will do eventually. Only you can decide how you go from here and what it means to each of you, separately and together, and if either of you can either change your mind, or compromise somewhere.

Person_one

Just want to point out that changing your name isn't compulsory!

I am in favour of marriage for long term stable relationships but I certainly wouldn't be changing my name or referring to myself as 'Mrs'.

Marriage is a legal contract, a lot of what we think of as marriage is just tradition and you can pick and choose what you want to keep from that.