Benefits of marriage

rachnbri

I could never see the point of getting married either. Fully subscribed to the "it's just a piece of paper" and "it's an outdated concept" way of thinking. THEN I met DP and all of a sudden I could see the point. I wanted to shout it from the rooftops that this was the man I had chosen the spend the rest of my life with and, having had a couple of long term relationships which ended after a few years, I wanted to mark the difference and make a public declaration that he was "the one". Luckily he feels the same way, proposed and we're getting married in September! :j

Glad

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less_is_more_2

Jei70 wrote: »

Compared to another committed relationship (living together unmarried), what, if any, are the benefits of marriage?

I'm interested in both financial and less easily measurable benefits!

Bit of background - I'm 36 and have never been married, OH is divorced. I can't really see the point of marriage (unless for religious reasons) but people keep commenting that it's 'my turn'. I'm not so sure, so please share your experience/advice with me.

Thanks!

I have been with my partner over 10 years, we are not married and we are both very happy. We think marriage is a legal document, a piece of paper.

IF IT WORKS WHY FIX IT?

We both love each other, we both feel very secure, and we both feel we don't have to prove our love to anyone else.:heartpuls

shelovestobuystuff

inkie wrote: »

There are more non-church wedding venues added to the approved list all the time.You could even find a minister willing to carry out a non-religious ceremony in a beautiful old church
Doubt that very much. A minister is about God's business, and therefore I would not perform a non-religious wedding, and certainly not in a church!

Beg to differ.You may not be willing to do it but I know of gay couples who have had non-religious weddings performed by a sympathetic minister in a church.A church is just a beautiful building after all,and is commonly used for loads of different purposes within communities.Churches can be venues for things that are not gods work.What about beetle drives or bingo.I dont think god would endorse gambling but communities make good use of their church buildings in ways that suit them.
I dont want to get involved in the big gay wedding debate here, this is just an observation from my experience, please dont go all philisophical on me now.

Lusignan

rachnbri wrote: »

I could never see the point of getting married either. Fully subscribed to the "it's just a piece of paper" and "it's an outdated concept" way of thinking. THEN I met DP and all of a sudden I could see the point. I wanted to shout it from the rooftops that this was the man I had chosen the spend the rest of my life with

Perfectly put - to us it was about the ultimate commitment, and if there was another step beyond marriage we would have taken that as well. Being married feels very different to when we just lived together. We had a very blubbery wedding - we both cried, especially as he went out at the crack of dawn and returned with the biggest bouquet of flowers I've ever received. We wrote our own vows and I included some wording about his children and how I was committing to raising them with him and his ex-wife. She cried at that point too (for all the right reasons!), and so did some of my exes who were there.

Lusignan

shelovestobuystuff wrote: »

inkie wrote: »

Beg to differ.You may not be willing to do it but I know of gay couples who have had non-religious weddings performed by a sympathetic minister in a church.A church is just a beautiful building after all,and is commonly used for loads of different purposes within communities.Churches can be venues for things that are not gods work.What about beetle drives or bingo.I dont think god would endorse gambling but communities make good use of their church buildings in ways that suit them.
I dont want to get involved in the big gay wedding debate here, this is just an observation from my experience, please dont go all philisophical on me now.

I guess in that case there are ministers and then there are ministers. I applaud Inkie's view - too many people see the church (the institution, not the building) as a commodity to be used for their own ends.

MrsTinks

Hmmm I think that any marriage, same ses or not, is about two people who love each other and want to share their lives. To me a wedding is to celebrate our love with our nearest and dearest and being married is saying "i am yours with all my heart for all that may come". With the legal marriage side it would mean that we would both have certain stability should something happen to the other and any children we have (planned for shortly after the wedding) will be born in a loving and stabil relationship. There are legal reasons for getting married to in my eyes but realy they are secondary

I WANT to marry him, I WANT to show people every day of my life that this gorgeous man and I agreed to spend the rest of our lives together And it sets it apart from any other relationship we have both had in the past.

kal25

Hi no real advice but all points given are good ones, we have been married for 9yrs and have 3 wonderful children. Finacial reasons were no where near our thoughts as we already had a joint account and all money was 'our' money. A concept that confused a lot of my work colleagues at the time. There was one person who cohabited with her OH and had 2 children but had 'her' money and he had 'his ' money. One paid for this bill and other paid for that bill which seemed strange way to live to me but each to their own.
We got together when I was 17 hubby was 18, got engaged within 2 months. We married 2 years later so I was 19 at the time, some people obviously sceptical that our marriage would last with us being so young. I fell preg with DS1 within 6mnths and our marriage has gone from strength to strength. My hubby is not one for showing emotions and telling me he loves me everyday but at times when needed I see exactly how much he loves me & the children.
Marriage seems to be underated now days and seen as a convenience rather than a solemn vow to each other. I don't think celebs help when they can get 'quickie' divorces, as it makes it look as though if you do get married you will be able to get out of it just as easy, as if you weren't married.(Obviously not the case). If you are getting married it should be for the right reasons between the two of you and not for other people or because it looks good/expexted of you.

emma_b wrote: »

im 23 and all people say to me "you look too young to be married" and its started to drive me mad lately!!

I get this all the time I'm now 28 and people give me really strange looks when I mention hubby & 3 children. I am of course happy at times that people think I am younger than I am by about 10yrs depending on the circumstances.:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Frugal_Fox

My parents divorced when I was young, the recriminations lasted much much longer! My mother then remarried a wonderful man - who treated me as if I were his blood daughter. Unfortunately they had a very rocky marriage and subsequently divorced. That and my mums earlier divorce swore me off marriage. Until I met my husband! I absolutely loathed him at the start! Then we became friends and somewhere along the line we fell in love. My perspectives on marriage changed. I could see in him someone very special. Someone I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Someone I could actually visualise growing old together with.

We moved in together after 6 months of courting - we had been friends before!, and got engaged 6 months after that and then married a year later at the age of 22 & 23. People had their doubts - we didn't. Life has not been very easy. I suffered from a serious illness which resulted in infertility. DH gave up paid work and became a student nurse, we got into money problems (hence the signature!), I went through a very serious bout of depression. We later adopted two children - currently driving me insane!
However our marriage has bound us together. There were points along our married life where it could have been possible for either of us to throw in the towel - at one point neither of us were very nice to live with! Our marriage has given us the strength to go on, and we are planning a fab holiday to Oz next year when we should be almost debt free for our Tenth wedding anniversay.

Marriage is much much more than just a piece of paper, its about a public declaration of the strength of feeling you have for your partner. However if you view it as just a piece of paper - it may not be for you!

newleaf

Mr newleaf and I were married comparitively late in life, for much the same reasons already quoted by Ember999 (Brilliant post that). We had been living together for some time, but some things were concerning me - mainly the worry of some dreadful medical emergency occurring and each not being allowed to carry out the other's wishes. We married for the best reason: because we wanted to. We went off to Australia for a holiday and had pre-arranged our wedding for day 6, in North Queensland. We chose our own vows, which were very traditional ones because they best summed up what we wanted to say to one another, and we had two strangers as witnesses. It was a deeply emotional occasion for both of us. We told no-one before we went, then phoned our parents afterwards and emailed a wedding photo to all our friends to surprise them. Then we carried on with the rest of our holiday It was wonderful, it still is wonderful, and I recommend it to anyone.