Why doesn't he want to marry me?

TeamLowe

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

I do think this is what many people do these days. I know a young woman who has cohabited with every boyfriend she has had.

To me, if I did this, I would want to be married when I finally met 'Mr Right, because it wouldn't feel special otherwise, just another one in a long string of 'friends with perks'.

This is why I wanted to get married. you could go out with someone for 2 days or 20 years and they're still your boyfriend so it's not clear what your level of commitment to them is.

But the world knows what a husband is and I don't know of anyone that I care about who takes marriage lightly, so to me it was important that the whole world, including the man I loved, knew that I was committed to him and him only and saw that my future was with him. In fact that was my fustration with our slightly long engagement. I already felt like his wife and to not be able to call myself that upset me slightly.

Maybe the OP's partner thinks 'father of my children' is a more committed label than 'husband' so doesn't see the need for it. or maybe he's not bothered about his label as he knows how he feels about her and that's good enough for him.

Btw I do find the argument 'children are a bigger commitment than marriage' strange as a) they're two different kinds of committment, a commitment to raise a child and a committment to love your partner forsaking all others. a gay man could help to raise a baby with his female friend and never have any commitment to love her
b) even if they was the same kind of commitment, why would you go for the bigger one before the smaller one?

Georgiegirl256

Dunroamin wrote: »

I think your example illustrates perfectly what some of us are saying about marriage showing a greater commitment than co habitation.

So people who are married don't have affairs too?

Mojisola

annie_d wrote: »

...a little story....my son has been with his gf for 10 years...he says...we don't believe in marriage.....my husband's response is......you will when you meet the right one. angry face from son ensued.

I'm not surprised he was angry. Your husband just dismissed his son's 10 year relationship as not being the real thing!

I don't think there's anything about signing the paperwork that makes a relationship "better" or "more real" but those who don't want to should be aware of the legal and financial benefits they're giving up. There are ways to mitigate some of the potential problems but, if you don't know the problems, you're not going to take those steps.

FBaby

bugslet wrote: »

. One of them occured in 2004 when he had an affair. Rightly or wrongly, there was no way on earth I would have given that gold-digging tramp a penny of my money. If I'd been married he would have been due half of my business and the home. As it was, he had no claim on either. (If we had split up properly IYKWIM, then it would have been a split of assets). It made him see her for what she was, once she found out he wasn't due half the business, she kinda lost interest;) and we got over the whole mess and went on to have happy years together.

this is exactly why I wanted to be married to my partner, I needed to know that he trusted me more than feared I could take him to the cleaners one day. Of course everything can happen but to avoid committing fly to someone you love because you think it could happen shows a level of mistrust that I wasn't prepared to accept in my relationship with the man I considered to be the love of my life and who I trusted completely. It would have been OK if I'd felt that way but I didn't and this is one aspect of our relationship where we needed to be fully on the same wavelength for it to work.

Dunroamin

newcook wrote: »

I think its shocking the amount of people who are saying that if he truly loved her he would want to make her happy and marriage would make her happy but surely if she truly loved him she wouldn’t want to make him unhappy by making him do something that he doesn’t want to do!

Maybe he has seen too many marriages around him fail and seen how spiteful and bitter divorce can make people.

People should get married because they both want to get married. OP your OH has said that he loves you and wants to be with you but just doesn’t want to get married – perhaps compromise and ask for an eternity ring instead?

Im quite surprised that I still want to get married despite both my parents being married 3 times!!

When in doubt, buy someone off with a bit of jewellery!

Dunroamin

Georgiegirl256 wrote: »

So people who are married don't have affairs too?

You seem to have totally misunderstood what I was saying. My comment about lack of commitment referred to the poster, not to her partner.

seven-day-weekend

newcook wrote: »

I think its shocking the amount of people who are saying that if he truly loved her he would want to make her happy and marriage would make her happy but surely if she truly loved him she wouldn’t want to make him unhappy by making him do something that he doesn’t want to do!

Maybe he has seen too many marriages around him fail and seen how spiteful and bitter divorce can make people.

People should get married because they both want to get married. OP your OH has said that he loves you and wants to be with you but just doesn’t want to get married – perhaps compromise and ask for an eternity ring instead?

Im quite surprised that I still want to get married despite both my parents being married 3 times!!

How is that in any way a compromise? A few hundred pounds for a ring? I'd find that an insult, not a compromise!

newcook

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

How is that in any way a compromise?

Eternity rings are a symbol of commitment, which from the sounds of it is what OP wants – commitment.
This way, he is showing his commitment without having to get married therefore they both get what they want.

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

A few hundred pounds for a ring? I'd find that an insult, not a compromise!

I didnt realize that love and commitment had to come with a price tag

Errata

Eternity rings are a De Beers marketing ploy and intended for married men to give to their wives on the birth of their first child. It's a load of twaddle.

bugslet

FBaby wrote: »

this is exactly why I wanted to be married to my partner, I needed to know that he trusted me more than feared I could take him to the cleaners one day. Of course everything can happen but to avoid committing fly to someone you love because you think it could happen shows a level of mistrust that I wasn't prepared to accept in my relationship with the man I considered to be the love of my life and who I trusted completely. It would have been OK if I'd felt that way but I didn't and this is one aspect of our relationship where we needed to be fully on the same wavelength for it to work.

But mistrust played no part in it. We were together 19 years. People have affairs married or not. I wasn't avoiding commitment because I thought it could happen.

He didn't want to be connected to the house because being a lot older than me, it would cause trouble when he shuffled off, it had been his decision,not mine. Business wise, I had worked my bits off in the first ten years and he had not contributed to it, either by working there or by any other means, so I had never put him down as a director or anything because he had no involvemnt in it. That was partly his choice - there were opportunities to be employed as a driver, but all the office stuff I could do at that point. He didn't want to be a driver and that was fine with me.

It was purely a set of unplanned circumstances that turned out to be to my benefit as opposed to being married.

A married female friend of mine who had an affair with an ex at more or less the same time as my crisis, her husband dobbed himself into the tax who promptly took everything. His thinking was that he might not have anything, but neither would she and the lover. Once you have an affair, gloves are off as far as I am concerned.:(

Oddly after the affair, I gave him quarter of the company, which I think was a good demonstration of intent of keeping things on track.