Why do people choose to get married?

Anatidaephobia

sulphate wrote: »

I agree - I've had comments thrown at me "marriage is just a piece of paper" and the week after I got back from my honeymoon, a colleague told me she wasn't stupid enough to get married.

However I've never judged anyone else for not marrying. If a couple doesn't want to get married, what's it got to do with me? Nothing. I expect that they've had a lot of flack from married couples for it, so automatically assume everyone who is married thinks other people should be too.

I think people have a tendency to criticise those who are different to themselves. Sometimes both married and unmarried people think they are superior to others and feel the need to make sure everyone knows about it. Recently there was a thread about people who move away from their hometown and then become superior to the people who stay behind, so it applies to pretty much anything, not just marriage.

Georgiegirl256

janninew wrote: »

Is that sentence true as I don't recall having to change me name by deed poll, I'm sure when I started to let various people know I just had to show my marriage certificate.

I'm glad someone else mentioned this. I was starting to think I hadn't done something correctly! :eek:

Tropez

janninew wrote: »

Is that sentence true as I don't recall having to change me name by deed poll, I'm sure when I started to let various people know I just had to show my marriage certificate.

Marriage is important to, romance aside, after children marriage is a good idea if god forbid one of you dies. Unmarried's are not taken care of the same way.

Technically speaking, you can change your name at any time and call yourself whatever you want (within reason) without any legal document such as a deed poll to back it up. There is no legal procedure that must be undertaken in order to change your name.

However, when you want to change your name on official documents then for the purposes of fraud prevention among other things some evidence is usually required. You can get a deed poll, you can provide a statutory declaration or you can provide your marriage certificate.

Speedybrain

MarcusAurelius wrote: »

Apart from being preggies - do people get together because they have common interests, or is it because they can simply tolerate each other long enough, or is it simply to feel less insecure?

What makes such relationships last, apart from just having kids? What makes relationships successful?

No trolling please...

Security and stability. All human beings have an innate need to feel secure, and the institution of marriage was created to give that. It's not perfect, but by enlarge it works surprisingly well.
As for kids, they do not necessarily help a relationship - don't kid yourself (no pun intended). What makes relationships successful is tolerance of each other's foibles and having plenty of shared interests. What destroys a marriage is becoming distant from the other partner and not making time to be together (I don't just mean sex).

Speedybrain

Morglin wrote: »

I don't need a husband to make me feel secure, so I guess it must have been love.... :heartpuls :heart2:


Lin

You can love someone without being married to them, or even be living with them in the same house.

Speedybrain

catkins wrote: »

Shock horror I got married and we didn't want children! Have been asked in the past what the point of getting married is if you don't want children.


For me and OH, we both believe very strongly in marriage, don't believe in divorce (if unhappy we would split up but not divorce) and wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. Getting married to us showed commitment for the rest of our lives. We had both lived with someone previously and decided we didn't want that again even for a short time - we wanted something different and special so did not live together at all before our wedding.

Same here - I had and have no desire to have children. My own parents had a loveless marriage and stayed together for the sake of the children, which ultimately didn't work and led to unhappiness. That put me off ever having wanting children. I also saw many couples sacrifice a lot of their freedom simply to bring up children and I didn't want to do this - simple as that. I am very unsentimental about the issue.

Speedybrain

sharloid wrote: »

OH and I have been together for 7 years but I still don't understand getting married. Maybe for the legal aspects or if you got a tax break etc but because you want to spend the rest of your life with your partner? You don't need to get married to do that! I guess I really just don't understand how love/commitment are valid reasons.

You are wrong. If you love your partner enough and are willing to stay with him/her for as long as you can imagine, why are you not willing to formalise that through marriage? To me, a reluctance to commit would indicate a lack of certainty about the relationship. In that case, I would prefer to end the relationship and move on.

Tropez

Speedybrain wrote: »

You are wrong. If you love your partner enough and are willing to stay with him/her for as long as you can imagine, why are you not willing to formalise that through marriage? To me, a reluctance to commit would indicate a lack of certainty about the relationship. In that case, I would prefer to end the relationship and move on.

They're not wrong though, they just have a different opinion to you. Because people do not get married does not mean that they have not made a commitment to each other and will not be together in the long-term; that's as absurd to me as suggesting that because a man refuses to wear a chastity cage he's going to put it about whenever he can.

And "formalise" things through marriage? That's not a particularly romantic notion is it. I formalise the purchase of a car, not an emotional relationship.

I'm married and the truth is nothing's changed. I feel no less committed than I was before we married and no more committed. Our day to day lives remain pretty much the same.

Anatidaephobia

Speedybrain wrote: »

You are wrong. If you love your partner enough and are willing to stay with him/her for as long as you can imagine, why are you not willing to formalise that through marriage? To me, a reluctance to commit would indicate a lack of certainty about the relationship. In that case, I would prefer to end the relationship and move on.

Good thing sharloid isn't in a relationship with you then

Each to their own, it doesn't mean that anyone is wrong; there's no one way to do things, we can all make our own choices.

bugslet

Speedybrain wrote: »

You are wrong. If you love your partner enough and are willing to stay with him/her for as long as you can imagine, why are you not willing to formalise that through marriage? To me, a reluctance to commit would indicate a lack of certainty about the relationship. In that case, I would prefer to end the relationship and move on.

Yep I was with Mr Bugs for 29 years, as I said before. I don't think that was a case of lack of certainty!