Marry or no?

[Mybu]

Hi everyone, this is my first post on here.
I feel I like I have no one else to talk to.
I am ready for all types of responses.
So me and my fiancé have been together for 8 years now, and engaged for 4 years. We have two children together ages 6 years and 3 years. I was only18 when I had my first child. And I have been with my fiancé since I was 16 years old. He's been my only real long term relationship.
We get married in less than 4 weeks now, and I am literally terrified. And I feel like I'm in too deep with the wedding now to back out.
I have spoken to my fiancé about us losing our spark and connection, and he 100% agreed :( we've tried on many occasions to work together to try and gain that spark and connection back, but it just isnt happening.
If I leave my fiancé me and the kids will literally have no where to go. We are renting a house just now, but it is only in his name and so is everything else. I don't know what I would do for a house, money, food, a job. This is the only reason for going through with the marriage. I feel trapped.
My real problem is that I want to put my children first but don't know what decision is the best one.
Do I get married to my fiancé. For the sake of the kids and get on with life unhappy, or do I call off the wedding 4 weeks before and disappoint everyone in his and my family and upheaval the kids with no where to go.

[Allnamesaretakenffs]

Don't get married if you have any doubt whatsoever, especially if you;ve tried to gain the spark back and it hasn't happened. Call/contact Gingerbread www.gingerbread.org.uk/, they're a charity that offer help and advice for single parents. "The Gingerbread Single Parent Helpline provides support and expert advice on anything from dealing with a break-up, to going back to work or sorting out maintenance, benefit or tax credit issues"

[winchester1]

Your young with two young kids and all the pressures that go with that. Do you want it to work? Could you try relate for some couples counselling?

[JoMalones]

Don't get married if you feel like that. Maybe counselling might help. I married and I felt I was in too deep to back out. Massive mistake. Go to entitledto.com to see what help you can get financially

[JoMalones]

The children will be better off long term if you don't get married rather than get a divorce after a year or two (speaking from experience) and family will understand

[Mybu]

He's not open to counselling, he doesn't like to talk much at all really. It was hard enough to get him to sit down and talk about loosing our spark and connection. I really have tried to make things work, but he just doesn't seem interested.

[HandyWoman]

I feel like you are really both being unkind to each other by marrying in these circumstances. Please don't do it. There's a better way forward. A painful one but a better one.

[PurpleDaisies]

If you have to ask for advice on whether to get married or not, you absolutely shouldn't get married. I think the advice from the other posters is really good.

I called off a wedding (three months to go-everything was booked and organised) and I never regretted it for a minute. It's much easier to split when you don't have to deal with the legal issues of divorcing.

Have you got any time to have a proper heart to heart with your fiancé, away from you children?

[FellOutOfBedTwice]

My gut feeling is if you marry him it will do nothing but paper over the cracks and you'll be divorced within two years. I cancelled a wedding 8 weeks before the day. I'm not going to lie and say it was hilarious but it wasn't the worst thing ever either. Nearly a decade later no one remembers or cares. I'm married to someone I do actually like and never doubted I should marry. Conversely a friend of mine had similar doubts and went ahead. She was divorced within 18 months and had to deal with the embarrassment of that.... Essentially she postponed the embarrassment that I had cancelling the wedding and had the added expense of a divorce.

Bottom line- you have one life. You don't want to marry him so don't marry him.

[TunnocksInAHammock]

I didn't get married until I was 40. I had had loads of relationships been round the block and lived with a couple of blokes as if married but I knew they were wrong for me as far as marriage was concerned. When I met my now DH I knew on every level it was right. We've been married 14 years now and it's brilliant. We have our moments but I would marry him again tomorrow.
Please don't marry him. Call it off. There is less shame in that than carrying on because you feel a false sense of shame or embarrassment. There will always be a vocal few that will chime in but generally people will admire you for having the balls to say no. If he won't talk, cancel it yourself and tell him you have. Paddle your own canoe OP.

[StillAwakeAndItIsLate]

Without even reading your opening post, the answer is no.

If you have to take to a forum to ask strangers if you should spend the rest of your life with someone, then that answer is quite clearly, and obviously, no.

[StillAwakeAndItIsLate]

Now I've read it.

Don't marry him. Sounds awful. You might think you can do it. You might think that if you can stick it out for 10 years until your mid 30s, then you won't really care anyway.

That would be very wrong.

By your mid 30s, your tolerance levels for someone you don't love and who doesn't love you, with whom you have no spark, will be next to zero. You will regret having wasted your 20s on him and it will seem (and be) so much worse. You will be resentful of him for this, and frustrated with yourself for thinking it might be otherwise. You'll spend another 10 years working yourself up to leaving/waiting for the children to be old enough. And then you'll be in the exact same position you're in now, but be in your mid 40s. Your youth will be 20 years behind you.

In your 20s you can do and be anything.

[ouryve]

If you have any doubts, then no.

If you do get married because of practicalities, rather than because you're mad about him and want to spend the rest of your life with him, then when it truly does fall apart several years down the line, you'll be in exactly the same position as now, only many times more complicated.

If you go your separate ways now, it should be possible to do it amicably, with the interests of each other and your children at the forefront of both of your minds.

[Bree85]

Yeah. I agree. Don't get marry if you are having doubts. You were too young when you were together. Maybe there are things that you have been missing out that you like to try now but feel you can't once you get married that is why you are losing your sparks.

[buckingfrolicks]

from a purely mercenary point of view, should you not get married for the added financial security it gives you when you divorce?

Just a thought. I wouldn't marry him, but you have kids with and getting married then divorced will give you rights that you don't have now.

[flakinator]

If you don't get married, it doesn't necessarily mean that you need to leave straight away. Call off the wedding and stay in the same house whilst you get your life in order. It's OK to stick around so that when you do come to separate, it's done sensitively without masses of disruption at once.
Don't worry about what other people might say /think. Do what'd right for you. Marriage is huge.