When did you 'know'?

[oakleywhite]

When did you know your OH was the one?
When did you know they were the one you would be with forever and have kids?

I have been with my OH for 14 months. We are both nearly thirty and have been living together for over 6 months. We talk about marriage and kids a lot and know we both want it. We know each other's families and have been on a few holidays.

I am soo soo broody, he is too. I feel like the time is right but slightly confusing concerned of my conservative mum's reaction!!

Just wondering your thoughts/ experiences

[category12]

I'd get married first.

[Dowser]

Just wondering how old your mum is?
My son and Dil had a baby together 8 years ago and are still unmarried
I’m just happy they are happy
Oh and I was 56 when they got together

[category12]

It's not for the conservative values of marriage I'd suggested getting married - it's for the legal protections. Particularly if either of them are considering being SAHP.

[HollowTalk]

How is your mum reacting?

[Singlenotsingle]

I agree, category12

[Singlenotsingle]

Her mum will be thrilled. Every DM wants to be a DGM!

[Blostma]

Just do it then. How else will you know? Are you hoping for something different?

[oakleywhite]

@Dowser my mum is 59. Yes I am very much hoping she will just be thrilled.
MN is very pro marriage first which is why I posed the question here. We will definitely get married in the not too distant future, I just think it may be our choice to have a baby first x

[MrsTerryPratchett]

I hope you're independently wealthy and/or you don't plan to stay at home.

Marriage is not romance or morality; it's a legal contract.

[category12]

Can I ask why you'd have a baby first?

Are you the higher earner? Are you intending to go straight back to work?

[category12]

Mumsnet tends to be pro-marriage because of countless threads where unmarried sahm is trapped or financially stuffed after a relationship breakdown - or the evergreen "when will he propose? We've been together umpteen years..." threads.

[mindutopia]

We ‘knew’ after about 6 months, which I think is probably quite soon. We were mid/late 20s at the time. I think you can know you want a future together and plan for that future, but not rush into things. We got married after 3 years and got pregnant with our first just shy of 4 years together.

I think if you know it’s right, get married first and enjoy that time together just the two of you. Legal protections aside (which is important too), having a baby causes a lot of stress in a relationship and means you don’t have time for each other again for a long time (years!). If you want to be married, do it while you can enjoy it and make the most of your time together as a couple. You don’t get time like that again (you hardly get time for dinner out together) until your kids are much older. It’s hard and puts a lot of strain on even the strongest relationships. That’s why so many crumble during the early years of having small children. Your relationship is still relatively new and you still have time to be spontaneous and enjoy each other. You don’t easily get that back when kids come along. Your mum knows this and probably doesn’t want to see you rush into anything and wish you’d waited later. If you are sure about a future together (kids are a much bigger and scarier commitment than marriage), get married, enjoy it, then plan what’s next when you’re ready for the next chapter in life.

[SoapOnARoap]

If you look at this practically, you are planning to reproduce & legally tie yourself to someone, who you weren’t even with in April 2017.

Take a step back, think with your head & not your heart & try to be rational before you make life changing decisions on a whim.

And I totally agree with others about marriage first if you’re in such a rush. You could end up a massive loser if you don’t financially.
Why don’t you enjoy what you have (dating is surely the best bit of a relationship?) and reassess in a year, when you’ll be more inclined to know if you’re out of the lust bubble & in a stronger position to make life changing decisions

[trojanpony]

We will definitely get married in the not too distant future, I just think it may be our choice to have a baby first x

FFS why bother posting then?
Have you read some of the threads on here? Shit can go south rather. While quickly no one likes to think that it will happen to them it can and does for a variety of reasons.

As others have said if you are independently wealthy, crack on... otherwise browse the threads and see all the “great guys” who shat on their partners.

I understand now why people get so annoyed at other threads where women have “wonderful partners” who turn out to be far from wonderful when they hit about 28 weeks pregnant.

I realise this is a harsh message but I honestly wish women would wake the fuck up and not sleep walk into shit situations which then then seem oh-so-surprised about finding themselves in

[ShatnersWig]

We will definitely get married in the not too distant future, I just think it may be our choice to have a baby first

Why?

I don't say that because I'm old fashioned, I have no issue if people never get married; I just don't understand why if you want both, you would do the most life-changing, turn your lives upside down bit, with no legal protections at all, first?

[Cricrichan]

For a woman it's much better to be married first. What's the problem with getting married? It doesn't need to be a big do.

[GetInMyNelly]

I've always wondered why people had kids before marriage. Not the whole crap about being unmarried when having a kid but solely to do with the fact people think marrying is the biggest and hardest decision.

I will NOT have another child unless married. I'm not being left in the shit without anything but a measly £200 a month in CM.

My ex had £10,000 in his savings, we weren't married so guess who got to walk away with that untouched??

[jigglepiggle]

I had DC1 before marriage. I wanted to get married first but it didn’t happen that way. My mum was furious at first but calmed down. My dad was desperate for us to get married but I refused to when I was pregnant.

If I could do it all again I would still probably have planned to get married first. But I will say, babies change your relationship and not every relationship survives it. We got through it but it would have been easier to walk away because we weren’t married. I know this wouldn’t be the case for everyone but at the time I was financially stable and had a house in my own name so if we did split I would’ve been fine.

I know people who married first and then had kids and their relationship didn’t survive it and are now divorced.

[Indiemum88]

I echo what everyone else has said. Get married first before you even think about having kids. It's for your protection. It might seem all rosey today but the future can change very quickly.

[happymummy12345]

Very very early for us.
We met in April 2014, became a couple May 9th 2014, I love you was said on the 19th of May 2014.
We started ttc (mutual decision) in July 2014, we moved in together in October 2014, I conceived in November 2014, we found out we were having a baby in December 2014.
We got engaged 13th January 2015 (we'd discussed marriage but we just wasn't actually engaged). We set the date around the middle of February 2015, and got married on the 9th of April 2015, we'd been together 11 months the day we got married (we wanted to be married before the baby was born).
Then our baby was due in August but born in September 2015.
I know how quick it is, but it's what we both wanted.

[happymummy12345]

I don't agree with getting married for protection either. I marked for love, not for financial security. That's not a good reason to marry.

[5LeafClover]

Babies change your lives but often that change is not equal. Unless you are independently wealthy or you think he would definitely step up as a ft carer then the risks for your future in terms of earning potential are more for you than they are for him. It's easy for a man to think he'll be 50/50 help when the baby comes but the reality is that most often it the person being a sahp or a PT worker or taking a local job to manage school is more likely to be female. The legal provisions of marriage are there to protect people from the financial disparity of child rearing. Don't get married if you don't want to but don't sleepwalk into giving that protection away, talk about it before you get pregnant and set it up. Look at how he will give you money while you are on mat leave and how much. Compare it to the child maintenance calculator for his salary, don't accept housekeeping while he keeps the lions share. Talk transport (ie not just paying for him to have title on the car), housing ( definitely don't move into his house), pensions, will and life insurance. And, if he's not amenable to having those conversations just stop and think and talk and look after yourself before you rush into pregnancy.

[ShatnersWig]

@happymummy12345 It's sort of automatically assumed that you love the person you marry

[dirtybadger]

You cant "know". A decent % of LTRs break down. Some of those in retrospect can probably see that they shouldnt have been together, should have paid attention to red flags, etc.
Most would honestly say they felt and believed they would be together forever (or at least if you asked them at the time). When you feel like that, you have no way of being certain which camp you'll end up in...in 10, 20, 30, years. So you cant know, just feel.

After reading enough threads on here, there is absolutely no way I would have DC with someone unmarried unless we were splitting the workload equally. Typically if one of you earns a lot more than the other it can make sense for someone to be a SAHP. And they deserve financial protection for the step back they are taking for their partner. Marriage offers that protection. If you are both likely to stay in FT work, return to work promptly from maternity leave, and split childcare and childcare costs (directly or through pooling resources) then its less of an issue as the effect of a child is more equal.

If you were a friend, with no biological imperative to rush, then I would be politely persuading you against TTC after less than 2 years, and only living together for 6 months. Unless youre late 30s/early40s and therefore there is a biological imperative you get cracking, TTC after less than a couple of years seems very fast. I would discuss marriage more, get that sorted, and have been living together for 12-18 months so that you have got a real handle of each other, know each others finances inside out, etc etc. Thats still too fast for me, but I get that some people are cautious (me, maybe too much) and some less so (16 months being at the brazen end).

[theunsure]

4 weeks. We moved in together after 6 weeks. Got engaged after 4 months, married a year later.

When you know, you know!