If you're uncomfortable with marriage but got married anyway, what made you decide to go for it?

Bonsoir, such a level of vitriol for other women's choices ?

Methinks one doth protest too much

I can't even claim that my father's name was his own, because his father adopted it when he left his place of birth!

I was always disinterested in marriage but not really against it. I decided to marry DH in the end because we wanted to live together, but circumstances meant that we'd be moving into his house. I didn't want to be in the insecure position of cohabiting with only his name on the deeds - I've read too many horror threads on MN about women who have done that, and I have a DD (not DH's) to protect.

All the legal and financial protections were relevant as well - we'd be over the inheritance tax threshold just on the house value alone, he could get step-parent PR for DD but not if we weren't married, and we may think about emigrating to his home country in the future - none of that can be sorted out with wills and legal agreements, only through marriage. He also gets a bunch of work benefits that only apply to spouses - medical/dental/travel insurance etc.

I've kept my surname though and rarely wear my engagement/wedding rings.

Bonsoir, I chose to take my husbands surname. Why? Because 'my' surname was really just my father's. A man I have nothing to do with and no-one else in my family had. I am no more DH's possession than I was his but I was delighted to lose the association. I kept 'Ms' though.

Unless your family has a long history of following the maternal line, your surname comes from a man. While I think it's great when those of my friends without father issues do keep their name (and one friend whose husband took hers), I certainly wouldn't despise anyone for making a different choice.

2cats after I finally agreed to get married, I do remember wondering why I had made such a fuss beforehand

It was such an easy way to make so many people happy, and didn't affect me and my life in any way whatsover ...

As for my name, I am utterly fluid. Sometimes I use my maiden name, sometimes I use DH's, very often I use my pen name. I love the freedom.

" So it's not the commitment issue at all, it's the 'married' part that bugs me."

Why?

"I love not being married. I equate marriage with loss of independent identity as it always involves some legal framework that has all sorts of cobwebs attached from bygone times when women were chattels of men. I greatly despise women who take their husband's surname"

Despise me then . I am me. I don't feel that I have lost my identity. I don't feel like a chattel. I have a very unsociable husband so most people know me as me and not as someone's wife or mother. Also, I got married over 30 years ago and it didn't occur to me not to take my husband's name.

I think marriage is what you make it and feel that OH and I have an equal partnership.

DH really wanted to and it seemed like such an easy thing to do for him. We didn't have a big wedding tho (just 5 peeps including us) and I've kept my name.

Next of kin status was important to me. I would like my husband to make decisions if I couldn't, not a brother I hadn't seen for years.

Also money, it would be easier to access a death in service insurance policy if the worst happened as a wife rather then partner.

It was the second reason that prompted marriage after 15 years as partners. Nothing religious involved, a very quickly arranged registrars do with two witnesses.

I love not being married. I equate marriage with loss of independent identity as it always involves some legal framework that has all sorts of cobwebs attached from bygone times when women were chattels of men. I greatly despise women who take their husband's surname (WTF?!) unless their own surname was so unspeakably vile that they preferred his (aesthetics are a legitimate argument).

Do remember if you earn 10x what your husband does as I did divorce can be pretty expensive but splitting up is nothing like as bad....

As most mumsnetters end up with men who earn more than they do this is unlikely to apply to them or rather applies the other way round.

I don't think you can eliminate the cultural baggage of marriage for heterosexual couples. Marriage or civil partnership I would bet money you will still get Xmas cards to Mr and Mrs T. Hisname from some people. I'd quite like it if the government kept it's nose out of "Marriage" altogether and only performed civil partnership and people could also have a religious ceremony if they want to get married.

A civil partnership would be ideal for us.
I don't like the cultural baggage that marriage brings up. There's another thread atm about in laws who aggressively refuse to allow their DIL to call herself by her own name. Just one example of how marriage is public property.

One person says "I find the whole idea of the state having a role in who your life/sexual partner is completely bizarre."

But 3 other people have talked about "legal protection". You really don't get one without the other--you register your contract with the government, and if there's trouble (in the relationship or from the outside) the government may give you some amount of support, or at least will enforce some predictable kind of resolution. ("May" because it's not likely to be a perfect process.) If nobody promised anything to anyone else, then when things go wrong, it's predictably going to be a mess.

Civil partnerships were created so same-sex couples could have the same protection/restriction that marriage provides--legally it's exactly the same. But it seems as if the word "marriage" has so many cultural expectations attached to it that some people really want to be "civil partners" instead, no matter what the law says.

I was always quite anti-marriage and never envisaged myself doing it. I find the whole idea of the state having a role in who your life/sexual partner is completely bizarre. I finally did it at the age of 34. I have remained Ms {maidenname}. I didn't plan to wear my wedding/engagement rings but I have found myself doing it, to my surprise.

I wanted a show of commitment from my commitment-phobe partner and he proposed. I think I would have been equally happy with him saying "let's start trying for a baby" or "let's put my name on the mortgage" at the time, but now I am married, I quite like it. I feel more content and like the looking for a partner phase of my life is over so I can move on to the next thing. I think it makes things easier if you plan to have children as well.

I have a pang of regret occasionally. Usually when someone calls me "Mrs {husband's name} by mistake. I feel like I have become some mere appendage to him, not even worthy of my own name, at that point.

It's how things are set up to protect money and children in the easiest ways, from a legal point of view.
I also felt it was a personal commitment I wanted to make and so did DP.
Outwardly nothing has changed!

Not being in UK at the time was a factor for me.

The legal/financial underpinnings are very important, especially once you start making decisions on big ticket items together (such as property or anything that changes your career trajectory).

I am a feminist and I am married.

DH and I are both lawyers...and it is our shared view that marraige offers much greater legal protections. I would encourage all women to marry for percisely this reason.

I also like very much that now we have DC, we are a legal unit and entity. I don't think it's strictly necessary in the grand scheme of things. And I don't see other unmarried families as lesser units or entities, but I just like it that we are.

I'm not married. I have DC so everyone assumes I'm married anyway and refers to DP as my "husband".

I don't actually like the word partner or husband so I tend to call him by his first name.

Only reason I will ever marry my partner would be legal protection.

DH and I got engaged at university, but didn't get married until over a decade later, mainly because I felt uncomfortable about marriage/ being a wife from a feminist POV.

I decided to get married for several reasons - I wanted to have children, and wanted the 'legal protection' or marriage (plus the next of kin rights, etc). I felt silly referring to DH as my boyfriend/ partner/ fiancée once we hit our thirties. It felt odd to have been engaged for so long and not married. Also, I knew that DH wanted to be married more than I did (it used to really annoy me when people assumed he was the one who didn't want to be married).

However, the main reason was that my dad died quite unexpectedly, and I really regretted not getting married while he was alive. My mum was then ill for several months after his death, and I wanted a happy family event, so that was part of it too.

I didn't change my name, and we had a small registry office wedding. It still feels strange when I think that we're married, and I'm a wife!

My main reason was similar to that of notcitrus. I had been married once and didn't want to do it again. DP at the time wasn't bothered. This changed when I became seriously ill and had to undergo life-saving emergency surgery. My parents were out of the country at the time so DP filled in all the forms and acted as my next of kin.

I realised afterwards that although we were living together my parents were still my legal next of kin and we hold very different views on some important issues. I wanted to make absolutely sure that my parents would not have any say in medical matters. I would have much preferred a civil partnership though.

Just like you, LottaPianos, I wasn't particularly bothered about getting married but after about five years, I started thinking it would be a good idea. No real idea why, I just suddenly wanted to get married! Then we had a row about it when I brought it up, the row lasted three days (he had also changed his mind about getting married, sadly from wanting to not - and then told me not to take it personally), and was a really miserable time.

However, we've been married two months (to the day!) now, and it's been really lovely. Our wedding was huge amounts of fun, and it was all the better for knowing that we'd both really put a lot of thought into whether we actually wanted to do it, or whether we just thought we "should" do it.