AIBU to not get married - DP says I am

[Imnotdarrellrivers]

Right - this is causing friction between me and DP so really AIBU?

We have been together of nearly 12 years (I'm 30 he's 32) Expecting first DC in december.

About 5 years ago he started asking (I mean bringing it up not actually proposing) about marriage. My thing has always been that I was too young, didn't want to get married at 25, we where moving house, new job etc. He excepted that.

And it has come up systematically ever since. More so since we found out I'm pregnant.

Now there is no doubt in my mind that he is 'it', and that we will always be together ect.

But over the last few years (more so now in the last months or so) he has become adament that we should be married. He uses every reason in the book easier, makes things simpler etc but it is more than that He really really wants to be married, to be someones husband to have a wife etc.

My excuses to him have always been just that excuses. Really I have an adversion to being married (usual thing saw parents messy messy divorce as a teenager, dad never remarried, mums remarried twice and is always telling me this is the one. Brother married young divorced about a year later etc) DP on other hand wants what his parents have (35 years and counting). He has happy thoughts of marriage, I have only negative/upsetting thoughts about it

It is now causing arguments almost constantly, with DP saying that IABU because basically I don't want to be married, I never have and I don't think I ever will

So really AIBU?

Good lord, GdP, where do you live? Half the mothers I know at school seem not to be married. This emerges, years after we've got to know each other. Nobody gives a flying fandango. Let alone 'feels sorry' for them for their dreadful, dreadful menfolk who have refused to waltz them up the aisle.

motherinferior it really does depend where you are. Where I live being an unmarried is the norm. Where I worked (city job) it most definitely wasnt. One colleague got married after she had her children and much comment was made about her having got things the wrong way round. This was in a fairly traditional professional environment. Thinking back, everyone in the department with children was married.

Not everyone openly judges but many people do privately. To pretend otherwise is foolish. As a 'for instance' Ed Miliband was judged before he and his partner got married.

It is up to the OP and her partner whether that judging matters either personally or professionally.

Gnome I kind of know what you are saying (though in only some parts) and what some people said about miliband was horrible (why it meant anything I have no idea)
Personal judging I don't think comes into it. Well some of his extended family are 'traditional' his granny for example. And he works in a very traditional office (I suppose that depends where you work). And I know some of the partners find it odd. And no one in mine cares and at my work we just analyse it. But we aren't really people who care that people are judging us. I know lots of people in work and out who aren't married and no one gives a hoot but suppose it is different if one wants to and one doesn't.

Oh and I have decide that when he returns from being away I will show him this thread. For me that is easier than starting the conversation. See where that takes us.

Are you willing to lose this relationship because you don't want to get married? Because the arguments and cracks the issue is causing in your relationship might result in that - eventually, and you might regret that more than you would regret compromising/giving in and getting married.

As others have already said, splitting up with someone is painful and messy, whether or not there's a ring involved. If he's "it" for you and it means that much to your DP that he's still raising marriage 5 years on, maybe you should consider getting married just because of how happy it will make him?