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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to not understand the benefits of getting married?

409 replies

RitaMorgan · 12/11/2011 18:15

Putting aside the romantic and religious reasons or the big party/lots of presents (lovely as that would be).

What exactly are the benefits of legally being married over just cohabiting, for a woman with children?

DP very definitely doesn't want to get married, I would quite like a big party/lots of presents but am not sure if there is any point to it beyond that.

AIBU? Should I be insisting on a trip to the Register Office?

OP posts:
exoticfruits · 13/11/2011 13:31

You just have to read this bit about the widow's state benefits. You must have been married to, or had formed a civil partnership with, the person who has died. I was a widow before I was 30yrs-without that piece of paper you all think so unimportant I would have been in a right mess. It had never occurred to me that DH would die suddenly. It happens-and quite commonly.

WholeLottaRosie · 13/11/2011 13:39

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

exoticfruits · 13/11/2011 13:50

People go through life assuming it won't happen to them-no one is immune and you need to know the facts.

NonnoMum · 13/11/2011 13:58

Rosie - how sad!

NonnoMum · 13/11/2011 14:00

Perhaps look at it from a historical perspective...

Here lies Linda, the beloved wife of Keith, and the mother of his three children...

Or

Here lies Linda, Keith's girlfriend, the mother of his three children...

Just a thought...

Original poster
RitaMorgan · 13/11/2011 14:04

Even if we did get married, I certainly wouldn't be a wife Grin

OP posts:
usualsuspect · 13/11/2011 14:06

I couldn't care less whats written on my gravestone

I'm me , not just a girlfriend or a mother

I'm not defined by my relationship

AChickenCalledKorma · 13/11/2011 14:10

Someone above said: "I predict in the future people will get married on Facebook by changing their status. It will be legally binding and there will be no ther method."

I predict that in the future there will still be a signficant proportion of people that view the making of a public commitment, in front of friends and relatives - and God in many cases - as a valuable action, that goes miles beyond the efficient administration of legal affairs.

If that makes me a smug married, so be it.

Happylander · 13/11/2011 14:13

My partner has just walked out of our relationship without a single thought to trying to save this family. I don't think it would have been so easy for him if we had actually managed to get round to doing the legal part of our wedding (long story!)

I have a DS turning 2 next Sunday, a mortgage that will take 2/3rds of my pay, a loan in my name and all the household bills. I have had to fight for him to pay his half the mortgage for a few months but after that it is up to me. He still has not spoken to me face to face, he told me over the phone, about why etc as I clearly don't even deserve that much respect. His family have not contacted me at all to ask how their grandchild/nephew is getting on.

I think that if we had been legally married he would have had to actually speak to me and then we could have tried together to make it work. Instead I have literally been dumped with no thought to how I might feel about it at all and not worthy of a chance. I also think his family might have had a bit more compassion towards me.

I say get married it is far less easy to walk away from when you are going through a rough patch.

Ribeno · 13/11/2011 14:19

Can't will be changed and re-written without notifying the beneficiaries?

juneau · 13/11/2011 14:21

If I was with a man I had children with and he didnt want to marry me then that would tell me all I needed to know tbh.

Yep - I'm in this camp too. In fact, I wouldn't have children with a man who wouldn't marry me.

usualsuspect · 13/11/2011 14:24

Do woman still want men to marry them

Do people these days not just get married

It all seems a bit 1950s to me

usualsuspect · 13/11/2011 14:26

women*

Rollersara · 13/11/2011 14:35

I don't care what goes on my gravestone, hardly a good reason to get married! And I agree with usualsuspect, marriage is something we would do together, it's certainly not about him not wanting to marry me!

I am the higher earner of the two of us, but everything we own / have contracts regarding is in both of our names (will be writing wills shortly before I go on maternity leave. We just don't have the magic piece of paper. Maybe we'll get married one day (I like the idea of my daughter as a bridesmaid!), but it simply a low priority, I have better things to do with my time and money!

motherinferior · 13/11/2011 14:43

I don't think marriage is 'meaningless': it is precisely because it carries such a heavy freight of expectation and association that I don't fancy it. Also the idea of being somebody's 'wife' makes me feel quite ill, really.

And I would rather I was remembered for what I had done, not the number of children I'd produced and the name of the person who had begotten them upon me.

Rollersara · 13/11/2011 14:44

And, those wouldn't be with a man with whom they had children but wouldn't marry them, , would you advise DP to leave me? After all, I'm about to have a baby with a partner I won't marry, at least at the moment?

motherinferior · 13/11/2011 14:46

It is possible DP wastes spends his time worrying that I will run off with someone else and marry them, but I suspect this is quite unlikely, really. Either the worrying or the running away.

Lookattheears · 13/11/2011 14:47

Even if we did get married, I certainly wouldn't be a wife

Don't be absurd, of course you would. You would have that status.

Unless, of course, you hold some quaint, old fashioned and sexist notions of what a wife is or what she does? Hmm

marriedinwhite · 13/11/2011 14:49

happylander the argument on the thread is neither here nor there for where you are at the moment. I am sorry to hear that you have been so badly let down.

MardyArsedMidlander · 13/11/2011 14:50

It seems the height of bizarre to get married just because you're scared what it will say on your gravestone Confused. After all, you won't be there to see it.

But if that's a motivation, I want mine to say SHE NEVER MARRIED and carved underneath 'the hussy!' and a picture of 900 cats.

usualsuspect · 13/11/2011 14:51

I would hate to be anyones wife tbh

but different stokes and all that ,I'm secure in the knowledge that I picked a decent man to have my children with ,and 30 odd years later hes still around

Lookattheears · 13/11/2011 14:53

Why? What does wife mean to you?

usualsuspect · 13/11/2011 14:54

It means nothing to me ,absolutely nothing, which is why I don't want to be one

motherinferior · 13/11/2011 14:55

'Wife': oooh, there's just too much, you know, history there. Association. Connotation.

There are plenty of people on this thread, and similar ones, who say they 'love being a wife'. That's nice for them. It wouldn't fry my own onion, that's all.

cunexttuesonline · 13/11/2011 14:56

I don't really think that it does affect the kids much. My parents never married, but were together for 18 years. Didn't bother me either way, and I would presume I'd still be entitled to something if either of them died while unmarried?

And surely when unmarried couples buy a house together they put the mortgage in both names and so that it's split if they break up???

the other stuff like inheritance, pensions and next of kin status can be sorted through a solicitor, but marriage would perhaps be an easier way of tidying tha tup. Dunno about the tax though.

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