to not understand the benefits of getting married?

[RitaMorgan]

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?

There's an awful lot of protesting a wee bitty too much on here!

Yes ,because we are all left on the shelf

and no one wants to marry us

You see, if we were Proper Wifey Wimmin, someone would want to marry us. It's our horrid anti-marriage stance that has exiled us from matrimonial bliss forever.

I must remember this, next time Mr Inferior says grumpily 'so you still aren't marrying me, then?'

Does anybody have the odds of staying together 10+ yrs if you are married as opposed to not married?

registering the death-it does make a difference if you are not married. I had one of the worst half hours of my life sitting with a close friend whose DP had died. Not that she couldn't register the death but rather that she was at the bottom of a list of persons 'legally' entitled to register the death. Think it is almost too much to bear sitting in a registry office and answering 'no' to a list of questions.My friend was able to register the death as 'the person dealing with the funeral' but as she said she felt like she was nothing to the love of her life,the man she'd been with for 16 years. One trip to that same registry office at any point in the previous 16 years would have saved her a lot of heartache. Dealing with the pension, life insurance and other policies that she was named on were also not as straightforward as they would have been if she were able to tick the spouse box.

No problem with other people being wives, but wearing rings, changing my name, calling myself someone's wife just isn't for me.

I do actually wear a very pretty ring DP produced on the occasion of his First Proposal four years ago

I wouldn't want to be called somebody's partner for the rest of my life. I just sounds so temporary. How is anybody else to know it is a significant relationship and not something you started last week?

I don't really care what other people think about my relationship tbh

And if you are someone's wife, how is anyone else to know that you're not on the brink of splitting up, and/or one of you is shagging around, or all the other stuff that happens in relationships, humans being what they are?

I don't really think that it does affect the kids much

some details and cases here, plus forms for filling in to firm things up

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???

full details here, see flow chart page 2

Well then just don't fecking do all that.

You are making a mountain out of a molehill.
You can get married without rings or name changes and you can even carry on being a just a oartner, if that is what floats your boat.

Bur get your head out of the sand if you think you have the same legal rights and status as a wife. You don't.

I would hate to be introduced as my DH's partner or girlfriend. To ME, they are lesser and temporary labels. Glad others like them but I am no one's partner thank you very much. And I don't really see why those who profess to be anti marriage because they are feminists are devaluing teh word wife by calling it wifey and such? You don;t want to be married, great. Chuffed for you. but Please don't try to ridicule what some of us are happy to be.

No problem with other people being wives, but wearing rings, changing my name, calling myself someone's wife just isn't for me.

Some people are strange! You don't have to wear a ring, you don't have to change your name and whatever is the difference in a word-why is someone's partner better.
The important thing is that it safeguards you if things go wrong or you don't get on with DPs family.

I quite like having a Lesser and Temporary Label. And I'm not the one protesting too much, actually.

I don't really care what other people think about my relationship tbh

Well you clearly do otherwise you wouldn't be so vehemently opposed to the social construct of wife.

I have no problem with other people getting married

its just not for me

Yes, I'm sure it's a lovely institution. I just don't want to live in an institution.

You sound very het up .Lookattheears

Me I'm not that fussed ,just offering a different opinion

If you think being a wife gives you a better status in life ,thats fine

It does give me a better legal status. Of course it does. Or are you seriously suggesting being a girlfriend is has the same rights?

Yes exotic, that's what I meant when I said even if I did get married I wouldn't be a wife. It would be for legal not relationship reasons.

I like being a girlfriend

I am a Paramour

I don't mind being a girlfriend. DP is too old to be a boyfriend though do I tend to say partner.

I say my lover

I see my marriage as an equal partnership - I didn't get my husband to 'marry me', we chose to get married as it was something we wanted to do to seal our family unit. I like having the same name as my children, and being married gives you cast iron legal rights should the worst happen. There is just no quibbling about NOK/pensions/parental rights etc. If the worst did happen to either of us, the last thing I want is for the remaining partner to be caught in a legal nightmare on top of everything else.

I wonder how many unmarried couples have actually done the necessary legal paperwork, or realise about the NOK thing.