For not seeing a true reason to get married

[anykey]

Before I start! Long time reader, first time poster!

In my eyes, marriage is just a bit of paper. If you love someone enough why should getting married actually matter? Does it suggest I love that person more if we are married? Or simply harder to get away if times are hard? Is it a promise that we will stay together through thick and thin or is it a promise that if I stop loving you I will try harder to make it work because we are married? I feel I am from a younger generation which has seen people marry just for financial security, or for religion. (Pre-arranged etc) or maybe because that's "what you do" grow up, get married, have kids and live happily ever after.
I love my partner an have been together for a good few years now but i feel this could put pressure on the relationship in the future!

I've been reading these forums for a while now and have seen that other people's POV can help out. Am I alone with my views or are there others out there who feel the same?

You're entitled to your views but it isn't just a piece of paper. It affords legal rights and protections that cohabiting does not. For both parties.

I have never been accused of being a toll before

I wasn't being exceptionally rude nor trollish, unless simply disagreeing with you constitutes being a troll.

Your op was uninformed as you obviously hadn't any information which would quickly tell you that marriage has far too many implications to be talked about as 'just a piece of paper'
And it is always unimaginative to start an op where you simply can't comprehend that others may feel differently to you for a multitude of reasons.

To be honest, being unable to imagine that someone could possibly disagree with you without being a troll would tend to make the suggestion that you lack imagination more likely tbh

When you are a bit older, have had the gloss knocked off things and grown a bit cynical you will absolutely see the point.

1. If either of you dies without a will the other could lose their home, as everything will be left to family.
2. If one is very ill, the other may not even be allowed to see them in hospital - family only rules.
3. If the relationship breaks down (yes, I know you think YOURS won't.... I thought that too) you won't be entitled to a penny. Very very tough if you have taken time out of a career to have children, and put a lot of non-financial time and effort into making a family home at the expense of your earning potential. So many women get caught by this.

I don't think anyone should feel obliged to marry. It's one of those things that I think should be about two people chosing whole heatedly to make that commitment together rather than either feeling unsure or unwilling. I completely understand people having a reluctance to marry or finding the whole ceremony and tradition around marriage archaic or unnecessary.

But anyone chosing not to marry should make sure their financial and legal arrangements replace a marriage. I think leaving ones partners vulnerable in the event of break up or death is unreasonable. It happens shockingly often because people foolishly believe there is a legal concept of common law marriage.

It gives you a set of legal rights and protections that you cannot otherwise get. And some that you can't get without a lot of hassle.

So if you don't want to marry, but you're a family - get down to a solicitor and get as much in writing as you can. It still won't be the same amount as if you entered into the contract of marriage (cos that's what it is. A contract. Rights and responsibilities. Protections. T&Cs ) but it will be something.

Hey Paggy. You filthy troll you.

Anykey,

Before I married I often used to think it was silly to make a legal contract with someone you were in love with...

I got married because I had a child. For two reasons; firstly to give her and me some financial security in case of my partners death (at the time he was likely to have quite a large inheritance) and secondly to make me feel more committed to a long term relationship with my partner which I wanted for the security of my DD.

It also made a lot of difference to DH - he comes from a more traditional background (middle class, protestant, rural Ireland) and getting married is more "normal" to him and his family. They didn't consider me or DD (who was 3 months old when we married) part of "their" family beforehand.

17 years later and with a second child I am still married and don't regret it. It makes no practical difference to daily life - a lot of my friends of a similar age cohabit and have children. It would make a difference if a disaster happened such as one of us dying. I wear a wedding band but I never changed my surname.

It is a legal contract. You should do some research into the terms of that contract, and the consequences of not taking out that contract during a long term relationship I'm which you have children. There are other legal agreements you can enter into apart from marriage, but you need to check them out.

It'a also, for me and perhaps your DH if he was brought up as a Catholic, a sacrament, and therefore has a meaning beyond the law. But that bit is indeed optional.

Filthy rude troll Hecate. Give me my due!
Wiki said so. It must be true

I'm one of those weird, unusual people who got married for religious reasons! We're both active Christians, chose not to cohabit before we got married (and we just had our 18th anniversary).

The legal side was a bonus (and very much so as I'm now disabled and rely on dh), for us it was more about making promises before others and God.

Some interesting points made here. I'm of the same mind as you OP (although I wouldn't call marriage 'just a piece of paper', but I do see where you are coming from. DP and I are unmarried, in our 30s, and have one DD.

We co-own a property, which has been placed 'in trust' - if one of us dies before the other, the mortgage will be paid off by the insurance, and the whole property passes to the surviving partner. So no problems with the inheritance of property.

We have drawn up papers with a lawyer naming each other as next of kin, so in theory we have the rights to turn off each other's life support machines, etc.

DP has parental rights over DD as he is named as father on her birth certificate.

DP's life insurance policy (paid for by his company) allows me to be named as beneficiary.

If one person is going to be a SAHP I can see the benefits of being married, but that is not our situation.

The ONLY possible benefit that I can see from getting married is that DP earns far more than me and has a much better pension. However, this is because I have chosen to work in a more 'exciting' industry than DP where the pay is correspondingly lower, so being the lower earning partner is a situation that I have freely chosen. I feel that (as a feminist) it is my own responsibility to provide for myself.

Finally, I think that Sue Bridehead quote nails it for me - I hate being told what to do, so worry that marriage might actually weaken our relationship. (Although given what happen to Sue, Jude and their children she may not be the best person to take advice from....)

It's not a piece of paper, it's a legal contract that gives rights and responsibilities to both sides. For most woman who have DCs, it gives more rights than gives responsibilities (as generally it's a woman's financial security that is badly damaged by having DCs, and an unmarried woman who finds her partner has left her or died is in a crap position compared to a married woman, whereas a married man who wants to leave his wife and DCs is in a much worst financial position to an unmarried man who wants to do the same).

It's "just a piece of paper" until you need it - it's fine when you're relationship is going well, it's fine when you are healthy, happy, in love and financiall solvant - but you will get old/sick even if you never fall out of love or one of you decide you want to be with someone else. Put it simply, DH is my next of kin, he's the one I want to make choices about my end of life care. The only way I'd want it to be someone else who picks which coffin I have is if he dies first. I want DH to be the one to be at my side when I'm vunerable. If we weren't married, the NHS can have whatever scheme they want for "next of kin" cards, they aren't legally enforcable when faced with a set of ILs who don't want them to be.

I also agree that there's something very valid in the actual declarationof marriage being a reason in itself - DH tells the world I'm the woman he's picked to spend the rest of his life with everytime he says "my wife" in reference to me.

Flip it the other way, unless you don't think your partner is the person you would want to spend the rest of your life with and be legally and financially tied too , why not get that bit of paper? Give me one good reason for not getting married that doesn't involve saying "I don't see this relationship as lasting and I want to keep my money away from them".

My favourite is people who say "marriage is just a bit of paper" and then go out and amass a whole collection of "bits of paper" such as wills, attempts to become legally next of kin to mimic the single bit of paper they are so agin.

Of course Pag. I apologise. You filthy rude troll.

Actually, I prefer the emphasis on filthy.

You filthy rude troll.

It's more... outraged, somehow

It very much comes down to individual circumstances.

Financial considerations if you're planning to give up your job for an extended period of time - wasn't an issue for me since I don't have children so no reason to depend on another person for my livelihood, but it's obviously different if you're planning to pop three and not earn any money for a decade.

Next of kin thing - could be an issue if the rest of the family is likely to be hostile to you in case of one of you dying etc. Again, not an issue for me since neither of us really has other family besides each other, so who else would be our next of kind anyway?

Dying without a will is generally thought to be a bad idea, married or not. Ditto living will and medical wishes (gets around the next of kin issue better than marriage, imho.)

In some countries there are tax breaks if you're married. You also have different adoption rights and access to IVF - again, depending on your circumstances it may or may not be important to you.

Do your research and do what suits you.

God, I am just so grateful. I am relentlessly dull and measured yet here I am flirting with trollery. I might get a reputation as a firebrand!

There's zero chance of that, isn't there.

filthy firebrand troll fucker. That works.

Thrilling, isn't it?

I suppose if it doesn't matter to you if you are married or not then you should consider your DPs feelings in this. If they strongly want to be married, if it means that much to them then why wouldn't you do it? If its the cost you are worried about you can do it cheaply at a register office, and your DP should respect your wishes in keeping it simple. If it isn't about the money then why wouldn't you want to make your DP happy and provide (additional State recognised) security to your DCs?

Agree with panicking. Nothing would change for me if we split in terms of money etc. Has always been that way though. You can also make will and a living will re next of kin etc. we decided early on no pensions bought property instead. Ad all savings joint account. Once kids are older women need to get their houses in order!

There have been really good threads before linking info which explodes the idea of common law partnerships being the same as marriage,
I wish there was something on site permenantly.
Certainly the 'he has just walked out. What the hell do I do' are heartbreaking.

I get a bit irritated when marriage is seen as anti-romance. Too many people get burned by the whole idea that marriage is not for romantic free spirits.

I think it is actually something that people need to know. you need to make a truly informed decision. At the moment, I don't think people generally know just how vulnerable you are if you're not married. How few rights you have compared to those who are. And then if the worst happens, they're up shit creek in a concrete canoe and they're shocked beyond belief! And there's nothing they can do.

In divorce high earners lose hundreds of thousands of pounds to spouses who may have made relatively little contribution of any kind to the marriage. It's not just a piece of paper for them (or their spouses.)

On the plus side, if you are the spouse, marriage may mean you can behave as badly as you like towards your high-earning partner, because you know he/she cant afford to divorce you.

What do you consider a contribution to a marriage to be, chris?

They are not the same but co habitation agreementscetc have come a long way. A friend of my family sadly had to use one after a death and it was straightforward. Wills need to be specific and it is not that expensive. Too many women just sit back with tragic outcomes.