To wonder where the joy is in forcing someone to marry you?

[Fanfeckintastic]

This is probably going to sound awful and I'm so sorry if I offend!

A lot of my friends at the moment are getting engaged which I do think is lovely, but the vast majority have been trying to twist their DPs arm about it for at least a year+, a lot have been given ultimatums etc which I personally wouldn't be able to bear, I can see why if the woman wants to wait until married to have children etc and totally understand marriage is important to many people but personally I just think having to practically force someone to ask you would put a very bad taste in my mouth. But each and every time one of these guys propose to my friends, I genuinely am absolutely pleased for them, have even shed a tear of happiness knowing how much said friend has been waiting and worrying.
What I don't think the guys have been bargaining for is how fast said friends would start planning weddings and organising things. I get the impression these guys thought maybe the ring was buying them another couple of years but in so many cases I've seen friends enter wedding competitions, enquiring via Facebook about certain venues etc within days of getting the longed for proposal!
Why is it so often the women driving these things, does it not take the joy out of it?

AIBU for feeling this way? Do I sound jealous? I honestly don't think that's it at all, it just sometimes feels like watching a car crash about to happen!

Hate hate hate threads like this.

If marriage is important to one half of a partnership and it's been dragging on for a while! what wrong with an honest and frank conversation.

I've seen women waiting years for a marriage, in putting money in to a mortgage, giving work up to raise children to walk away with nothing.

I think the problem is now, many people move in together and set up home and it's the woman that resumes the role of 'wife' with out actually any of the legal benefits. The men are quiet happy sitting on their arses.

If marriage is important to you than go for it. Why wait around for a namby pamby proposal.

Smug marrieds always catastrophise personal life of unmarried folk

I don't think they do. I think people just have different priorities.

Smug marrieds on MN.catastrophise unmarrieds,if unmarried they'll be left in penury,and child kidnapped abroad by dad ,whilst unsupported,and gold course left for a younger woman he'll marry

True, I meant normal non MN folk

Equally, cohabitees regularly pop up (still!) unaware of the legal aspect and those trying to fill them in get the 'smug married' accusation slung at them a lot of the time.

I was under the impression it was important when a couple had kids.

I think I'm a smug married.

"unaware of the legal aspect"- enlighten us.

I'd advise anyone to frankly dust is steri relationship,married or not
And to understand significance of being unmarried or married
Braying the worst case,he'll leave you in penury,for a younger Twinkie,isn't compelling reason to marry

I'd advise anyone to frankly discuss relationship,married or not

Can't be arsed combust. I'm not a lawyer. Grown ups can do their own research. That's why it is surprising that they don't. The CAB does a good summary.

I found marriage and cohabitation equally enjoyable myself, don't care about other people's legal or religious arrangements.

It would be a good mumsnet campaign to have marriage equivalent/ legally binding document available to all.

Legally binding what?

Or you could just get married Cola?

I dunno.

If a bloke wasn't begging to marry me after a year I'd move on.

I never got that far, I got engaged after 7 months with DH and married within 14.

I'm a bit old fashioned, but not Christian and turned down 3 marriage proposals before his.

I don't know why its a thing for me but its a thing.

14 years married now.

I don't know if it would necessarily be the same if circumstances had been different but it felt right and still does.

Me and dh talked about marriage a bit, but when I got pg I bought it to a head. Not in an ultimatum kind of way, but I made it clear that I didn't want a different surname to my children so if we were to put his surname as dd's surname on her birth certificate then I wanted some kind of proper commitment to marriage. So while you could kind of say I forced him, and occasionally I'm sad I didn't get a spontaneous, romantic proposal, I do have a very happy and committed marriage.

I don't know anyone who got 'talked into' marriage, but I do understand that people get married for their own, individual reasons.

I have the same syndrome Tatty. I suspect a therapist would make much of it

Sorry, I was reading the CAB information mentioned. It's the parental responsibility part that has always worried me and the access to funds being stopped on the death of one of us.

Wondered, if some people were opposed to marriage due to the history of it and for feminist reasons, that a new legal something or other would be better. I'm too tired to formulate this properly. Will check in on the thread tomorrow.

Btw, this is like the old aibu. Very reasonable and interesting discussion.

See what you mean, Cola.

I actually think some laws ought to change. In Australia for instance, apparently they have all the same rights as a married couple after a while including parental responsibility and next of kin. I haven't checked this out myself but I am Aussie and my brother lives there in a de facto relationship with a child and assures me this is the case.

Allypalley - I may have OD'd on princess shit when I was a girl but I can't undo it!

I'm not anti marriage at all (in fact, the reason I'm reading this is that I want to force my Oh to marry me). But he doesn't see the point...

We're not in the region of IHT being an issue, I own our family home, he's my NOK on all hospital/Dr details, and he's got parental responsibility... I can't think of a reason to explain that is a good idea.

I got engaged under such circumstances, we never married, it would have been the biggest mistake of my life otherwise.

My Dsis and BIL got engaged because at my DB's wedding, my Dsis mentioned it to my BIL, BIL officially proposed, been married 2 years, together 10 years with 4 kids between them.

My DB's STBEXW only want the wedding, she started cheating after the first year, good job they didnt have kids.

Are you his NOK on his hospital/GP details though FishRabbit?

She already addressed that her dp is nok. he's my NOK on all hospital/Dr details

Tatty why would you want someone to be begging you?

Yep, I am. We fiddled with it all when I was pregnant. Boring!