to not get married?

[TheMidnightHour]

When I was small someone said to me 'you shouldn't get married until you, really, really want to.' It stuck, and I've gone with that, despite increasing pressure from everyone apart from DP: neither of us want to get married, so we haven't.

However, I'm starting to wonder if I'm not seeing some major benefit? After all, if everyone you know jumps off a bridge, you should at least look around to see if it's on fire before you make a decision.

So: here's the status. We are both 30-ish. Not much in the bank, no real assets (no house/car worth anything/heirlooms/trust fund (I wish)), no debt/mortgage. No pensions (I know, I know). No major illnesses. No visa issues. Have wills. We do own a business together, and have a kid on the way (woo!). Both atheists. No religion on my side of the family; DP's parents are very religious and regularly read us a sermon about Living In Sin, which if anything makes it sound quite attractive!

We already have a 'marriage', effectively, as we're as committed as can be and have weathered a decade of storms. I don't want a wedding (large or small, not even a registry office do, gives me the heebs). DP is anti-officially-tying-the-knot for various reasons.

So can I pootle along like this, or is it like going shark feeding without a cage, as one of my friends recently suggested?

(She didn't elaborate on WHAT exactly is out their to eat us, and actually I quite like sharks, always exciting to see one while diving, although they're so quick to vanish they're hard to spot...)

Do you think you (personally) are more likely to split up if you get married? is that why you are scared?

Do you think he is likely to become a wife beater, but not a girlfriend beater?

I dont think you are as committed as you say you are. I had no hesitation in marrying my dh, because we were committed (still together 20+years later)

"I do want to be with my partner for the rest of my life. Given how high divorce rates are in the UK, getting married is not enough to make that claim. You have to be committed and (probably) lucky. We are committed."

So get married then if you do want to be with him for the rest of your life!!. Committed, well in the eyes of the law no you are not. You are still seen as two separate individuals and if you regard your own relationship as practically married, then why not take that step anyway?. Are you both really afraid that marriage will make you both properly grow up?. Have you really just followed his lead on objections to marriage?.

'But then I don't believe I'm likely to wind up in a coma after giving birth, either or that DP is going to do a Downton Abbey on the way home from the hospital, which are 2 reasons, apparently, we should get married.'

Young people die unexpectedly all the time I'm not sure why you find the idea to be such a joke.

John I really wasn't, until I got 30 posts into this thread! I found it a bit one-sided at first, as several people seem to be suggesting that marriage and only marriage solves all financial/legal/etc issues, so tried to prop up the other, and have now got a bit bogged down and confused honestly.

I am all in favour of people getting married if they want to. I am actually helping plan a wedding at the moment...

I just don't get the objection to a less than 20 minute visit to a register office and signing some things/ paying £150.

thing is, in your DP needs a care home, then he'll have to pay for it until he has assets of less than £21k. If you want control over the details, then you need NOK.

Re the visas, it's usually a lot easier to get a spousal visa. They are rather straight forward. If you are UK citizens then you are only thinking about working overseas, as I said, I know 2 unmarried couples who'd lived together happily for years who got married because it was the easiest and cheapest way when one partner wanted to work in another country for them to all go as a family.

Which adds another dimention - marriage is internationally recognised. What rights that gives you varies from country to country, but in many cases, documents that you can draw up to give you various rights in this country will mean nothing overseas.

Exactly sovery. The partner of the friend I referred to earlier in the thread 'did a Downton Abbey' as the OP so wittily put it. One of my siblings was widowed at 35.

Such larks.

Soverylucky - same here. Noone thinks it will happen to them.

We pay out for travel insurance, I hope I never need to use it, I think it's highly unlikely I will on our holiday this year. I still wouldn't travel without.

Well the figures on couples with children under 5 who split up:
Unmarried co-habitants over 1 in 4
And Married under 1 in 10
(according to Relate)
demonstrate that married people are much more likely to be in it for the long-haul.
But all of this is irrelevant as you clearly don't want to get married, so what I and everyone else is saying doesn't matter.

My point remains though that the only obvious reason for a couple with children not to get married is because they don't want to be married to each other. If you don't want your relationship to be legally or formally recognised then so be it.

No-one ever thinks the worse will happen to them - until it does.

Re your earlier questions:-
"What if DP doesn't wind up in a coma, but in a retirement home?
What if he does become abusive, and I want to leave with the (imaginary so far) kids?
What if we split up, and neither of us want the other to be able to draw on their assets?
What if we think our parents would be better at making end-of-life decisions than our DP?"

I think you have more problems than you perhaps care to admit particularly with regards to the last two questions. It reads like you really do not trust the other person fully; why would you not want the other to draw on their assets?.

(Have also been v glad of having travel insurance in the past as well because that has got us out of a hole).

just out of interest, what are "DP is anti-officially-tying-the-knot for various reasons."

I am grateful for this thread. I was saying I am happily not married but now seriously considering the lunch break certificate collection. Perhaps it was the "big day" and all the traditions putting me off. I have gone from one end of the spectrum to the other.

oh and re the orginal statement that: 'you shouldn't get married until you, really, really want to.' - true, a lot of people get married for completely the wrong reasons, from the pressure to do 'the right thing' to the 'grown up thing' to just wanting the day, not really thinking of it as a forever decision.

But perhaps a better bit of advice would be "you shouldn't get married until you have really, really found someone you know you want to spend the rest of your life with." if you've done that, then the 'wedding' doesn't need to matter unless you do fancy a big party to celebrate the fact, but putting your relationshp from being a private agreement between you to being a legally binding one makes sense, even if the idea of a 'wedding' still doesn't attract you.

Or perhaps, look calmly at your DP and your relationship, you've got a house, a business and soon a child together, why do you think you haven't reached the 'really really want to' stage? What's missing? you talk about not being married as 'romantic' is it that, rather than a practical, legal arrangement, so is it you aren't swayed by legal arguments, but were expecting some big dramatic desire that you just had to marry, and as that's lacking you don't see the point?

I'm sorry I was light hearted about dying young. I have all too close experience of it and a black sense of humour as a result, which perhaps does not come across well online. My comment came out of some a couple of posts which recommend marriage as insurance against (among others) some very specific and very unlikely circumstances.

I asked the question in a genuine state of curiousity, and am getting a bit defensive as the criticism of my life has proved quite far-ranging.

I'm not anti-marriage, I've just never felt the urge to get hitched. I was wondering if there was evidence that suggested we should get married now. Last time we consulted a solicitor, there wasn't.

I am having a bit of a problem weighing it up, as no one seems to be offering any circumstances in which marriage might be anything less than an advantage when your life goes down the pan. That could be because it really does solve all problems, but it seems unlikely to me, particularly as I've seen not-so-good marriages and wanted to explore both sides.

Most people are arguing for marriage as a form of insurance. If that's what it is, then it's important to know what you're getting, and what you're liable for: no point in getting pet insurance if you don't have one, or world-wide + extreme sports for a fornight in Scarborough.

For the 3rd or 4th time - those really were just examples, all from other relationships as it happens. The crib sheet is (1) great aunt & uncle (2) relative (3) friends with grown up kids (4) friend of the family.

Summerhouse - likewise; I don't like the idea of a wedding, but the posts from heartisaspade and Tisiphone have reassured me somewhat that it's possible to have a marriage without a wedding.

And if it is that you just have always expected some sort of big dramatic feeling that you 'had to get married', just to let you know, most people don't feel like that.

But no-so-good marriages are surely the result of the partnership itself, not because of the marriage certificate? Or am I missing something?

What I mean is, a crap/bad marriage is not made worse for the fact it is a 'marriage'. Of course if you aren't married then you don't need to divorce, but frankly if your lives are so intertwined (business, children, assets) then splitting up is like a divorce anyway - except not protected by law!

A crap/bad partnership is not made better by marriage, either.

Yep, Jackie, the crap marriages would have been crap 'living together' relationships, except being married normally means if you decide to end the crap relationship, the lower paid/primary carer for the child/ren gets a better deal.

Mary yes, good point. We don't have a house though (renting).

One of the problems I have with getting married is, well, getting married. I don't really like any of the options available to me, and this is partly (mainly!) due to our families. So:

• big wedding = approval from all sides, I would hate it, we can't afford it
• small wedding (which I would probably hate) or 'registry office lunch hour do' (more me) = disapproval from 100 people (yes, literally); 20 years of aggro; pressure to upscale from everyone; BUT DP's parents would be relieved
• do it and keep it secret = I don't like this at all: seems dishonest plus spiteful not to tell outlaws; everyone upset when it inevitably comes out (yes, someone in the family tried this)

I am sure someone will tell me I should just 'suck it up' but I don't think that alienating the people we care about is a trivial thing to do, particularly when it's to do something I don't particularly yearn for. Heck, I could accomplish the same effect by necking a pint, then resting the empty glass on my pregnant belly at the next family event. Much though I would love a Broadside right now, I'm not going to do it.

Other reasons people might not want to get married - only ONE of these applies to us, you can guess which!

• prefer to keep finances independent (e.g. have grown up children and assets)
• done it before, don't want to do it again
• religious conflict
• bad experience of relationships, e.g. due to parents divorce
• bad experience of marriage, e.g. due to religion
• feminism/gay rights/other activist reasons
• wants a wedding they can't afford right now
• waiting for family to accept the relationship
• will be financially worse off if married (e.g. due to existing pensions)
• visa issues

Yes, these things can usually be overcome, and there are run-for-the-hills ones like 'doesn't want to commit' and 'got an eye out for something better' and 'having an affair' (which DO NOT apply to us). But I still think there are reasons not to want to get married, or be ambivilent about the whole thing.

I don't think that all people benefit from marriage - it really does depend upon your assets and how thorough you've been in drawing up legal protection and how much you might need widows benefits or pensions from a spouse.

I think that where marriage becomes more important is when one of you has reduced earnings due to raising the kids and when you start to get into inheritance tax levels of assets.

What would worry me about not being married is that one person can change the agreements drawn up between the two of you and you wouldn't know until it was too late.

If you are asking about marriage from an emotional point of view, I can say from my and my DH's perspective that both of us had had long term, co-habiting relationships previously which had in no way been leading to marriage (I.e. Neither of us wanted to marry that other person, but enjoyed living with them, sleeping with them etc).

When DH & I met each other, (having both split up with our previous partners) the desire to get married was huge, on both sides. We couldn't imagine not being married as we knew we wanted to be together forever.

To me there's a big difference between being happy to live with someone and wanting to marry them - is that more your concern?

To be frank, I think not wanting to upset people by not having a wedding is quite a daft reason not to do it, if you DO want to do it.

Would the same opinionated people be happy for you to just never be married?

They can’t be annoyed about the latter but only the former?
That’s just daft!