To not get the whole getting married thing

[Snoozebox]

I know I am ignorant about the legal benefit side of things. I need advising!

Seriously, what are the advantages of getting married as opposed to just living with a partner?

I find the whole furore over the actual wedding ceremony just bizarre. I can't get my head around making a public celebration over a relationship which is mostly private. I don't get why we even need marriage in our modern society. I thought living together is commitment enough

AIBU? Someone explain to me why marriage is special, please!

So you don't believe anyone, ever, in an NHS facility, has ever been treated worse as an unmarried partner than they would as a spouse, because it didn't happen to you? How bizarre. I have heard of at least one occasion when the adult child, who was next of kin, was able to prevent the unmarried partner from being present at the deathbed in an NHS hospital. It shouldn't happen but it does.

I would advise you not to have a partner on a life support machine in Saudi Arabia, MrsLupo, with parents who agreed with doctors and were far more able to deal with the situation than the partner- that was the situation that I was thinking of.

Agreed. I was speaking from a UK perspective. I had the impression the OP was in the UK. I think we can all agree that the legal benefits (and drawbacks, for that matter) of marriage differ if you are elsewhere.

And I think some posters like to scaremonger in order to push the unmarried stigma. There is none thankfully. We live in 2015 not 1915.

So you don't believe anyone, ever, in an NHS facility, has ever been treated worse as an unmarried partner than they would as a spouse, because it didn't happen to you? How bizarre. I have heard of at least one occasion when the adult child, who was next of kin, was able to prevent the unmarried partner from being present at the deathbed in an NHS hospital. It shouldn't happen but it does.

If you concede that it shouldn't happen, then there are obviously other ways to challenge it besides arming yourself with a preemptive marriage certificate. I imagine having a terrible relationship with your dying DH/DW/DP's adult children from a previous relationship is traumatic even with the paperwork.

But I think this is a fantastically unusual situation and if it was remotely recent I would venture to suggest there may be more to it than you are aware of.

Get married.....don't get married.....surely it is personal choice?

I don't understand why people would criticise others for their decision to either marry or not.

I've been married to Mr WeirdCat for 20 years. My best friend has been with her partner for 15 years. Neither one of us is wrong in our approach. Neither relationship is less special. Both approaches work for the people involved.

It is a personal choice but people ought to be aware that it is not 'just a piece of paper' - it is actually a vital piece of paper in some circumstances and if you have children you ought to pay a solicitor to get everything sorted if you don't want to get married. Dreadful things do not just happen to 'other people' - they can happen to you too. It isn't scaremongering to mention what can happen if tragedy strikes.

Your use of the word 'concede' is quite an odd one there MrsLupo. The dictionary definition suggests it means someone is yielding, perhaps after first denying something. In fact, I have never thought or suggested that the NHS should be treating unmarried partners badly. Some of you on this thread seem to have trouble with the distinction between saying that something happens and agreeing with it.

Lily, could you tell us which posters you think are lying then?

It's rather ironic that those people who have experienced a diverse range of reactions towards their marital status are being accused of living in the 1950s by those people who have a narrower range of experience and have never encountered bias towards marriage

Labelling someone a twat and excluding them from your social circle because they hold different opinions to your own is rather.....um....narrow minded, isn't it?

I think people who don't take couples seriously if they're not married are the narrow minded ones, personally.

lily sorry but we both look very young and got married young anyway at 22 (now 30) and many drs and nurses assumed DH was my boyfriend, several times he was asked to leave or not allowed in the room/not told what was happening to me/not included in the discussion until the word husband was used. This happened in 3 different hospitals as I was bounced around diff experts and actually the only place it didn't happen to some degree was in Basingstoke (where they finally also cured me, yay for Basingstoke!)

Just because you had a good experience doesn't mean others aren't subjected to discrimination, that would be like saying racism didn't exist just because you personally never experienced it.

Also very interested in bertrand explaining to me why my bosses and older family member's attitudes to me mean that I live in the 1950s... still no answer on that one, funnily enough.

And it is, for the record, WRONG that we were treated like that, and that older family members only included the other one once we were married and that my boss sexistly decided I was more reliable once I was "Mrs".... but it happens and denying that it exists is crazy.
Maybe we saw it more because we got married very young at 22/3 and people tend not to take you seriously at that age anyway

My friends have been together for about 8 years and snuck off to get married without telling a soul. They advertised on a local FB page for the remote island and got 2 witnesses (and a photographer from the local paper!) for the ceremony. Had a lovely holiday and posted 3 pics on FB when they returned! Even their parents didn't know! It sounded like a really fun trip and definitely more 'them' than a huge spendy ceremony. It really added to the mystery for everyone else too and meant that they have had great fun catching up with all of the friends who they might have otherwise invited to a big do, so they can tell them all about it. Much more personal to chat to them at leisure than be stuck in a room with 50+ people and squeezing in a ten min chat

I hate the whole spending that goes along with a wedding; usually £100 on an outfit, £150 for the hotel, at least £30 for travel and then however much on a present... It can all be very grabby IMO. Of course I am happy for the couple tying the knot, but it takes just 4 weddings a year to make me a little resentful. I get your point OP and think eloping may be your way forward if you did want to get married.

We got married in the local town hall (not in the uk) on the way home from work/uni aged 20/21. We never had a wedding, no friends, dress, photos, cake. It cost about fifty quid.

His reasons were legal shtick to do with a mortgage, and being able to share your tax allowance with your spouse. Mine were wanting to put mrs on forms and landing an enormous catch.

I don't understand the reason behind expensive flashy weddings which take a year to plan yet all seem identical.

However 10 years down the line I almost feel like getting divorced now that anyone can marry anyone, we cannot share our tax allowance and divorce/multiple marriage is so prevalent.. I feel like boycotting the whole pointless institution that I was once sooo proud to belong to.

So I've made it up just because up personally haven't encountered it?! I know it happened because I was there! They sent home my then bf as he wasn't allowed on the ward with me due to not been my husband and I was then treat cruelly and dismissed as a child at the age of 25. My ex nearly missed the birth of his son!

My husband now is not the father to my 2 boys, before we where married he was also asked to leave the room whiles consultants discussed my son's medical needs. Ridiculous considering he raised my son from 3 months old. Now he has rights, well I presume he does as a step parent. Before had I died he would of had zero even though he works very hard to provide foe our family and the boys biological father does bugger all!

Prejudice does exist! Schools are the worst place for it too. But I won't go into that one as cba with the drama of been called a liar! If you don't want to get married, fine it's your life and you do what works for you.

Your use of the word 'concede' is quite an odd one there MrsLupo. The dictionary definition suggests it means someone is yielding, perhaps after first denying something. In fact, I have never thought or suggested that the NHS should be treating unmarried partners badly. Some of you on this thread seem to have trouble with the distinction between saying that something happens and agreeing with it.

Liesel, I thought that you were saying that HCPs do (wrongly) discriminate against unmarried couples sometimes. And I thought I understood you to say that ensuring you are legally married was a therefore good way to prevent this. My own view is that discriminatory attitudes don't cease just because you personally place yourself beyond their reach. So, yes, I do think that your point (as I understood it) contained some contradictions. I think it is more effective in the long run for unmarried couples to challenge such discrimination, rather than passively accepting the problem by taking an 'if you can't beat them, join them' attitude. But apologies if I misunderstood you.

I do think there is an attitude among married couples generally (or more accurately among married women) that unmarried couples haven't bothered/got around to marriage, or don't understand the legal differences, rather than accepting that unmarried couple status may be an active choice. Advice just to 'regularise' by getting married denies the importance of that active choice. That wasn't aimed at you particularly, Liesel.

Here's a prime example. A friend of mine was refused access back into the country due to her surname been different to her children on her passport. She now travels with written consent from the children's father aswell as supporting evidence.

What utter tosh. I have a diff surname to my DC ( as do many of my friends )and have never encountered problems getting back in. We'll gloss over the fact that many married parents have diff surnames to their DC.

And as for predudice in schools,what rot. My DC go to a very churchy church school and have never encountered predudice. Hoards of children have parents who aren't married. By 2016 they will be the majority in the UK. Get over it.

Would just like to add that having worked in schools most of my working life I can assure you that staff haven't a clue who has parents who are married and who doesn't. We don't sit in the staff room trying to find out either.

Frankly as hoards of married couples are on their second or third spouses the amount of children not born out of wedlock living with their married parents or indeed living with a married couple are going to be smaller than you think anyway.

moopy Marriage doesn't give stepparent any additional parental responsibility - if you want to ensure your DH has a role in your DCs upbringing if anything happened to you he would need to be awarded parental responsibility by the court.

Otherwise their father will be the only person with PR and his opinion would be sought by the authorities regarding the DCs future.

There is a very, very small part of family law which differentiates between married and unmarried step parents as I've mentioned upthread - but neither married or unmarried stepparent have any automatic rights or responsibilities towards their stepchildren; these can only be awarded by the court.

There is no prejudice in schools or elsewhere.
It has nothing to do with making judgements - it is to protect yourself , and more importantly your children, should things go wrong- like DH being in a bad accident today. It is a bit late to discover the problems after the accident has happened.

I have never actually met anyone who has had more than a passing question asked at immigration about children with different names. I have however, met lots of people who know someone who has..............

I have a different surname to DS - it has never been questioned- despite going abroad quite a lot.

lily you do know that other people have different life experiences to yours, don't you?

Just because you haven't experienced something that others say has happened to them doesn't mean that what they say is "utter tosh" and that they are lying - it just means that the world is a diverse place and that everyone experiences the same situations in a slightly different way.

There's no harm in being a bit more open minded and accepting that other people may have had different experiences to you, is there?

makes me laugh to hear people say you will be protected in the event of a split if married.

That only benefits you if you are the one with fewer assets.

precisely the same reason your partner might NOT want to get married

Everyone experiences the same situations in a slightly different way."

I don't think people experience immigration control in slightly different ways, do they?