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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not get the whole getting married thing

293 replies

Snoozebox · 27/08/2015 11:22

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 Confused

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

OP posts:
LieselVonTwat · 30/08/2015 10:22

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.

Well, HCPs treating unmarried partners less favourably certainly isn't unknown, despite the inability of certain posters to contemplate that things could exist even if they've not directly experienced them. And yes I suppose the only truly failsafe way of ensuring that doesn't happen to you is to not be part of that cohort. However, I haven't and wouldn't tell anyone whether or how they ought to fight this, and nothing in my post suggested that. Those are personal choices, not for anyone else but the individual to take. There's shit all contradiction there. I should probably be clear that I don't think potential HCP discrimination is the most important issue facing unmarried couples either.

frankbough · 30/08/2015 10:35

90 percent of all unmarried couples with children will break up during the teenage yrs.. 70-80 percent of all prison inmates come from broken families.. Just a few stat facts..
It's quite clear that marriage offers more longevity and security both financially and mentally for all concerned..
Regardless of whatever any trendy Wendy thinks or feels... One only has to look at the size of the benefits bill to see, societal flamboyance and the resulting familial breakdown of interpersonal relationships.. And it's cost..

thehypocritesoaf · 30/08/2015 10:48

Tee hee.

I'm so pro- marriage that I've done it twice..but saving my kids from prison didn't enter my head. I'm also very intrigued by random people being able to tell that I'm married- I've always looked pretty smug so it can't be that. Do we have a sign?

SouthAmericanCuisine · 30/08/2015 10:50

And an employer treating you better because you're married needs to be taken to a tribunal, not pandered to!

You're kidding, aren't you? You do know that some ME counties forbid cohabiting? So if a Couple want to progress their career by working there, they have to prove that they are married?
What about the MN poster whose DP/DH was offered a less favourable renumeration package because he was planning on relocating alone, rather than with his wife and family?

All these things are perfectly legal, and very good reasons for the individuals involved to consider marriage. They are not figments of their imagination, or "in their heads" as has been so offensively suggested.

It is not my imagination that, since my DH and I changed out FB status from "in a relationship with" to "married to", several of our aquaintenances, including family members, (who had previous assumed that we were not married, because we didn't conform to any of the social conventions) have changed how they address me. To them, our being married has changed the way they think about us as a couple.

you may not consider that it right, or worthy of consideration, but to some people it may well be. Your values are not theirs and it is offensive, and slightly ridiculous, to insist that your values are the only ones with any merit.

BertrandRussell · 30/08/2015 10:56

"You're kidding, aren't you? You do know that some ME counties forbid cohabiting? So if a Couple want to progress their career by working there, they have to prove that they are married?"

Oh, are we talking about the ME? Sorry, I didn't realise. Entirely different conversation. Do you have to declare your marital status when you apply for schools there too?

SouthAmericanCuisine · 30/08/2015 10:56

With regard to the "how do people know?" - my experience is that they look for conventional signs of marriage.

Do I share my DHs surname? No. Do I wear a ring? No. Do I refer to him as my DH? No.

Therefore, family, friends, colleagues and aquaintences assumed we were unmarried.

We had people apologising to us for having assumed we were unmarried when they eventually found out that we had been married for some years.

BertrandRussell · 30/08/2015 10:57

"90 percent of all unmarried couples with children will break up during the teenage yrs."

Source, please?

thehypocritesoaf · 30/08/2015 10:57

Wow, lots of mention of the Middle East in this thread.

It's wonderful how middle eastern attitudes re women are really regarded as important nowadays, hey.

thehypocritesoaf · 30/08/2015 11:04

Actually whenever I decide to do anything in future, I will firstly think 'what do they do in Saudi?' And then decide.

SouthAmericanCuisine · 30/08/2015 11:07

lily why is it an entirely different conversation?

If you were invited to the wedding of a friend, or colleague and discovered that their reason for getting married was because they were hoping to take a job abroad - would you call them twats for doing so, and accuse them of scaremongering?

You are judging others reasoning on your own values. So WHAT if someone chooses to get married because they will feel more comfortable at the school gate? Why do you, or anyone, have the right to judge them for that?

WeAreEternal · 30/08/2015 11:07

I think there's a great deal of confusion about the difference between a wedding - which is a public statement of commitment made between two people and a marriage, which is a legally binding contract.

100% this ^

DP and I are married purely out of legal necessity, if we hadn't needed to be legally bound I would never have chosen to get married.
We did not have a wedding or change our names and we don't wear rings.

SouthAmericanCuisine · 30/08/2015 11:09

oaf. This isn't about everyone making a decision based on what they do in Saudi - it's about some posters being unwilling to acknowledge that there is life beyond their own experience.

And some posters insulting others, calling them liers, when they dare to share an experience that is different.

suzannefollowmyvan · 30/08/2015 11:09

Does marriage cause a relationship to be more stable
Or does a stable relationship 'cause' marriage?
What is the direction of causation? ?

BertrandRussell · 30/08/2015 11:24

"Actually whenever I decide to do anything in future, I will firstly think 'what do they do in Saudi?' And then decide."

Me too. I was thinking of going out in my car today- I wonder what I should do?

BertrandRussell · 30/08/2015 11:25

"If you were invited to the wedding of a friend, or colleague and discovered that their reason for getting married was because they were hoping to take a job abroad - would you call them twats for doing so, and accuse them of scaremongering?"

No. Next question?

SouthAmericanCuisine · 30/08/2015 11:52

"If you were invited to the wedding of a friend, or colleague and discovered that their reason for getting married was because they were hoping to take a job abroad - would you call them twats for doing so, and accuse them of scaremongering?"

No. Next question?

bert that question was to lily, but as you seem to share your opinions, I'll take that as an answer from her, and ask the "next question" of you.

Why not? It certainly seems to be considered acceptable online to refer to people who don't share your a opinion on marriage as twats, so why not in person?

BertrandRussell · 30/08/2015 12:03

"Why not? It certainly seems to be considered acceptable online to refer to people who don't share your a opinion on marriage as twats, so why not in person?"

I never call anyone a twat. I don't use the word.

But if somebody had to get married in order to go to a country which required a marriage certificate, why would anyone criticise that? I would criticise the policy of the country concerned, but not the people getting married.

Mehitabel6 · 30/08/2015 13:20

Very clear on CAB site

Mehitabel6 · 30/08/2015 13:23

Financial benefits here

WhoreGasm · 30/08/2015 14:09

I also draw a distinction between a wedding and a marriage, and the later doesn't automatically follow the former.

I know of a late middle age couple who certainly had a wedding nearly 40 years ago, and yet have never experienced a 'marriage' in any definition of the word that I recognise.

I happened to thoroughly enjoy every moment of our wedding day. But it was just the one day, and it was just 'one' of the best days of my life. There's been a few others equally as good along the way and hopefully a few more to come?

But it was always the marriage that I wanted and was excited by.

OwlinaTree · 30/08/2015 17:03

Seems a bit unimaginative to me if you really can't see why people would wish to express their love for another person by pledging to be with them for ever.

Legalities aside, why is that a difficult concept?

Queeltie · 30/08/2015 17:26

I have read that CAB link. As two people living together, being married would not make any legal difference to us.
And really everyone should make a will, whether they are married or not.

Viviennemary · 30/08/2015 17:37

I don't get why people with children don't marry. Rather than the other way round.

BertrandRussell · 30/08/2015 18:03

Why not, Vivienne?

Viviennemary · 30/08/2015 18:25

That's what I don't get. Why do people have children and yet don't want to get married. You see it fairly regularly on here. My partner won't commit to marriage. We have three children. I don't get that at all.