to want to get married but have no intention of living together?

[SpongebobCirclePants]

This is an unusual one, I fully expect judgement and flaming but there's always good advice amongst the pearl clutchers so I'm just going for it.

My partner and I have been together 16 years, we have two children together.

During these 16 years we have learned that we don't do well living together. I very much need my space and he seems happy with that, except he's talking about marriage.

The thought is giving me palpitations.
Quite honestly I absolutely love the idea of marrying him but the thought of living with another adult makes me feel instantly stressed.

This morning though, my mum pointed out that marriage doesn't have to mean living together.

This sounds pretty amazing and I'll have to discuss this with my partner but I have some worries.

For example, will it totally screw our kids up? Two parents that love each other, married but don't live together?! Would we be screwing with their future relationships? As far as our children go, me and their dad are just friends, I've been very very careful there. I've been so worried about it affecting them that I've made it as black and white as I can.

Secondly, I work full time and so does my partner. He has a flat which he rents, and loves.
I have a great flat which I also rent but because my job is a vocation and not something you do for money I get paid little and have housing benefit to help me with rent.

If we married and didn't live together how does that work? I don't want to seem as though I'm trying to screw the system for more money.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Again, I didn't lie to my children. I just didn't tell them when we started having sex again.

And no I haven't 'flounced', I just have a life beyond Mumsnet .

Thank you to those who are reading my actual words as they are and have given me good advice. It me appreciated.

SurlyCue Said by someone who clearly doesn't have a clue about how to navigate difference and work things out... I know who I'd rather my daughter observed.

I think if two people who have children together are in a relationship, can afford to run two households yet receive subsidy from the state... There's a problem.

If you really worry about messing your kids up, don't really love him why not call quits you can live seperate get on with your lives & the kids have their mum & dad around but not together.

First thoughts were yeah lucky you, sounds great but as more is said & the more I think about it you just sound really odd.

FFS. "I have a life outside mn"

Previous post: "I'm off"

Do you even read what you write?

SurlyCue Said by someone who clearly doesn't have a clue about how to navigate difference and work things out... I know who I'd rather my daughter observed.

What on earth are you waffling about?

goodnight I seem to have wound you up. You seem angry, why?

Why on earth would my thread about potentially marrying someone wind you up?

I think she's telling you that you don't have a clue, Surlycue. Nice, eh?

I guess she is talking about me curlysue being unable to live with my partner.

Ok, haven't read the whole thread but why get married at all? I like/d the idea of marriage (so much I did it twice), first husband we lived together, worked together etc, 2nd husband we both worked away so much that seeing one another ever 2 months was a treat. Which one do I prefer, obviously the 2nd but it's not down to living arrangements. Would I marry him again, yes and no. Yes, because I want to be his wife, no because it actually doesn't make much if a difference. We both think we'd rather had used the money on sex and drugs and rock and roll (cheese, pizza and kit Kats)

Marriage is great, but it's kind of overrated. And, the first year is shit, never minding how long you've been together.

The thing about HBC and Tim Burton living in separate houses joined by a corridor is a myth. She said in an interview in Red last month that they were neighbouring houses that they bought and knocked into one. That's where the myth came from but it wasn't true.

I think she's telling you that you don't have a clue, Surlycue. Nice, eh?

Thats a neat trick. To be able to tell my life experience from a one word post. How do you do it stopping?

the first year is shit, never minding how long you've been together.

The first year of all marriages is shit?

Did I actually say 'all' waggles? Checked my post a few times here and I don't actually see I said that. Whole purpose of my post was to offer my perspective (albeit completely off whack considering where the thread went, my bad for not reading it all, which I declared), so wake up drearie and stop adding words into a sentence.

Marriage (again, IMO) does not equal security. If it's not right, don't do it and spend the money on red wine and haribo and visit me instead

Someone else has already asked this but u can't see an answer - how do the kids and their father feel about not being slowed to live together? He must be missing out on so much and they are missing out on having him around - both through no fault of his own but because you won't live with another adult?

Kitty if you didn't mean all marriages what did you mean? You can't just have meant your marriage as you said "no matter how long you've been together" referring to other people

This thread is weird

OP when you say things like "I just didn't tell my children we started having sex again" you can't complain when people think it's a friends with benefits type thing. Unless you define a loving relationship - so loving you're considering marriage - a friend who you have sex with?

Also I second SurlyCues "bollocks" - marriage is not about showing your children this that and the other. What about people who have no kids? Marriage means whatever you want it to mean

Exactly piper! Marriage means whatever the two people concerned decide it means. It doesnt have to have anything to do with children.

RTFT twice and can't get my head round it at all, but very much liking the idea of my own bed and bathroom.... no skidders to clean, no duvet wars.... sounds heavenly. Sadly financially unachievable for me.
I can't imagine my kids living separately from their father if I loved him enough to marry him. That's what I can't get my head round.

Yes he is missing out Rinochicken he's missing out on the arguments, the tension, the fallouts the stress. As are the children.

There's absolutely no point in trying to make me feel guilty. It's a happier home for everyone now.

I'm not choosing to not live with him to be selfish, Im not living with him because it didn't work for any of us.

What I meant piper is that me and DH have known each other all our lives, Been together on and off too for soooo long. And again, through speaking to others and our experience is the first year is tough because (again ) in my non controlled experiment of speaking to men and women friends that there is a sub/conscious feeling that it actually changes thoughts and feelings. So, going back to my original question, why bother getting married?

I find it confusing too Twindroops to be honest.

As I said before this is certainly not the way I envisioned things.

However, I do concede to misunderstanding on how my post may have been interpreted.

Sorry, haven't waded through all the pages so I may have missed it, is the proposed marriage just for legal reasons?

I think it sounds great if it suits you, and if you can afford it, nobody else's business.

But I think claiming a state subsidy to fund it is wrong and betrays people in genuine need.

I also think you would stand an extremely high chance of accusations of benefit fraud.