To consider going against my own strongly held beliefs about getting married before having children

[KirstenRaymonde]

Have name changed as I’m usually woefully sloppy with giving out identifying details about myself, and am a known MNetter in real life, so thought I’d make an attempt at privacy for this. Sorry in advance but this will likely be long.

I have always felt very strongly that I wanted to be married before having children. No judgment on whatever anyone else chooses to do, and I know often the decision is taken out of people’s hands anyway, but I’ve alays felt I wanted to be absolutely committed to someone before deciding to bring a child into the world with them on purpose. Plus the legal protection of marriage plays into my reasoning in no small part. I’ve been 100% sure I will get married before trying for kids for as long as I could possibly have been thinking about such things, it’s never been in doubt for me (and actually I’d have considered it a deal breaker if a partner hadn’t agreed to it)

I am 30, DP is 28 and we’ve been together for 6 years. We are very settled and happy together, he’s a fantastic partner and my best friend. We’ve decided we want to get married, and have been talking about when to have children. We’ve been talking about it for a couple of years actually, but turning 30 ramped it up for me.

We were looking at getting married next year, but even trying to do a wedding on the cheap (big stately home do’s are not us) it was still getting expensive very quickly. We are lucky to have lots of friends and family we really love and would want to share the day with. I tried to cut our potential invite list down to the absolute bare minimum and still couldn’t get it below 70, not including kids. This is a lovely problem to have but it does add up the costs even just in food and drink. I considered briefly eloping or doing it just with immediate family and best friends (which would still take us beyond....30 or 40 people at least!) but I just couldn’t do it, I want the people I love there. So we’ve decided to marry instead in 2020, on a date that’s significant to us and I think worth waiting for, and enables us to save for the wedding we want. I am happy with this decision after a couple of months of worrying how to make it all work, and the pressure of figuring out how to sort it in that time has just gone. But of course this pushes back TTC by at least a year if not more, date is about 2.5 years from now.

So now I’m thinking, why don’t we just try for a baby now? There seem lots of very good reasons to just go for it, and try to have a baby before the wedding. But I’m really going back and forth on myself. DP knows how I’ve always felt about being married first and had agreed with what made me happy, but he doesn’t feel so strongly about it so wants me to be sure of my feelings.

My good reasons include:

• I know 30 isn’t old, and I’ve no reason to doubt my fertility, but I’m conscious that having your kids younger is generally better for health reasons. I also recently had some cervical cell changes discovered at a smear (it’s fine for now but they’re being monitored as early stage at risk) and the thought that I could put off and put off trying, and then have the choice taken away from me by something like cancer feels me with such deep dread.
• DP has a medical condition which could impact sperm motility. It’s not for sure, and potentially a low risk, but should it be the case it could take us longer to conceive and I think we should consider that. At the moment time and age are on our side.
• Our relationship is wonderful and solid. I know I have a true partner in DP, he won’t be ‘babysitting’ his own kids, and he doesn’t ‘help me with the house’, he does his perfect fair share of our life together (if not more at times). He is fair and patient. I can completely rely on him. Marriage would solidify that legally but I don’t have any fears about him leaving or his skills as a parent. He is already a wonderful uncle, in fact he’s probably more child friendly than I am, and ‘Dad’ to our cats. I know he will care for and support me and any children amazingly, whether we’re already married or not.
• My DDad died very suddenly, young, recently. Both my grandfathers also died young, I didn’t know them. It has brought mine and my other loved ones mortality into focus (unsurprisingly) and I want to make sure my kids know my DM and DPs wonderful parents, who are all already brilliant and involved GPs, and have them around in all our lives for as long as possible. DM is on heart medication and hopefully will live another 30 years, but her DM died when she was 33, and I know she’s always felt her absence in hers and is children’s lives. The longer we wait the less potential time I see.
• I am close to my siblings and cousins and want my DCs to have that opportunity too. Our sibling’s children are already appearing and I’d love them all to be close in age.
• We live amongst a great support network of friends and family we can rely on, emotionally and physically. We are very lucky in this regard.
• Financially we are just about fine. Could always be better of course, but DP is on an upwards trajectory and even as we are now living costs including childcare would be fine. We don’t own our house, but we live near London and prices are nuts. If we waited to own we could be waiting a long time!

So yes, many ticks in the yes box! But what about some cons?

• We have some debt. Not crazy but needs dealing with, any decision to TTC would have to be accompanied by heavy duty knuckling down to saving and debt repayment, but I think knowing why we were working hard to do that quickly would make it easier.

But number one negative - I fear I will always judge myself for not waiting, for going against my own beliefs that I’ve always held so highly. I’m not worried about anyone else’s thoughts, I don’t think it would bother anyone else at all which way round we did it, but it might well bother me, and I’d hate to have that niggling regret in the back of my mind - I guess that I didn’t meet my own standards for want of a better term.

But I’m conscious that anything can always happen, we can’t plan life to a tee and sometimes maybe we just need to go for it? I am a worrier and do always feel like I need to be in control of ‘the plan’ but recent events have shown me sometimes you really can’t plan.

Fully prepared to be told I’m being utterly ridiculous, but after rolling this around in my head gettings nowhere for a few weeks I thought I’d present it to the wonders of MN and see what you all thought.

So, if you made it this far, thanks! Would be grateful for any advice.

@Mookatron much appreciated! I could probably offload a lot of it onto DPs sister though

Well you want it all and you can't afford it all. I think you should have a small wedding in church without all the unnecessary hullabaloo. The way people used to do. Then have a big party later if you want one, on the special date.

Have a tiny church service now and do the party when you can afford it. In my, admittedly oldfashioned, view nothing trumps marriage for legal protection.

@Woollysheepsheep we probably won’t be able to buy without help no, but DPs parents are very likely to do that at some point. But if we waited to buy that really could be never... or until DP got his inheritance but I don’t really want to think about his lovely parents dying just so we can have their money.

Which is the most important OP, the wedding or the marriage. If it's the latter, as others have said you can get married quite inexpensivley with just a few close friends and relatives. If you can't afford it before children you certainly won't be able to afford it afterwards.

It sounds as though this thread is making up your mind by disagreement, OP! You clearly know exactly what you want from your wedding - a big church do, basically. I don't have the same ideas or values, but then I am not you. If you cannot be happy without doing it this way, then do it this way. You sound as though you would really regret anything else.

But please do keep a hard head about making sensible financial decisions, and making sensible decisions for your own security as a mother.

Nearly everyone here is saying just get married cheaply.

I know you want all of these things, but it sounds like you can't have it all?

I guarantee if you have a baby first, you won't get round to the marriage.

@KirstenRaymonde looking at all of this it seems to me like you’ve answered your own question! It seems clear that you want to do this: Wedding first in the way that you want, when you want. Then baby.

2020 isn’t that far away. You have time! To all the “what if you wait and then it’s harder” people, the OP has already waited! The best time fertility-wise to have kids is about 17! But obviously there are lots of important other reasons for waiting until you are older than that (and accepting your fertility might be a bit lower than it was). There’s not going to be a massive difference between trying at 30 and 32. It’s not like you’re proposing to wait until you’re 40 to start trying.

Good luck

I'm also at a bit of a loss as to how you can afford maternity leave and childcare but not a modest wedding or debt repayment, but there you go.

Get married in your church, assuming you attend one (possibly as part of a Sunday service, like a baptism). Reception in church hall or vicarage garden or picnic in nice public park nearby (with church hall as bad-weather alternative). Ask people to bring a buffet dish and bottle in lieu of a gift. Accommodate travelling relatives/friends with local ones.

Debt repayment while ttc.

I don't understand. You say the wedding you want would cost around £6/7 K and that ILs would pay most of this. Why not just do it now then ? What are you saving for ?

I do think you've answered your own questions and realised what your priorities are.

I'm glad I was married before we had our child. Like you I never imagined not doing it that way round. and it does make all the legal stuff much easier. But it's not the be all and end all. I will say though that you will find it hard to save while on maternity leave and then paying out childcare for an under 2. We were paying nearly £900 a month on childcare when I first went back to work.
If you don't have the money to do the wedding your want now, you won't have any more if you have a baby.

I understand that you can't afford to buy right now. But I just can't get my head round anyone with very little money wasting thousands on what is essentially just a big party, that everyone will have forgotten about in a few weeks.

@AnElderlyLadyOfMediumHeight we can afford all these things, but not necessarily all at once immediately. We are saving and paying down debt already. If we started TTC in 2/3 months that’s still a year before maternity leave by which time the debt would be paid off.

Though not religious, I also absolutely definitely wanted to be married before having children. I would have felt very insecure otherwise.

Also, like you, we wanted to get on with having children.

We got married only 6 months after deciding to - it was "on the cheap" but also did have lots of the things you want - we had 100 guests. The reception was in one of those top floor rooms of a pub, so much much cheaper than any of the flashy "wedding venues". A artist friend decorated the room so it looked really special. My dad did pay for the pub, I think he wrote them a cheque for £2000 which is pretty good for a party for 100! It was relaxed too, even now 14 years later people remember this reception fondly.

For me it wasn't about "the day" but about "being married" ie the long-term state. However like you it also felt like a commitment I wanted to make in front of family and friends.

We could have done it even cheaper - I spent £250 on a dress but I see now you can get them really cheap on Ebay.

I would say, scrap the plan for 2020, find a church who can marry you in six months time, and arrange it. Don't get distracted by wedding razzmatazz, all you are doing is planning a big party. Repeat "I'm just organising a party..." Take the financial support from your family.

@Woollysheepsheep we don’t have very little money. We just don’t have loads of money at our disposal, and some debt from when I was a student that will be gone in a year

@EvaTheOptimist yeh I think you’re right. I think trying to find the cheapest way to get 100 people drunk quickly is the way to go!

I can see why you might want to wait for a great wedding. However I did not marry the father of my child, we were going to, but had the baby first. We are now separated and I’m financially lots worse off than if we’d been married.

If you don’t have money now, you certainly won’t when you’ve got kids .

Sounds like the one big wedding day is more important to you than both marriage and babies.

Be aware that giving birth is one of the most dangerous things that a woman in the west can do, and without marriage your boyfriend is not your next of kin and cannot make medical decisions on your behalf. I had my first at age 29 and had a healthy pregnancy but a dangerous birth. Things aren’t always rosy and straightforward at any age unfortunately .

TBH I’m just expecting all the church’s to already be booked up this year. They do get booked very far in advance

Have you spoken to your DM and PIL? 7K may not be that much for them to cover between them and if they know about your health concerns regarding delaying TTC, they may prefer to pass some money to you now rather than later down the line. Also, they may be looking forward to being grandparents and seeing friends and relatives. Marriage, to my mind, is about more than the individual couple. Two families are joining together and a Church wedding means you will be also celebrating your union in your religious community.

TBH if you can't afford to get married before you have kids it will be even more difficult once you have kids

@SunnyCoco very conscious about the danger of birth, my DSis had a very traumatic birth than nearly resulted in the death of her and baby. Luckily both are fine. In any medical situation I would be equally happy for my mum to make decisions as DP

My Dhabi really wanted to marry before we had ds, but I was already pregnant and the stress was giving me health problems. So we married when ds was 4 months old and it was fine. We both took a hell of a risk though (lots of legal stuff in place before ds was born but not as good as marriage).

Honestly? You do have to compromise but you don't have to choose. Yes you can get married now. Yes you can try for a baby afterwards. Yes you can have a big party. However, you just can't do it all at once. Go and see your vicar, get the banns read and get married immediately after the usual Sunday service. Tell all your friends and family with two weeks to go, and they will probably throw a wedding party for you in lieu of presents anyway, and i bet a lot of them will be able to come. Then hopefully have your baby, and have the MOTHER of all christenings when the time comes. Sounds like a rocking good time all round tbh.

@LadyLapsang my DM has nothing to spare but PILs may well do. It might well be a conversation worth having but odd to ask, different to them offering (which they may do)

Op in the nicest way possible, why did you ask?

It sounds like you've made up your mind.

Are you wanting people to help you reconcile you having a baby before marriage?

If so it's absolutely fine.

A small and intimate wedding away from the peak time, say christmas wedding make it magical but small.

I felt the same about marriage before children. I definitely felt much more secure when I was pregnant and when our baby was born. I didn't expect to feel so vulnerable suddenly after being a fairly strong girl, I didn't recognise myself with pregnancy hormones.

There is also a very good chance you will never find the time or money to get married once your child is here. Happens alot.

Get married, have a great (but cheap) party and fun, and then have a baby you are only 30!!