Father of my children does not want to marry me!

[Jessil91]

So my BF of almost ten years who I live with and have two lovely children with does not believe in marriage. This wasn’t made clear to me til a few a days ago when we were for talking about it ( I just kind of assumed we would get married at some point given circumstances). I’ve never been a massive marriage advocate per se but I can’t help but feel really depressed and down about it, like he doesn’t want me or take our relationship seriously. I know that may sound silly since we have children together but I can’t help how I feel. There’s this feeling of rejection, like the man I love doesn’t love me enough to marry me. I communicated this with him and he turned round and said that his not believing in marriage is not personal and that he felt a little offended because I seemed more bothered about marriage then just being with him. But that’s not the case, I just believe in marriage and what it stands for and I want to legalise our relationship. I must add that he’s a great Dad and we have a healthy relationship otherwise.

Am I being stupid??? Any advice would be greatly appreciated !!

It honestly baffles me how backwards we all are towards marriage. Women being made to feel they can’t/shouldn’t bring it up or ask for it. Men being given all the control 🤔
It’s not the institution it used to be, where he was offering to ‘keep’ you for the rest of your life. If you have a job, drive a car, can legally vote 🙄 you better believe you can tell a man YOU want to get married!

I feel very sorry for women who have sacrificed a lot and given men several children, whilst playing the wife role, only to find out he won’t marry her.

this x 100

whether we believe it is a sexist institution or not, we DO live in a society where motherhood is seriously undervalued and many women who had equality in a relationship prior to children find this out really quickly. Women pick up most of the childcare, most of the mental load of the household - during maternity leave they suddenly morph into housekeeper too and alot of men find themselves quite happy with that. Because having kids means the dynamic changes, and when he was 50-50 before, it is surprising how many men suddenly dont want to take up the extra work and organisation and actual THINKING of adapting their career to fit around childcare drop offs and doing the cooking and shopping after a hard day at the office.
Women are expected to fund the childcare - its so often heard 'my wages wont cover it' or 'I cant find a job that fits round school'
so it seems easier for mum to stay home or pick up a PT NMW job
This has a huge impact upon her earning potential and career prospects, which in turn has a big impact on her pension.
All fine and dandy if dad hangs around, but so often we see that dad is now a bit bored with mum being so depressed and knackered whilst he is feeling he's the bigshot after progressing in his career because she is home picking up all the slack. He runs off with a newer model and mum is left literally holding the baby, in low income, and with hugely reduced prospects because of her childcare limitations. If she wasnt on the deeds then she may well get absolutely zero from the house too, even though before kids she may have been paying equal or more.

This is not ALL men. Not ALL women. But its certainly something we have seen again and again and again on here. We live in a system that allows this. But it is also up to us to know this. To know that there is no such thing as common law. That without the protection of marriage we are left at the mercy of a man to 'do the right thing'.

I was happily with my partner, 3 children, for 25yrs.

Until he met his "soulmate"

But we were married, split of assets was the law. I was protected. I also made sure, during those 25yrs that I had a career that meant I could earn enough to feed, clothe and house my children if he went under a bus.

What really matters, once there are dependents - and that includes a partner who might have compromised their financial situation, as well as children, there needs to be measures in place to provide security for everyone in case one parent becomes ill or dies.
I have seen some awful situations where, for example, a father became seriously ill and his partner was excluded by his legal NOK (his elderly mother).
A friend was left with no income and no home when her partner of 20 years died suddenly. His family even took his car. She was left with 2 children and not even a stick of furniture.
You don't need to get married, but if you don't, you need to take the time to put all the measures in place separately and pay the legal fees.

"There's such a condescending arrogance to "You've been conditioned".

Perhaps other people are awake and make their own decisions. It's a mad idea, I know"

I agree.
Excellent post NettleTea

If course you do. And because you don’t own a penis you’ve been conditioned to think it’s the only way to achieve that

I’m perfectly capable of making my own decisions . All I ever wanted was to be a wife and mother - nothing wrong with CHOOSING to take your husbands name.

If you don’t want to then don’t, but accept that some women do. No big deal.

Excellent summary NettleTea.

I would rather have my husbands name than my Dads.

@ThatssomebadhatHarry - why is your surname not really yours, but it is your brother's, just because he has a penis?

Do you realise how ridiculous / brainwashed you sound?

Take your husband's name if you wish, but stop calling your surname, your Dad's. It's not. It's yours, that you've chosen to relinquish, because you think your husband is more important than you.

I would rather have my husbands name than my Dads.

The names don't just belong to the men. It's your name not your Dads. It's not a choice between yours dads name and your husbands. It's a choice between your own name or taking his.

It's almost like society thing men own the surnames and women just borrow them from their Dad or husband. Have seen a few threads where second wives complain the ex still has the husbands surname. It's her name too and women don't have to give it back on divorce just like women don't have to reject their own name on marriage.

My step Mam was raging when I didn't change my name on marriage because it's my Dads name apparently. She was actually very nasty about it.

My husband always said it's just a name and he doesn't care that I kept my own but couldn't understand why I didn't want to as it's just a name etc. But when I was in hospital and they addressed him by surname he was very fast to correct them and say they got his surname wrong. Asked him why he did that and he understood why I correct people when they call me mrs his name.

If course you do. And because you don’t own a penis you’ve been conditioned to think it’s the only way to achieve that

It's posters who post stuff like this ^^ that gives feminism a bad name.

Nettleteas post should be read by every woman ttc without being married.

It's also pretty arrogant of anyone to imagine they make their own decisions independent of any societal conditioning or context.

I get very confused when people don’t “believe” in marriage. It’s a legal contract- a wedding is something else
It’s like saying you don’t believe in giving legal protection to the person you love and/or the other parent if your child.
I would never have had dc without getting married, it was a purely practical decision (although our wedding was lovely). I know that sometimes circumstances get in the way and dc arrive before marriage but where there’s a choice it should be marriage first

SlidingDoors - sorry - should have mentioned that

It's posters who post stuff like this ^^ that gives feminism a bad name.

🙄

No, it really doesn't.

Or at least, it really doesn't to anyone who doesn't have a tendency for under-thinking.

The female name change on marriage is a hideously sexist practice and I can’t believe so many women do it so unthinkingly when they marry

This is simply untrue as the number of countries where a woman keeps her family name after marriage yet are hardly bastions of women’s liberation would demonstrate (eg, Spanish speaking countries, Korea, China...).

You are currently 2 single people
Marriage or civil partnership offers some legal protection & rights
You can look up the benefits on www.gov.uk & CAB websites if you are in UK
Yes, it does include inheritance tax, share of pensions, NOK etc

I'm also in the 'if they say it doesn't matter then why won't they do it?' camp. It does matter, it's legal protection and it makes a huge difference if the relationship breaks up, or when one partner dies. The whole 'I don't believe in it' actually means 'I don't want the responsibility and I want the freedom to bugger off when I want'.

Sometimes I wish we could go back to the days of the woman's father pointing a shotgun at the prospective father. Plenty of shotgun weddings in my family!

As it is, it has swung to the male (and father of the children of the union) "deciding^ whether or not he'd like to get married. I was at someone I knew saying they were thrilled their dp had proposed. They have three dcs!

What's the difference between a civil partnership and a registry office wedding.

One is getting married and one is a civil partnership and they're two different institutions.

Marriage can be religious or civil. Civil marriage ceremonies can be at a registry office or any other place that isn't religious that has a licence to hold them, like hotels. Civil partnership ceremonies can't be religious at all.

At the moment marriage is available for same sex and opposite sex couples, but civil partnership only for opposite sex. But opposite sex CP will be available quite soon.

Re the name change. Some people I know have jumped at the chance to change their name because it's a better one!

Adding to Mominatrix's post, in Italy women keep their maiden name for official purposes. In fact on people's front doors it will say eg "Smith Jones" or more likely "Verdi Pavarotti" . And Italy has never been leading the way on women's rights.

OK. It doesn't necessarily mean that 'he's just not into you' as other posters are implying, or that he is planning to leave you. People are 'allowed' to simply not believe in marriage.

I have a female friend who refuses to marry her partner of 25 years, and father of her children, because of the negative connotations she had of her parents' marriage growing up.

She is, however, financially protected, and this is what you need to ensure, because nobody knows what the future holds.

You don't have to change your name on marriage.

It is also often better if the woman stays single. Remember it works both ways. If you have property, are a high earner, DC from a previous relationship it can be risky to marry. The woman is not always the "weaker/ more vulnerable" party

It's such a difficult one to call, particularly without much information from the OP.

Some people genuinely don't want to get married, but are prepared to put in place as many legal protections as possible and make lifestyle adjustments if necessary. The desire not to marry could be for a legitimate reason or a stupid one. Some people don't want to get married because they don't understand the law and the nature of the contract, some people don't want to get married because they understand it all too well. Some people do actually want to get married, just not to you. Some people are kind of bumbling along and would do it if they could click their fingers and be married, but when you're busy it gets pushed to the back of the queue like making a will, changing utility suppliers etc.