AIBU to ask why marriage is so easily dismissed as an option?

[HeidiHaughton]

Why do people not want to get married when to all intents and purposes they're behaving like they are?
I can't help but wonder if some of my mother's seemingly old fashioned pieces of advice about marriage have in the long run turned out to be correct, even if I thought she was behind the times when she dished it out.

I have to correct something I said last night re a death in service payment from DHs employers...
It appears that in the last few years this has changed to allow unmarried partners... But the relationship has to be shown to be financially joint and 'registered' with them (things like cohabitation, joint accounts etc). So it's an active process the employee has to go through to 'protect' their partner.

Both our occupational pensions’ after death benefits are only available to spouses and we had to provide our marriage certificate for both schemes. Having enough money to live on if the other died seemed like a pretty good reason.

Acting married would be someone like my hairdresser who had a Nikhah ceremony in England. She calls him her husband, lives with him, her friends and family view them as married. She’s not done the registry office to make it legal. She knows that. I don’t know if it’s deliberate (she has a business and another job with a pension) or hasn’t got around to it.

I had children with my (now) husband prior to getting married and he has been married before. He earns more than me, but I have the assets, house, savings, pension. He had a load of debt from his previous marriage (nearly paid off) and no assets as he gave them all to his ex wife. I married him because I saw how he acted in his divorce and knew that he wouldn't try and screw me over if we split up. Call me naive, but I saw his behaviour in that exact situation first hand and I made the call myself to go ahead with marriage.

when we did it, it DID save money on various allowances - not the case now I believe. The savings were considerably more than the cost of the wedding.

A civil partnership would have been good as the ceremony is a bit cringy even in the registry office, but it was only 15 mins out of our lives.

I agree that too many are totally focussed on the frilly frock.

murbblurb My mum and dad deliberately married end March in 60s so they qualified for married man’s tax allowance that financial year too. That was so my Dad makes me smile.

We are married, just not legally. Our religious wedding ceremony isn't recognised legally in this country.

Our culture.

The expectation now is that men are babies until their forties who can’t possibly be expected to settle down and tie themselves to someone legally or have children until they’re at least late thirties. I saw a comment the other day saying ‘he’s 28, he’s not even thinking about marriage or babies’ 🤣

Coupled with the expectation that women have to wait patiently for a proposal and if they say anything about it they’re pressuring the guy who might run off or be upset they’ve ‘ruined’ it.

Leads to a generation of women desperately wanting to marry (not all, but many) but who feel it’s inevitable they sit quietly for YEARS waiting for the guy to decide it’s time.

Fuckkkkkk that. Told DH on our first date (him 24 me 28) I was ready for a family and would like to get married and planned to try for a baby in three years from now alone or with the right person. Had enough of time wasters at that point and getting into exclusive relationships and taking myself off the market for a guy who was fun and hot with no further consideration. Realised it was time to get serious if I wanted any chance of having a baby someday.

I think a lot of the ‘marriage is just a bit of paper’ is quite insulting from men, who clearly know it isn’t or they wouldn’t mind doing it, and a thinly veiled attempt at trying to be the cool girl from women, who if they were honest with themselves would marry tomorrow but don’t feel able to say that cos they believe it’s not in their hands.

Can I be nosy and ask why you didn’t do the legal but aswell theloveliness
We had friends who married outdoors in a humanist non legal ceremony but they did legal bit day before in jeans at registry office. They viewed ceremony as their real wedding.

There is no public declaration in the Civil partnership ceremony @VinylDetective - one of the reasons DP and I chose it over marriage after nearly 30 years of unmarried bliss.

I find it very insulting to be told that I have "rocks in my head" for raising a family without being married. DP and I have been nominated for each other's pensions for at least 15 years (probably more), had joint finances, house ownership, wills etc etc for ever. The only reason for us doing the civil partnership was for Inheritance Tax (who said romance was dead

And as for the idea that men who don't want to marry are just not committed and will f* off as soon as they can, that is clearly untrue. How many of the relationship posts are about unfaithful husbands? Plenty.

In the time me and DP have been together siblings have divorced and remarried, lots of friends have divorced and we have still together. This has nothing to do with being married but everything to do with our relationship. You either have that or you don't- no ceremony, party or certificate makes a blind bit of difference.

@TheLovelinessOfDemons

We are married, just not legally. Our religious wedding ceremony isn't recognised legally in this country.

Can you not just do the legal bit here anyway? Everyone I know who had a religious, non legally binding ceremony had a small, quick register office for the legal part, then the religious ceremony later with the proper do.

There is no public declaration in the Civil partnership ceremony @VinylDetective**

Don’t you need to sign a register in front of two witnesses? What’s that if not a public declaration?

Sorry but my interpretation of a public declaration is a verbal declaration which is not required. Yes you are asked to "sign" in front of witnesses but they do not read out what you are signing and you are not required to say anything. I suppose others interpret a public declaration differently.

Just wanted to clarify in case others wondered. Yes it is very "business like" in some respects but that suited us.

I had to sign my will in front of two witnesses. It wasn't a public declaration.

It suited us too Yuddiesorno. 11 months ago today in fact

Congratulations @Waspie.

I wasn't trying to be disingenuous btw but I guess people's perception of a public declaration differs.

I am not against having an open discussion about marriage either and think it absolutely appropriate that people understand and appreciate the legal and financial implications of married vs unmarried. My DC are certainly educated about this.

I just find so many of these threads tiring in their assertions that anyone who has a family whilst not married is either stupid or hasn't realised that their OH is just marking time until he leaves you for the one he really loves and wants to marry.

Some people (of both sexes) have genuine reasons for not wanting to marry. My DP was very upfront early in our relationship so effectively I could have made a choice about wanting to marry or wanting to be with him. I'm very pleased that I chose the latter as he has proven himself to be a thoroughly good man and partner through some pretty tough times . Some may say that he is an exception and men who don't commit to marriage always have one foot out the door. I dispute this and have witnessed some truly uncommitted behaviour from husbands of friends and family. This was after huge public displays of love and adoration.

No there’s no public declaration. You can do it in a room at council office with registrar and 2 witnesses. It is very similar to signing a will in solicitors office or having a solicitor witness a document.
Love isn’t mentioned it’s a legal contract. There are 2 parts. Declaration and Contract. Declaration - are you free to marry - yes. Contract - do you take x as your husband/wife - yes. You can choose to say fancier words (there’s usually a few options to choose from eg traditional or modern) but you don’t have to.

@ColdBrightClearMorning

Our culture.

The expectation now is that men are babies until their forties who can’t possibly be expected to settle down and tie themselves to someone legally or have children until they’re at least late thirties. I saw a comment the other day saying ‘he’s 28, he’s not even thinking about marriage or babies’ 🤣

Coupled with the expectation that women have to wait patiently for a proposal and if they say anything about it they’re pressuring the guy who might run off or be upset they’ve ‘ruined’ it.

Leads to a generation of women desperately wanting to marry (not all, but many) but who feel it’s inevitable they sit quietly for YEARS waiting for the guy to decide it’s time.

Fuckkkkkk that. Told DH on our first date (him 24 me 28) I was ready for a family and would like to get married and planned to try for a baby in three years from now alone or with the right person. Had enough of time wasters at that point and getting into exclusive relationships and taking myself off the market for a guy who was fun and hot with no further consideration. Realised it was time to get serious if I wanted any chance of having a baby someday.

I think a lot of the ‘marriage is just a bit of paper’ is quite insulting from men, who clearly know it isn’t or they wouldn’t mind doing it, and a thinly veiled attempt at trying to be the cool girl from women, who if they were honest with themselves would marry tomorrow but don’t feel able to say that cos they believe it’s not in their hands.

What bugs me is that so many women, this poster included make this assumption that it's women who want to get married and men don't. I disagree, I don't want to get married at all, I have no desire whatsoever and I'm happily with my partner fro 27 years.

I did say not all (but many), because in my experience that’s the case. The number of women I’ve met who want to marry but whose partners don’t far far outweighs those couples where it’s the other way around. Which makes sense given the issues I mentioned: out of the two people in a straight relationship, only one is allowed to propose. The other has to sit and wait. If both could propose freely without social pressure not to then it would be more equal as the women who want to marry would get on with asking and many relationships would be brought to a head and ended with marriage or a break up instead of trundling on.

Not to mention that little girls are still very much brought up to desire a wedding day and to be a wife in a way that boys aren’t with marriage in the future. It shouldn’t be that way, but it is. That’s great that what you want aligns with your partner.

I will say: bereavement changed how I viewed marriage. My first partner passed suddenly and, because he never wanted to marry or write a will, everything (including his funeral arrangements) was at his mother's discretion.

This resulted in significant financial and emotional suffering for me. After that, I decided I wanted a life partner who shared my values in mutual stability, security and support—even if it came at the expense of a tidy exit plan.

You could say my husband and I made a bet that we'd be happier committing to that and optimising for our lives as a couple than hedging to make a potential separation easier. :) In any case, it's a risk I understand and accept.

Other people have different experiences, priorities and preferences which lead them to make different choices. I recognise this, see no issue with it and wish them and their partners every happiness.

My only advice would be, if you're in it for the long term, make preparations for the event of severe illness or death. It will come to us all, and if you last that long you'll be glad you did.

@Guineapigbridge

you saying at some point the state just decided you and your partner are now a joint entity??

Yes, in NZ the State decides that you have the same rights as a married couple if you are a de facto couple. In most cases, only people who have lived together in a relationship for at least 3 years are covered unless there is a child involved. The court will look at many things when deciding whether 2 people are in a de facto relationship, including:

how long the relationship lasted
the extent to which the couple share a home
whether they have a sexual relationship
their financial and property arrangements and how much they depend on each other
their ownership, use and purchase of property
how committed they‘ve both been to a shared life
their care and support of children
who does the housework and other household duties
if the partners are known to family and friends or other people as a couple.

So, yes, in NZ you are treated as married when it comes to the division of 'marital assets' like the home. You don't have to be married or in a civil union. You can formally opt-out of all of this with a Relationship Property Agreement.

This policy was put in place because poor (women, usually) weren't marrying and then finding themselves destitute.

Jesus thats crazy.

I assume the "average" length of an NZ relationship then is about 2 years 364 days.

Plenty of people don't marry because they don't want to tie themselves into such a legal commitment. Or Lack of trust of the partner.

I have one friend whose partner gambles so staying single protects her financial situation, and a couple who own a house each and prefer staying financially separate to avoid capital gains tax. Another friend has been through a bitter divorce and now prefers to avoid marriage.

In each case the woman is a high earner who doesn't need financial support of her partner.

@Guineapigbridge

you saying at some point the state just decided you and your partner are now a joint entity??

Yes, in NZ the State decides that you have the same rights as a married couple if you are a de facto couple. In most cases, only people who have lived together in a relationship for at least 3 years are covered unless there is a child involved. The court will look at many things when deciding whether 2 people are in a de facto relationship, including:

how long the relationship lasted
the extent to which the couple share a home
whether they have a sexual relationship
their financial and property arrangements and how much they depend on each other
their ownership, use and purchase of property
how committed they‘ve both been to a shared life
their care and support of children
who does the housework and other household duties
if the partners are known to family and friends or other people as a couple.

So, yes, in NZ you are treated as married when it comes to the division of 'marital assets' like the home. You don't have to be married or in a civil union. You can formally opt-out of all of this with a Relationship Property Agreement.

This policy was put in place because poor (women, usually) weren't marrying and then finding themselves destitute.

This is in fact a form of marriage, however.

Where laws like this exist, all they have done is changed the mechanisms to declare which people can claim the rights of marriage.

So of course f the state allows this, people who don't care about the wedding will do it.

There are some reasonable arguments for saying people should have to actively decide to marry - and you don't need a wedding as such either to do this - just the appropriate declarations in a registry office.

But it doesn't make a lot of sense to declare oneself not in need of marriage when the state has simply extended marriage to people in another fashion.

Some people don't want to be married. We've had plenty of them on this thread. Is it really right that they should find themselves entered into it by stealth, and have to opt out? Will people learn about that better than they learn about how marriage works? Or have a court analyse how they eat, sleep, pay bills and have security, in order to make the decision for them? Why should it not be "you are in this legalised relationship, with resulting financial commitments, once you've both made an official declaration that you wish to be"?

It really isn't about proving love, and this idea of marriage as a romantic ideal is quite a new idea. Of course you can be madly in love and unmarried, or married in a dead relationship. But the law doesn't pretend otherwise. You don't invalidate your marriage by falling out of love. Again...People not understanding what it is.

Lots don’t want to be married for very good reasons. The thought that you could simply drift into having onerous legal and financial obligations to another person doesn’t sit well with me. How does it work when there’s more than one partner eg man still married but lives with new gf? Or man with 2 families on the go - married but ‘works away’ and has a gf, both women not aware of other one. Living with a uni boyfriend could fall into New Zealand description - shared household kitty, sex, eat together which is simply mind blowing.