He won’t marry me. AIBU?

[anonnancy]

Hi all.
From reading other posts similar to mine I suspect I know the answer to my question!

I have been with DP for 7 years. We have a beautiful 20 month old DS and he is the light of our lives. We own our home (both names
On the mortgage) and split bills fairly based on how much we earn (I do earn more than DP so I pay more to make it fair).

But he just won’t put a ring on it!

I love him very much, and when I probe him about it he just says “he can’t give me the wedding I want” (not sure what sort of wedding he thinks I want because even I don’t know that!) and I respond “it’s not the wedding I want it’s the marriage”. Still no proposal.

I’ve joked to have no more children until I am married. Seems to have little effect!

I didn’t think I’d be that bothered, but out of our group of friends we are the only couple still not married. I’m starting to get upset when I see friends or others I know that are getting engaged, because I am not. I know that sounds so pathetic! I just want to be his wife and he be my husband, but do I sit and wait for it to potentially never happen?

I certainly don’t want to feel like I’m forcing him down the aisle and I’d like him to marry me because he wants to and he sees his future with me. I don’t want him to propose because he thinks it’s what he should do / because he thinks I’ll leave otherwise.

I just feel a bit deflated by it all really and starting to struggle handling my emotions surrounding it..

I am very aware I probably sound like a needy / spoilt wench! Just need to vent to people who don’t know me I guess!

He clearly doesn't want to marry you. You earn more than he does. I'd cut my losses.

We are not trees, we can move. You're not tied by bricks and mortar unless you want to be. & You'll always have your child.

I'd be quietly protecting assets if I were you. You're neither his wife nor next of kin.

IME men like this always, always get married eventually. But not to the woman they're with and have already demonstrated that she isnt 'the one'.

Ok then if you don't want to get married, then we need to make an appointment to see a solictor to sort out legal arrangements should one of us die to protect our child's interests.

Or we can just have a quick registary office do.

You choice or the door is THAT way.

Didn't you discuss marriage before you bought a house and had a baby? I'm not saying you have to already be married to have a baby (though from a legal point of view it's better) but surely you knew before you got pregnant that marriage wasn't on the cards? I discussed marriage, babies etc way way early on when I started going out with my husband, if he'd said it wasn't something that he wanted like with children I'd have moved on. If your boyfriend has led you on making you think he'd marry you one day you've every right to be angry, if it's just you never discussed it or you hoped he'd come round to the idea you can't really be annoyed.

It was dh who wanted to get married, not me. I said no. Then I thought about it and thought what message is that giving him?
It's saying you are good enough to live with and provide all the benefits of that but yet I won't commit fully to you.
I agreed to marry him on the condition that we had a very intimate ceremony.
We did. It was perfect. Such beautiful, happy memories and we adore each other.
We don't even have children.

Surely it's a bit worrying to suggest the OP leaves and splits up the family unit 'just' because he won't marry her.

How is that going to help?

She'd be a single mother, she'd have no partner, her life would be harder financially, and she'd have to allow her ex access to their child.

Why should the child suffer because their Mum made a mess of the order of things?

IMO many men are commitment shy. My DH wanted me to move in with him after 2 years. I said no because I'd have left a secure job, moved 85 miles away to his town, had no job and no security.

I refused, we had a temporary split for a few months (my choice) then he proposed.

As others have said, if someone is getting all they want, without marriage, why change it?

I think @anonnancy

you need to sit him down and have a very serious chat, not hints, or nagging, and tell him how you feel.

If he won't agree, are you willing to walk away and split up the family, or accept what you have?

@Bythemillpond

I don't know what 'research' this is, but all the women I know who are single or divorced, are not happy. They struggle to make ends meet, and fight for extra hours at work, (or have to take on a second job,) because they're brassick. (Not widows, but many single and divorced women

All the single parent women I know are the happiest bunch of people you could ever meet.

Financially they might not have been the most financially stable when their dc were growing up but the freedom they had more than made up for the lack of autonomy they had in their relationships
And now the children are older it has got easier and easier
As my friend puts it. I don’t have to think what another person thinks and play mental gymnastics if they are not keen on going somewhere or doing something
Not to have a miserable face to come home to after I have decided to stay out with the kids is worth the trade off that I am responsible for every bit of washing up and cleaning and decisions

Impossible to compare because it depends on the person’s baseline I was perfectly happy being single after a string of bad relationships. But once I had a taste of a healthy, mutually supportive relationship single wasn’t my ideal anymore. From your post all the ‘positives’ you post are due to one thing - not having to put up with a bad partner. Not the benefits of being single compared to having a good partner ( which is what most aspire to).

It’s thus impossible to say whether a happy single would be happier with a good partner. Or a happy married would be happy single. So I don’t buy any of these studies. Do what you want 😎

Are you on the title deed of the house as joint tenants? If so then if he dies you will automatically own the house outright. If you are tenants in common he could will his equity in the house to anyone he chooses. Also, as things stand you are not his legal next of kin, you will not receive bereavement support monies if he dies, you will not inherit any of his assets.

If he won't agree, are you willing to walk away and split up the family, or accept what you have?
She can stay but stop funding his share of mortgage and bills as if they were married, and the extra money will give her more options for choices in the future as she sees him more clearly (for the good and the bad).

@DevonBelles

Is this yet another thread where the OP posts once then disappears?

Hard to have a dialogue when the poster goes away and doesn't come back to continue the conversation.

Exactly, it baffles me as to why people continue to engage for hours on end

My DH didn’t want to propose, he really doesn’t like fuss/planning etc. he didn’t care about being married, in his mind pretty once we started dating seriously we were going to be together forever. It was super stressful for me because I really wanted him to want it. In the end he sort of half way proposed & I accepted that I needed to either leave or accept that he could want to spend the rest of his life with me and not care about being married (which IS different to actively not wanting to). Married almost 7 years, together 15. My BFFs DH was very similar with not caring.

Just to give the other side of the argument…

My DH was with his first partner 10 years 2 kids
Initially neither of them wanted to get married
Then she did but my DH didn’t
They eventually split up
We met 6 months after they split and we were married 4 months later . Been married 22 years
I do honestly think that if a person wants to get married man or women they will do their upmost to make it happen .
If they keep putting it off for various reasons then they don’t want to get married but they will often marry someone else soon after they split

Just to give the other side of the argument…

Is it the other side, though? In your case - like mine - your DH wasn’t bothered about getting married. But he did because you made it clear that’s what you wanted and he loved you. I don’t think the OP is complaining that he’s not fussed about marriage either way; she’s upset that it means a lot to her and he’s stringing her along with lame excuses…..

@NorthernSoul55

My kids have partners surname because I go through life having to spell mine every time ( uncommon name) where as partners is common and never has to be spelled out... So purely practical. We never planned or wanted to marry, so it wasn't in the hope of a future marriage!

this has to be most bizarre excuse I ever read hahahaaaaaa

and you're being serious too huh

You can't help the way you feel, but I am in a similar situation and I'd rather be with the person I feel is right for me than married to someone else.

@TheWeatherWitch

He clearly doesn’t want to marry you.

So it’s up to you to decide how important marriage and the security that it offers is to you.

If marriage matters, tell him “piss or get off the pot”
If it doesn’t, then carry on as you are.

But definitely get a will. See a solicitor and make a will. As it stands, if your partner died his parents could lay claim to your home. They might not get it, but they could fight for it and you could spend thousands that you don’t have trying to keep a roof over your heads.

Tell your bf the wedding you want is simple, intimate and very affordable. He may be thinking he needs £30k to give you the wedding if your dreams, when in actuality £3k would be ample for a very simple wedding.

It’s all your choice. But if you do give him an ultimatum, you must follow through with it. What would you expect from him if you said ‘we either get married before Christmas or we put the house up for sale and go our separate ways first week of new year’

His children would inherit, not his parents in this situation.

Also, they may be joint tenants which means OP would get the house as survivor.

*this has to be most bizarre excuse I ever read hahahaaaaaa

and you're being serious too huh*

I'm married but if I wasn't, I'd give my kids my partner's surname (or in fact make one up) because mine is so hard to pronounce or spell for a British person. Unless you've been foreign with a difficult name you cannot know the annoyance you have to deal with on a daily basis!

@Happyhappyday

My DH didn’t want to propose, he really doesn’t like fuss/planning etc. he didn’t care about being married, in his mind pretty once we started dating seriously we were going to be together forever. It was super stressful for me because I really wanted him to want it. In the end he sort of half way proposed & I accepted that I needed to either leave or accept that he could want to spend the rest of his life with me and not care about being married (which IS different to actively not wanting to). Married almost 7 years, together 15. My BFFs DH was very similar with not caring.

Just to give the other side of the argument…

But the difference is your DH eventually pulled his finger out and got on with it, while the OPs is blatantly fobbing her off.

I don't think there's a man in the entire world who actively enjoys wedding planning. It's only women who care about weddings. Most of them would run a mile if forced with having to do it. The point is that if they love their partners and the partners want to do it, they will do it as a sign of commitment.

This bloke is blatantly stringing his OH along.

If it's the marriage and not the wedding - you should propose. Or don't even propose, just suggest you look into local registry office availability.

It is a bit different in your case. Unfortunately marriage these days is mostly still loaded with the "He earns more, she wants financial security" dynamic. When you are the higher earner the whole "will you let me look after you" down on one knee romantic gesture bit is redundant. Just approach it like household admin, that it makes sense for you to be each others legal kin.

Isn't it odd that men's surnames are almost always nicer/easier to spell/easier to pronounce than women's, even though surnames are gender-neutral? And that there are also loads of women who don't want to pass on their own names because they have bad relationships with their fathers, yet there are hardly any men who don't want to pass on theirs for that reason?

10 pages and the OP never came back.

Isn't it odd that men's surnames are almost always nicer/easier to spell/easier to pronounce than women's, even though surnames are gender-neutral?

Are you implying that I'm lying? My surname is long and foreign and constantly requires spelling out, my husband's doesn't. My surname has annoyed me so much that I'd be tempted to change it even if not married, marriage just provided an early opportunity to do it. I have to spell it out every time I say it, as well as constantly explain how the name I'm known as is short for the name on my passport, as where I come from the shortened name often sounds nothing like the full name. It's a total PITA. I'm sure there's also plenty of women with short, British surnames with a foreign husband who would rather keep their own name for the ease of life it provides.

It's also proven that people with shorter surnames are more likely to get jobs, so you'd actually be helping your children out too.

More men would change their names to shuck off a crap father, if only it wasn't associated with women and therefore considered an odd thing to do. If a man could do it with the complete absence of response and expectation that a woman can, more of them would.

I appreciate more of them have to do it to get to that point, but I dispute that those of us who couldn't wait to drop the name of our abuser are being dishonest about it.

If you are the higher earner, don't get married. I am speaking from experience here. Just keep things as they are if you are happy day to day and he is a good partner and a good father.

@ZoeCM

Isn't it odd that men's surnames are almost always nicer/easier to spell/easier to pronounce than women's, even though surnames are gender-neutral? And that there are also loads of women who don't want to pass on their own names because they have bad relationships with their fathers, yet there are hardly any men who don't want to pass on theirs for that reason?

so weird lol

Both me and my brother took our spouses names when we married. Because we hated our own and because we had, had several surnames during our childhood (due to mum's marriages) that we had been known by. Though not legally changed

So weren't particularly attached to our legal name. Hence both changing it.

Don't see the big deal about name changing. The vast majority are given our surname at birth but just because its our dad's. Don't really see how it's worse to choose to change it again.

And yes @DrSbaitso, women changing their name on marriage is seen as acceptable. A man just changing his surname randomly is likely to face lots more questions and judgments.