Do you think there’s a difference between a husband and a partner?

[YaWeeFurryBastard]

Obviously we all know that legally there’s a difference! But do you feel there’s a difference in commitment/ a social difference?

For me, I felt a difference once we mere married and a greater sense of “permanence” and security, but I know others feel no difference at all!

YABU - no difference between the two except the legals
YANBU - a husband is a more committed relationship than a partner

I think that people like and value a legal commitment….whether that’s marriage, or now also a civil partnership, those entering into these have chosen to opt for the most extreme official level of commitment.

It’s about them knowing they have both done this and also about a public declaration of it to the world in a legally recognised form. This matters for people. Their relationship isn’t something that is purely important to them privately, but also they want to be known and legally acknowledged as life partners.

People who haven’t chosen to get married might well be equally committed and their relationships equally or more successful. That’s not really the point though. For them, they might not feel they need public acknowledgment or legal validation of their relationship. That’s fine and their choice. But legal validation is available and for many, whilst it is available, until they choose it, there always feels like another step that can be taken….and many want to take every single step possible.

When someone refers to their partner, you don’t know if they have been together for 4 weeks or 40 years. In many ways it doesn’t matter and perhaps that person isn’t bothered whether you know the length or level of commitment in their relationship. When people refer to their husband or wife, again people don’t know the length of the relationship or whether it’s a good relationship or on the verge of breakdown, but they can usually rightly assume this is a long term relationship and the people at some point chose to commit to each other. So some of it is certainly about outward signposting about relationship status…in the same way wedding rings are.

Lots of people feel no need to public ally and outwardly signpost their relationship status with rings, or titles or husband/wife etc. They don’t care what anyone thinks or doesn’t think about their relationship status. But for others, they really value and want that. I don’t know if it’s about being ‘owned’ by a man or anything like that, although I’m sure there are certainly historic links to attitudes. Many do want their life partnership choice to be official and public.

Lastly, given it’s only really the last 2 generations where large numbers have chosen not to marry and centuries of people have, it’s hardly surprising that there isn’t a more rapid move away from marriage. People are surprised how slowly things move. In the wider context of time, with this issue, I’m surprised how fast things have moved in perhaps only 50 or 60 years which isn’t long at all.

Whether we should throw off marriage totally is questionable anyway, but to do so even if it happens will surely take significantly more time than this trend has been underway. We should recognise that all our values and attitudes are influenced by the past.

We had fantastic relationship before marriage, I felt very loved, respected, secure etc. and I just feel getting married brought our love to the whole new level (I know, cheesy). It just feels nice being married to my husband. I love him the same or even more with every new experience we get. But the memories of vows, honeymoon etc. will stay with me forever. My husband told me on 12 weeks scan of our baby that last time he saw me having such smile and sparkle in my eyes when we got married. I think it's true, because I am feeling so in love now, exactly the same when we got married.
Legal reasons were important for us too 😝

@xogossipgirlxo

Yep. I married for both love and financial protection.

Just because love in modern marriages is an anathema to your ideology it doesn't make it a 'nonsense'. Equally, it is an oversimplification to describe this as something that has arisen due to parents' allowing their 'little girls' to watch and read too many tales about fairytale princesses! That idea in itself is hardly new or radical! The reasons you propose for people marrying are purely practical. There is an absence of the metaphysic- that humans are always in control of the decisions, desires and aspirations they have, that there is nothing to discover beyond the immediate realities whereas in reality humans do things all of the time that are not always easy to explain. Of course, people do marry for economic reasons but it is not exactly very recent history to suggest in western society that love has come in to that reasoning, the 'nonsense' that you refer to. As many have pointed out on here, women in the society we are discussing do not have to get married anymore so why do they? I don't agree it is because their parents' let them model their life choices on a Disney Princess film! It is just not a very thorough or intelligent answer.

@Mamma2017

No not a religious thing it's just with 3 young children - twins under 2 - full time with me that I can't see how I'd meet anyone and have what j would consider a normal relationship with a view to living together and marriage as my children will always be the priority and once you have kids it's very difficult to imagine bringing another man into their lives

We will always be a blended family.

I don't know if "standing" is the right word to describe the feeling - but more that my relationship has reached a certain point? To me personally lots of people could be someone's girlfriend or boyfriend - very few (only 1 ideally) can be someone's wife or husband and I guess by being married it signifies you've "made it" - you are someone's "person", very clumsily worded I appreciate but it's hard to articulate

I wasn't expecting to feel much of a difference, but once married, I really did. It's just a nice feeling of security and permanence.

And it does crop up on other, unrelated threads when a person is experiencing difficulty in their relationship/their partner is behaving badly, people say 'thankfully he's a dp and not a dh!' To most people irl, having a husband or wife is the biggest commitment - you can't just bugger off with no consequences.

@Goldenbear

Just because love in modern marriages is an anathema to your ideology it doesn't make it a 'nonsense'.

It’s nothing to do with my “ideology” as you put it. And I’m not saying it’s a nonsense.

But it’s not a foundation upon which to build a lifetime financial commitment. Life is too serious/Love’s too mysterious, as Gwen Guthrie said.

People have spoken about marriage being the ‘next step’. It’s also the final step in terms of commitment. There’s no further to go. And again, it might not last, but marriage shows the intent to make that public declaration and to go as far as it’s possible in terms of the law. People who are not married always have that option still in front of them and have chosen not to go there. For people who are married, there is no further to go which is ahead of them.

That's a really interesting way of putting it @WombatChocolate.

I'm of the view that it's possible to have very good reasons for not getting married, but it does interest me how it's always people who aren't married talking about how they're as committed as those who are married, and not vice versa. They're tapping into something. A married person just doesn't have to say that. Maybe it comes from this.

@BashirWithTheGoodBeard a 30 plus year relationship is a committed relationship.
I neither financially nor emotionally need the marriage certificate.
I've never needed it and never will need it.

You’ve just proved her point rather neatly.

Because this post proves that married people have a smugness about how committed and special being married is. Those who are unmarried aren’t just unmarried through misfortune; sitting around waiting for someone to marry them. Most of those who are long term (10+ years, for talking sake) cohabiting couples who I know feel that cohabitation rather than marriage is a positive factor to relationship strength - as in, I could leave my partner tomorrow and never look back, but I choose not to - however if we were married, there would be way more hoops to leap through to divorce.

Not really - this post is full of smug shackled married people talking about how it’s oh so special to be married; it somehow “changed” and “improved” their relationship; as if us loose, immoral, stupid unmarried people are somehow just too uncouth to understand.

Most of those who are long term (10+ years, for talking sake) cohabiting couples who I know feel that cohabitation rather than marriage is a positive factor to relationship strength - as in, I could leave my partner tomorrow and never look back, but I choose not to - however if we were married, there would be way more hoops to leap through to divorce.

But doesn’t this prove that marriage is a bigger commitment than marriage? By marrying someone you are making it harder to leave, by not marrying you make it easier?

Nobody’s said that though. You’ve just made that up. I really don’t care what other people do but there’s a distinct whiff of “The lady doth protest too much” about some of the anti marriage posts.

No. It doesn't "prove" anything. Don't you read all the my DH is using family money and sleeping with an escort threads? Or my DH is cheating?

It doesn't make you a matyr for staying in an unhappy sexless marriage.

Your wording seems to have got confused, but no, I’d disagree.

Im with my partner because I don’t want to leave, not because I can’t leave easily. And we have gone through tough times where splitting would have been the easier option, but we chose not to - not because of what others would think, not because of vows we said in front of others, not for financial reasons, not because divorce is time consuming. We are together because we know in our heart that’s what we want. And every day we are making a conscious choice to choose each other, rather than a one off promise.

Obviously some married people would be happy to walk away, but a lot of married people “take their vows seriously” and therefore, for many, their vows are all they really have left.

I know statistics show that cohabiting couples who later get married are more likely to divorce than those who don’t live together; but I’d argue that those who don’t cohabit tend to have religious reasons; and therefore are more likely to be opposed to divorce.

I’d be interested to see statistics on longevity of long-term cohabiting couples vs married couples; adjusting things for length of relationship (aka what are the chances of a 10 year long dating/marriage relationship only ending in divorce vs a 10 year unmarried couple eventually splitting up)

Anecdotally; I don’t know any couples who have lived together for 10+ years and not been married who have split; but I know several people who have divorced after a similar relationship length. This is probably skewed by the fact that I’m only in my mid 30s though.

While women get married for "protection" we will never be equal.
And if you are richer than he, have inherited or he's in debt you are better of NOT marrying. STOP telling girls that the pinnacle of success is to get a man to marry them and "protect" them. (In exchange for what -- housework and sex? Are we still doing that??)>

Women be strong - earn your own money and fight for laws that support that and support real financial equality in childrearing.

Love is neither here not there. Some marriages are full of love as are some other relationships. Some aren't.

Several people have said these things though😂 I was pretty much called stupid and told I hadn’t protected myself a few pages ago.

If I wanted to get married I could do it tomorrow. My partner has already asked, and I said yes. He’s suggested doing the paperwork a few times; but nah.

Had both, went into both relationships entirely committed. If anything I'd say my relationship with my partner is stronger because I found marriage to be cloying, and the knowledge that you are legally bound together, ostensibly until one of you dies, does create an underlying pressure that led me to tolerate unhappiness for far longer than I should have, and led me to thinking that I had to make all sorts of accommodations and efforts that I really shouldn't have because 'that's what a marriage is'.

It's ridiculous. Look at mumsnet for an idea of how many people are stuck in deeply unhappy relationships because they have a legal document that purports to bind them together in perpetuity. It's totally superfluous to actually being wholeheartedly committed to your relationship, but it does serve to pressure you into perpetuating a less than healthy situation.

With a less constrained relationship I feel far more able to say to my partner 'not today' when I simply don't want to be with them. I don't feel as obliged to make an effort with things I don't feel inclined to do. I don't have a grown adult who is perfectly capable of feeding themselves constantly breathing down my neck about what 'we' are eating, I don't feel compelled to visit people I have nothing in common with just to keep the peace or keep up a pretence.

Obviously all relationships are different, all marriages will be subtly different, but from my perspective the state of being married forces a level of 'us' that I was never comfortable with and it's the biggest regret of my life, even though it was part of a decades-long relationship that I was happy with for the bulk of that time. Being married killed my relationship, because I found none of the things I was assured would 'make you feel closer' to actually have that effect. The complete opposite.

@Blossomtoes but a marriage is no more a commitment than a relationship.
It's just a party to show how committed you must be.
If it was such a life changing commitment then divorce would not be so frequent

A party isn’t essential. I used to work with a guy who went out and got married in his lunch hour then went back to work. It was a bit of life admin for him and his wife. Which is how I tend to view it too, that bit of paper is going to ensure our kids are £200k better off than they would be without it when we die. That’s a good enough reason for me.

My children are financially secure and will be fine.
200k is not a large enough amount of money for me to even consider marriage.

To be fair, the party is the only appealing part of the whole thing.