To see a lot of couples in this situation

[Whatyoutryingtodo]

I see quite a few couples I know irl who've been together several years, engaged, own a house and have children, but no wedding plans made.
They've often been engaged for several years too but don't have any plans to get married, and say stuff like they'll 'get round to it at some point'.

Just curious as to why this happens quite a lot, not judging as I myself am unmarried and childless due to no interested suitors!

I think people will say that the man has everything he needs so why bother marrying her... Sometimes I wonder why people consider marriage more of a commitment than children? At least with marriage you can divorce, even if it's expensive and stressful, children you're tied for life.

Not read the whole thread but I have read the OP.
My guess would be a combination of any of the following:

(1) Expotential rise in online incel type culture reinforcing to single men everywhere that the act of marriage is a trap and when you (inevitably) get divorced you will be fleeced of all your money. Ironically the way child maintenance works in the UK means that the fall out from a separation as a result of a divorce compared with a fall out from a separation where there was no marriage but children is not that different (the man is liable for child maintenance but not much else unless we are talking very high net worth individuals with a long term marriage where the woman gave up her career to have kids etc)

(2)Men often get what they really want from a relationship by living with a woman without any official label especially if they can balance the power in the relationship slightly in their own favour (i.e. they are the ones calling the shots in the relationship). They get domestic comfort and sex more or less on tap.

If she works (which 99.99% of the time she will) he gets financial benefit of splitting bills. He gets to be involved with his children dramatically more on his own terms than if he divorces and the time is "split" between him and the mother. What is not to like for him?

Why bother with getting married? It is all there on a plate, exactly what he wants on a day to day basis.

(3) Some men still see marriage as a trap, a burden, and a dramatic limitation on their freedom. A lot of men have weird and illogical ideas in their heads about relationships such as "if we are married and I am unfaithful its not really cheating but if we are married it is cheating". Statistically it has been shown again and again that co-habiting couples are far more likely to split up compared with married couples (probably because of the difficulty and expense and stress/pain of the divorce system in the UK) so men see the ease of getting out of something as a great advantage to hold onto.

(4) In my view the vast vast majority of men don't really like or "get" weddings in any way. Probably deep down a lot see big showy weddings as a bit cringe, expensive, drama-lama style family gathering they feel expected to participate in. Especially so if they are with a woman who has that big-wedding fairytale idea in her head that a wedding is the absolute pinacle of a relationship and the best it is ever going to get when she is a princess-for-a-day. Think Bridezilla. There are a lot about. I imagine most men are full well aware of this phenomenon, absolutely hate it but realise it is a thing, and cynically keep it in their back pocket as a bargaining tool, some manage to keep it in their back pocket like this for decades and their partner holds out for it because they are so invested in the idea of a big wedding.
For the above reason when people say that they would get married but cannot afford it I ususally look at the woman and I get an idea of what is being really said there (and i think there is an element of truth especially from the man's side because he knows what she will be wanting if they get married).

All this lot of money. Really doesn’t have to be.You set parameters
Book a small venue,pub,restaurant. Dont say the W word. Reign in costs

@margotrose

But OP isn't talking about that.

She's talking about couples who are engaged but never marry.

Exactly! I'm not sure why this thread is full of indignant "but I don't want to marry him" posts.

I think the answer is that in most cases (see the many, many, MANY, MANY anguished threads from women on here on this theme ("why won't he marry me we've been engaged for 5 years and he keeps making excuses" type) the woman wants to get married and the man doesn't.

In order to spin out his comfortable set up with a woman who will do for now, maybe even do to have kids with, keep her 'sweet' and carry on having sex, he will agree to get engaged but will never follow through because he doesnt want to get married.

I agree with you @Whatyoutryingtodo that is makes no sense to be willing to have a child with someone but not get married. If getting married is important to you, you should always insist on this before having a child. I think sometimes the woman can think 'ah now i'm pregnant' he'll marry me.

So often what happens in these situations is that the man leaves and very quickly meets someone else who he gets engaged to and marries with speed.

He never actually wanted to marry the woman he was engaged to before.

Obviously as with all things there are exceptions - couples for whom there is an intention but neither really care about it enough to organise a wedding - but 9/10 times its the man not wanting to follow through and as someone said above, giving the woman a ring to shut her up and maintain his situatino.

Yes that makes sense.

To avoid iht at that point but far less risk of divorce or one persons head being turned by a pretty young thing.

Also at 70 you can just have a quiet registry do. In your 40s it seems you could still have a big wedding and invite all those whose weddings you attended over the years. (As you have the money to do so). So you put it off until you feel ready to decide one way or another.

This. ^ Any woman having babies with a man who CBA to put a ring on her finger, is incredibly foolish and breathtakingly naïve.

It's also sending a clear message to the children, that their father doesn't think their mother is good enough to marry.

There are soooo many reasons to get married when you have children, and the 'it's only a piece of paper' brigade make me laugh out loud and roll my eyes in equal measures. Are there people who actually believe this?! Oh dear! 😬

It's also bullshit that a wedding costs a fortune. It can cost hardly ANYthing if you want it to. I also find the 'can't afford it' types have an oversized, overly expensive house, and a nearly-new car too, and regularly go abroad on fancy holidays. Yet the few hundred pounds it would cost for a cheap, quickie wedding in a registry office, and a pub lunch for your loved ones who come with you, seems out of their reach somehow.

Yeah @Whatyoutryingtodo some couples DO stay together for years, and have kids and all, and don't get married. Their choice entirely, but it wouldn't do for me. If any man thought I am not good enough to marry - he could bore off. And I would NEVER have had children before getting married, Luckily my DH saw what a fucking gem he had in me, and proposed 3 years after we met (and 18 months after we moved in together.) Got married the following year. (4 years after we met.)

I do find the 'I won't get married coz I don't want him/her getting any of my stuff' posts incredibly depressing.

Getting engaged and then delaying getting married due to unforeseen circumstances is totally understandable. But getting engaged with no plans to get married is very odd, as though 'engaged' doesn't even mean 'engaged to be married'. It's as if some people think the two things are unrelated!

Oh and I forgot.

Elaborating on my point (2) about being able to see his children more on his terms when married, the reality is that women, like it or not and for whatever individual circumstances dictate, still do 99% of the child rearing and all of the mental load which goes with that. Co-habitation is the optimum setup for men.

As a result the consequences of divorce and splitting up mean that there will be some way in which the child rearing suits the man less (he has to see the children more than he wanted or less than he wanted or pay for things himself where the woman used to pay for all the kids stuff or pay child maintenance which is more than he ever contributed before or actually do some of the mental load of caring for his kids.

If you can just live with someone with no lable/official status of your relationship and they do 99% of the childcare and you get to parade your kids around as the Dad and take the glory, why would you not do that? You don't get admired for your cute kids any more if you have a ring on your finger. It just means the single girls at the playpark to do have some morals would avoid talking to you which is a downer for you.

Oh I agree- maybe I didn’t make my point very well. I’d just like more security for SAHMs who aren’t married/in a civil partnership, in case their partners leave them and they’re screwed financially.

I think this, it's such a negative attitude and almost setting yourselves up to fail.

Sahm housewives don’t need special financial protection. Marriage or CP is available . If Sahm don't chose those options they cannot have a special category created for them. SAHM is precarious regard career and finances do it at your own peril but don’t expect preferential treatment

I've been "engaged" to DP for about 15 years now! I started looking into wedding planning back then and found the thought of actually planning a wedding so stressful I gave up. Families at different ends of the country,not all well enough to travel, the horrible thought of being the centre of attention for a whole day, the fact that I don't like boring white dresses etc. I just put it all to the back of my mind, then children happened and I put on weight and decided I couldn't get married looking fat and gross so would have to lose weight first etc etc.

I guess it's just not a priority for me with so much else going on in our lives and I've never been someone who always dreamt of getting married. It just feels like another stressful chore, if we do ever get round to it I'd prefer a very, very small register office affair without all the faff or guests! But then that makes me worried that family/friends might be offended if we got married and didn't invite them!

If I were you, I would just go on holiday with my immediate family somewhere which does a wedding add-on and do it there (no white dress needed!). You can mention it to your wider family when you get back and possibly at some point have a gathering to celebrate (or not).

I never wanted to get married; each of my parents has been divorced 3 times, I'd seen them have affairs, treat their various DHs and DWs badly and so I had no respect for marriage as a concept. However, I met a man, fell in love, bought a house, then we decided to TTC. All the while, he kept asking if I'd like to get married, as he was keen, but I was adamant that marriage was not for me.

About 10 minutes after seeing the first BFP on the pregnancy test, I had this sudden, overwhelming urge to be married to the father of my baby - it was really strange, as if the hormones were working to try and convince me that it was a necessity! Happily, just a few days later, the man in question came home with a ring and got down on one knee, and we got married 3 months later.

I do wonder if people see marriage more like I used to, and so now don't feel it "means as much" as it once did? Despite it not being something I ever thought I wanted, I have to say that after nearly 20 years, marriage actually does work for me, I just avoid doing anything my parents did!

You clearly don’t want to get married. Fair enough. Your reasons are manufactured. If you actually wanted to marry,you’d be married

Bigger things going on in life... we where engaged for 7 years. We had been together 6 years already.

I see zero need to 'rush' a wedding, for us it was a public commitment not just a legal contract so we needed to find a disability friendly venue that we liked (most where hyper modern and I HATE modern design) within our budget, pass the church requirements and save up, plus life was also still happening around us.

We had been trying for a baby for years so that took 'priority' and our savings went on IVF instead of a party and paperwork.

When people 'rush' to marry it does seem a little odd to me. I understand the excitement of the concept of eloping in the moment (the lack of stress of just doing it when you suddenly feel ready would be lovely) but in reality you can't do that virtually anywhere in the world. So really its get engaged and then wait for paperwork with takes 1-2 months and by that point its just usually a forced quick wedding not a spontaneous act of love so you might as well just wait a little longer and do it not rushed/stressed way.

We didn’t get engaged but we had to have IVF which was costly. Once our baby was born then we had a Registry office wedding with close friends and then a meal in a lovely restaurant together.
A wedding doesn’t have to be expensive! I would never spend thousands just to show to World apparently how in love we are. What a waste of bloody money!
A Registry office gives the same outcome.
I think people who use money as an excuse aren’t really that arsed about getting married!
I’ve got the same surname as my child plus financial security to some degree.

I’ve got a colleague who is engaged and has been for years. Got a kid with her fella but she said she’ll never marry him as she’s knows she’s not in love with him. WTF!
i think they got engaged to show she was ‘taken’
Sadly it doesn’t stop her sleeping around 🫣

The only good reasons to get married are financial (especially for a woman who becomes a SAHM or whose career takes a back seat due to having children). I am glad I was married, because I would have been screwed after 20 years as a SAHM if I hadn't been. The 'expensive wedding' concern is a red herring. My ex husband and I got married with two witnesses provided by the register office, and it cost £60.

By the same token, the good reason not to get married is if you are the one with the career and assets. I would never get married again because I want to protect my money and property and be certain that the only people who will ever inherit it are my children. From that point of view, men (who tend to be the ones who keep their careers and incomes) are being sensible if they can have a live-in housekeeper/childcarer with regular sex to boot, without any of the financial commitment to the woman.

we’ve been engaged 35 years. Life has always got in the way of actually doing he deed. When family were alive there were lots of arguments over what, where and when our wedding should be - so we just said nope, not happening. Then we moved around a lot and never seemed to be in one place long enough to do the deed. Plus other things happened which meant getting married got pushed further down the todo list.

We will get it done (wills etc all done) once we have lived here long enough and I get around to going in the registers office for the paperwork. Now there are no family left to upset/placate it should be a mere
formality. Just need to find witnesses if they aren’t supplied.

Nothing wrong with not getting married but why get engaged then? & if you're going to get engaged and not bothered about a big wedding or fussing over being married, why not just go down to the registry office?

I did want to be married and had v little money. Registry office, simple ceremony after that we did ourselves, DH cooked (he's a fantastic cook) BIL made cake, bought a few flowers from the florists and second hand wedding rings, 20-odd guests, job done. It doesn't need to be perfect, unless you're more bothered about the wedding day than being married.

I won't get married coz I don't want him/her getting any of my stuff' posts incredibly depressing

I don't see why that's depressing. I don't want my partner to inherit from me, because whatever I have belongs to my adult children. By the same token, I won't inherit from him: his adult children will.

this is such a naive attitude. About half the marriages end in divorce, that's just a fact. If you knew you had 50-50 chance of being hit by a car, wouldn't you look both ways before crossing the street.

And yeah the man who is happy to share assets when married, is not the same man you will divorce.

I think a lot of engagements are also based on men feeling that they've got to at least seem to be promising marriage, even if they have no intention of delivering.

I don't know that many couples in this situation. Most of them have got engaged and then married within 2 years, usually within 1.

I know 2 couples who have been engaged for years and in both cases it's the women who have made ultimatums to get engaged. The man has agreed but with kids and buying houses there are always other priorities and the men are using every delaying tactic. To me it's clear they have no real intention of marrying but it makes the woman feel more secure to be engaged although there's absolutely no legal recognition of their relationship.

You can lose more through a divorce.

@Friedfriedplantain I can only speak for us. We were very young and had lovely ideas for a simple church wedding. Fine. But then both families started to fight over which church, when it was to be held, who had to be invited etc etc. it was no longer our wedding and non of them wanted to pay for what they wanted! (So I bought a house instead with our money. )
Dh was very close to his family and a registry office wedding would have given just as many, if not more, problems for him. So we shelves it, now all family have finally died, there’s no one to upset!

I wasn’t ever that bothered about getting engaged tbh, no idea where the ring went.