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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Why are you married?

256 replies

Aquarius1234 · 12/05/2024 13:05

Why did you bother getting married?

Do you feel one or both of you are insecure hense the marriage?

Do you feel superior to those in long term relationships but not married?

OP posts:
Mothership4two · 12/05/2024 14:01

Aquarius1234 · 12/05/2024 13:42

Wasn't wearing wedding rings a way of showing strangers you are unavailable.
Without having to say anything.
Apart from those that have affairs of course.

It's a tradition going back thousands of years and a sign of commitment. Some people like wearing them and others don't. I don't think strangers knowing your marital status is much of an issue in this day and age

TaraRhu · 12/05/2024 14:02

It was important to my husband. I really wasn't bothered.

Simonjt · 12/05/2024 14:02

Being ablw to get married was a battle hard won over almost 70 years, I wasn’t going to let the people down who fought a long hard battle when I had the opportunity to marry my husband. I would have still married him if it didn’t bring any legal protection and wasn’t a legalised recognised ceremony in the same way.

Where we live now there is less need to marry to gain legal protection etc, but it’s still something we would have both done. I do wear a ring, but as I’m Sikh I wear it on my right hand, so most people won’t even realise its a wedding ring.

It meant when we were married we jointly owned anything, so there was no need to keep assests in one persons name in the case of a split etc. There is no way I would have put him on the mortgage/deeds to my home without being married to him, and he rightly felt the same about his own property.

mustardrarebit · 12/05/2024 14:02

The usual reasons. We live each other. We wanted legal protections and for our children to have that security too. An unexpected post Brexit bonus was that it was easy for him to get settled status, despite already living here for 25 years at that stage, there was a point when we worried what would happen to him.

RagzRebooted · 12/05/2024 14:03

We had children, it seemed prudent for financial security as I was a SAHM.

BeachHutsAndDeckchairs · 12/05/2024 14:04

Because we love each other and because of the legal and financial protections that marriage brings. No, I don't feel in any way superior to anyone not married or not in a relationship.

babybythesea · 12/05/2024 14:05

I love him. Mostly. Don’t ask at 3am when he’s snoring heavily or you may get a different answer. But I wanted to be with him.

However he was coming to the end of a work visa. He wouldn’t have got an extension so he would have had to return to his home country. So we got married because the alternative was splitting up permanently.

21 years and two children later I still mostly think I did the right thing. As I say, just don’t ask when he’s been snoring and Won’t Shut Up.

Hereyoume · 12/05/2024 14:06

Legally speaking, it's much less paperwork.

And, if you haven't signed the employment contract, you don't actually have the job.

SherlockHomies · 12/05/2024 14:06

Aquarius1234 · 12/05/2024 13:14

I have often felt that vibe. Everyone knows the type of people I'm talking about.

I don't know those types of people, no.

I do know a few who are paranoid about what others think though.

BeachHutsAndDeckchairs · 12/05/2024 14:06

I wear a wedding ring out of the house, usually, because I want to. Because I like the ring - it reminds me of dh when I'm away from him.

mumofds's · 12/05/2024 14:12

I'm the opposite we are in a LTR 14years.

We are not married yet and also have 2 children we are not religious. I have never once felt that anybody is superior to us that is married we still love each other deeply and both are equals in our relationship. I think anyone who judges other people's relationships has some insecurities of their own.

AnneLovesGilbert · 12/05/2024 14:13

Why are you not married? Is it because you’re superior?

Surprisedbuthappy · 12/05/2024 14:13

Aquarius1234 · 12/05/2024 13:52

Perhaps I've watched too many dramas / films over the years and growing up, regarding the showing weddings rings on hands.

Were those dramas/films adaptations of Jane Austen novels? Your views seem quite 19th Century!

mumofds's · 12/05/2024 14:15

AnneLovesGilbert · 12/05/2024 14:13

Why are you not married? Is it because you’re superior?

Definitely not no i have lots of friends that's married and not married my parents didn't get married until they where in their 40s they had been together since they where 13. I think now there's a pressure to get married and we just haven't got around to it yet not saying we won't. I also don't feel that we are any less a family because we are not married.

SherlockHomies · 12/05/2024 14:16

Why another thread about marriage anyway OP?

Did you not get the answers you wanted from your last one?

AnneLovesGilbert · 12/05/2024 14:17

mumofds's · 12/05/2024 14:15

Definitely not no i have lots of friends that's married and not married my parents didn't get married until they where in their 40s they had been together since they where 13. I think now there's a pressure to get married and we just haven't got around to it yet not saying we won't. I also don't feel that we are any less a family because we are not married.

I was asking the OP. Have you namechanged?

UnctuousUnicorns · 12/05/2024 14:18

babybythesea · 12/05/2024 14:05

I love him. Mostly. Don’t ask at 3am when he’s snoring heavily or you may get a different answer. But I wanted to be with him.

However he was coming to the end of a work visa. He wouldn’t have got an extension so he would have had to return to his home country. So we got married because the alternative was splitting up permanently.

21 years and two children later I still mostly think I did the right thing. As I say, just don’t ask when he’s been snoring and Won’t Shut Up.

Edited

Things I have found helpful for my DH are getting a specially moulded memory foam pillow, ensuring he always sleeps on his side (a shove and hissing "Get on your bloody side" if he rolls on his back, cause I'm such a nice wife 😁), and playing a sleep sounds app overnight, with something rhythmic and regular like waves on a shore. It really seems to make a difference, like it sort of subconsciously helps him to regulate his breathing even when asleep. I like it too, I find it very soothing!

Gymmum82 · 12/05/2024 14:19

Got drunk in vegas

alloverthewaves · 12/05/2024 14:20

I can't remember. We got engaged very young because DH couldn't think what to get me for Xmas so got me an engagement ring, and after a couple of years people kept asking when was the big day...so we booked it.

UnctuousUnicorns · 12/05/2024 14:20

Gymmum82 · 12/05/2024 14:19

Got drunk in vegas

So did you marry the first stranger you set eyes on there?

Hateam · 12/05/2024 14:21

I feel there is an underlying sense of smugness and superiority about your posts. Almost like youfeel you have risen above marriage and feel sorry for those less enlightened women who are still falling for it.

Gymmum82 · 12/05/2024 14:22

UnctuousUnicorns · 12/05/2024 14:20

So did you marry the first stranger you set eyes on there?

No I was there with my boyfriend. We got drunk and decided to get married

Librarybooker · 12/05/2024 14:23

Been married for more than 30 years. I don’t feel superior. I do respect the legal, religious and romantic nature of marriage but it’s not something everyone buys into. I don’t think long term relationships that don’t involve marriage are necessarily very different.

Re prejudice and superiority - I’ve not seen much of this. At our church a few years ago a long term couple got married in a civil ceremony basically because of Brexit. The vicar did a really informal little blessing for them. I don’t think even the older members of the congregation were snobby about it.

Conversely I once had rather an odd experience at work. It was a landmark wedding anniversary and my husband sent flowers to the office. Two colleagues found this a reason to start talking about how they would never want this kind of relationship over and across my desk. I’d been working with them for years, I’ve never used my married name and I’m the archetypal staunch feminist so it felt a bit weird that anyone might think a romantic gesture could make them think I was suddenly under the thumb of matrimonial patriarchy.

SerenChocolateMuncher · 12/05/2024 14:23

I was in a relationship with my husband for seven years before getting married 25 years ago.

I didn't feel "insecure" before my marriage and I haven't felt "superior" as a person since. I do think marriage is a "superior" status of relationship though, due to the legal and financial benefits it gives, especially for couples with children.

We got married, because we wanted to make a life commitment to each other and because we wanted to have children. Cohabitation is fine for childless couples, but fails to give the protection to families, especially in the event of the death of a parent or divorce.

I am baffled at how many women are prepared to have children with men who won't marry them. They are putting themselves and their children at risk of hardship if (and usually when if he wasn't committed in the first place) he decides to bugger off.

I realise that married couples split up as well, but at least in those cases the family has the benefit of the marriage contract.

CoffeeCatsAndVodka · 12/05/2024 14:25

I got married because I love my husband with all my heart and I don't care if it's old fashioned (I'm a staunch feminist on most things) but I wanted to wear a wedding ring (Husband wears one too) and be Mrs Husband's Surname. It still makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside to be known as such. I'd like to think he feels the same.

I really don't care whether other people are married or not, although I do sometimes worry when I hear a women gives up her career to raise children and doesn't have the legal protection of marriage, especially after so many years on MN. I certainly don't feel superior, I got married for me, not because of what anyone else does. Anyone that does feel superior because they are married is odd indeed.

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