To think Vow Renewals signal a marriage in trouble?

[misssultana]

In my late 30s now and seeing a few of these things pop up in my peer group and beyond. One I know the the husband cheated and even briefly left his wife to be with the OW before sobering up to what the reality of divorce with two young children would look like. In another that particular marriage was the man's second and they started as an affair while he was still married to his first wife and he has a career that would give ample opportunity to cheat. Others I'm not sure but wouldn't be too shocked it that was the case.

Personally I don't see the point of it at all. It seems quite crass and attention seeking. Quite a few have been really expensive, essentially a wedding again with a sit down meal and evening reception and must have cost £10,000 + which seems like a tremendous waste of money. Then there is the gifting issue, some ask for no gifts but increasingly I've seen gift registries for vow renewal's which feels grabby.

To me I just think have a big party, make a speech if you want to proclaim your love to each other in front of your friends and family but renewing your vows in a faux marriage ceremony is either pointless or its because you feel those vows have been broken.

To each their own, but it does make me wonder what was wrong with the original vows.

That's my view as well.
Why would you need to remind yourself of your vows?
Tbf, I haven't been invited to one. I'm mid fifties. People either stay married or divorce in my peer group!
And of course Pete and Dawn put the whole thing in its correct place

That’s such a good point.

@Kbroughton Sorry to hear that, on the plus side at least you got shot of him eventually.

Renewal isn't just because something is broken, someone mentioned earlier that their family renewed due to one being terminally ill.

Renewal is about the couple revisiting and wanting to celebrate their love and their marriage. Reaffirm their commitments

Yeah admittedly some are crass, the on-off Shazza and Gazza on their toxic hanster wheel who spend every weekend arguing, to break up only to make up next week. But in general, the ones I've seen tend to be longevity or life changing circumstances 🤔

If it ain't broke don't fix it, is my view.

I’d like to do it as we didn’t get the wedding we wanted so would love to do something new just for us, but from what I’ve seen couples seem to split soon after for the most part, either because their marriage is on the rocks or it bloody jinxes them. So I’m too scared as we are happy and I don’t want to end up divorced if it jinxes you!

I kind of want to do a vow renewal for one of our big anniversaries. The only reason is because I wore a non-traditional wedding dress and while DH supported my decision, I know he was always a little disappointed. I’d do it just for the excuse to get a big fluffy Princess dress to make him happy.

I think it could be a class thing as most of the people I know who do it are working class background but with a bit of money now, like myself!

I used to think it signalled infidelity.

However I am now going to renew our wedding vows for our 30th Wedding Anniversary. Planning a nice holiday and it will just be the 2 of us.
We have had some tough times and I really want us to have time for us, we have never had a holiday without children.

Well have a party.
You do not need to renew your vows. Just celebrate your anniversary.

• 20th: China, with platinum as a modern option

I think you may have missed some of the small print.

This thread is pretty sad actually. My wedding to DH was silly - we were too young and very naive. He didn’t even do a proper proposal 😆 and there was so much family drama the day didn’t feel “ours”

15 years later and we’ve worked through some stuff and matured loads.

We would love to do it again. Have real
meaningful vows and a first dance (didn’t have a first dance last time!)

This time I wouldn’t let any parents cause trouble (my mum, my step mum and his dad all caused fuss!)

Indeed. See also those couples who've been together for a long time, kids, then suddenly have a big white wedding.
They'll be divorced within a year, guaranteed

@Chocaholic4672 Can I ask though why specifically you want to renew your vows rather than just have a special holiday with you and your DH or have a big party? Why specifically is the vow renewal important if the vows of your original wedding remain intact? What is it you will get out of doing the renewal? I am genuinely interested to hear your reasoning?

I think it depends on your reasons for doing it.
DH and I are both very happy in our marriage and have decided we want to review our vows next year on our 10yr anniversary. We didn't enjoy our wedding at all as we did everything to please other people (I also was very newly pregnant and had the worst morning sickness).
We also want our children to be involved.
We want to have a hand fasting/vow renewal in a woodland that's special to us with my mum as the officiant and our children and his mum present. No one else.
Just us, our love in a place that we love with our little family.

I've always assumed people do a vow renewal because someone broke them - why else would you bother? If you're happily married you just carry on being happily married, surely?

My now exH and I did it at 10 years because I had lost my original wedding ring whilst on holiday and wanted the new one to be blessed. However the blessing itself was only in front of our 3 children, parents and siblings on a Friday afternoon after school! We did take everyone out for a meal the next day. I said at the time that if we didn't pay more attention to us as a couple then we wouldn't see 20 years - unfortunately I was proved right. No affairs or anything, we just grew apart as individuals.

I’d we rather make our own decisions on how we mark our 20th anniversary, if that’s ok with you?

We don’t want a party, we are introverts. We want to privately renew our vows.

God, not this old chestnut again. In Ireland at least it's a thing lots of older couples do on significant anniversaries. My PILs, who are in their 80s, did it on their sixtieth wedding anniversary. They're both maddening, but I doubt they've ever considered another person in all their years of marriage.

My in-laws did it on their 40th and 50th anniversaries. Any excuse for a party and to get the family into a church.

My sister wanted to do one on the 10th anniversary of her marriage because she had a shitty time on her wedding day. But life and children happened. BiL is talking about doing it for their 25th.

My mum always had an anniversary party every year. She insisted on it to get gifts from people 😂She’s talked about renewing their vows for years now. They have never been unfaithful to each other so 🤔

"I can’t imagine that anyone on earth hasn’t had a period of their marriage where they can acknowledge they didn’t always behave in a loving, cherishing, honouring way, or weren’t especially supportive of each other, or could have been kinder to their spouse when they were sick. All of which are vows."

Where does it end though? DH probably doesn't feel honoured and cherished when I make a brisk snorting noise when he's got man flu again and I don't feel cherished when he says SHUT THE BLOODY DOOR and I say well I would if my arms weren't full of wet laundry that nobody else has thought to get out of the machine when I was at work.
But he buys me French Fancies, which he despises, and I buy him black pudding, which I hate, and we make each other cups of tea and laugh at each other's godawful jokes. So it evens out.

Lovely story.

I'm close friends with a couple who are coming up to their 20th anniversary in a couple of years' time. They're intending on a vow renewal at Gretna to mark that anniversary - just the two of them, no fanfare and no sharing of pictures on social media. It's a private thing for them alone.

He had cancer a couple of years ago - at a young age - and she barely survived a very serious accident. The outcome could have been the worst possible for both of them. They feel they just want to celebrate what they have.

Ditto anyone on SM raving about their wonderful husband/wife and how much they love them. The couples I know with what appear to be the happiest relationships are the ones who never comment about them on SM. Basically, the more public your avowals of being madly in love, the more likely it is that one has cheated!