I think now we are both being unreasonable

[Clovissa]

I really must apologise - this is at the very least the third, and perhaps the fourth, time I have posted wailing about DP not wanting to get married. I have been flamed from every angle and called a manipulative, immature and an emotional blackmailer. I don't think I am but I'm prepared to hear it (again). I could have slipped this post under Chat or Relationships, but I do feel now that AIBU has somehow become its spiritual home.

So, DS is now an utterly adorable 8 weeks and we both love him enough to weep. We are happy, I am fit and strong and recovered. It was my birthday recently and I had built up my hopes that a ring would be forthcoming, particularly when DP hinted there would be diamonds. I have my diamond, it comes on a chain and hangs around my neck. It's very pretty but it's not a ring.

Next summer we will be adopting (or taking on, whatever) DP's nephew who is an orphan and getting too much for granny. Much of the parenting will fall to me and it will mean our money and everything will completely merge. I feel this is a huge commitment on my part and thought it was a good time to open the old wound and give it a good scratch.

So this morning I said to him that before we get DN I would like us to be married.

To recap, in the first year of our relationship we discussed marriage freely as something that would happen. We have been together nearly three years. In the last six months, apparently, I now discover, DP has decided he doesn't believe in marriage and won't do it. He does not want to stand up and do a thing that he finds ridiculous because he has already made every commitment to me and our baby by forming a family and telling us he loves us and that we will be together forever.

None of my reasons for wanting marriage ring true for him (I want us all to have the same name as DS has his surname not mine, I want us to say vows, there are legal and financial differences - but he just says I want to please my parents, conform etc.).

He has said he has no objection to me changing my name to his. Pushed to compromise, he has said I can have a ring in a year and marriage in three if I still want it - I don't get this at all.

I can't break up our family over this but I feel incredibly sad because I want a marriage with him.

Actually, I suppose it's unfair to expect anything new to come of this post but it will give me something to read as I snivel in my well of self pity.

imo wanting to be married is a good enough reason without having to come up with anything else and even if it does make you conventional or please your parents then I am failing to see what is wrong with that.

He has no reason to not want to get married apart from not wanting too so its a bit rich of him to expect you to come up with a list of convincing intelectual reasons when his reasons are purely emotional.

The 3 year thing is a delaying tactic. He is hoping that you will get tired of trying to convince him and shut up about it. He knows it will be even harder for you to leave him in 3 years than it is now.

You need to decide if this is a deal breaker or not. You can't force him to marry you. Its obviously a big deal to him. If he really thought it was meaningless then he would pay lip service to it because of the strength of your feelings. The bottom line is is leaving better or worse than staying and being frustrated.

Does he have PR for your child? Do you have wills? Life assurance - in short, has he put every legal step in place to give you the same protections marriage would confer automatically? Because if he hasn't, marriage is not just a provincial, suburban convention. Marriage has, apart from the last 100 years, traditionally had very little to do with love and plenty to do with social networks and property rights.

If he has not and will not give you those protections then frankly I just don't think he is as committed as he claims.

YANBU by the way.

Of course the baby is the bigger commitment. This is exactly what he says, why do I want more, why do I want everything when we already have so much, etc. I don't doubt his commitment to us and I know it's only a piece of paper and the reality of our life together is what matters.

But I do want to be married and I've tried to get over it but the feeling is still there.

I'm going to take DS out for a walk - I'm starting to feel a bit pathetic.

YANBU

I don't particularly 'believe' in marriage, i.e. I don't believe it makes you a better person, I don't care about weddings, I'm not particularly 'traditional'. But I would feel very uncomfortable being in a relationship where you share so much (house, kids) but that is not defined legally. It makes things so much more clear-cut. If he did leave (no way saying he will, but it is always possible) you would be entitled to a lot less than if you were married.

To my mind, you have lots of reasons for wanting to get married but he can't come up with any proper argument for why you shouldn't, esp. if you're not insisting on the whole big white wedding thing.

Unless you have got all the legal protections everyone on this thread has pointed out, then marriage is not "just a piece of paper". That line really irritates me.

I would take him to task over the delaying tactic as this seems completely out of line with his supposed intellectual/moral objections to marriage. If he truly is against marriage as an institution for intellectual reasons (and - FWIW - I do think this is a valid position, although the person who feels this way must make it clear to the people they are with long before marriage could ever become an issue) then he ought never to consent to marry. I know someone who disagrees with marriage for philosophical reasons and he will never change his mind, nor have it changed for him. His DP understands this, knew about it when they first got together, and accepts it.

However, your DP is saying he will think about it.

I would challenge him head on and say that you think his supposed reaons are BS.

I don't know where that would leave you, TBH, as the outcome is pretty murky: either he doesn't want to be married to you, or is a commitment-phobe (for all that he says that he is committed), or you give up your obsession to marry, or you would have to call his bluff and make it a deal breaker - ie. leave him - which I'm not advocating as you love him and playing chicken with your relationship is not necessarily a good idea.

What Georgimama says. She is wise.

I think he sounds like a bit of an idiot to be honest.

He is rebelling against the idea of marriage, he needs to get a grip.

He says "brings nothing when two people are already committed to each other" well if he has no better reason to not get married than that it's pathetic, what about the fact it would make you happy and practically in his own words would make no difference to him.

There is either more to this that you are not aware of, or he is an childish, selfish clown.

Cheers

Poor you I really feel for you, and i dont think YABU at all
You want to get married to be his wife, and I totally get that, he doesnt but is putting the onus on YOU to have a good reason why - you reason is that you want to/that it will make you happy - what is his reason not to - why are his "beliefs" any more improtant than yours

I was going to say exactly what itsmeolord posted.

Marriage is a contract, one you can forget about completely when things are going well, but which becomes very important when they don't.

This contract makes you each others next-of-kin. When one of you is incapacitated, the other acts in their best interests - unmarried, your respective parents get to make those decisions. Could that present a problem?

On death, it becomes even more important - pensions, taxes, inheritance. You are potentially in a very different position as an unmarried partner than you would be as a spouse.

And then there's just plain old splitting up. Nobody wants it but it happens to some. That contract can be vital to the partner with no the least independent income.

I freely admit to being an old cynic; but I would seriously question my partner's commitment to me if he were not willing to protect me and our children and indeed himself from the vagaries of real life in this way. DH and I livced together, had a mortgage together, joint bank accounts etc., but we remained unmarried until we decided to start a family. Once that decision was made, we married. Not for romantic reasons, not to conform, not to please our parents, not because we're provincial (and WTF does that mean anyway in this context!?!) but because we are PRACTICAL.

The 3 year delay sounds like crap. He's just putting in a delay, he'll think of another once the time comes.

If he refuses to marry - and I can frankly only see bad reason for that refusal in this situation - then you must insist that other safeguards are in place. Wills, inusance, living wills etc. And even then I'd feel insecure, because wills can be changed without the previous beneficiaries being aware of it until it's too late.

It's taken me so long to type this I expect I'll have cross-posted, so sorry if all this has already been said.

If his non-belief in marriage is so strong, why does he think he will be ok with marriage in three years? Why exactly does he object to marriage so much?
If he had a decent reason, then it would be fine. Saying "because I don't believe in it," is stupid. He needs to tell you why he doesn't believe in it.
If it turns out to be "because I don't want to," then it is no more objectionable than you saying "because I want to."

Although, pressuring him to marry because his reasoning against it is unsound would just breed resentment.

Nobody 'believes' in marriage. Belief is for Santa Claus and the tooth fairy. I hate when people say they don't believe in something which clearly does exist. It makes them sound like such a fuckwit.

Ok I can understand that it hurts that you want to marry, and just doesn't.

Given his level of commitment to you in other ways, and given everything else in the garden is rosy (is it?)I actually think you should respect his feelings on it. There is no point in marrying if it is not one one of you wants.

Do wills, life insurance, etc. Change your name, if you wish. Marry when you BOTH want to.

BTW I am married, but actually was not terribly keen to do so. I did it because DH wanted to. We are very happy together (but we were anyway), I don't feel the marriage particularly "protects" or enhances our relationship in any way. We had all the legal stuff in place anyway.

"Believe in" has more than one meaning WYLI. It also means believing that something is right or acceptable, not just that it physically exists. I don't believe in marriage either.

I'm married and would definitely NOT do it again. Felt like a right twat in the dress.
Still love my DH though .

But the legal side is definitely something that needs addressing, whatever you decide. You both need to feel secure and happy.

"marriage in three if I still want it"

He is not sure what you, or he, will be thinking in three years time. This is a terrible situation in which to bring another child into the mix. Your dp thinks it means you will stay anyway, you have already said you wouldn't walk out on dn but who is taking your feelings into account? You have already put up with a lot, and sound like a very tolerant person ( you must love him loads) but he has you over a barrel and he knows it.

I don't think he'll marry you in three years. I can't see what would be different in three years time that means marriage would be OK but it isn't now. He just thinks that you will have given up by then. If you haven't he'll have another excuse.

Without wanting to creep towards a flaming element, if marriage is so important to you, why did you have children with someone you knew wouldn't marry you? That's the only reproach anyone (particularly your DP) could levy at you - that you knew where you stood.

Feeling a twat in the dress is about a wedding, not marriage.

What is more important here?

That you are in a loving happy relationship with a beautiful baby, diamonds on birthdays, security and commitment?

Or that that relationship is legally configured precisely as you wish it to be?

Very observant Gunpowder.

It was a joke. A crap one perhaps, but a joke nevertheless.

Despite being married, 7 years later I cannot take the institution of marriage, and all the ridiculous conventions attached to it, seriously. It's perfectly possible to commit to a person without going to the huge expense and fuss of a wedding.

A person's beliefs and principles do evolve over time.

But mazzy she doesn't really have security unless all the legals are in place. Just because he buys her diamonds on her birthday does not mean she is 'secure'. Sad but true. (sorry OP, not meaning to make you feel shit)

with wills, life insurance and parental responsibility in place she does

and marriage is no guarantee of emotional security or fidelity

and i was thinking more of the diamonds as a romantic gesture than a sign of commitment

OP, do you have all the things mazzy mentioned?

I don't see marriage as a guarantee of emotional security or fidelity by any means, but it does make life more straightforward if you split up.