House, baby ... wedding?

[1nervousnellie]

I need a bit of advice from you lovely ladies. I have been with DP for 13 extremely happy years and we have a beautiful 3 month old baby son and a mortgage together. I've wanted to get married for the last 10 years (and have gone through phases where I have been very unhappy about this) but DP wasn't so keen. Since having our son I have felt more and more like we should get married for a couple of reasons - 1. We are more in love than ever, things have been amazing and I feel like I want to share that with our family and friends and 2. the whole legal side of things i.e. being each others next of kin etc. which seems pretty important now we have a kid (and plan to have more). We had been talking about having a naming ceremony (we are atheists) and I have been looking into the cost of that and also using a solicitor to get documents drawn up to give us the (near enough) same legal entitlements as married people get but I've had an idea about having a joint ceremony for welcoming the baby and getting married at the same time, followed by a big party also to say thanks to all those friends and family who have supported us over the years and especially since the baby arrived. I've no idea if his views on us getting married have changed since having the baby etc. because I am too nervous to ask him in case he says no and I am upset, which, added to my current state of exhaustion, would be very detrimental to my mental health!
I have been thinking about this for weeks now and was going to talk to him tonight about it but yesterday his good friend and his girlfriend got engaged (I can't stand them and we don't speak but that's another matter entirely!) and I feel like people might think we were jumping on that bandwagon. Maybe I'm just paranoid? So do you think I should still talk to him tonight or leave it for a few weeks? Or just wait and see if he decides to make the first move? I don't know how I would feel if he said he never wanted to marry me as it feels like marriage would be a commitment not just to me, but to our lovely wee family unit. Would love to hear your thoughts.

I don't agree at all that having children is more of a commitment than getting married. People can, and do, walk away from their children never to have contact with them again. You can't walk away from a marriage and marry someone else without getting a divorce. You can walk away from your children and have as many kids in the future as you want.

The day I met my dh I asked him if he wanted marriage and children as my last boyfriend hadn't and I wasn't wasting time again with someone who didn't want the same things as me.

If both parties are uninterested in marriage and are neutral about it, then it is no reflection at all on the state of their relationship, however, if one really wants it and already have children and living together, then for the other to refuse speaks of lack of commitment on their part.

Your dp is being an arse. A complete arse. What kind of an idiot lives with a woman, has a child with her yet refuses to get married to her when she really wants to? The non-committed kind, that is the answer. Most men will marry their partners if their partners really want it and are supposedly in committed realtionships. Never met one that one would not.
Don't guilt trip him into it, he'll only sulk like a big baby later on and be resentful.

He may very well jump at chance of commitment ceremony. Legally, it means nothing and this fact may be appealing to him. Don't think that his agreeing to such a thing will make him more committed, though, it could just be his chance to appease you without actually committing legally.

I think you need to ask him for a reason why he doesn't want to get married. Saying 'i don't want to' or 'i'm not ready' isn't a good enough explanation now that you are at this point. He has to open up to you more. It may mean that you don't like what he tells you but at least you will understand what he is thinking.

The point is that you are not a young couple who have recently met. You have been together a long time and have a child. I would find it somewhat insulting that he doesn't want to marry the mother of his child but maybe there is a good reason behind it all.

Explain that you can have a very quiet registry office ceremony (in secret if he wants!) that won't cost more than a few drinks on an evening out. You don't need other people there - just the two of you. Perhaps he is worried about a big, fussy wedding day changing the relationship. Whatever it is, you need to ask him.

hS, I just don't want to get married. It's nothing personal. I'm sure marriage is a lovely institution. I just don't want to live in an institution.

That is a ridiculous reason imo.

Well, since you don't want to marry me, I suggest you leave me to my own relationship. Should we start dating at some point in the future, I'll discuss it

(I do actually have a coherent sociopolitical framework for my views, but this is I think neither the time nor the place for them.)

Update

So I gently suggested that me and baby spent the night at my mums. She lives across the road so he could see baby at any time. He said no, he didn't want to be apart from either of us. Long discussion ensued..the gist of which is:
*He felt that it was sprung upon him with no warning on Friday.
*He had being thinking of buying me a ring for my birthday in November. (He could have told me this on Fri instead of sulking).
*He is 100% committed to me and baby, and hadn't realised I felt that he was rejecting out family.
*He felt pressured as 'everyone expects it' (I think his mum may have been on at him) and has felt pressured for years.
*He doesn't know why he doesn't want to get married (which totally contradicts the fact the he said he had been planning to buy me a ring although he is really not the sort to make something like that up).
*I explained that I need to be sure that we are on the same page or think about what my next step is and he went hysterical and shouted at me not to take his son away from him. He's been crying ever since and has apologised for shouting at me.
*I said OK then, my son is the most important thing so I'll stick around for the next 18 years at least, if I can live with the hurt that I feel.
*He mumbled something about my birthday present and left the room.

He's a very good man, and I know he loves us. After seeing him so upset I now know I could never leave him because of our son. So back to square one really and I am the one to compromise. Maybe he will surprise me. I'll not hold my breath.

Nellie, is it a wedding or a marriage he doesn't want?

Does he really want to be calling you his "girlfriend" when you're both sixty?

How would he feel if his parents weren't married? Would it matter to him?

May I refer the pair of you to the home of wedding-related sanity A Practical Wedding, specifically the posts Ask Meg: Surviving The Pre-Engaged State and Dos & Don?ts for Friends of the Pre-Engaged

There is this huge stupid culture around engagements which you two need to realise is bullshit. And you. Need. To. TALK (sorry to shout )

That does sound like a huge amount of progress, even if you're not getting the answers you want at least you're talking about it. It does sound like he loves you and your son and is desperately scared of losing you both, so he must have some good reasons for not wanting to be married, even if he's struggling to explain them. Neither of you want to see your relationship end and if you can keep communicating I'm sure it won't have to come to that.

I agree there is a huge difference between a wedding and a marriage, finding out which he objects to (and hope it's not both) might help.

Wow, so he's using emotional blackmail to keep you stuck in a relationship he is clearly not committed to?

Nice.

He's not really that good a man.

Wamster's right, a good man who was committed to you would marry you.

Don't you feel sad that he's made it clear that he only wants you around because of the son you accidentally conceived?

Don't live a half life waiting for this man to make you happy. He'll be off when he meets someone he (and his friends) like better).

Wooooah now, how about there is MASSIVE cultural expectation that Proposals Must Be a Big Surprise for the Woman, and he's felt under huge pressure to do it yesterday rather than when he's ready (whether from the OP or his mum, or both, doesn't matter), that he feels his everyday relationship with his son and partner is being put under real threat because of this.

I have a lot of sympathy for both the OP and the poor silly bastard her DP.

honeyandsalt - those are good articles. I like that site. We are not very traditional and I didn't realise that he would want to have gone down that route of buying a ring etc. The ring is meaningless - the intent to marry is the important thing to me! No more talking tonight, I'm spent.

PelvicFloorOfSteel - it is progress and I do actually feel better. Maybe I needed reassurance about how he much he loves me etc. as we have been so busy with baby we haven't spent any time together just the two of us since before he was born. It's not a wedding he objects to, he told me today that he panicked when I said on Fri that we should combine the two events as he thought that meant we had to do it all as soon as possible so I explained that the baby welcoming could take place at any time (although before baby was more than a year or two I would say), it didn't have to be soon. I suppose he was thinking that it would be in the same timeframe as conventional christenings.

SheCutOffTheirTails - I don't think he only wants me around because of our son. I do believe he loves me and wants us to have more kids etc. He's not the sort to put up with someone for the sake of it, and not the sort to be 'off' with someone else. I get on very well with all of his other friends and we have a lot of close mutual friends.

anothermum92 - Yes, I have to give myself breathing space, I have no choice really. I need to focus on being a good mum. If he surprises me because he wants to, great, if not then I live with my compromise. My head is a mess.

HoldMeCloserTonyDanza - wouldn't bother him if his parents were not married. He is very laid back about that sort of thing. He calls me his partner, not girlfriend.

If he was laid back about it he wouldn't be having hysterical crying jags because you ask him for your relationship to be formalised.

He actively and strongly doesn't want to marry you.

You are compromising yourself by accepting this.

And stop waiting around for a proposal. It's not coming.

So you think I should leave him?

Have had this situation myself for a while and I definitely feel for you. My main perspective on it is that it might be better to park the issue for a few months until you are feeling a bit stronger and emotionally better post baby. It sounds to me like thinking about leaving someone at that time when actually you do still love them but are unhappy about a particular issue is quite radical. Personally I think first few months after a baby are really not the best time to be dealing with such raw issues - for me my hormones were so up and down I'm not sure I was in the best place to be dealing with this. I think there are various issues like 'baby's surname' etc that I dealt with in the early stages that if I had my time again I would do differently; I think my hormones and general exhaustion didn't help my perspective.

I think you should do what Imperial suggested earlier.

Don't live half a life with a man who isn't committed to you because you accidentally fell pregnant to a timewaster.

Listen to the reasons he gave for not wanting to marry you before you got pregnant - pretty much, straight up "I don't love you enough."

And now he's still saying pretty much that with a side order if "don't take my son away from me."

You say he's not the kind of guy to just go along with things for the sake of it. Are you really really sure about that? Because from what you've said he sounds exactly like that kind of guy.

13 years together, knowing you wanted desperately to get married, and nothing? Not even an explanation of why he refused.

Now you have a baby together and he is acting like a conversation about formalising your family situation is an affront?

He doesn't love you as much as he wants you to believe he does.

I posted right at the start of the thread because my dh and I were together for 13 years before we got married. Like your dp, mine 'wasn't fussed' about marriage - rather than having any very strong feelings against it, and it took us a lot of talking and discussion for him (and me) to understand his feelings.

At the root of my dp's concerns was that he was entirely happy with our existing life. He had no doubt about his commitment, no doubt about loving me, no doubt that we'd be together when we would be old. And he didn't want that to change. He was actually rather scared that if we did get married something about our relationship would change. The pressure that other people (his friends mostly) put on him subconsciously reinforced the idea that there was something about the state of being married that was different and that would change our relationship for the worse. That somehow we'd change how we were towards each other because he become my husband, and I'd become his wife.

Exploring his feelings helped me to feel less need to be married, and helped him to rationalise what was going on for him. But as I said, it took a lot of talking and listening and thinking about our own feelings.

There are plenty of decent people who have a strong political/cultural/ethical/philosophical objection to the instituation of marriage. But they generally explain this clearly to anyone they are dating who shows signs of wanting to marry them.
I'm afraid that what jumps out at me here is that your PG was unplanned. I think this man sees you as 'will do for now' and always has done, despite the length of time you have been together and even despite the fact that you have a baby together. But he doesn't want to come out and say this because (obviously) you will be upset and leave him, and then he won't get his dinner cooked, his socks washed, his dick sucked and time with his child. He wants to stay with you until he finds his Perfect Woman and then he will fuck off and marry her.