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.

You said that what marriage says is we are a family. It could also say I did it to shut her up and it can very often say nothing.

Even if it says "I did it to shut her up", it STILL also says "now we are a family", since they would legally be treated as a unit from now on.

That's what marriage is - a public declaration of the setting up of a new family.

Even a sham marriage being done for visas says "we are a family now".

Anyway the question was "what does it say that 13 years and a baby doesn't?"

The answer is: everything that counts.

Longevity and pregnancy mean fuck all.

I don't agree I know people with marriage who have a shit life and no commitment .OP 13 yrs and a baby is a life and by the sounds of it a good one.

SCOTT You are so angry not sure why but your language is appalling considering the subject matter.

SCOTT - that is a completely barking mad view, my friend's parents have been together nearly 40 years, have several children and never married (which was an even bigger deal 40 years ago), how can you say their relationship is less valid than a sham marriage?

The truth is marriage makes a difference if you split up or when you die, day to day it's a pretty meaningless concept.

PelvicFloorOfSteel - yes, I think you're right, as far as he is concerned everything is perfect so why change that. we do need to sort out the legal side of things ASAP. The mortgage is in both our names and a document signed that if we were to sell that I would get the deposit as I paid that from an inheritance.

Spero - I'm not getting suckered in. I'm fully aware of every aspect of the situation and my self esteem is not that low that I would hang on for a dangled carrot.

Wamster - he would agree to all those things. In fact, we have discussed this before. It's not a financial issue.

Apocalypto - I suppose the advantage to him would be that I would be feel that it made us complete and therefore wouldn't be an issue any more?

noddyholder - I don't want to force him into anything. If he comes to the conclusion, either himself or through discussion with me, that it is the right thing to do then it is because he wants to. I don't want to live my life feeling grateful for it but I want to live happily in the knowledge that my happiness and feelings have been considered.

pommedechocolat - hosue is sorted, wills are not. I'm going to sort that out very soon.

noddyholder - we do have a very good life, and that is why I want to sort this out. 13 years is a very long time and we have been through a lot. The baby is a complete joy and had brought us even closer together than we thought possible. Marriage is the only issue which divides us so strongly.

SheCutOffTheirTails - I don't particularly care what it 'looks like to the outside world'. I do feel you are being very angry and negative in your response. I understand what you are saying but don't agree that your view is reflective of my situation and I'm not too keen on the fact you think that 'pregnancy means fuck all' - we have a beautiful son who we both adore.

1nervousnellie sometimes it can be helpful to see posts like SheCutOff's because it gives you something, against which you can measure you relationship, and absoloutely know that your relationship is not that shit.

Come back and let us know when things get sorted out

I didn't say that any relationship was less valid than any other. I am not talking about what marriage means, but addressing a previous point about what it says.

A sham marriage is telling a lie, but it is still saying something (although that thing is untrue).

No marriage says nothing.

Presumably for couples who both choose never to marry, they feel that the constitution of their family is a private matter, OR they want to cohabit but not be a family. Those are perfectly valid choices and I know plenty of people who are happy that way.

But being together for a long time says nothing to the world about your happiness or your desire to be a family. And neither does having children (particularly if they are conceived by mistake).

The only thing that tells the world that you are a family is either a marriage, or a convoluted legal arrangement and a public declaration of some kind.

In a couple where one person wants to make an explicit, public commitment to being a family, and the other wants to keep their relationship an entirely private matter, it is a bit silly to claim that those two positions are the same. They are not.

The OP has no public commitment, and no legal security. She has only the private assurances of a man who is unwilling to marry her with no explanation for why not.

If you don't care about how it looks to the outside world, then stop banging on about marriage. That's all marriage is - making your commitment a matter of public record.

I agree that marriage on a day-to-day level is a meaningless concept and that it only makes a difference if one of you dies or you split up, but what an 'only' that is. EVERYBODY dies and a lot of couples split up!
Private assurances go out of the window when a person dies- unless married, or a will made, the default position is that any inheritance (other than expressly made financial agreements like joint mortgage etc) goes to to next-of-kin and cohabitees are NOT recognised as next-of-kin.

Private assurances go out of the window when people split up, too. He may promise to give you money to compensate if, for example, you gave up work to look after children but you can't enforce it.

The reason we have marriage is partly a cynical reason i.e. people split up and people die and in order to protect the work put into the relationship, society has a man-made construct called marriage that enables it to say when couples split up or one of them dies: 'You both signed on the dotted line to say you were a couple for life. We shall hold you to account for it'.

It is foolish to think marriage is about commitment: nobody needs to be married to be committed to their partner and marriage does not automatically mean commitment. It's just the sensible thing to do when a couple are -supposedly- in it for a lifetime.

venusandmars - good point! If life was that shit then I would have been out the door a long time ago.
I'll surely come back and update once discussions have been had :)

SheCutOff You make some interesting points but I have a different set of beliefs about relationships and commitment. I believe that the only thing that says anything about the state of a relationship is how you behave towards yourselves and towards each other.

So with or without a legal process, privately or publicly, there are many many things that demonstrate deep love and enduring commitment. A partner who willingly gives up a boys day out to spend time taking his dc to sports practice, or a partner who takes a back seat on their career to spend more time at home, or someone who makes their partner a cup of tea in the morning, can all show a constancy of respect, and commitment to agreed family values.

Of course if one partner deeply values being married, then it does need to be discussed and addressed. But being married may be one of many values, and there may be sufficient agreement across all the rest, such that being married ceases to become something that breaks a relationship.

@ 1nervousnellie: I suppose the advantage to him would be that I would be feel that it made us complete

But that's an advantage to you, not him.

@ Wamster It's just the sensible thing to do when a couple are -supposedly- in it for a lifetime.

In reality, about half of them are in it for about 11 years*. Is it the sensible thing to do for them?

@ SheCutOffTheirTails The OP has no public commitment, and no legal security.

If she had the former but not the latter, would she settle for that? If not, then it's not about the message to society etc at all. It's either the social conditioning talking, or it's about her legal security i.e. the money.

Neither is a persuasive argument to him, clearly. His thinking is probably:

• Half of marriages end in divorce
• Mine will be one of them
• Divorce is costly
• so don't get married
• she's a lot better off than she would be in a bad marriage, so what's her problem anyway?

To be honest, it amazes me that nobody connects men's reluctance to get married with the consequences for them of getting divorced. Talking about sending a message to the world that you're a unit, that you're demonstrating your loyalty and mutual commitment to each other, and what not, may be talking around the 600lb gorilla in the room - which is that if he gets all starry eyed and marries the wrong woman, he's going to suffer.

If that's his issue, that's what needs to be worked on.

• women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/relationships/article6879554.ece

Want to cohabit but not be a family We are a family you silly woman

noddy here's a hint - not everything is about you

Some people want to cohabit but not share resources as a family.

The way you do that is to not get married, since doing nothing makes no public statement about your status as s family or otherwise.

People, and most particularly the state, should not presume that couples are to be treated as a legal unit unless they make their desire to be so treated explicit.

You can privately consider yourself to be whatever you choose, but if you want it to be publically recognised, you need to make it public.

vegas interesting points. I would put a big fat "not treating each other with respect and consideration" in the column next to "refusing to marry, refusing to say why, reacting aggressively to the very suggestion".

I turned down 2 proposal from my now husband, even though I was very committed to him. But I think it shows the height of disrespect to treat the subject as though your partner has no right to bring it up.

It isn't remotely surprising that the subject of marriage would be raised after 13 years and a baby. Someone whose reaction to something so pedestrian is defensiveness and lies is not being a decent partner.

No but it seems to be pretty much about you! Your views on what constitutes a family are BS tbh You sound angry and bitter not sure why (hides thread)Good luck to Op though

Thank you noddyholder :)

Nervousnellie, I have been scanning some of the responses here and I just wanted to cheer you on! Having a small baby and falling into this kind of head-frying situation must be totally exhausting. I don't have an opinion about how you should go forward, and I don't know how anyone else can be sure without knowing you both. However, you sound well able to make your own decision :)

I just wanted to tell you my perspective on marriage in case it's any help.

Back when I was dating my DH, I longed for to marry him - it felt like a beautiful, appropriate and necessary expression of our love for each other. Three years post-wedding, it's definitely all that, and I did need the security and romance of a formal commitment in order to grow in the relationship.

However, we have both gone through times when the only thing that kept us together was the promise we'd made to stay together. One or other of us has even walked out on various occasions, but we have always known we were going to have to walk right back in again. That has been very, very sobering.

Looking at marriage from the inside, I wish I'd known beforehand that (1) it's a huge risk - the fact that this is an unbreakable commitment does suck sometimes! I think men drag their heels because they're better at glimpsing this through the romantic haze. (2) If my DH hadn't proposed when he did, it could so easily have meant 'he's frightened of (insert virtually anything) rather than 'he doesn't love me'. If pressurised, I imagine that he would have tried to commit in a rather panic-stricken way, getting totally overwhelmed and confused in the process. (He got panicky enough as it was, actually.)

I don't know if that's helpful in any way, but I really do hope you reach a place of understanding between yourselves. Good luck!x

nothingsoextraordinary - thank you for sharing your perspective. It's an awfully confusing and emotive time, my head is totally melted, so it's good to hear other peoples experiences. Thanks for your good luck wishes, I'll post here when some sort of conclusion has been reached :) x

apocalypto, you said ,

"If it looks like her main reason for wanting to get married is so that she'll be OK at his expense if she ever feels like leaving, then in effect he probably wants not to get married for exactly the reasons that she does."

Brilliantly put.

I completely agree with you and have been banging on about this for years!

1nervousnellie, I do hope you can work things out so you are both happy.

is it normal 4 men not 2 get involed when it comes 2 planning a wedding???
where getting married next year and he just doesnt seem 2 be botherd. everytime i talk bwt the wedding with my dad or my mother in law he walks out off the room or changes the conversation completly and it was his idea 2 get engaged we av been engaged since xmas eve n set a date 4 nxt april the 28th we av but deposits down n iv found my dream wedding dress he wont even ask his best mate 2 be his best man its like he is putting it off.
please ladies give me sum advice before i end up making the worse decison off my life not just 4 me but 4 my 2 gorgeous daughters

1nervousnellie I just wanted to share my experience as I was in the same boat as you. I was with my now DH for 12 years before he proposed (we got married 9 months later) :) We had had a joint mortgage together for 8 years prior to marrying & I was the same as you & wanted marriage & felt he obviously wasn't committed enough if he didn't. Over the years we had had numerous drunken rows/discussions about it & I had thought of leaving him on a couple of occasions as I really wanted to be married to him. Whenever I thought of leaving though I would realise that I couldn't imagine my life without him & by leaving it would not solve my desire of being married to him.

I finally accepted that I would prefer to be with him unmarried than be without him. We were very happy together & I knew he loved me & was committed to me. His reasons for not getting married had always been he wasn't ready & at the time I didn't really understand what he meant & saw it as a bad thing.
Anyway one day he suddenly proposed. It was completely out of the blue & he said he had been thinking of proposing for a couple of years but didn't want to feel pressurised & wanted to plan a big romantic gesture (which he did).
I guess what I am trying to say is think really hard whether you want him in your life & whether your prepared to give that up just because he doesn't feel ready to be married to you. For my DH he saw marriage in an old fashioned sense of being responsible for me/the breadwinner etc & it took him a long time to be ready for that! hth

Yeah, but if he's not planning a big romantic gesture, she and the sprog are shafted.

A man who wants to set the timetable of a relationship to the point that he will punish his partner for "pressurising" him if she brings up the idea of marriage is a sexist bully.

There is nothing remotely romantic about upsetting someone for years so you can perform some big gesture when you have forced them to accept that you are more important than they are.

scott I don't feel he 'punished' me because he felt pressured! You can't force someone to marry someone if the time is not right for them. People have lots of different reasons for not wanting to get married & it doesn't necessarily mean they are not committed to the relationship or looking to leave if & when something better comes along.