Men who don't want to get married

[lovemydogs]

Am going out with a guy who was married 25 years then divorced. He next lived with someone for 10 year - he promised to marry her and didn't and finally she left. He admits he didn't want to get married and shouldn't have told her he did. Alot of it has to do with money and pensions ie if they had divorced she would have been entitled to more than if co-habiting. So I am in my 40s never been married. And at some stage I would like to get married to someone if I meet "the right one". I am starting to feel very depressed as it starts to dawn on me that probably he will never want to marry again - he loved his ex but wouldn't marry her. So why would he marry me? He is 60 and I am 44. I love him. I do not want to split up but I am starting to feel almost angry that I am probably having a relationship that will, at best, lead to co-habiting. I want to the full works - ideally with him but don't want to "just live with someone". That is me. i do not disagree with living together and have done it twice before but feel I want a man to want to marry me and not have me without the same commitment. I am sitting here eating ben n jerrys ice cream at 9am because I feel miserable about this. Am I flogging a dead horse or do you think some men won't marry X but then they meet and marry Y? I suspect if money is the issue, then that won't change.
Just appreciate any opinions, be as frank as you want. Thanks.

I adore my partner. love him and am completely committed to him. And am pretty certain it's a lifetime commitment. But I don't want to marry him (or anyone else). I've done it and wasn't keen by the end. It's not about him not being good enough at all. It's just the way I feel. Luckily he's fine with it. I can understand if you haven't been married you wanting to, OP, with the right person.
However I do think the poster above who professes marriage is a piece of paper but calls her partner her husband is maybe not convinced. Why pretend?

I have spent a working life time building my own assets.

There is absolutely no way I would ever consider marrying again.

Everything I have worked for will go to my children. They are my constants - partners and H's can come and go.

why are you pursuing a man who doesnt want to marry
if he didn't marry her he won't marry you
if you really want to marry, then best and it and find a husband or live in sin

CakeMe, in that case what would happen to anything over the £250k

Half of anything above £250k passes immediately to those next in line according to the rules of intestacy (living children are first).

The surviving spouse receives a life interest in the other half of anything over £250k (i.e it is invested and the spouse receives the interest for the duration of their life).

Upon the death of the spouse, that money also passes to the next in line (the children).

More information here

to be frank if marriage important to you,stop shacking up with guys.
you need to be clear youre after marriage else once you move in,unlikely they marry you
rod Stewart is the only 60something year old who likes getting married that I can think of.oh and Hugh heffner

Ooh I am shacked up and living in sin! Feels much more exciting than wifedom! It sounds as if Mick Jagger is about to come in the door at any minute and rip my dress off

I'm living and sin too,and don't want married
but if one desperate to marry no use being the biddie in
ESP not to 60yo singleton

One reason I wish I was younger is because I am interested to see how this all plays out over the next 40 or 50 years.

We have seen divorce become easier and as a result about half of marriages end in a divorce. Lots that don't must be miserable just short of that point. At the same time the number of cohabiting unmarrieds has gone up presumably in part because of the risks and pain of divorce.

I keep reading in the papers about how lawyers think these unmarried couples should have more "rights", comparable to those of married couples.

In practice if such couples wanted these "rights" they could just get married.

all it really means is that lawyers think there should be more work for lawyers when such couples either get together or split up.

however, it seems pretty clear that the "rights" being talked about are largely the rights of one party to claim money from the other on separation or death. if this goes anywhere, then in effect we will have a situation whereby the state forcibly marries you after some arbitrary period of cohabitation.

I reckon that once this happens (and it will) it will more or less end the practice of cohabitation. there will be simply be too much risk for the more solvent party. the assumption is that this is always the man and that all these dim, poor cohabiting women need to protected from themselves. but if a woman with a job and a £20,000 car cohabits with a bloke with £20,000 student debt from the PhD he's doing, and they split up, she could find herself selling her car and housing him on the grounds that she acquired "rights" after x years.

problems like the OP's where her bloke won't marry her will then pale, as future generations find they can't even persuade the opposite sex to date them.

I feel a dystopian novel coming on...

Being quite harsh I can never understand the people who moon over marriage.

Marriage to me is entirely separate to a long term and committed relationship and is entirely about the law.

I am married because when I met DH I was a single mother on benefits. When we moved in my children and I became financially dependent on him entirely and because of his wage and my earning capacity it would have cost me money to work. This involved some financial insecurity for me and my dcs and we got engaged the month before we moved in together. I was not prepared to live together without marriage because of this and because of the fact I wanted to have a baby with him too.

I don't actually see what marriage has to do with love. You don't need marriage for love.

incidentally the OP's SO may also wonder what a 44yo woman is doing with a 60yo old man.

So it's clear op he's not marrying kind
you either gotta put up
or move on find a marrying kind of man

Sorry he is not going to go down the aisle as Cognito says without some hard line tatics, It really boils down to what you have and what he has at this stage in our mature lives even though you are still a young thing compared to him, he obviously does not want the hassle or to make changes, still if he really cares for you I would like to think he would listen and maybe be persuaded, good luck to you hope it works out.

Does he have children? Do you want to have children?

If he has children he will probably be concerned about inheritance.

If you want children, don't waste any more of your life on this man. You're still young!

If you don't want children, why bother getting married?

The difference between women who get the man to marry them and those who don't is that they insist upon it. Simple as that.

Tell him to leave you if he won't marry you. You don't have to be the one who does the walking.

OP have you asked him if he would want to get married again? Or where he sees the relationship going? Boyfriend and girlfriend, housemates, spouses?

I wanted to get married because iwanted to be more than 'just' his girlfriend, it was important to me. Our vows were to protect, love, honour, cherish and be faithful, which you can have of course without being married, but being a wife and having him as my husband makes us both happy and proud somehow?!

Once you ask him you'll have your answer and you can either marry him, not get married but continue in the relationship or break up.

This guy led his ex partner up the garden path for 10 YEARS! Promised to marry her but wouldn't and admits that he shouldn't have done this. Why on earth do you want to marry him? He's a selfish lying toad!! Men like this are the reason women want the security of marriage. If you had a child with him and any of the complications that family life can bring arose would he act fairly or hide his stash? I think the latter tbh.

I'm separating and know I will never get married again. Well if I did it would have to be for money

Marriage is bollocks I have come to the conclusion. It's only in recent years that it's been associated mostly with romantic love. Historically, it was a way for families to share and retain financial assets. These things are a bit incompatible really. The best reason to get married is actually the historical one - for financial reasons, for security in that sense. The romantic love thing seems so often not to work out.

He will not marry you. So you need to find someone who will if that's what you want.

You know what you need to do.

I will not be getting married, and I don't know why any high earner or potentially high earner would want to. If your spouse decides they are fed up with you or prefer someone else and dump you they get 50% of everything. It's completely unfair. If you're a healthy adult you are capable of making your own living. Why should you get someone else's assets just because you stood in a registry office for 10 minutes once? (different if one has been a SAHP and sacrificed career for children/otherwise contributed to the shared wealth)

Being married doesn't protect you from your partner ditching you, as many threads on here show. Unless you are religious it doesn't really mean anything.

If pre-nups become more enforceable I would consider it, but I would hope any partner of mine wouldn't give a toss. Equally if I was with someone much richer than me I would not want them to feel they couldn't end the relationship out of fear that I would get some of their assets. I am perfectly capable of having a happy, loving, lasting relationship without some arbitrary legal arrangement being brought into it. If someone insisted on getting married I would immediately feel trapped and stifled. Ultimately I would end the relationship if they refused to give up on the idea.

Plus the thought of having a wedding brings me out in a rash.

Exactly what Bertie just said.

And why I won't contemplate getting married. I'm more than happy to fund holidays, days out, nights out, day-to-day stuff while we are together. But no way will I risk another grown adult fleecing me if the relationship ends. The law really needs to catch up with reality on this.

I am talking about relationships where there are no dependent children btw.

I am only 25 btw, but have decided this early! Training as a lawyer has probably contributed to my world-view... I expect it to save me a lot of trouble in life.

And if a man tried 'tactics' on me to get me to marry him then he could fuck off

Just a nod to where state may head ... I do love the UK idea that relationships are all personal but there are severe consequences to the individualistic path. In the bit of united states I know of then 3 years co habit equals a whole new set of rights .. not equal to marriage but enough to leave a wake of 2 year 10 month relationships

Marriage was important to me, as well as to the man I eventually married, so we got married. (We are religious, though.)

If it's very important to you, move on. If not, it's not.

I do think it was rather harsh of him to string some woman along for ten years though. :(

'(different if one has been a SAHP and sacrificed career for children/otherwise contributed to the shared wealth)'

I think marriage protects (or gives some protection) to the person who takes on the majority of the childcare and puts their carreer on hold, and I would say this happens in most relationships, and it's usually the mother.

Ate there many relationships where high-flying women marry low-earning men?

I can't think of many (any)