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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Should I dump DP? Won't get married.

143 replies

BexFactor · 30/09/2012 17:10

He doesn't want to marry me basically.

After years of not wanting to get married, I've had a change of heart recently. I like the idea of that extra commitment, the contract or promise. Formalising our family (just us for now, hopefully DC not too far off).

We spoke about it a few months ago and I explained how I felt and that I want to get married, not have a wedding. He was up for us going down the town hall and just doing it one day. He explained he hadn't ever really wanted to get married but he was fine with this.

Then I talked about wondering whether I would regret my DB not being there when I got married. DP was v unhappy I had vocalised this, 'Next thing they'll be 100 people coming' etc etc. I said that we should talk about all of the options - just us, just us + DB or a small group (I think we counted about 20 close friend's and family).

Anyway for whatever reason a few weeks later we were talking about how much other people spend on their weddings and I said would a thousand pounds really be that bad and he said 'yes when I don't want to get married at all anyway'. Needless to say I was a bit upset about this, having (stupidly) thought that after we talked before, that he did want to marry me.

So I've been thinking about what to do now. Do I just accept that DP will never marry me and stay with him? Or do I move on and hops I meet someone who wants the same things as I do?

OP posts:
BexFactor · 01/10/2012 20:40

Sorry, FASTING! Blush

OP posts:
fluffyraggies · 01/10/2012 20:41

Hahahahahahahahaahh!

fluffyraggies · 01/10/2012 20:47

Hand-fasting is a ritual that is performed to 'bind' a couple together 'for as long as love shall last'. Performed by a spiritual leader. It's not legally binding, except in Scotland if i remember rightly, so for it to be legally binding you would have to do the register office bit too. Before or afterwards.

Lovely though - outdoor ceremony - friends and family relaxed and happy. You can have as much or little fuss as you want.

nkf · 01/10/2012 21:05

Where in his 20s? Give the boy a break.

BexFactor · 01/10/2012 21:12

Thanks for the reminders nkf and Lola... I keep forgetting that no one in their 20s is able to commit and then magically become so at 30. I really must remember the rules!

OP posts:
BexFactor · 01/10/2012 21:16

Hand fasting sounds OK but hand fisting is more my sort of thing. Grin

OP posts:
nkf · 01/10/2012 21:30

You'd be surprised how often people do change around 30.

Spero · 01/10/2012 22:12

I think there needs to be much more cold hearted clear eyed conversations about marriage and children. Getting it wrong can wreck your life. Far too much fluffy hearts and flowers crap goes on I think.

I wouldn't worry so much about him not wanting to get married, it's the refusing to talk sensibly about it which is the massive red flag. I don't care if he is in his 20s, that is plenty old enough to have a sensible respectful conversation with the woman you love about something which matters to her.

LolaCola1 · 01/10/2012 23:16

There are no 'rules' and you wanted people's opinions, no? That just happens to be mine.

Do I think folk should marry in their 20s? If they want to. However, if they don't ...and this applies to your particular 20 something bloke, then that's fine too.

He has made it clear to you what he wants. Decide what you want and what you will accept. Or hound him about it constantly. Or seethe quietly. A myriad of options.

expatinscotland · 02/10/2012 01:55

'You'd be surprised how often people do change around 30. '

Oh, I never knew till I got there myself. And I loved, loved, loved my boyfriend at that time. Past anything.

He, though the same age, was not ready.

I left everything, everything I knew as life - a comfortable upbringing, I'd already left another man who decided he never wanted children, good jobs, a house, family, what have you, for what I knew I really wanted: to be married to someone who wanted children with me.

I found it, thousands of miles away, with a man nearly 7 years younger, from an entirely different background and culture.

We married and had three children, the eldest of whom we lost in July.

I'm 41 now, in some ways I'm young, in others I'm a thousand years old.

But I have a daughter left living to me, a son was well and I'll say this: don't be afraid to live for who you are now, because that's all you are and all you have.

The problem isn't marriage, per se, it's in how he communicates, or lack thereof.

That's what you need to deal with.

No one can make you happy but yourself. And if marriage and kids are what you want, and now, then you sit yourself down and you puzzle that out and you decide if no marriage and no kids is what you want, and for how long.

Because you only get one shot at this, Bex. And you have to live it for yourself.

Life is far, far too short for much regret, and I know because most of my adult life is a cataogue of just such. But none when it came to, at 30, deciding that I wanted marriage and children, and if I tried and didn't succeed at that, that was okay, but what I couldn't deal with is not having tried for letting someone else decide for me. No decision is still a decision.

And I can't tell you what a wrench it was.

Only you have to wake up and be you everday, Bex. No one else has.

Decide: what do I want? When do I want it? You don't need to justify to anyone but yourself, but that's the beauty part of living for yourself because at present, that's how it stands.

But don't go around sowing the seeds of your own future regret.

There's nothing wrong with what you want. It's very normal and some would say, it's very banal.

That's beside the point. You want it.

Decide and make it known.

It's not without consequence, but consider the fallout from the advantage of its just being you for now.

You can't love anyone without loving yourself first.

Best of luck.

Spero · 02/10/2012 15:53

Exactly.

If only all young women could read that and believe it.

JugglingWithPossibilities · 02/10/2012 16:00

Beautiful post expat Smile

Best of luck OP Thanks

Helltotheno · 02/10/2012 16:10

Decide: what do I want? When do I want it? You don't need to justify to anyone but yourself, but that's the beauty part of living for yourself because at present, that's how it stands.

This. Good post expat. The opinions other people have on marriage are irrelevant. Decide what you want and go and get it.

Apocalypto · 02/10/2012 19:03

At the risk of pouring cold water, what expat says is fine but there is also the risk that you walk away, find nothing better and look back and figure you would have been better off staying with this bloke.

Anyone in an unhappy relationship, looking back on exes they dumped and now regret having dumped, would recognise this risk.

You still at some point need to figure out what his underlying objection to marriage is. It is not just down to either (a) he doesn't want a big ceremony or (b) he doesn't want to spend the money. I can think of at least two more.

(c) He is in his 20s, has barely achieved financial independence / place of his own etc, has spent very few years being carefree, getting lagered up and going on mountaineering holidays to Iceland with the lads. Instead he is being pressured to embark on being tied in with you before he feels properly ready. This is not an uncommon sentiment among people in their 20s, and while it's tempting to dismiss it as immaturity, if you look at the rate at which people who married in their 20s divorce, you should both take it seriously as an issue.

(d) More intractably from your perspective, he's looked into the relative benefits to him of splitting from you when married versus unmarried and correctly concluded that he's better off unmarried. The "protection" referred to repeatedly upthread is in fact enjoyed by one partner at the other's expense. It's zero sum. It does not follow that it'll be him who loses - women wealthier than their spouses have had to fork out for them - but he may think it does.

It's a cliché that women have greater intuition, empathy, people skills etc than men. Simply from reading these MN threads, I have become convinced it's generally a dodgy proposition. If you look at the men in these threads who convince their women to overlook their prostitution habit, their secret crossdressing, their homosexuality, their cocklodging, their eye-bulging lying etc - and at how often the women vigorously defend them! - one has to consider that many men are, in fact, exceptionally astute judges of character. They know to a T what their women will put up with.

It is possible that you are with one who's worked out that you'll stand for any of a to d above, and so far he's not wrong.

Feckbox · 02/10/2012 20:12

very wise post, Apocalypto, in particular your point (d) which needs to be said more often

BexFactor · 02/10/2012 20:14

I love him and don't want to leave Apoco. He's not interested in getting drunk with the lads and all of that. He works very hard, is v smart and ambitious and earns really good money and (apart from the one communication issue) is older than his years. If he was a 'lad' I wouldn't be with him - not my cup of tea!

I would rather be with him and unmarried than with anyone else. He is great.

His issue with marriage is actually the wedding side of things. I haven't spoken to him since Sunday about it (apart from both of us saying, 'Sorry, love you,') but it's the spectacle- lots of people and tasteless but expensive cake.. I absolutely will want to secure myself (and him) for when we have children though so we will discuss it again. Smile

And thank you for your story expat. That was right for you but I'm not going to walk away Smile

OP posts:
BexFactor · 02/10/2012 20:18

Oh and as I said a few posts up, he is not being 'tied down' by me. He pursued me for a relationship when we met and made it v clear he wanted commitment with me. And re money, he's v good with it and I know he will always financially support me. He is a kind, wet lefty and what's his is his family's.

And I may have outed myself with that so I'm off to name change Wink

OP posts:
izzyizin · 02/10/2012 21:49

Probably a bit late to book a slot in the registry office for Christmas or New Year's Eve but maybe worth a try - that way you get to marry quietly on a 'romantic' day that he'll forget at his peril neither of you can forget and someone is bound to be having a party that will become a celebration of your wedding when you turn up with a sprinkling of confetti in your hair Grin

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