Opinions on marriage/enagements

[irnbru22]

OK so I'm of the opinion that getting married after youve been together 8+ years/have already had kids is pointless as you have already shown commitment to each other. When I see people with a baby/infant getting married I always think theyre doing it to kind of make things look more 'proper' IYKWIM, rather than the desire to get married.

I also dislike long engagements. I think once your engaged you should be married within a year. I would rather be BF/GF for 4 years and engaged for one than in a relationship for 2 years an 'engaged' for 3. I feel sometimes people just put the engaged label on the relationship to make it appear more serious but never have any intention to go through with it.

I wouldn't ever say this to any couple BTW. I was just wondering if my thoughts were extremely old fashioned or other people feel the same?

I agree about the legal protections of marriage being the biggest factor.

To be honest I think marriage should not make a difference to the quality of your relationship - your feelings and commitment. They are either there or they're not, you'll either make it as a couple or you won't. Marriage won't change that.

I like weddings where the couple have been together a long time, it seems more likely to last. Off topic but I worked out the other day all the weddings I've been to and how many are still together. Can't remember them all now but more than half of them are divorced. I must be a bad omen - don't invite me to your wedding .

DH and I had been together for over 6 years when we got married - so not quite as long as the 8+ years in your OP - but it was not pointless at all for us. The reason it took us a while is that we were young (both 22) when we met, so we were in no rush to get serious early on.

We were engaged for 16 months too - so shoot us!

Personally I don't know anyone who has got engaged without any intention of getting married. I do know one or two couples who split up when they were engaged, but they were definitely planning a wedding.

I think it's a really odd thing to have a view about. Surely you do (or should) just think about your own circumstances and what you would like to do.

Dolly saving for a wedding may not wash with you and I wholeheartedly agree that it is about a marriage rather than one day.

However my DP and I wanted to celebrate our commitment to each other in our own way. For us that means saving up so that we can pay for our guest to come and celebrate with us. We're paying for everything bar the clothes on our guests backs.

Because we want to

I wouldn't dream of telling anyone what to spend or how to celebrate their birthday, wedding or funeral - it's none of my business. But quite why people feel that there needs to be a time line on an engagement and that saving for a wedding is frowned upon, totally baffles me.

OP you sound very judgemental and a bit of a saddo tbh – why not just let people do what they want. Not sure why you even care to have an opinion on how long people stay engaged or when/if they choose to get married. Mind your own business and let others be.

"you have already shown commitment to each other"

Commitment is not the same as a contract. Marriage or civil partnership confers certain inheritance and property rights. The same thing can be achieved with a few sessions with a solicitor, drawing up various agreements and signing documents but marriage is a handy short-cut. Simply living together and having children may be an emotional commitment but, if something goes wrong, people quickly find out it means nothing in a legal sense. Ditto with 'engaged'... it's simply a statement of intention but otherwise meaningless.

The way I understand is that you are not jointly liable for your spouse's debts. Only if the debts are in joint names or if you have a shared credit card account. But assets held in common can be held against debt. I did look this up and sometimes in divorce settlements it is part of the agreement when dividing up assets. But you are not automatically held responsible for your husband/wife's debt.

I don't know about this - I'm on the fence.

I also think long official engagements are a bit daft.

But on the other hand, when are you actually engaged? Does there need to be a formal proposal, ring, and big announcement to everyone? Or is it when you both agree that you are going to get married? I've read loads of threads with people saying it's silly to 'get engaged' (proposal, ring, announcement) if you've already discussed and agreed on marriage, as you are already engaged really. It's an intention to marry.

And there could be lots of reasons why there's an intention and agreement to marry, but not immediately.

Am I engaged? I don't know. Have discussed and agreed marriage with DP, but it's not going to happen for a couple of reasons until later next year. We've not told anyone. We won't be doing a 'proposal' and probably won't bother with engagement ring. But we do have that intention and agreement. I wouldn't call myself engaged, but I suppose I am.

I also had a feed on facebook this weekend from someone I know vaguely who announced she'd got back from holiday and appears to have got engaged. Same situation, they agreed to get married, low key, and he surprised her with a 'proposal' and ring on holiday. she was a bit confused - all that wasn't necessary to her, but appreciated it, but also wondering how she'd thought they were already engaged, but he didn't.

Different people have different ideas about what engagement is.

'You're jointly liable for debts in marriage too.'

This is definitely not true. Only a person who has signed up for the debt can be held liable for it. If the debt is in one person's name, then the spouse has no responsibility for it, any more than the person's parents, kids, next door neighbour.

I'm sorry to say your friend was badly advised, brokenhearted. Unless they were joint debts because she'd signed the agreements as well.