House... Baby.. No ring.

[littlerabbitface]

Have nc'd for this.

I suppose this is like a WWYD.

Basically me and oh live together, own the house together, have a baby, own a car jointly, finances are pooled. You get the idea. We act like a married couple.

However we are not a married couple.

Not even engaged.

At first it never bothered me really, but now we have a baby and him and oh have the same surname and I have a different one, I'll admit it does really get to me that we aren't married. I feel like a bit of an idiot.

Before anyone says well why did you buy a house and have a baby with him, well because I thought we would get married and I wasn't bothered if that came before or after a baby!

Now I'm starting to doubt it'll happen. We've been together four years. Neither of us have been married before. He's in his early thirties, I'm in mid twenties.

I know there is no real rush, and realistically we couldn't afford a wedding for maybe a year or two. (Though I'd be happy with a registry office and a nice meal! He wouldn't!)

When I've spoken to him about it he mainly just says we will do it in time, we will get there eventually, not yet, or in a few years, or what's the rush it won't change anything (technically it won't I suppose, obviously legally but in terms of our relationship nothing would change as we're pretty much living as a married couple)

He thinks I want to rush into it and doesn't see why I'm so bothered about doing it because it won't change anything. I say that if it won't change anything then why not just do it instead of putting it off for years.

I guess I'm just a bit fed up and this is just a bit of a whinge. I don't want to leave over this obviously as we have a good relationship, but I want to be married to him and I don't want to have to nag about it.

WWYD in this situation. Can you change the mindset of someone who is not very bothered? He is quite laid back anyway so it comes as no surprise that he is in no rush to do this.

Should I bring it up? Should I forget about it? Should I resign myself to the fact it may never happen?

I am hoping he is secretly thinking about it but I doubt that very much.

I need advice!

We don't need to jointly do anything with the spending money though. We both prefer having our own bit to do what we want with.

He's not saving for uni for either child. Neither am I.

If I got into shit he'd help me. If he got into shit I'd help him. That's what couples do

He'd be able to help you a lot more if he had saved some of his money.

I hope he would help you.

However, it would be wise not to make any more assumptions about your partner. He has already reneged on a tacit agreement between you both regarding marriage and weaselled out of it with excuses which don't add up.

Toad he's already helped when I've needed it. I know he would do it again.

He sounds like an overgrown teenager. Surely as a couple you can look at your finances and decide between you that a certain amount will go into savings for if your boiler breaks, you need a new car, you fancy a holiday etc? Then you can still keep your own money for spending if you like but you are both saving equally for your family's future.

Toad he's already helped when I've needed it. I know he would do it again

Glad to hear it.

Now, ask him to help you sort all this legal stuff out for you and your child's future in lieu of marriage.

It's really important.

There are quite a few differences between being married and just living together, these are the ones that most people find important:

1. Your OH will only have legal parental responsibility for your child if you are either married or he is listed on the birth certificate. Although parents have to ensure that their child is supported financially, whether they have parental responsibility or not. This may not be important to you now but if something were to happen to you, if your OH does not have parental responsibility that could cause a whole host of problems.

1. As an unmarried couple if one of you were to die, the other would not necessarily inherit automatically unless you jointly owned property.

1. If one unmarried partner inherits from the other they are not exempt from paying inheritance tax whereas married couples are.

1. If either of you were to become seriously ill or incapacitated, the other partner would not necessarily be able to act as next of kin whereas a spouse will always have authority to act as next of kin.

1. If you're an unmarried partner, you can be called as a witness for or against the other partner in both civil and criminal cases. You can be forced to appear and give evidence. Married couples cannot be.

He sounds like an overgrown teenager. Surely as a couple you can look at your finances and decide between you that a certain amount will go into savings for if your boiler breaks, you need a new car, you fancy a holiday etc? Then you can still keep your own money for spending if you like but you are both saving equally for your family's future.

We have insurance to cover repair and replacement of boiler.

Cars/holidays/whatever get decided on and then they're taken out as a 'bill' before we get spending money.

You all seem to think I'm getting short changed! I'm not!

I would say he's acting single. The minute he started acting like that he'd be out on his arse.

He doesn't want to get married or save but he's not cheating, flirting with other women or going out every weekend.

Wouldn't

Forgot to mention baby has an isa that we both pay into equally (we class that as a bill so I totally forgot about it)

I think you're being short-changed because you had a child and bought a house with someone on the proviso that marriage, with all the legal protection that offers, would follow. He has now reneged on that but won't tell you what he actually feels about marriage or possibly just marriage to you. You save for the future and he doesn't. He says he can't afford a ring and a big wedding and that this is the barrier to you getting married. Yet he won't save for it. Because he doesn't want to get married. It sounds like he wanted another baby and to own a house, and is possibly happy enough being with you, but doesn't want to make a further commitment that would make it much more difficult for him to either leave, or meet another woman. You believed you were starting a life with someone who was going to fully commit. I think you have been shortchanged. And I feel sorry for you!

Or maybe marriage feels too much like growing up?

Hi LRF

I have read the whole thread and I think you are in a horrible situation. A relationship that seems to work well on the surface but digging deeper it doesn't look that healthy. The fact that he won't get married - despite everything you have together being so precious - will be the enormous elephant in your relationship. How can you put the lid back on this can of worms? You've had to ask again several times and now you have a straight 'no' and he won't really tell you why. Every time you see a friend get married or both watch something on tv it will be awful. I really feel for you but I think you know that you deserve better. It is important to sort out the legalities, yes - but deeper than that is the feeling of injustice you have. He led you to believe that it was going to happen 'one day', then backtracked with saying he couldn't afford a ring to a straight out 'no'. I would be thinking long and hard about whether I wanted to stay with him. It's not just a proposal now - it's a huge issue between you and it seems that he has the power of the veto. There are two of you (three really) in this relationship - why does he get to call all the shots?

You and you DP seem to have a great relationship other than this. It comes down to you either stop trying to force the issue for a while and carry on as normal or you leave and start again in the hope you will find someone else who will marry you in the future when you're like well old

I'm not married. Never had or will have a joint account. We are both pretty meh about marriage. Child has his surname. My choice. I wouldn't change mine anyway. She is still my DD regardless of name.
We are committed to each other as much as anyone who is married.

If he genuinely doesn't want to get married (I think he wants you to just stop talking about it tbh) then at the very least he needs to get legal stuff sorted as others have said. Depends if, deep down, that is enough for you.

*Do you think you'll want more children?

• If yes, would you be happy to have more kids with a man who won't marry you?

• If you want more children, but not until you are married, that means you can't have any more children and stay with this man. Are you okay with that?

• If you don't want more children and do stay with this man, will you be able to put the resentment about no-marriage behind you?

I don't want any more children.

I don't know whether I can put this behind me.

I'm just going to stop talking about it and see what happens because seemingly talking about it makes fuck all difference and on here im just made to feel like an idiot by some posts (most have been great and helpful and supportive)

I'm in a similar boat. As are some friends. Promises of marriage at some point, get house, have children, no marriage. Sort of drags on and you begin to have more serious discussions which removes the romance of someone declaring they want to spend the rest of their life with you. There comes a tipping point where you know if you say one more thing you are 'badgering' and therefore you are taking away freedom of choice and romance. So you bite your tongue and worry.

I have no advice, just I feel your pain. I think it's because marriage isn't a necessity anymore (as long as you have other legalities sorted) so they don't see why they need to commit. It's hard to say goodbye to a dream you had of your dp pronouncing to the world how much he loves you, especially after going through pregnancy and childbirth.

But it looks as though somehow you are going to have to put it to bed. It doesn't necessarily mean he doesn't love you.

"The issue we are skating round here is that your DP perhaps does have some very definite, but not very palatable reasons for not getting married, [...]
The fact that he shuts you up and shuts down the conversation is not encouraging.[...] He is not suggesting another option to keep OP happy ('let's do all the legal stuff that will make you feel secure, my love'), he is merely trying to shut her up."

this was ages ago! but is so spot on.

I didn't want to get married, exP did.
I had all sorts of philosophical issues with it but I was coming round to the idea. What I wasn't coming around to was the number of day to day issues that were a problem for me in the relationship, and the fact that I wasn't allowed to talk about them. I would be punished for trying to.

In the end, I changed my mind about marriage per se, and I thought I wanted to work with exP on building the relationship to a point where I trusted him enough to marry him.

We never got to that point because he was always too selfish and controlling for me to entrust my whole legal and financial and emotional future to him.

If he, or anyone, had asked me, the day before we split, why were weren't married, I would never have said "stuff about us" or "stuff about P" - I would have said "stuff about marriage". It wasn't true. or only partly true. It was stuff about us, and P. Stuff I wanted to fix, but stuff that was there.

The difference between your situation and mine is: I was the one who wanted to talk and didn't want marriage; your P is the one who doesn't want to talk and doesn't want marriage.

"I'm just going to stop talking about it and see what happens because seemingly talking about it makes fuck all difference "

No. don't do that. I took that attitude about the things that were bothering me in my relationship and it ended.
(It might have ended anyway; but it might not)

If you do do that: be aware that you are keeping a silence that has been exacted from you by pressure. You're being a good girl and responding to punishment.

Hi LittleRabbitFace,

This is my first post on here, I have been lurking for years but had to sign up when I read your thread as I feel for you so much. I am older than you, with my partner 8 years, our daughter is 4. I have had the exact same conversations as you (aswell as arguments, tears, calm discussions, screaming matches and everything in between) and have also been reassured "we will do it" for years. I totally get the going to weddings thing where everyone asks you when it will be you. And at first you smile and say hopefully soon, then after a while say "oh we are having a baby first" then after that say "we are waiting til said baby is old enough to be part of it" until you finally just say "don't ask me, ask him" and laugh it off while slowly dying inside.

Fast forward (or not) to last year, I had a milestone birthday, one I had previously put as a marker for "by then or never" and I finally get my ring. I am over the moon delighted, he is reasonably reserved and shy about the whole thing but I am so happy to realise he did want it after all... Except now, 8 months later, the wedding venue is booked, the registrar, my (beautiful, amazing) dress has been purchased and we are arguing. a lot. he seems so unhappy, he is distancing himself, we are not being intimate until one night at a (wedding) party it all blows up and he finally tells me he doesn't want to get married, he never has and he doesn't believe in it. Cue devastation, angst, regret and humiliation beyond belief, I feel betrayed, lied to hurt more than ever. So its over. We have split up, he now sleeps on the sofa until the flat he is going to rent becomes available and we are being amicable for the sake of our little girl. I am heartbroken but also not a fool. I wish I had listened to what he hadnt been saying all those years when he never asked me to marry him. I was clear from the outset of what I wanted, we had a child first because I felt time was not on our side and we could get married any time, because thats what we both wanted wasn't it? Except it wasn't. And whatever happened one of us would have lived a life time of resenting the other.

I cant tell you what to do, no one else can, but please don't believe you are not good enough, because you are. I wish you well, its a bloody hard situation to be in and I don't envy the times you have ahead of you while you come to terms with the decision which is being made out of your hands x

I don't think I could easily forgive the dishonesty. It's a fundamental trust issue isn't it? How can you really rely on him to have your back when he was quite happy to actively deceive you.

I don't think you are being short changed in a financial sense as things currently stand, but were you to become ill/unable to work or your child needed a full time carer, you would be massively risking your financial security. No one knows how the future will pan out and as things stand you can never be vulnerable with him without risk. He doesn't seem to want to acknowledge that and I would find it hard to get past that.

Op what a crap situation, I'm sorry

If it was me I think I would either genuinely make my peace with never being married and get all the legal protection you can

Or

Split up

I know neither of those options are what you want, I'm sorry it know it must be really difficult. Please don't take it personally though, it's nothing to do with your worth, it's completely his stuff, and he says he wouldn't be with you if he didnt want to be. You couldn't have foreseen him essentially changing his mind.

I recommend maybe some individual counselling to work out how you feel about it, talk with someone not connected to the situation where you can be completely honest and work out which of the two options you want to do. Staying like this where you are feeling awlful about it will eventually poison the relationship anyway. You need to make your peace with never getting married or leave and find someone who does.

I'm not sure whether has has been dishonest, or genuinely changed his mind and then tried to get out of it.

I am just sat crying in my own about it now.

I don't know what to do I just feel completely helpless.

I'm not sure I can ever get over it. I don't think I can.

I don't want to leave either, I may never meet anyone else. Even if I did I don't want to marry anyone else. I want to marry him.

I'm so sorry you went through that ring