He says he doesn't want to get married.

[thisisallnewtome8]

We have been together 3 years. Over the weekend I mentioned that I would like us to get married at some point. We have both been married before. Only DP said he doesn't want to get married again. He doesn't see the point of it. It has no bearing on how he feels about me.
I feel crushed to be honest. How can he marry one person. Decide not to marry me and for me not to feel second best?
Is marriage really not important?
The reasons behind wanting to get married.

1. I love him
2. I want to be his wife.
3. I want to feel part of his family and not an outsider.

His reasons for not getting married

1. He doesn't see the point
2. It doesn't mean anything

Diolch Aderyn. I have no idea if I feel like their mum to be honest. I have nothing to compare it to. I love them, feel protective, feel proud of them. They also infuriate me at times. Is that being a mum?

You state that you live like a family but you are a family unit of his design. You are not fully integrated into the family unit he created with his first wife because he wants you to remain as his live in girlfriend. His live in gf, his house, his earnings, his children; its all about him and his own interests.

If you have cared for these children during any part of the working day then your own earning power has been affected.

You want to marry him. He for his own reasons does not want to marry you. Something has to give in the end.

I think some people have been very unfair to the DP in this case. Or at least placing a very high level of importance on marriage whilst not understanding the OPs DP has a different understanding. Is marriage always about keeping someone as an outsider? Given the ease of divorce and the higher rates of divorce, being married really means nothing when it comes to being an insider or outsider.

If the value of a relationship is decided by a bit of paper and the 20 or so legal words in a marriage ceremony then is the relationship that stable and that good?

Sorry Cuppa. I think maybe i was being a bit defensive. Yes indeed I would have to leave but I'm not sure that would make me feel worse than I already would at the relationship ending.

I really don't understand why you shouldn't inherit his money when he dies, with the understanding that it's passed onto his children when you die (of course). Since there are no other children involved, this seems straightforward/neat.

Can you clarify that?

Thanks Scottish. I'm keen not to turn into a poster that leaps to the defence of my DP.
A few things said about him are not correct but that's because I've only given a snap shot of our lives.
Also I'm not a poor girlfriend scrabbling around for crumbs of a relationship.
We are very much equals. I live in his house. It's his children's home. It's much bigger than mine. He would be happy to move.
These were all discussed beforehand. How I managed to forget about marriage I don't know. Maybe it wasn't important before I knew he didn't want to. Is it something I can accept? I'm not sure.
We have a fantastic life. We love and respect one another. We help each other out (yes including looking after his children). We travel. We go out. He was wholeheartedly given me a family.
But no marriage.

I think comments about the OP's earning potential are unfair here. OP has already stated that she owns her own house and earns a decent salary. If you're going down the earnings route, then conversely the DP wouldn't have any rights to the OP's house and money either if they split/she died, so it goes both ways.

But ultimately it's simple. Marriage is important to the OP, but her DP doesn't want to get married. neither is wrong in their individual thinking, but it makes a relationship incompatible because either one of them has to compromise, and it will be a compromise given they both have set views on the subject, or they end the relationship in order to pursue relationships with people who share their individual values.

I would see not wanting to marry me as a rejection especially if he'd been married to someone else before. To say that you don't believe in marriage after you've already been married is completely disingenuous.

But if he genuinely didn't want to get married then I would consider our relationship to be untenable and I would leave.

Museum. I have no need of his money. I have my own and have no desire to inherit anything that he and his wife accumulated during their marriage. They built that for their children. That would still stand even if we were married.

Op, this could be me and my partner. I'm divorced, he was widowed 20 years ago. When we met 12 years ago he made it very plain that he will never remarry, as he had "done that doesn't need/want to. I was disappointed but decided I wanted to stay the relationship. We are older than you though, early 60's so all of our children were adults when we met and moved in together.
12 years on his view on remarrying has not changed despite me secretly hoping he would change his mind. Im perfectly OK with this now, but not sure if I would have felt the same if I had been younger/wanting children with him.
There is no doubt that living together long term is not the same as being married in my opinion. Although we own 2 houses, one each, live in one and rent the other, our finances are not completely meshed and I don't think I am officially his next of kin.
Ps I still occasionally secretly hope he will change his mind!

And that is the elephant in the room. This is not going to go away OP.

You are many things to him but you are not equals and nor are you equals either in the eyes of the law. This is all really on his terms.

Attila. Thanks. Can we try it reversed though. I want to marry. He doesn't but agrees to it because it's important to me. Is that equal?

Museum. I have no need of his money. I have my own and have no desire to inherit anything that he and his wife accumulated during their marriage. They built that for their children. That would still stand even if we were married.

Is he significantly older than you?

I find this slightly strange. I kind of get it, but mostly I don't. You're functioning as the children's mother and presumably supporting your partner in his career and doing everything a wife does.

op

What is it you need that you feel you can only obtain via marrige, after all so many people on here are insisting that you do need something, given that you are best placed to know your desires?

Yes but he has not done that; he is only taking into account his own feelings on the matter and discarded yours. He has told you that he does not want to get married again because he does not see the point and it does not mean anything. I am certain that his first wife, if she was still living, would have a lot to say about that point of view.

(I cannot see him moving house within the next few years either; he would probably cite this as being too disruptive for the children amongst other reasons. If he is indeed happy to move then why has he not done this?)

How do his own parents view you?.

I am certain that his first wife if she was still living would have something to say about that.

Museum. No I'm 40. He's 46. The children were ridiculously young when his wife died.
He raised them alone for a long time with a help for school runs. This is still in place for when I'm also in work.
I've always worked full time but work shifts so can look after them when I'm off. This is my choice. The childcare is paid regardless. His career was already well established before we met so I don't really enable him to work. Am I making sense?

I think you have to decide if you can take the risk of completely loving him and his family with no security.
Not to push you into something you may not want but have either of you thought about you adopting the dc and being their mother in legal terms as well as in everyday caring for them. I hope I am not speaking out of turn, because I don't know what your relationship with them is like - do you make parental decisions for them already, take time off when they get chicken pox and spend all day cuddling them on the sofa? If not, do you want to? Or are these things that he does? Does he keep you on the fringes or are you an equal parent when it comes to decision making. If not, do you want to be? Being a mum is not something you can do with one foot in and one out.

My thinking is that if you are content being a step mum but not an actual mum, then respect his choice, decide if you marriage is essential to you for emotional reasons and not as a means to feel more part of the family and then stay or go depending on what you can live with.
If, otoh, you actually really want to be a proper mum with rights and responsibilities and he is unwilling to give you that in terms of marriage or adopting the children, then in your shoes I would leave, I think.
If you truly want to be fully 'in' then it is too hard to live with someone who keeps you out.

Adoption may not be possible - it may be something his fsmily might resist or the dc don't want or he feels would not be his wife's wishes. It's a tough one, but his attitude towards sharing them fully with you, if that is what you want, might tell you if he sees you as forever.
It isn't fair to hedge his bets if he wants you to fully commit to his children. You have to protect yourself emotionally.

Am trying to get a picture of how entrenched you are in their lives.

You've basically come along and slotted almost seamlessly into his daily existence. Is this life you went into still really enough for you now?.

Attila. I've been lucky in that both sets of grandparents have been great.

I know his late wife waited a long time for them to get married. But the glaring fact is that they did indeed get married.
But again I ask. If he agreed to get married because it was important to me and not important to him would I not be discarding his feelings?
Yes he is open to moving. There is no emotional attachment to this house. For him. I happen to love it.

I think he is not over his wife's death yet.

Eight years ago is just 2008/2009, not that long ago really depending on how old you are.

He is not yet ready to have some one else be his wife.

You don't come across as poor me OP. You appreciate the good parts of your lives and relationship, but have this upsetting emotional issue and it doesn't matter how other people e it, or what statistics show, if it's important to you, then you need to work through it.

I've recently spent time talking it all over with a friend who lives with someone they've been in a five year relationship with, who they love, but who's backtracked on marriage. They've decided to end the relationship after the realisation that they're not on the same page about their future together. The other partner has fixed ideas and the situation has become conform, or do the other thing. You have to work out to what extent your future happiness may be compromised.

One very important thing, in the event of your DP's untimely death, or total incapacitation, what provision is there for the childrens guardianship?

I can understand not wanting to get married. I can also understand why it makes you uneasy OP, and of course some men say they don't want to get married, live with a woman for years, break up and immediately marry the next one (seen it with me own eyes!).
On the other hand, my DP wants to get married someday and I don't. Not because I don't love him and want to grow old with him, but because I have been married before, and it gives me the fear, the whole idea of it.

Only you can really know if your DP is 100% committed to you or not.
If his reasons are the children's inheritance, I can understand that. If you were married, and he died, you could then go on to marry someone else, and they would become the beneficiary of the money.
I have 2 friends who lost a parent, and the either the living parent re married, then died, leaving the estate to the step parent.
I think you should broach the subject-ask him if that's the reason, and discuss wills, maybe put his mind at rest.

We are very much co-parenting. I make decisions in his absence. He asks advice when he makes decisions. We work together as a team. Albeit an unmarried one.
I want to be the mother figure but very much do not want them to think that I'm replacing their mother (complicated). Adoption is definitely not for me. I don't need legally to be responsible for them. If they want me in their lives they have me for life. DP and grandparents are all firm on that.

If you felt you were forcing him into it then that would be wrong. If he doesn't want to marry you, then really you don't want to be marrying him because it wont be right.

It is a fundamental incompatibility really, and he ought to have been upfront from the get go.

The more I think about it, the more I agree that he isn't over his wife's death and doesn't want someone else to be his wife. Sorry OP.

"But again I ask. If he agreed to get married because it was important to me and not important to him would I not be discarding his feelings?"

No. If he thinks you are good enough to be in his day to day life and care for his children on any basis then marriage should be considered. It could be argued it would give his children more stability as well.

I would also be asking him exactly why marriage was not important to him now. His reasons given to you are very flimsy and do not stand up to close scrutiny. He has reasons to think as he does and I do not think he has been honest in telling you why.

If he agreed to get married because it was important to me and not important to him would I not be discarding his feelings?

To me, this is the difference between feeling negative / positive / neutral about something. You feel positive about marriage, he feels neutral about it. But he doesn't seem to feel negative about it - his reasons are 'there's no point' rather than 'it will make my life worse'. So he can give you something positive, at no cost to himself, whereas if you let him have his choice he isn't gaining anything and you're losing something that you want. Does that make sense?