Fiancé won’t get married until all the restrictions are lifted

[KitKatLife101]

My OH proposed two years ago now, we was hoping to get married last year. I fell pregnant and hoped that we would get married just with the minimum amount of people allowed due to covid so that our child can be born to married parents. My OH categorically said no he’s not marrying me until he can have the day he wants with ALL the people he want there. It’s really hurtful as to me it seems like the party part of the wedding means more to him than the actual reason for getting married being the legal part. AIBU or would you feel the same …? I don’t care for the white dress or the dancing I just wanted to feel secure knowing I was married and bringing a child into the world to married parents. The child has been born now and due to finances and the day HE wants we may be looking at getting in married in 2023 which to me seems incredibly frustrating.

Why is that unacceptable or somehow shallow?

It isn't unacceptable or shallow at all. There is nothing wrong with wanting a lovely wedding with the people you love.

It's just that some women don't know the disadvantages of not being married and get screwed over. As long as you are aware of any ramifications of having a baby with someone you aren't married to and of owning a house with someone you aren't married to and what would happen if you split up or one of you died it's not a problem at all.

@diddl

How can you have a church wedding when you're already married?

Only Church of England & Roman Catholic ( Quakers and Jewish ceremonies) do not also need a civil registrar to make the wedding legal.

CoE very happy to do a service of blessing. I'm sure RC would to. Other denominations and non-denominational could do the full marriage service, with the civil already completed.

@KitKatLife101

The real purpose of Marriage is to secure the financially weaker partner. So long as you continue to be the higher earner, there is no.benefit.at all for you to get married.

Instead of wishing you could get married, you could consider that he is auditioning for the role of your husband. See how he deals with you as parent before you commit half of your worldly goods to him.

Shifting your focus in this way would shift the balance of power between you. If he had any financial sense he would be much more keen to get married than you.

I absolutely hope that he steps up as z parent and partner and you still want to get married. If not, well, you are in a very good position. Good luck

@SarahDarah

But what power does he have?

She would like to be married (but does not need to be). He would either

1. Also like to be married, but wait for a big party.
2. Be stalling because he actually does not want to marry. Which means he's a lying twat.

If it's the first, they need to act like a married couple and reach a compromise.

If the latter, he's going to leave her anyway. Or she'll dump him for lying to her.

But neither scenario gives him any real power. She can break up with him anytime and survive fine. She is financially independent. Good for her.

I wouldn’t have given baby his surname, and said that I’d agree to change it once we’re married 😉

@DinosaurDiana that's what i did! Double barrelled dd's surname, we'll chqnge it when we get married so we all have same name

[quote Sandra15]@SarahDarah Stop moving in with boyfriends without commitment.

I agree with this wholeheartedly but the times I have been called judgemental, old fashioned, told to get with it and that it isn't 1950, well I wish I had a fiver for each time.[/quote]
@Sandra15 indeed. Most people in any population (including women) don't think for themselves though and really evaluate things, they just follow whatever the current society's group-thinks are like sheep. So being called all these things isn't a surprise. Living differently has brought me so much more happiness and peace though. I know others who live the same and it's brought way less relationship angst and dating heartbreak compared to those I know who spent precious time on men who've been busy using them for sex/non committed relationships when the women wanted (and deserved) more. I know of many women who even lost out on being able to have children because of it (time ran out after wasting it on the men who strung them along to keep the sex and good company), or post children, been dumped and the guy goes off to marry someone else after previously insisting for years that "marriage is just a piece of paper that we can get one day".

Cohabitation suits many modern men who want to have their cake and eat it, and they can't do that unless women themselves are kept in line so they are happy to continue providing what men want. Any woman who dares question this society obsession with cohabitation and being a pseudo wife will obviously be shot down for not toeing the line. It's really sad to see how so many women, who truly want love and commitment, have fallen for it. Stats also show that even if a long term cohabiting couple marry, most unsurprisingly end up divorced. If you want commitment, just ditch these men early on.

I’d want to change the child’s name back to mine- but I assume you’d need his permission? Then we can change it again when we get married…

Is he sentimental about other things? Since you are financially ok, it’s not a deal breaker for me, unless of course he really is stalling. I’d talk to him about committing to 2023, because he wants to marry you not his mum and dad, and if world events keep happening would he really rather never marry you cos his friends can’t come? Point out he did have a baby with you and his friends didn’t turn up to that nor were his parents in the room, so if you can’t commit to marrying me within the next two years then this engagement ring is going off, and I’ll put it on again when we are committed. That seems fair, not letting him have his cake and eat it.

@Farwest it doesn't matter if she doesn't need to be married. She wants to be married (which is perfectly normal and understandable desire, especially if you've created a family with someone). He has much less urgency (if any) about the marriage.

The problem the OP has is that in consciously choosing to act like a wife in literally everything but name (which she's done for years now) it sends the very clear message to him that marriage isn't a priority for her in reality. I agree with you that her options are limited. She can't force him to marry her so in reality if she can't persuade him to marry sooner, she just has to wait until/if whenever he permits them to marry, which is an awful power balance situation to be in since marriage is somethingshe really wants. She obviously won't want to leave the man she loves and break up their family, unless there are other serious issues. He can afford to be very complacent.

OP, hope it works out for you and you two do marry. If you have a daughter, perhaps advise her so she doesn't inadvertently end up in a similar situation herself

Men dream about their wedding day in the same way as women do, why shouldn't he wat the whole shabang

😂 They really, really don’t, not the majority at least. And not all women do either by the way, I couldn’t care less.

@aSofaNearYou

Yes I'm aware it's two years, as I said, two years is not that big a deal to me compared to the decades of marriage that we intend to follow them. It's a straight just between the wedding, and being married within the next couple of years, yes, but not between the wedding and the marriage in general.

With respect, you might 'intend' on 'decades of marriage', but you have no idea how long either of you might live or what the next couple of years might hold.

Delaying a marriage for at least two years because you want "a big day" is prioritising it over marriage. Without using judgemental terms like 'unacceptable' or 'shallow', that is the reality.

[quote HaplotypeK]@aSofaNearYou

Yes I'm aware it's two years, as I said, two years is not that big a deal to me compared to the decades of marriage that we intend to follow them. It's a straight just between the wedding, and being married within the next couple of years, yes, but not between the wedding and the marriage in general.

With respect, you might 'intend' on 'decades of marriage', but you have no idea how long either of you might live or what the next couple of years might hold.

Delaying a marriage for at least two years because you want "a big day" is prioritising it over marriage. Without using judgemental terms like 'unacceptable' or 'shallow', that is the reality.[/quote]
Obviously some marriages end, that's exactly why I used the word "intend". What is your point there?

No, delaying a marriage is NOT prioritising having a wedding over having a marriage, by the very definition of the word "delaying", meaning, do later. It is, as I said, prioritising having a certain type of wedding over being married during that window of time. You have not disproved what I said at all.

It's clear that a lot of people have strong views about the pointlessness and frivolity of large celebrations for weddings but all the people advocating trying to push and pressure him into marrying her now are actually coming across as pretty unpleasant. It is not unreasonable for having a celebration with loved one's on your wedding day to be important to you.

For various reasons I missed out on a lot of the "right of passage" big experiences during my life, and I regret that now. I know I would regret rushing into a wedding I wanted to do differently. People are so utterly convinced that their outlook that weddings are a stupid thing to care about is right that they are advocating not caring at all about pushing partners into something they will regret. Just take a step back and care about the things that matter to others.

Also if OP isnt planning to give up her job and earns more than her partner - marriage would actually DISADVANTAGE her! If they split up she as the higher earning partner will have to pay alimony.
Given that - he’s probably not stalling as he would benefit more by marrying and then divorcing OP ASAP.

@DinosaurDiana

I wouldn’t have given baby his surname, and said that I’d agree to change it once we’re married 😉

@DinosaurDiana That might work on some men actually!

I don't think he is being unreasonable. Marriage should be an equal event. It should not be something wanted and planned solely by the woman.

I’d leave. I wouldn’t want to marry someone who needed to have their big day rather than just make their vows with me.

@IceCreamAndCandyfloss

I’d leave. I wouldn’t want to marry someone who needed to have their big day rather than just make their vows with me.

What a weird attitude, sounds like you'd be doing them a favour!

The paperwork and the ceremony really are two separate things. Even if you aren’t religious, they aren’t really related. One is going to the government and making a legal contract. You could just as easily be registering a car or forming a business. The second is a declaration before the people you love that you want to be recognized by the community as a family unit.

We did ours separately because it was practical. We celebrate the community day. Occasionally I have to declare our legal anniversary on a form and I have to look it up every single time

@IceCreamAndCandyfloss same. Yes I'd like a wedding day with all my friends and family but to me the vows (i.e. the actual commitment) to the person I love would be the most important thing and I couldn't commit my life to someone who had fundamentally different values. Her boyfriend's position exposes their fundamentally different views of marriage. If unprecedented circumstances such as Covid, caused restrictions on numbers it would be unfortunate but I would still go ahead. I know several couples who've done exactly that. They all would have loved 50+ nearest and dearest attending but taking that step to commit to each other was the biggest priority and both the man and woman were equally excited to be a married couple.

I guess this is the problem with living with someone and having their baby before marriage. He's essentially already got the 'marriage' and has been allowed to settle into family life without having to make vows/legally commit to her so he's already taking everything about her for granted. Therefore to him, any ceremony is more about having family/friends there rather than making a commitment to his wife.

Bluntly, this demanding stage of having very young kids is the worst time to be in an uncommitted relationship. It increases the likelihood he will continue to stall. @KitKatLife101 if you want a church wedding, is he truly invested in the vows part of the marriage, which is essentially what the marriage is all about? If so, I would suggest a compromise where, after marriage preparation, you both do just the church wedding this year (which includes marriage registration). Those people who exceed church numbers can watch the exchange of vows via livestream if they wish. Then do a full blown wedding reception and party in 2023. It would work really nicely as it would also be a nice 'post-Covid' celebration. The reception/party is what he really wants since people can't mingle/properly talk in the church anyway. He can't be so religious that he cares that much about huge numbers people watching the vows/ church service in person otherwise he wouldn't be living with you/got you pregnant before marriage in the first place!

Some posters are preoccupying themselves on the finance side of splitting being in his favour. he has his own job so if anything, it's more likely that he's considering that in the future he has the option to more easily exit without the prolonged legal headache of a divorce, and date without the stigma of a divorce.

[quote HaplotypeK]@HalzTangz

Men dream about their wedding day in the same way as women do, why shouldn't he wat the whole shabang.

A vanishingly tiny number of men have bought into the absolute bollocks that is the modern wedding industry.

It is peddled almost exclusively to women.[/quote]
I disagree, every ma I know enjoy planning for their wedding,they just aren't as vocal as women

@IceCreamAndCandyfloss

I’d leave. I wouldn’t want to marry someone who needed to have their big day rather than just make their vows with me.

Agree 100%.

I would have thought so as I didn't think that you could take your vows twice.

We did. We got married abroad and had a church ceremony with family and friends a month later in England.

It was a blessing, but the vows were almost identical and the church used the exact same service as they do for weddings.

You want the marriage he “wants” the wedding. Big difference. Most people could pick the must haves down to 15 each or 30 each since in venue depending now.

My sil is the same she wants the day the posh wedding. We postponed our wedding and ended up getting married many years ago now. Being married was more important in itself than the day.

How can you have a church wedding when you're already married?

Some religions don't recognise a registry office wedding as such eg Catholicism

Did you actually have a wedding booked op or were these vague "plans"

Because if the latter there's a strong chance he's stringing you along

Sadly so very common now