Why do people want to get married these days?

[Sammy900]

This is off the back of a thread I started the other day pondering about dating behaviours these days and thinking about where it will lead to in the future...

As a bit of a back story, I've been with my partner for 12 years, we have children, shared assets, mirrored wills, I'm financially independent, so is he, we both work full-time and share childcare and household stuff 50/50-well I do more of the life admin and organising but you get the picture, neither of us are religious and we both love each other

There was one point where I really wanted to marry him and formally be his Mrs (even though I blatantly am already) and have a celebration of us.... he just kind of dangled the carrot and said we'll see but he was never overly fussed and I wouldn't want him to be forced into it I'm not like that, I've never really pushed it either

Now I feel differently, I've seen lots of people have a terrible time during divorce and when we discuss it now.. I can't see the benefits other than a lovely day, celebration, neither of us really need to get married as such

Looking at threads on here, it seems to be half and half, some valuing marriage and committed relationships, others saying it ties you down and is old- fashioned, that life isn't like that anymore now that we have more freedom

I was just wondering why do people want to get married these days?

For me, it was simply for tax, next of kin & there being a system in place if things did go wrong between us. And it made my Gran happy.
When we got together, in our early 30s, I presumed we'd get married as we were at that stage were several weekends were taken up with weddings and stag and hen do's. Then I got pregnant, then we bought a house together & then we had a second. We were engaged but actually getting married seemed a bit of a hassle, especially as several of the couples whose weddings we'd been to were getting divorced, some whilst still paying for their wedding!
Then a friend's husband died suddenly aged 37 and, chatting to the friend a year or so later, she told me to "just get bloody married" as it has made dealing with everything so much easier. At the same time, I was watching an colleague's relationship collapse and realising how vulnerable she was as she was unmarried and realising that that could be me. She was entitled to child maintenance and that was it legally. You always like to think your partner isn't going to leave you but I would have said the same about her. You also always like to think that your partner will be decent about it but there's no guarantee, particularly as, in this case, the catalyst for them splitting up was that he'd got someone else pregnant. Even a decade later, she's still reeling from the financial implications of not being married and she's very successful.
We'd already decided to actually get married when my Gran got a terminal diagnosis and so we quickly rang around immediate family to find a day everyone was free and booked the local registry office and then a restaurant for lunch. Done!

I'm not sure if dp and I will marry. I've been married twice before and the embarrassment of doing it again would mean probably maximum just us and the adult children at a register office. I don't want to change my name to be different from ds 's.

But I still feel I would quite like to now. I suppose I just like being married. It's not very edifying but it isn't the worst vice in the world.

Like other posters, I’ve been there and found it was to the wrong person, plus the only other two weddings I’ve attended (from the many invited to!) have failed within two years.

I’ve told people I’m definitely a bad omen!

Do you really not see the value in it any more, OP, or is it easier to you persuade yourself that you don't because you know your partner doesn't want to get married? I don't get your point about avoiding the pain of divorce. Surely if you're in a very long-term relationship with kids and very enmeshed lives, splitting up would be just as painful as divorce?

I've seen lots of people have a terrible time during divorce

@Sammy900 Why do you think you'd not have a terrible time if you split up simply because you're unmarried? You'd still have to navigate selling the house or one buying the other out, access to children, emotional fallout, dealing with each other's family and friends and all that if it was a mutual decision, never mind if only one of you wanted to split up.

Brilliant analogy.

Yeah, anyone who thinks staying unmarried will offer protection against a terrible time separating is very sadly mistaken.

The divorce itself is usually not the legally difficult part of the split for a married/CP couple. People barely ever contest that. It's the arrangements for the children and property that cause the stress, both of which can just as easily happen when a cohabiting couple split. Really the only way to avoid that is by not having DC or property with a partner at all.

Marriage is first and foremost a financial partnership, I think the trouble is that it is sold as a romantic partnership. The main reason that people get married is that society expects people to and there is still stigma around not getting married. Hopefully that will change in the future, families often suffer terribly during the divorce process, and some people lose a fortune.

My problem with this is that it fucks over couples who want to be able to live together and not have a legal contract.

Those of us who do want that contract have multiple options now, marriage and civil partnership. Bit much to entirely remove the choice from those who don't want that contract just because, well, why really? I know one answer to this is for cohabitant rights to be opt in only, but in that case why not just go through one of the existing legal processes? It doesn't even have to be marriage any more!

If one partner is rich and the other is poor it is utter madness for the rich one to marry.

Or, alternatively: Why would you not? I view it as the norm to want to, unless you view marriage as not a good thing, unless you've been hurt. It's good for women and protects them legally.

So, with your current partner, you don't have children together, don't own a house together with a joint mortgage, etc? You're "attached" in those cases whether married or not. Do you have the sames "asset" (i.e. pensions, savings, investments, etc) as your partner? If you've nothing "together" and are pretty equal, then, fair enough, you can each walk away if unmarried, but otherwise, it's pretty much the same dealing with a breakup as if you were married, with fewer of the legal safeguards for the one with lower income, lower assets, etc.

I can see why people without children and living in rented houses, with few assets between them don't think they need to be married, but if that's not the case, a split is going to be painful and costly, whether you're married or not, and the partner with the lower income, lower savings, etc WILL end up worse off.

I'm a catholic and, generally speaking, catholic women like men to marry them before they impregnate them. I was ready to start a family and he seemed like a nice man so I married him.

Personally none of the legal, protection, inheritance tax, next of kin etc came to mind. Not one.

I just met my man and could not imagine not getting married, seemed like such a natural progression, but I guess it is imprinted...

though my grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles, and sister are all divorced. (One uncle 6 times! I guess we like getting married in our family!)

@PinkCherryBlossoms this exactly. Legal contract can be written up without all the ‘romantic’ bullshit that is so prevalent now. @BeyondMyWits your sentiments are what I see with everyone around me; yet you all see so many of them fail! I can’t understand why we think it will be different for us.

and I don’t mean that all romance is bad; I just don’t see a marriage ceremony as being romantic at all. Not when it actually means so little at the end of the day. Maybe I’m getting too cynical in my dotage 😅

Marriage is used to lull women into a false sense of security and convince them to give up their financial independence and do a load of wife work.

It's patriarchal bullishit. And it's great women are finally waking up to this.

Because I wanted him to legally be my family, and because I didn’t want to be just a girlfriend, plus the many benefits listed in the link.

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/family/living-together-marriage-and-civil-partnership/living-together-and-marriage-legal-differences/

To answer the question asked-I don't want to get married. These days, those days or future days.

Being pragmatic, it's usually the lower earning partner who wants to get married for protection...

The legal contracts required to be equivalent to a marriage, will cost more than a simple registry office marriage, and still won't give you the same benefits, such as inheritance tax exemptions, other tax savings from swapping assets producing gains/income, such as rental properties, investment portfolios, or spreading self employed income, etc.

I wasn't willing to have children without the legal protections of marriage.

I'm not very romantic nor am I very trusting.

I want a contract. 😁

Having a boyfriend for 20yrs should of course not automatically give out legal protections, that’s a terrible idea, obviously open to abuse and control. It’s a good thing that couples who want legal protections and benefits actively opt in to choosing that, via a contract.

Lots of women aren't financially independent or in as good a situation as you. Marriage gives them more security. Surely you must know this.

We've been together over 20 years, and not legally married. Partner has a pretty good pension, I don't. He wants to get married so I am more protected when he dies, if he dies before me. We will get a couple of friends and go to the registry office. Probably won't even tell people!

If, when we'd got married, civil partnerships had been available for couples of the opposite sex rather than just same sex, I would have chosen that rather than marriage and the societal connotations which come with that. DH refuses to divorce just so we can go through a civil partnership instead!