*Is long term cohabitation just commitment phobia?*

[Wonderpet]

How many women kid themselves that they are ok with 'living together' when secretly, they view marriage a sign of commitment, but they don't feel they can ask their man to marry them? Or am I the only one that thinks this way?

OK - listen very carefully - I will say this only once. Women who are left with nothing when their relationships break up or if their partner sadly dies are not in this position because they are unmarried.

They are in this position because they didn't have the sense to protect their future and that of their children.

Anna and Seeker speak sense.

Problems also arise in unmarried relationships on the death of one of the people within the unmarried relationship. You are treated as not being related to each other. The person left behind is not regarded in law as next of kin no matter how long you have been together (his/her parents are actually seen to be next of kin). An unmarried person cannot open letters of administration for the deceased, administer the estate of the deceased, claim widows benefit or even procure a headstone for their partner.

Apart from having to deal with their own emotional grief many people as well have to deal with the immense fallout financially and legally as well.

A couple can and should make as much legal provision as possible for each other if they choose to remain unmarried (still not all unmarried couples actually do this and I have seen examples on MN where after a split she has been left with very little indeed) but they cannot make provision for the above important points.

There is no such thing in legal terms as "common law" regardless of how long the couple have been together and in law the unmarried couple are treated as two separate people. What's his is his, what's hers is hers and anything jointly owned is split down the middle. This is how it will remain for the foreseable future at least in law.

They can if the will is drawn up properly.

Apart from widow's benefit - I grant you that one. Everything else is easily sorted.

Hi seeker,

I only wished to point that out re widows benefit. It is money that some women could very well do with (and I think widows benefit was around £80 per week when I last looked) when this situation happens to them. Not all organisations as well do regard an unmarried partner as next of kin, it can rely on discretion.

Some of the other points I raised can be addressed in law but how many couples (be they married or otherwise) actually give this the due consideration it deserves?. Death comes to us all and it is up to us to ensure that things are as watertight as possible. Men in particular can dismiss such worries. Not everyone makes a will and if a person dies intestate (be they married or not) it can cause all sorts of delays which can also cause financial hardship for the surviving person.

I agree! That's why I said that women who end up in a difficult place after the death or departure of their partner are in that place because they haven't made proper provision for their future and their children's future. Or because the money just wasn't there for that provision to be made. Or because their partner was a bastard who reneged on his responsibilities. NOT because they were married or unmarried.

I feel slightly sorry for women who have "partners" not "spouses". I mean how awful it must be to take out a mortgage with a man, have his children but not be able to even get him to spend a few quid in a register office getting him to sign a simple document saying that you wish to be together for life! Poor, poor souls.

I have been married and as a Catholic cannot get married again. SO I have lived with my partner for 5 years.

He does want to get married and I have given in because it does not make that much difference to me but it means a lot to him.

It does not mean that I am a commitment phobe.

Question for the co-habiting ones with no plans to marry -

If your DP surprised you and proposed, would you say no?

I always wonder why people say 'commitment phobic' as though it's a bad thing. If you have children, then it's your moral duty to put their wellbeing first, which means trying to maintain an amicable co-parenting relationship with the other parent if possible, but there is so much more to life than couplehood.

Mind you, WRT the married/unmarried thing, yes, plenty of people object to marriage as a patriarchal ownership institution, and plenty are happy to live with partners short-term (when young or not interested in breeding at the time for whatever reason) and see how it goes.

Woozlet: DP and I have discussed it so many times, whether we "ought" to get married for practical purposes even though neither of us sees it as much of a priority, and we've always decided not to (instead sorting out our wills and finances properly, etc). So I don't think he would surprise me and propose, because he knows it's not remotely a secret desire of mine or anything like that.

If he did still propose for some reason, though ... well, we'd talk it all over again, I guess!

We have been together 13 years and I love him so deeply and am absolutely committed to him I know he feels the same. But our families are far-flung, with many rifts and problems, and I grew up witnessing the horrible effects of my parents' very bitter divorce, which they both literally never stopped going on about for years (I was their only DC and remaining connection, so they took anger at each other out on me), and for these and other reasons, generally speaking the notion of a wedding has never interested me, even as a fantasy or whatever. I just never saw it as the only true measure of committment; I think marriage is great for some people, but it didn't ever attract me. I always dreamed of finding someone I could truly love for my whole life, and I found him but getting married has never seemed important or especially desirable to me. Luckily DP completely gets this and it makes no difference to him.

I'm not saying we will never do it. I don't hate the idea; but nor do I feel it's remotely necessary to prove our committment. The happiest family I knew growing up were a couple of lads whose parents had never married but had been 20+ yrs together, so I guess they were another early model to me that indicated marriage wasn't necessary to prove anything about your status as a strong couple or family.

Seeker, Lawks and others give me hope that Mumsnet is a place where most people get this. I have to say I've been quite upset by some comments about cohabiting relationships on other MN threads recently, though.

Er, and marantha ... what bollocks!

Cool, just wondered. I imagine it would be very difficult to say no.

My parents never married and were together 18 years. From my perspective as a child it never bothered me, but I did get comments from teachers at school about different surnames etc

Marantha, do they have internet access in the century you're clearly living in? In the couples I know, it's usually the woman who doesn't want the traditional marriage!

marantha: you appear to have a bee in your bonnet about this issue (resurrecting ancient threads etc.) care to expand upon your agenda?

I have never got married and I have never lived with a man. I am obviously repellent!

I am torn about this. One part of me thinks that marriage is a patriarchal institution but I still hold out for the big romance of finding a man I'd like to spend the rest of my life with. I'm sure I'd be giddy with joy if I was propsed to!
I think the important thing is that being married must feel more secure than just cohabiting and if the man I was with didn't want to marry me I'd be gutted.

Each to their own I would say. What suits some dosn't suit others. I know lots of people who are cohabiting who are very happy and also plenty of people who are in marriages who are miserable.

i do think that marriage suits women more than men. Lots of men are frightened of walking down the isle, flighty creatures that they are.

I also would like to say that marantha puts the smug into marriage!

I wonder why then studies into happiness (however the hell you work that out!) generally rate the happiness of married men as greater than that of single men, but for women it's the single ones who score higher than the married.

Well, marriage benefits men more than women: men get non-stop domestic servicing and sex on tap, women get twice as much housework to do.

SGB you could say exactly the same about cohabitees.

SGB not in this house they don't and I doubt that will change when we get married.

I was speaking very generally: on the whole women are always being told that they 'need' marriage/couplehood when it's actually men who benefit from it far more.

Maybe, I think if someone needs marriage then it is the last thing they should do.