Why don't more of us women 'demand' marriage from our 'man'?

[faraday]

Should I say Flame Alert! Stand well Clear! Touch Paper Lit!

But seriously, as an older person (46!!) it still- well, surprises me how many of us perhaps talk ourselves around in knots into believing the actual commitment of marriage isn't for us but it's actually a smoke screen for fear that if we DEMAND our 'DP' marries us he may run away?

What do we think?

Someone earlier asked about the benefits of marriage to the man, if he is the breadwinner / one with the biggest pension etc., and the one with the most to "lose".

I earn a lot more than DP, and own the house that we live in; if I die unexpectedly then DP and DD would have to sell up and move out to pay inhertitance tax; in one fell swoop DP and DD would lose home and partner / mother...as the wealthier partner being able to protect them, in this way, would be reason enough to get married.

And also, we have MUCH worse kitchen stuff than all of our married friends

maki I don't think it is masking commitment.Lots of married people aren't commited You only have to read some of the threads here to see that.If it had really mattered to my dp I may have done the minimal thing literally to shut him up.But I think he asked me because he is a hopeless romantic and he had no idea whether i would say yes or no.I said it wasn't for me in its present form and also around that time we were going to many weddings and I just wasn't interested.Maybe stop pushing the issue and he may change his own mind.

thanks noddy I fear I have no other option than to wait it out. I've pushed so much he has grown stubborn...

Qally - am v. impressed you remember anything at all about it after the best part of a decade!

clwc why do you keep mentioning my name in your posts when what you say, whilst very interesting, has nothing whatsoever to do with my contributions?

And what's with the royal" we " and the sarky faces? There is really no need to be so rude and condescending. I am genuinely interested in what everyone including you thinks .

I KNOW most people get married because of love . I am asking here how those who cite security in the event of a split(and NOT love)as the main reason for marrying , get their other half to agree.

"so the man's a man still but the woman's now become a wife not a woman" - the word "wif" was Old English for woman, so if the phrase "man and wife" is old, as I suspect it is, then there was no change in meaning for either party.

But that's an aside....

Bigted, Your previous post was in direct response to mine. That's why.

Well, I've told you what I think.

You mentioned that you are in that situation (as the main earner in the relationship). Have you agreed to marry your partner? Are you already married? If so, how did he persuade you? If you are not (getting) married, is your comparative wealth actually holding you back?

Habbibu, Also, many wedding conductors (priests, rabbi, reg. office, etc) now use the phrase, "I now pronounce you husband and wife". I like your point though. Well made.

I've read the beginning and end of this thread, and I'm afraid I'm one of those people who need "kicking in the fanjo" because I would like DP to ask me, rather than discuss it like grown ups and agree to do it (or not). My reasons for this are:

• I initiated our relationship in the first place
• I initiated us buying a house and moving in together
• I was the one who pushed the baby issue
• so I would like him to be the one to take the initiative on getting married.

He knows that if he asked me I would say yes; he knows that I would be more than happy with a small affair; he knows that should we marry I would insist on being the main organiser (not my mother).

On the other hand, as our family expands, and I learn more and more about how much more complicated things would be should one of us die, or should we split up, I imagine I will eventually take the initiative, being the 'sensible' one in our relationship. But is it such a crime to want a traditional, 'romantic' proposal?

Biccy well said, I'm with you.

And i think, as mentioned in the original post, there are many women who would like it too but not feel they can ask, or if they can ask they cannot insist.

We talked about this round a dinner table recently. One guy (a very wealthy banker) who has children with my friend (also a high earner) was saying how happy they were with their unmarried state, and how it was agreed between them blah blah. Said friend had told me one evening the week before in a moderate state of inebriation that she would love them to be married.

If I could do something that was no particular skin off my nose and would make my partner extremely happy I would not make him wait one minute.

I think the issue is the other half not wanting to do something that would make their partner so happy.Not just marriage I suppose anything that would really please the other person.That is what needs addressing in these relationships not whether it is romantic or financial but whether you mean enough to each other to throw some of your caution to the wind just to make him/her feel good

One thing that does worry me is that we have been to umpteen weddings and enjoyed them excessively. It obviously shouldn't be the deciding factor as to whether you get married or not, but it does feel a bit mean that we've never reciprocated, and I often wonder whether our friends might feel this way...

noddyholder, there are some things DP would like me to do to make him feel good... and I'm not doing them. Doesn't mean I don't love him and doesn't mean he hassles me about them. Marriage is a big deal, I wouldn't expect him to do it just to make me feel good.

Swedes, I can assure you that certainly in the early 1980's, 'living in sin' was still not as accepted as it is now. Among the circle of friends I had then, only a couple lived together, before marriage, and none of them remained unmarried. DH and I chose to marry without living together. We did so because a) we loved each other and wanted to make a public commitment to each other and
b)we truly believed we were right for each other and would be one of the marriages that lasted.

After we had booked the wedding and began to look into getting a mortgage for our first home, we also found out that we couldn't actually get a mortgage unless we were getting married within a certain time period. It was actually in the mortgage contract that if we did not marry within that time ( six months I believe), the lender would be entitled to force us to repay the entire mortgage! So, there mosr certainly was a stigma attached to living together in the early eighties.

( and BTW, yes, we are still happily married all these years later!)

DH and I lived together before we married in 1984. It was perfectly acceptable (and he was the second man I'd lived with), but my mum did phone every Sunday to remind us that we'd get lots of pressies if we married. (We were furnishing a new flat together, and owned very little at the time).

I would agree also with the premise that there was more of a "stigma" attached to living together in the 80s and even up to the mid 90s. I was part of a team that processed mortgage applications ((for my sins) during the late 80s/early 90s and can remember these applications being given close inspection by the senior management (in terms of how the mortgage would be repaid).

At that time too I knew of several unmarried couples along with several married ones. I have to tell you that without exception, ALL the unmarried couples I knew of have either gone onto marry or have parted (and with children involved too that has proven to be very messy). If they parted it seemed also to happen within the first five years after living together. Some of the married couples have parted too - but more of them have remained together and this is still the case to this day.

There are always exceptions to the rule and it is nice to see couples (be they married or cohabiting) still together after many years but generally speaking cohabiting couples are far more likely to part than married couples. That's not conjecture, its fact.

Regardless of whether the couple are married or cohabiting, each person must be fully aware of what happens and could happen to them if a formal separation happens. In my experience many unmarried couples did not fully recognise or were even aware of the consequences of such until it happened to them. The idea of "common law" marriage still exists in many people's eyes but common law does not exist within the legal framework. Then it hit them very hard (particularly the woman), you would have a situation where one party (more often than not the man) moved out of the property whilst the other remained. The mortgage was in joint names and thus both parties were liable for the mortgage. Buying someone out in those circumstances was both a large expense and a drawn out process. Often too the property would have to be sold. There would also be no cohabitation agreement in place either but much rancour and argument over who paid for what and when.

I wouldn't want to be married to someone who had only married me because I demanded it of him.