Why do you want/not want to get married?

strobe

There's a similar thread to this in another forum and I thought it would make an interesting thread here as its not something I hear talked about often from a male point of view.

Are you married, or intend to get married at some stage, why so?

Are you unmarried and intend to stay that way, why is that?

I'll post back with my own views later when I get the time.

userod

I am in a long term relationship for 8/9 years. I don't see what a certificate from a church whose teachings I think are nonsense, and an aggregation of our tax credits is going to add to our relationship.

Skatedude

Anyone i know who got married have regretted it. Marriage was important up till the last generation or so, but religion has been losing a lot of credibility over the last few years and people don't see it as so taboo any more to live with the person you love and not need to be approved by the church.

Pawwed Rig

Tax credits are pretty irrelevant now anyway except in certain situations. Bigger issue is inheritance and guardian rights.

matrim

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

Bigger issue is inheritance and guardian rights.

This is pretty much the main driver for me. I'm not married but in a long term relationship.

Marriage won't change how I feel about my GF or anything tangible about our daily lives, but if we are going to have kids I'd like to be married beforehand to have the extra rights associated with that, e.g. guardianship, and to have sorted our next of kin and inheritance in case of any problems

kryogen

MArriage means nothing to me, but does to my partner, of 8 years and we have two kids so I will marry her, I just have no need to do it myself at all

osaurus

I'm unsure about marriage. I'm 28 now and not in a relationship at the moment. When I was younger I liked the idea of it. To love someone till death do you part. Idealistic stuff really. Then as I grew older and started working I realilsed it's not all as rosy as I first thought. People who I worked with were married. Some happily, a lot not so. Many cheating on their significant others. This was throughout different jobs and countries. The naivety was shocked out of me.

My experiences have lead me to question the whole idea of marriage and what it means in today's world. From my perspective it doesn't really mean a whole lot. It also raises the question do you ever really know someone? So many people I know have been fúcked over by their wife/husband ranging from cheating to draining bank accounts and having their house repossessed due to bills not being paid.

Divorce rates are creeping up also. Assets being split, custody over children and more often than not sided with the woman. The man usually comes off worse. I don't know if I'd get into a 'contract' where if it were to go sour I'd come out of it at a huge loss - never mind money or any of that. Potential kids and visitation rights would be more important. These are all hypothetical anyway.

Leaning more towards not getting married but things change so who knows. 5 years down the line it could all change.

drumswan

kryogen wrote: »

MArriage means nothing to me, but does to my partner, of 8 years and we have two kids so I will marry her, I just have no need to do it myself at all

If you are an unmarried father you have seriously fewer rights. You should really look into it.

beano345

Unmarried and intend to stay that way,I think it amounts to modern day slavery nowadays and have seen too many men ruined by a women's vindictive whim,with the backing of divorce laws, not a chance I'd take.

The Wild Bunch

I wanna get married, simply because I believe in marriage

Wompa1

Some day I'd like to have kids. Although I think the piece of paper is kind of pointless, I'm worried that if I don't marry I'd have even less rights as a father of my kids if things go a-wry.

eh i dunno

Getting married in September this year. Excited and nervous at the same time. Love her though and its the next step after 6 years together. See some people who never married and ended up single and living alone. Thats no life for anyone after a certain age.

Only downside to marriage is the cost imo.

Pawwed Rig

eh i dunno wrote: »

Thats no life for anyone after a certain age.

Alot of people are perfectly happy unmarried

astonaidan

I do like the idea of getting married, Like 28 now and never had a long term girlfriend it just hasnt appealed to me as I believe in the whole love thing and if I dont feel it, I dont feel it and now I just re-read this and feel a bit gay

Galwayguy35

I believe in marriage, I was nearly married a few years ago but called it off a few months beforehand because I knew it was going to be a mistake.
I know by calling it off I ripped my exes heart out and it was the hardest thing I had to do but it was the right decision.

It hasn't turned me off marriage though and I would still like to be married someday.

Larry Wildman

It may seem archaic, but a lot of guys get married because they do not want their kids to be illegitimate.

Larry Wildman

I think marriage used to be seen as an expression of long term commitment. And many things have diluted that value.

The rise of critical thinking and anti religious thought clearly has a place to play in this. Many people no longer want to frame their love in a way that they need to parse through church doctrine.

But at the same time we have expiated and made more efficient the process of divorce. Which for all it's value is obviously going to have the back effect of diluting the value of marriage itself.

I mean how much commitment does it take to sign a contract one can reverse next month? Easy in, easy out, is never going to support the old commitment of marriage at all.

When I got into the relationship I am in now - living with two girls and we now have 2 of 4 planned kids - it was clear from the start the marriage was never going to be an option for us. So we tried to assess the win/lose of that reality.

The wins were relatively few. And the "lose" were even more easy to get over - at least with the help of a good solicitor. But it took time and effort and thought. Inheritance. Next of Kin. Visitor rights in the event of a disaster or injury. Visitation rights on our kids in the case of seperation. But there is always really easy ways to sort that.

I think marriage still has a lot of worth to those who put value in tradition - public declarations of love and life long commitment - and I would hate to cast any denigration on to anyone who feels that way.

It is a beautiful tradition. It has become meaningless over the years. But to deny the value of the tradition in the face of its loss of value as a practice would be really not only throwing the baby out with the bathwater... but stamping its corpse down the drain

Larry Wildman wrote: »

It may seem archaic, but a lot of guys get married because they do not want their kids to be illegitimate.

On that point however - I have to admit I have never met a single single one.

Larry Wildman

[Deleted User] wrote: »

On that point however - I have to admit I have never met a single single one.

I'm sorry but I find that hard to believe.

I can think of a lot of people I know who have explicitly stated that they got married to have kids because of legitimacy/having kids out of wedlock issues.

Larry Wildman

Larry Wildman wrote: »

I'm sorry but I find that hard to believe.

I can think of a lot of people I know who have explicitly stated that they got married to have kids because of legitimacy/having kids out of wedlock issues.

And I find your anecdote also hard to believe. "legitimacy" has got to be the single last thing I have ever heard mentioned - actually because it has NEVER been mentioned - in my circle.

But clearly we are just comparing circles of friends and experience here. One anecdote meets another. What the actual reality around us is I do not know.

Do people still care?

Pawwed Rig

Deleted User wrote: »

On that point however - I have to admit I have never met a single single one.

Me neither if I am honest. In fact the only person I know who would have cared was my old Gran and she was born in 1914. Maybe different places are more conservative than others.

Deleted User wrote: »

When I got into the relationship I am in now - living with two girls and we now have 2 of 4 planned kids - it was clear from the start the marriage was never going to be an option for us. So we tried to assess the win/lose of that reality.

Am I reading this right? There are three of you in a relationship together?

IHeartShoes

Deleted User wrote: »

'When I got into the relationship I am in now - living with two girls and we now have 2 of 4 planned kids - it was clear from the start the marriage was never going to be an option for us. So we tried to assess the win/lose of that reality.

The wins were relatively few. And the "lose" were even more easy to get over - at least with the help of a good solicitor. But it took time and effort and thought. Inheritance. Next of Kin. Visitor rights in the event of a disaster or injury. Visitation rights on our kids in the case of seperation. But there is always really easy ways to sort that.'

Can I just clarify something from the above - you are cohabiting with two girls. So you are in a romantic relationship with both and have children with both? Apols if I appear thick:)

Agree entirely that the guardianship and inheritance issues and travelling with kids etc outside of marriage can easily be managed by a family law solicitor rendering that part of the marriage debate fairly moot.

A lot of reasons for getting married quoted to me are 'celebrating or declaring our love and commitment in front of family and friends'. That can easily be achieved without the legal document, IMO. I don't wish to sound cynical but marriage simply makes a bad relationship tougher to get out of. End of.

Pawwed Rig

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

Am I reading this right? There are three of you in a relationship together?

IHeartShoes wrote: »

Can I just clarify something from the above - you are cohabiting with two girls. So you are in a romantic relationship with both and have children with both? Apols if I appear thick:)

I get in some hot water on Boards for over mentioning this so I try to play it down. But yes. We are what we comically refer to a truple. (play on couple).

To answer the latter question no - both of my kids are with the older of my girlfriends. The younger of us does not want to have kids until she is 30. We are currently 35, 33 and 27. Which means the latter pair of kids we plan will come about somewhere in the next 4-7 years

Our current kids are 3.5 years old and 6 weeks - today actually. Girl and boy in that order.

To get back to the thread topic however. We have clearly no option to get married - but we feel no compulsion to - nor any loss from being unable to. Though how much we have benefited from having one of us doing a law doctorate is something I will only quantify in retrospect.

pwurple

Deleted User wrote: »

. And the "lose" were even more easy to get over - at least with the help of a good solicitor. But it took time and effort and thought. Inheritance. Next of Kin. Visitor rights in the event of a disaster or injury. Visitation rights on our kids in the case of seperation. But there is always really easy ways to sort that.

Curious as to how you overcame inheritance issues with the solicitor... It's a hefty tax bill. Who inherits, and how do they not get turfed out on their ear?

pwurple

pwurple wrote: »

Curious as to how you overcame inheritance issues with the solicitor... It's a hefty tax bill. Who inherits, and how do they not get turfed out on their ear?

Couple of signed documents - most of which I do not pretend to understand. As I said - it really helps that one of the girls is a Doctorate in Law. Though we often joke that she probably hid things in the legaleese small print that we will never know about.

eviltwin

Deleted User wrote: »

Couple of signed documents - most of which I do not pretend to understand. As I said - it really helps that one of the girls is a Doctorate in Law. Though we often joke that she probably hid things in the legaleese small print that we will never know about.

The only way around inheritance if you own a property or other asset or have a large sum of money is to put it in your child's name isn't it? We married because of inheritance tax, even though you buy half a house you have a heavier tax bill than a person who hasn't put a cent towards it :mad: There was no way I was giving the tax man more bloody money.

skallywag

Myself and my partner are not married, we live together and have a young daughter together. My own take on the inheritance issue is that in the event of my own demise my assets will default to my daughter (her being my next of kin), hence leaving no tax liability.

I don't live in Ireland at the moment so am not sure of the legal situation there, but I would imagine that it may be similar?

Pawwed Rig

skallywag wrote: »

My own take on the inheritance issue is that in the event of my own demise my assets will default to my daughter (her being my next of kin), hence leaving no tax liability.

What about guardianship of your daughter?

eviltwin wrote: »

The only way around inheritance if you own a property or other asset or have a large sum of money is to put it in your child's name isn't it?

No, that is not true. A spouse would have the same reliefs as a child (generally)

Mod note - Let's not go down the tax advice route folks as it is a minefield that depends entirely on personal circumstances

skallywag

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

What about guardianship of your daughter?

If you mean in general, i.e. the (preferred!) scenario in which I am not dead, then my partner would have full rights I assume.

Gotham

I don't want to get married because I feel that I don't need a document or legal agreement to promise to the person I love I'll be monogamous for the rest my life.

Our current society is built around it so much that my family and I can even be punished for not getting married in various legal and monetary forms.
That pis­ses me off.

Knex*

I don't see myself getting married unless I have kids, and I'm not in the headspace for that for a long while yet. Could be nigh on 10 years before I consider it, but then again, these things don't really adhere to plans that often. A lot can change in 10 years, be it legally in terms of Father's rights, my own mindset, etc.

TaxAH, without wanting to drag thread off topic, your situation fascinates me. I say that as someone who as no strong opinion either for nor against, just scenarios such as yours, open relationships (very different, I know), and monogamy are often things I dwell on.

Sleepy

I'd say I did it for the usual reasons guys I know get married: she wanted to, guardianship rights, tax credits (being a single-income co-habiting family was costing us about €3,500pa as only married couples can get joint assessment), inheritance issues will be easier in the (hopefully distant) future and, while I don't see any material difference between the two states, married or not, I'm committed to her.

pwurple

Deleted User wrote: »

Couple of signed documents - most of which I do not pretend to understand. As I said - it really helps that one of the girls is a Doctorate in Law. Though we often joke that she probably hid things in the legaleese small print that we will never know about.

You're more trusting than I would be anyway!

pwurple

pwurple wrote: »

You're more trusting than I would be anyway!

Love tends to do that to people I trust them implicitly.

Dravokivich

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

Tax credits are pretty irrelevant now anyway except in certain situations. Bigger issue is inheritance and guardian rights.

It bothers me that this is assumed through marriage and you have to go out of your way to specify it without both parents being married to each other.

I've never had much of an interest in going through with it myself. No particular reason why/why not, just isn't something I think of.

Pawwed Rig

Dravokivich wrote: »

I've never had much of an interest in going through with it myself. No particular reason why/why not, just isn't something I think of.

When you are in a good relationship it would seem like a waste of time to goto the effort of getting the legal work done.
When the relationship starts to turn sour it may rock the boat too much to suggest setting up the guardianship as the other half will then know you are contemplating a potential break up.
Then the relationship breaks and you find any relationship with your children to be totally at the discretion of the mother.

Chattastrophe!

I think what he meant is that the marriage thing isn't something he ever thought of, as opposed to the guardianship thing!

Wibbs

osaurus wrote: »

I'm unsure about marriage. I'm 28 now and not in a relationship at the moment. When I was younger I liked the idea of it. To love someone till death do you part. Idealistic stuff really. Then as I grew older and started working I realilsed it's not all as rosy as I first thought. People who I worked with were married. Some happily, a lot not so. Many cheating on their significant others. This was throughout different jobs and countries. The naivety was shocked out of me.

My experiences have lead me to question the whole idea of marriage and what it means in today's world. From my perspective it doesn't really mean a whole lot. It also raises the question do you ever really know someone? So many people I know have been fúcked over by their wife/husband ranging from cheating to draining bank accounts and having their house repossessed due to bills not being paid.

Divorce rates are creeping up also. Assets being split, custody over children and more often than not sided with the woman. The man usually comes off worse. I don't know if I'd get into a 'contract' where if it were to go sour I'd come out of it at a huge loss - never mind money or any of that. Potential kids and visitation rights would be more important. These are all hypothetical anyway.

Leaning more towards not getting married but things change so who knows. 5 years down the line it could all change.

This pretty much. When I was in my 20's and I'd been in love and all that stuff was aiming towards marriage, I may well have considered it, now with a few years under my belt not nearly so much.

The thing is do I know some good marriages where both grow as people as a result, however against that I know and have known many more who were at best treading water(the majority IMHO and IME) or at worst very unhealthy for one or both. The majority of relationships tend towards failure before we get near the marriage stage, so while the decision to go as far as marriage would appear to have more legs than the average relationship, I dunno how well that holds after the first couple of years pass. Some seem to get into it for fear of loneliness down the line, but a so so marriage can be a bloody lonely place.

Again IMHO and IME quite a lot get hitched to an age timeframe. A game of relationship musical chairs and when the music stops whoever's hand you're holding is the wife/husband. I saw this quite a lot in my 30's. Moreso among women, but men do it too. Where a settle down age is reached and a want/need/desperation[delete as applicable] kicks in. Regularly saw people who had gone out with people in the past where a few realtionships failed for no obvious reason, yet at 35 one "magically" held. A case of whoever's standing there at the right time in play. Many were pretty rushed too and more than once previous standards were dropped with it. I've even seen "auctions" of a sort where two or three people were in play at once and one was chosen as the best marriage option and the headlong, even unseemly rush to the altar or office ensued.

Plus I'd add my own foibles in this. While I have gone out with some really sound women, I also have a habit of falling for the most neurotic and/or self centered in the room and being temporarily blinded by that and while blinded my BS detector is offline. Not good.

So at least for me on the balance sheet of risk and reward, marriage seems like a really risky venture. A case of playing Russian roulette with two chambers loaded. I/we could get lucky, but...

Pawwed Rig

skallywag wrote: »

If you mean in general, i.e. the (preferred!) scenario in which I am not dead, then my partner would have full rights I assume.

No I mean if you were to die who would look after your daughter? If unmarried the man does not have guardian rights unless specifically applied.

Chattastrophe! wrote: »

I think what he meant is that the marriage thing isn't something he ever thought of, as opposed to the guardianship thing!

Well he bolded the guardian rights part so I would assume that is the part he wanted to highlight
Not getting in the middle of something here though

snaphook

I would prefer a very long engagement myself.

Chattastrophe!

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

Well he bolded the guardian rights part so I would assume that is the part he wanted to highlight
Not getting in the middle of something here though

Oh I totally understand, I'd have interpreted that post the exact same way as you did, because of the highlighting, except that I know him and knew what he meant! So that's why I was trying to clarify it on his behalf.

While I wouldn't be into marriage, I'd be very much on the same page as you as regards getting the guardianship paperwork sorted. It's so important. In fact I have it as a reminder for himself on a whiteboard "to-do" list in the kitchen! Whether he ever ends up getting round to doing it is another story ... :rolleyes:

folan

because i love someone and they love me

pwurple

Chattastrophe! wrote: »

While I wouldn't be into marriage, I'd be very much on the same page as you as regards getting the guardianship paperwork sorted. It's so important. In fact I have it as a reminder for himself on a whiteboard "to-do" list in the kitchen! Whether he ever ends up getting round to doing it is another story ... :rolleyes:

That has backfired horribly for a few men. There was a case recently here where the mother died in childbirth, father unable to consent for the new baby to get emergency treatment, had to call the woman's mothere.

Standman

I used to want to get married when I was younger but as the years passed by, my experience of married couples really had worn down my naive notion of what marriage was and what it meant.

It seems to me now that most people get married because it's the next box to tick on their life-checklist.

'Degree --> Career --> Marriage --> Kids', seems to be the standard issue blueprint.

beks101

Standman wrote: »

I used to want to get married when I was younger but as the years passed by, my experience of married couples really had worn down my naive notion of what marriage was and what it meant.

It seems to me now that most people get married because it's the next box to tick on their life-checklist.

'Degree --> Career --> Marriage --> Kids', seems to be the standard issue blueprint.

Yeah, kind of this. It can be hard not to be cynical, especially when you're smack in the centre of the textbook "marrying age" with couples rushing down the aisle left, right and centre.

I think during my childhood I was exposed to quite a few of these "good old Catholic marriages" in my wider family, friends' parents etc - couples for whom divorce never was or would be an option because of its shameful (or illegal) connotations. But the love had very obviously dissipated and what you had was two adults who actively resented each other and had nothing resembling a happy loving relationship.

Since I've hit my twenties it's been exposure to a different type of marriage - the rushed ones that follow a pre-determined path as Wibbs described above, and/or the jump-in-jump-out ones with a short shelf life (found out recently a 29 year old mate whose wedding I attended this time last year has started divorce proceedings), and then the predominance of cheating and aRsing around that I hear or see virtually everywhere - office affairs and no-one bats an eye, night away with the lads/ladies and 'no-one needs to know' . It's just constant undermining and mockery of the institution of marriage at every corner and amid all that, it's hard to see exactly its worth.

And then there's the fact that the very nature of romantic love is that it's circumstantial and conditional and can really vanish as quickly as it appears, no matter how deep you think it runs. And I say that as someone who is loved up with all the trimmings. Making a 'life-long' investment in someone will always run its risks, but with people rushing in when they're clearly still in the infatuation stage and there's an easier 'out' now than there ever was; or panicking their way down the aisle because married-by-30-babies-by-32 is more important to them than whoever happens to be standing in front of them - it's hard to decipher exactly what the point of marriage is anymore. Or what exactly it means outside of the tax break and guardianship issues, which makes it all seem about as romantic as a hole in the head.

And therein lies perhaps the most depressing post I've ever written on boards.

folan

folan wrote: »

because i love someone and they love me

You may be more restating the OPs question than answering the OPs question here. Clearly for many the two do not correlate as closely as your re-statement might suggest.

Pawwed Rig

folan wrote: »

because i love someone and they love me

Love is probably the worst reason to get married as it is an irrational state. Marriage is a legal contract. That is all it is. A lawyer would always advise against entering into a legal contract for emotional reasons.

Another reason many people get married is that the law requires them to in order to stay together. Visa restrictions often will not allow an unmarried couple to stay together.

folan

@taxAHcruel: my answer is perfectly valid as an answer to the threads question, and the first post.

@Pawwed Rig: Marriage to you may mean a legal contract, but that is not "all it is". To me and my future wife, it is far more. it is protecting each other, solidifying our love and commitment through what may come in future. it is unifying.

call it emotional if you wish. emotion is as important as anything else.

Pawwed Rig

folan wrote: »

@Pawwed Rig: Marriage to you may mean a legal contract, but that is not "all it is". To me and my future wife, it is far more. it is protecting each other, solidifying our love and commitment through what may come in future. it is unifying.

call it emotional if you wish. emotion is as important as anything else.

Yeah I am not criticising as that is the reason many people get married. The problem is that emotion is fleeting whereas a marriage could last 70 years. You can do all the things you say without signing the contract.

folan

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

You can do all the things you say without signing the contract.

i know. nothing about our daily lives will change a month after the wedding.

NoCrackHaving

The only thing I'll say about this is I wish people would disassociate the church and Catholicism from marriage. There's no legal need to get married in a Church if you don't want to, just go a registry office or somewhere else legal to host marriages.

Tombo2001

Its funny how people are unable to think outside the box, and I'd very much include myself in that....

Consider the following statement

"I've been with my partner for 7 years, we know we love each other and we dont need a marriage certificate to prove it"

Yes that is correct. But that is not the reason why a lot of people get married.

If you have been in a relationship with a woman for 5 years or more, then chances are you will want to have kids.

If you've never discussed it with her, then you are in denial and you should discuss it straight away.

If you have kids together, then as a man you should get yourself married asap. As mentioned earlier, for guardianship and inheritance reasons. Legally, you are in a much better position being married.

Its a bit like that old nugget about the parents who dont want to get their kids baptised......fair enough, stick to your moral principals about the church and all that, hats off for taking the high ground.......but you've just reduced by 80% the amount of schools your kid can get into.