I was just thinking about this, due to another thread.
What will change when (or because) you get married? Have you discussed it with your SO, if you're marriage-ready? If not, what do you want to change or not want to change someday when you get married?
Living situation/neighborhood/owning vs renting? Willingness to have kids? Income? Time spent at home vs time spent out? Type of recreation? Type of vacation? Way of communicating? Priorities? Intimacy amount or type?
What do you think marriage SHOULD alter about a relationship?
Example: FH and I already live together. We do not ever want children, and we have no interest in owning a house or living in the suburbs. (We're city people through and through.) We go out occasionally but like to watch TV and play video games and intend to keep doing that. We love traveling and both want to see the world. We already are intimate. We already are a team, put each other first, and will even defend each other to our own parents if we have to. Blah blah blah.
I realized, there's nothing we want to change. We have things pretty much how we like them, other than maybe some more income, that would be nice. Marriage isn't actually going to change anything. After our wedding and a tiny vacation, we'll come back to precisely the same life we left, just as we left it, nothing different but the rings on our fingers.
For us, that's just right, but I know that woud be disappointing to some. So share your feelings about change from before marriage to after marriage! Wht do you know will change? What do you think ought to change? What do you hope will change?
@Bebealways: Well, we already live together and have been on the same page about finances, children, sex and most things. The biggest changes will be that I will take his last name and we are going to open a joint checking account (only for bills though).
Nothing will change immediately besides my name - we already live together, share incomes and whatnot but we do plan on TTC almost immediately after the wedding (we'll both be 31 and want 2 kids so we want to start sooner rather than later) so contraceptive use will definitely change!
The only thing that will change for us is that we will be trying for a baby right after we get married. We are both childless and divorced. I am 27, but he is 42... so based on his age, we want to get moving on the baby making ASAP.
For us, the only thing that will change when we get married is my last name.
Edited to add: And I just remembered, our finances. Once we're married, we will have one account where our wages go into and bills come out of, plus a joint savings and then seperate spending accounts which a certain amountof $$ per week goes into and a personal savings account as well - cause FI-to-be won't tolerate me spending $1,500 of our money on shoes and I refuse to see hundreds of dollars of our money being spent on beer and bar snacks each week!
Nothing, except I will be able to save money instead of putting it towards the wedding.
I may change my last name and eventually we will probably buy a house and have kids, but not for quite a while. We already live together, our finances will remain as they are and we're already intimate. So there's nothing that will change really.
Nothing wil change except I will take his last name and will stop taking the contraceptive pill (but that's probably quite a big thing!)
Only two things will change.
1. My last name.
2. We'll start searching for a house to buy [currently renting].
Nothing will change relationship-wise. We still put each other first and don't expect any changes in behaviour or treatment of each other, however there will be a few changes in situation - we will hopefully have bought a house by next year, we will start trying to conceive this time next year, etc. But nothing about the actual relationship will change.
Everything will change for us. We are not currently living together, and he has two wonderful kids, so starting after the honeymoon, I go from single and 38 living alone, to a family. We join our finances for household expenses, and I give up my two cats. Honestly, outside of loving him and his family, there is very little that will NOT change... and after living most of my life for myself, it is a change that terrifies me, and is exactly what I want.
The only thing that changed is our legal status of being married. We already lived together, commingled funds, and decided to wait on kids before we even got engaged. Now we just file our taxes jointly.
Nothing will change for us. Already live together, plan to keep our finances separate for the foreseeable future. Not having children. Not taking his last name. Our relationship is wonderful as it is (respectful, don't fight or bicker, good intimacy, shared hobbies). About the only thing that will change is who is the beneficiary on our insurance policies.
- My name
- The ability to arrange each others funeral instead of our parents
- inherriting from each other
- The feeling of being married is emotionally different for me and being able to really call him my husband after 8 years.
- probably lots of other legal benefits
@Bebealways: Great thread idea :)
I voted 'other". The only thing that will be changing for us is my surname lol. FI and I started a joint bank account before we were even engaged. We bought our first home together last year and have been living together since. In regards to birth control, we only use condoms atm and won't be planning on TTC for a few years so I guess that will stay the same too.
Absolutely nothing other than legal benefits. Your relationship with someone doesn't suddenly change because you have signed a piece of paper!
I voted nothing, but I guess that's not true. I'll change my name, and we'll open a joint account.
My Fiance and I have lived together for 3.5 years now. Nothing will change for us other than filing taxes jointly. Moving in together was a big commitment for us and it established our marriage.
I voted other because my name is changing! Can't wait to take his last name but that will be the only thing changing.
@Bebealways: For us, nothing. We joke that we are throwing an expensive name change party for me. Jk but you get the idea. We opened a joint checking & savings accounts when we got engaged. Its mostly for household bills and our savings is just savings. We are keeping our seperate checking accounts bc I have a Louis Vuitton & Nordstrom habit that doesnt concern him as long as our finances are in order - thats my fun money :)
I owned my home before we met so he moved in here about two years ago. We will start to try for kids maybe a year from now but we dont anticipate much change. We are older (29, 28) so I think we are pretty set in our ways of how we are as a couple.
Nothing except hyphenating my last name. We already live together, share finances & have a daughter.
Everything! We'll live together, spend holidays together, see each other everyday, share finances, make decisions together. Can't wait!
@SeaSalt: oooh another "keep the money separate" person. Lol. FH and I agreed that joining our bank accounts would probably break us up. We still sorta see it all as "our money" and we already talk about big purchases first, but we can each make our own final decisions. Fortunately we're both pretty considerate, but it's relaxing to feel like I'm MOSTLY just accountable to me, money wise.
Honestly, he's a saver and I'm a spender, he watches his bank account like it's gonna run off and has excel sheets on his computer for half a dozen things to track where every penny goes, and I just have sort of a ballpark notion of how much I have at any given time as long as it's above "enough."
Yeah we'd drive each other insane. Much better this way. :D
We will get to wear wedding bands and call each other husband & wife. That's about it
We will hopefully be living together in our OWN place (crossing my fingers I find a new job please please please), and intimacy will be better. And more. Because it's OUR place and we will do what we damn well please thankyouverymuch. lol. And I'll keep the pill but probably no other backups...
We are actually going today to open a joint account! Well, probably. We have to see all the details but we're working on that one! And we already do pretty much consult each other about finances. As far as social, I don't see much changing. We go out sometimes and stay in sometimes!
We lived together prior to getting married. Sooooo nothing. I didnt change my name.
Money might be an issue for us. My FI is OBSESSED with making sure he doesn't take a dime of my money....for almost anything. As of now (and possibly for many more years to come, or life) I make more than him...significantly. If we were to take a lavish vacation it would be on my dime which he does not feel okay with.
In a way it's good because I'm sure I'm with a man that wouldn't freeload but at the same time, we're going to be married, our finances should be shared. He just doesn't like the role reversal or the idea that he would have do depend on me.
Tough nuggets kid - should have picked a career that paid more if being the master earner was so important to ya 
My FI and I already live together and own our house. We don't ever want children, and our finances are already merged, so nothing is going to change for us except my last name.
Name change, combining finances, being able to go on lavish vacations with his family, always being called his wife instead of his "friend" - I don't know why people do that sometimes even though we've been together for almost five years, filing our taxes together, legal rights, etc.
I am surprised at the amount of "nothing" answers! I mean, I already live with FI and there will be minor things... putting funds together, changing our wills, my last name, etc. But it is a pretty big emotional/mental change. I do think of him as my life partner and number one but making that statement to our community and being his wife is different in my mind than our life now. I'm seeing our engagement as a preparation for marriage, but its different. Perhaps bees who don't see it as much have been together for a long time.
Also, I hate the word fiance because I feel like its pretentious. So I won't have to use it anymore.
So bees, if marriage doesn't seem to change anything what prompted you to get married?
the only thing that will change is my name really. we already act like an is married couple lol. we don't go out drinking a lot anymore, we have been really good at saving and already joined our bank accounts, and we always put each other first :) hopefully our living situation will be resolved before the wedding- we are living together at my parents now since i got laid-off, but we used to have our own place when i had a job.
Before I met my DH, I was a never-married, almost 46-year-old woman who owned her own home; had lived alone for more than two decades; had a fantastic career that paid quite well; dined out two-to-three times daily, five or six days a week; traveled to beautiful, tropical places; spent very little of my time at home; was still waiting until marriage to have sex; and lived in a thriving, major metropolitan area of another state.
Following my marriage to my DH, I obviously began having a marital physical relationship for the first time in my life. I relocated to a small town in a very rural area of another state. I left behind my house, my job/career/income and all of my friends, my wonderful church family, my activities, and most of my favorite stores and restaurants. (Thank goodness for online shopping! Now, if there were only online take out! Haha.)
I became not just a wife but a pastor's wife and stepmother to multiple children, including two now-teenagers. I have a dog for the first time in my life. We dine in most of the time, and, because I have not yet found a job in this area and everything is so far away from us, I spend most of my time at home. (Thus my Beekeeper status, LOL!) I had to change everything -- from churches (including my denomination) to houses to bank accounts to my spending, shopping, eating, traveling, and sleeping habits! (DH and the kids are night owls, and I am by nature a morning person.)
I will tell you that making this kind and number of dramatic changes in my life all at once was nearly overwhelming. However, I did survive, and I don't regret my decision. God has given me some wonderful new blessings!
@Bebealways: I figure if/when we decide to buy a house together, then we'll open a joint account to save for that but right now it's in our best interest to stay in our one bedroom apartment. I find maintaining separate finances pretty much makes financial disagreements nonexistent. I don't get upset when new shit appears on the boat and he doesn't get upset when new shit appears in my closet. :)
@bella128: He asked. It will change nothing so I saw no reason not to. Also, he has children, so in the event something happened to him, I would be protected as far as his estate is concerned and have the ability to make medical decisions on his behalf. But in our day to day life, everything will be no different than it is right now.
@Bebealways: My name, our living situation, and probably the sex. We joke about it but I know it's true - I think we're holding back in the freaky and weird department. lol
Aside from that, we're already changing our spending and planning habits to consider our relationship and each other's time so that won't change once we say "I do".
contraception will be the first thing out the window. I dont know if we will be TTC right away, but i am WAY more frisky when i am off BC so we decided its gone right away.
And we will start planning for our future financially. We're talking about making a move 2 hours away right now but thats 5 years down the road.
Nothing will change. We aren't TTC for a couple years, we already live together and we already love everything about our life. We've already been saving money for a downpayment on a house and our finances have been combined for almost a year -- since before we were engaged.
I'm excited to be officially married and change my name and all, but my day to day life won't be affected at all.
I don't think marriage should alter anything about a relationship. A relationship isn't bills, living situation etc etc.
LOL this is a great question. For us not a darn thing will change EXCEPT we won't be saving for a wedding anymore and I'll be graduated with my Masters!!! So then we can take impromptu trips and stay up late drinking and spend money frivolously if we want to. Ahhh...cannot wait.
We've talked about buying a house as our next big priority...but we really don't want to be as tight as we have been this last year.
Oh ya...we are changing our last names. We are BOTH hyphenating :)
feels like everything is changing for me. Gonna be moving out of my parents house and into a apartment with him. No more partying lol and it will just be me and him. thats it, No mommy and daddy around lol Im nervous I know I sould like a baby right now but thats all I know. First time ever gonna be on my own, paying bills, cleaning, cooking. parents are very tradional (not alowed to leave the home till your married) At least im gonna have him by my side threw it all thats whats really important.
You must log in to post.
| User | Posts Today |
|---|---|
| Soon2BD-CBee | 16 |
| Tickles | 13 |
| ParisM | 13 |
| j_jaye | 10 |
| AB Bride | 10 |
| KatNewby | 6 |
| ladyartichoke | 6 |
| MsLobizon | 6 |
| theone99 | 6 |
| drlolaz | 6 |
| User | Posts Today |
|---|---|
| SapphireSun | 1 |
| Tickles | 1 |
| KatNewby | 1 |
| j_jaye | 1 |
| starbuckslover | 1 |
| ladyartichoke | 1 |
| MsLobizon | 1 |
 Daffadowndilly |
1 |
| Beaukat | 1 |
| texasbee | 1 |
