(Closed) Waiting women….WHY do you want to get married?!

posted 5 years ago in Waiting
Post # 1
Member
5 posts
Newbee

Hi there,

I recently came across this site (whilst researching feminist issues) and after reading some of the posts I felt compelled to ask some questions regarding women’s feelings towards marriage. My main motivation is to see if there is a difference in attitudes on either side of the Atlantic, but I also wanted to know what the main pressures were on ‘waiting’ women to cause them so much anxiety. My intention is not to offend, I am not trolling here, I’m just looking to educate myself.

A brief history of me/my relationship: I had my eldest child when I was nineteen, she was planned but it turned into a volatile relationship when he tried to control me and I ended it just after she was born. I met my current partner when my child was eleven months old and when my she was five I had another daughter. In the first few years of our relationship I very much wanted to get engaged, I brought it up several times and every Christmas and Birthday I would be filled with excitement over whether this would be the year that he proposed. He would joke around by saying ‘Why would I want to marry you?’, ‘You’re just my stop gap’, ‘I wouldn’t want a fat bride’, ‘It’s just a piece of paper’ and ‘I don’t believe in marriage.’ He is not capable of having a serious conversation so he says everything with a glint in his eye and shrugs if you ask him for his opinion on anything. His parents fought a lot when he was younger so I think perhaps this skewed his opinion on marriage, but I also strongly believe that men wait to see if something better is going to come along. I’ve also come to the conclusion that most men aren’t bothered about having kids, or progressing your relationship, as long as they are having their needs catered to by you whilst enjoying as much freedom as they can get.

Anyway, over time I stopped asking, then I stopped caring, and now I am very much anti-marriage (especially watching close friends go through prolonged divorces in which their ex husbands fleeced them). I told him not to bother asking me once we’d reached our thirties and all his friends had settled down, but of course I’m thirty-three and he’s almost thirty-five now and he asks me all the time, to which I tell him ‘I don’t want a fat groom’, ‘I’m out of here when the kids have flown the nest’, ‘Why would I want to marry you?’ I think he is now the insecure one, but unfortinately this ship has sailed.

I realise that my desperation to get married in the beginning was to make this single mum ‘respectable’ and because I thought that being legally bound to someone would stop them from leaving you. Also, I know that my boyfriend resented being harassed into proposing and dug his heels in. My feeling now is that I’m secure in myself, my life will go on with or without a man in it and therfore I don’t see a need to get married, even if I were loved up with someone. However, I understand that this is partly fuelled by my biterness and distrust of men (my dad didn’t want anything to do with me and we’ve never met).

Many women on here believe that not being married is standing in their way of starting a family. I do get this, especially if they are religious, but I wonder if it’s more that they feel that this is the right/traditional/moral way to live your life and are worried about how others will judge them?

I’m glad I had my children when I did, I’ve devoted my life to them, and that’s a big enough commitment for me.

So my question is this… Why exactly do you want to get married?

Thanks for sticking with it : )

S x

 

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Post # 3
Member
6015 posts
Bee Keeper
  • Wedding: March 2012

I guess I don’t get your situation either.  How could getting married to someone be more of a commitment than a child?  You are stuck with dealing with that guy for life.  

 

I know I waited a pretty short time but I wasn’t interested in moving, selling my house,  living with him and trying for kids without being married.  I couldn’t care less about what people thought about me, my family/friends go from single mom’s to married for 50 years.   It was something inside me.  

 

That said it was something equally important to Darling Husband.  He’d been married before, his parents are divorced but he wanted us to be a team and to make us both feel like this was a serious commitment.  

Post # 4
Member
692 posts
Busy bee
  • Wedding: February 2013

I moved in with my husband-then-boyfriend after I finished college.  He had just finished his first year in grad school.  While he attended school for another 2 years, I worked and established social and professional networks in the area.  As he neared graduation, he realised that he was about to enter a potentially long stage of upheaval in his life, moving around trying to find permanent work.  I pointed out to him that it would be really unwise of me to pick up and move with him, abandoning my networks, to start all over again for the sake of a boyfriend.  If we were going to continue to just date, I was going to stay there and we could go back to being long distance like we were in undergrad.

 

The way I saw it, you live with your boyfriend to figure out if it’ll work in the long run, but you don’t immediately become a “household”, where you function and move from place to place as a unit.  That’s what married couples do.

 

So he gave me quite a scare by waiting until the absolute last moment (due to a combination of nerves, pressure from parents, and wanting to give me a romantic proposal), but he proposed, as he’d always intended to do.  And so I happily moved with him for his first post-grad job, and we’re about to move again, hopefully for another job for him.

 

As far as kids: Well, we were a student and a recent grad who didn’t make very much money, we didn’t feel like kids were a wise choice, married or not, those years.  If he hadn’t proposed but we continued to live together?  I’d probably still not want kids before marriage.  I don’t have a problem with couples “shacking up” their whole lives sans-marriage, but personally, I wanted that level of commitment before deciding to have kids (obviously an “oops” is another story).  If he was never willing to give it to me, I’d question why, and if it was so he could freely get up and go when he felt like it, I wouldn’t feel secure in having children with him.  My mom raised me mostly on her own, so I know it can be done if you have to, but it drained her.  I wouldn’t willingly put myself in that position if I could help it.

Post # 5
Member
2854 posts
Sugar bee
  • Wedding: May 2013

@RugbyMum:  I don’t know about others. I can only speak for myself, I never wanted children (no maternal drive at all) so I never wanted to marry when I was younger. I had two very long term relationships and like you, the first one asked me long after I had lost interest. The second one was not someone I wanted to live with, although I loved him (he was very neurotic and would have expected me to cater to his various neuroses). Then one day in my mid forties, I fell in love and when he asked me to marry him, I didn’t want to say no. We’ve been engaged for 2 1/2 years (wedding is next month) and I am finally getting used to the idea. But I only want to marry him because I love him and it will make him happy since he wants it.

Post # 6
Member
2854 posts
Sugar bee
  • Wedding: May 2013

@RugbyMum:  Do you want to stay with your boyfriend long term? Maybe you will feel differently if you meet someone else.

Post # 7
Member
1131 posts
Bumble bee
  • Wedding: August 2013

totally off topic, but it sounds to me you two are just using marriage as a way to hold something back and hurt each other. 🙁

as for why I want to get married… Well, like PP I don’t expect to have kids, if it is VERY important to my SO later, I would consider for him, but I could never stay home etc. I do want to get married because I feel it’s a higher level of commitment and it is important for me. I’m not really in a rush to get married, but SO wants to get married this year (we have been together 6.5 years). 

Post # 8
Member
5 posts
Newbee

I think the problem is that my boyfriend has mellowed over time but I have hardened. His change of heart re marriage also coincided with me losing weight, gaining in confidence and going back to school, this is why I link marriage with insecurity. Though it could also have been that I would no longer be a fat bride? ; )

I don’t envisage being with him forever and that is why I can’t enter into an agreement that says this is it now until you die, irrespective of what may happen. I know people will say that we shouldn’t be together now if there is no future but I think I’d feel this way with any man, the thought of marriage makes me feel claustrophobic.

 

I do know that I will never stop loving my kids, or come to despise them, and won’t ever have to hire a solicitor I can’t afford in order to cut my ties with them, that’s why marriage for me is a bigger commitment than having children, you’ll always be a parent, but not necessarily a spouse.

My eldest doesn’t see her dad since he married and had further children and gradually cut her out, so I don’t have to deal with him, but I understand that for most people they will have to endure their exes whilst their children are young and this can be very fraught.

 

I wouldn’t criticise a woman’s desire to get married, but I do sometimes question their motivations and when I hear of intelligent, otherwise balanced women getting in a tiz because they haven’t been proposed to yet it makes me cringe (and I’ve been that girl who fretted).

My friend recently overheard her mum talking to her aunt saying ‘I don’t know where I went wrong with Theresa to still not be married’, this devastated my friend who is desperate to meet someone and settle down, and it really angered me that she had that added pressure heaped on her. Even though she does want to go down the traditional route, why should it be expected of her and seen as an indicator of success?

Post # 9
Member
1077 posts
Bumble bee

To answer your question I want to get married because in the US (and I imagine most other places) it gives you as a couple rights you wouldn’t have otherwise. If one of us is hospitalized I want us to be able to be with each other 24/7, if I were to pass away suddenly I would want to know that my SO would be able to keep my dog, etc.

There’s also the emotional aspect of it. We already consider ourselves each other’s life partner and being able to declare that publically in the way only marriage can is important to me. Not to mention that when someone meets me for the first time and asks what my relationship with my SO is “he’s my live-in boyfriend with a car payment that I’m spending the rest of my life with” is kind of a mouthfull. 😉

Post # 10
Member
1770 posts
Buzzing bee
  • Wedding: August 1997

@batwoman: +1

@HisIrishPrincess:  “I guess I don’t get your situation either.  How could getting married to someone be more of a commitment than a child?  You are stuck with dealing with that guy for life. “

THIS

@WestCoast:  “sounds to me you two are just using marriage as a way to hold something back and hurt each other.”

THIS TOO

@RugbyMum: 

Sorry about your lack of relationship with your own father and your self proclaimed “bitterness” and “lack of trust” with men. Sounds like you have made some poor choices in men.  Kudos to you for devoting your life to your children. However your children are also learning what they live. Your attitude and relationship with both their fathers is sowing the seeds for how they will see and interact in their own future relationships. (Just as your mothers did for you.)

I think you do know what marriage is and why people want to get married.  However think it has always been unattainable to you and at this point although bf has now consented you are using it as a defense mechanism/tool. Don’t blame you. However think you would greatly benefit from therapy. Before you dismiss the idea, reread about children learning what they live. You’re their example….

Best wishes hon.

Post # 11
Member
1650 posts
Bumble bee
  • Wedding: November 2015

@RugbyMum:  I can’t speak for anyone else, but for me personally I want to get married for a few reasons:

1. Legally, married couples in the states are afforded different benefits (tax wise) than non-married couples.

2. Being married doesn’t mean your relationship will last for your whole life, but having the paper makes it feel more permanent to me (again, this is specifically my view for my own relationship).

3. I was raised to believe in the concept of marriage before children. For me, personally, it’s important that my relationship has a solid foundation before we commit to having kids. We’ve been together more than 5 years now, but we both are on the same page in this instance (which is really nice).

And 4. As silly as this sounds, I want to be able to introduce my guy as my husband one day. I guess that isn’t the greatest reason, but the extreme happiness and contentness I feel when I think about that is enough for me.

I haven’t been pressured by my female relatives at all (or any relatives) to get married before moving in with my guy, which we’ll be doing in the next few months. It’s probably because I’m almost 25, which is still pretty young for marriage in my area (New England) of the country. I can’t really explain exactly why I want to be married, except that I adore my SO (and he adores me) and we both can visualize our futures together (it involves some adorable dogs, a home, and some kids).

Post # 12
Member
1131 posts
Bumble bee
  • Wedding: August 2013

@RugbyMum:  I see what you are saying about wanting marriage out of insecurity, and from what you have said, that is true for you, and may be for many other people, but I can firmly say that it is not for me. Around our 4 year anniversary, he brought up marriage, but I wasn’t ready so he dropped it. When I decided I was ready I brought it up just to make sure we were eventually headed in that direction as marriage is important for me. To me as long as we’re headed in that direction, I didn’t care if it was 6 months or three years. We plan to get married this fall as I will be starting my graduate program (while still working) this winter. We could wait until after I graduate, however he especially wanted to get married now. I can say with confidence that neither of us are insecure. We are both attractive, well educated, have a strong family and have very good careers and income. 

Post # 13
Member
5 posts
Newbee

@gemgirl6:  

My mum never had a relationship with anyone when I was growing up (not openly at least) for me to draw any assumptions on how they work and her and my dad split up before she found out she was pregnant, when he was told about me he decided not to have any involvement. I tried for several years to keep my daughter’s dad in her life and bent over backwards to maintain a relationship between them but in the end it was just hurting my daughter to be let down all the time by him so I stopped badgering him into seeing her and he never bothered again, she actually told me recently that she only saw him because she thought it pleased me but hated going to visit him. My youngest loves her dad but she understands that he can’t always be relied upon, that’s not something I’ve had to teach her. Yes I probably do make poor choices in men, I think this is also linked to class, but that’s a whole other thread.

 

I knew this was going to be a tough crowd to draw any objective responses from, but I don’t hate marriage because no-one ever proposed to me – I turned down a £50 ring and everything once ; ) – initially I was hurt that my boyfriend didn’t want to marry me, but now I think if I had gotten married when I was younger I’d be divorced by now. I don’t cry myself to sleep at night because daddy didn’t love me, when I was a kid I was confused for a long time because my mum and I never discussed it (my aunt told me about him) but I think everything happens for a reason and I’ve never learned to rely on a man so count myself lucky that my world won’t crumble without one now.

 

I teach my daughters to be strong, independent women, and that they can be anything they want to be if they study and work hard. I’ve no doubt that my stance on marriage/men will have an effect on them, my eldest is already sensitive to gender politics, but I’m not ashamed of that. I’ve also told them that women can be a-holes too, just so they have a balanced view whatever path they choose : p

 

I am genuinely interested in why people get married because although it is assumed that love is the main motivator, I know that that’s not always the only reason and I genuinely feel sorry for women who are driven to distraction waiting for their partners to propose to them because I think we’re worth more than that.

I don’t have any assets that I need to safeguard and when I go into hospital for anything I put my boyfriend down as my next of kin, also if I die the children will be placed in his care because I gave him parental responsibilty over my eldest and he is on our youngest’s birth certificate so I wouldn’t anticipate social services objecting.

 

Evidently legal matters and tax breaks etc differ between countries, and indeed states, so I’m not being deliberately antagonistic in asking why people choose to get married, though I get why the people here would disagree with my sentiments.

I asked my best friend what happened when she got engaged and she said ‘I told him either he marries me or he can f off, I’m not waiting around forever’, I asked her if she felt differently after the wedding, she said ‘no, it is just a piece of paper, he was a w*nker on the Friday, we married on the Saturday, and he was still a w*nker on the Sunday.’ Everyone’s experiences are different ; )

Post # 14
Member
629 posts
Busy bee

@RugbyMum:  I would have to say my reason does revolve around wanting to start a family, especially as we don’t plan on TTC. My SO has a genetic disorder that has a 50% chance of being passed on biologically, and if it is passed on, it will be almost twice as bad as he has it. He has it fairly moderately, but his neurologist has said that any children will most likely need 24/7 care, or an OBGYN would recommend aborting the pregnancy since the baby wouldn’t survive (not trying to start a pro-life/choice debate, just stating the facts). Since neither of us want to go through either of those, we have chosen to adopt, and we know that as a married couple, we would have more luck adopting than we would as an unmarried couple.

Post # 15
Member
482 posts
Helper bee

I think youre doing a little bit of projecting here due to your past history with men and rejection from your current partner about marriage. which in turn led to insecurity, possible resentment towards him and the idea period.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i agree with PP that children imitate with what is shown in front of them. and counseling may be a good idea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

my story is kinda similar to yours, ive been a single mother for nearly 12 yrs now, my sons father only seen me as a casual fling and had no interest in being a dad. i grew up an army brat, so my dad wasnt around much, which led me to seek attention in the wrong places.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

my recent partner was unwilling to commit, like you, i would bring it up often. expect a proposal on every special occassion, but nothing happened for 5+ years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i wanted to break out of being ‘single mom’ and obtain a higher commitment. but i also wanted longterm companionship, a partner in life to love unconditionally.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

after staying in the maternity ward without my childs father there i made a promise to myself i would never have another child, unless im married first. which ive kept for 12yrs now. the way i see it, is if he isnt fully committed to marrying me, he wont be  actively commited to being a father. 

its easy for a guy to plant his seed where he wants without having to play an active role the way a mother can. i wanted a man who was all in, marriage and children wise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i wanted the social status to be recognized as his wife, to be entitled to the same benefits as every other married couple.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

given all my history and heart ache with men, i still havent given up on the idea. and i never will. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

honestly i dont think youve completely given up on it either. your relationship sounds like one big power struggle. when you wanted marriage, he rejected you, didnt take you seriously. now that you’ve stopped ‘caring’ he’s come around to it, so youre rejecting him, and you now have the upperhand. .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Post # 16
Member
97 posts
Worker bee
  • Wedding: May 2016

@RugbyMum:  I don’t think wanting a marital commitment as a standard has anything to do with insecurities, although I am sure that it is a factor in some cases.

My reason for wanting marriage vs. just agreeing to live together forever is that it is an official commitment to a future together, and it means more to me to actually enter into a legal agreement than just saying “sure, we’ll stay together”. 

If you don’t want to get married (IMO) it is because you can’t say for certain that you wish to share the rest of your life with that person. That in itself is not a problem, but if one part of a relationship wishes to fully commit to a future together then it doesn’t work if the other isn’t 100% in agreement.

The answers you’re getting here are no less objective than your own thesis which is built on your own experiences

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