why avoid marriage

[deepthinking]

I see people who live together and are happy, but don't they secretly want to get engaged and have special rings and ultimately a ceremony and  party? 

I can almost hear the defensive fury, but meh, if you cam explain why people avoid marriage, I would be grateful.

Edited August 10, 2020 by deepthinking

[schlumpy]

Sometimes it 's rebellion. It's about not letting society control behavior or choices. 

[Wiseman2]

15 minutes ago, deepthinking said:

I see people who live together and are happy, but don't they secretly want to get engaged and have special rings and ultimately a ceremony and  party? 

I can almost hear the defensive fury, but meh, if you cam explain why people avoid marriage, I would be grateful.

Do you want to get married but whoever you are dating just wants to live together? Marriage is a legal contract,  what you are talking about is a wedding, the party.

[d0nnivain]

I lived with a guy who said he didn't believe in marriage.  Claimed it was just a piece of paper.  

To me the commitment -- standing up before family & friends to make these promises about forever is deeper then just saying them to each other.  

Marriage also comes with legal rights & responsibilities.  It's one of the reasons gay marriage was so important.  Your next of kin a spouse if you have one, parents, then children, make decisions about you when you are incapacitated.  No matter how long you live together, you don't have those legal rights in a crisis.  It also effects inheritance if that is important & it can effect child custody if there is no biological relationship.  There are tax implications too.  

  

[Woggle]

Truth be told the vows mean nothing to many people these days. I am a supporter of the people who actually take those vows seriously but for many it's just an excuse to have a wedding and then the marriage starts to unravel.

[d0nnivain]

the party is the least important part of the whole thing

[notbroken]

Won't be a popular position, but many guys don't marry because they believe the system is stacked against them and it is very risky for them financially.   Maybe they can retire with all their income, but can't afford to if things go south and they would have to give 1/2 away.    Just a bad risk for them so they won't do it. 

[Shining One]

I personally don't like the terms of the legal contract involved. I prefer negotiated terms for the duration of the relationship.

[devilish innocent]

I think people want to err on the side of caution before getting married. If they haven't been divorced themselves, they often have close friends or family who've been divorced. They don't want to make vows that they might have to break later.

[Acacia98]

3 hours ago, deepthinking said:

I can almost hear the defensive fury, but meh, if you cam explain why people avoid marriage, I would be grateful.

I feel like the way you're conceptualizing the issue is problematic. You're starting with the assumption that everyone SHOULD want to marry and that there's something wrong with/strange about those who don't. But why should anyone HAVE TO marry? What is so great about marriage that it should be the default for EVERYONE in a long-term live-in relationship?

And no, I'm not against marriage. Marriage matters to me. But I recognize that it matters to me for personal reasons, not for universal reasons that apply to all of humanity.

[Ruby Slippers]

It's a big commitment, a spiritual and legal union, and some people just don't want to take that leap. Financially speaking, the lower-earning person is better protected by marriage, because if the marriage dissolves, all assets acquired during marriage are generally split 50/50. So I think it's smart of higher earners (historically men, but this is changing) to be VERY careful in choosing a spouse.

[basil67]

Raises hand.    We've been living in a defacto marriage for nearly 30 years and are absolutely committed.  We've outlasted a number of friends who did the ceremony.   Our state recognises our relationship, we have wills which name each other, I have changed my surname to his, we have a joint mortgage, two kids, three hens and two birds and I have an eternity ring.  

Now, regarding marriage, if I was miserable and it could not be solved, or I was abused - I would leave.  So the vows of 'for better or worse' would be a false promise.   And I know this because I've been married before and left that marriage.  

All that said it so happens discussed we did discuss marriage over the course of a weekend about 25 years ago.  Sitting in bed one morning, I said "hey, do you think we should get married?" He went "oh yeah, OK"     We were both aware that the vows are pretty meaningless in this day and age, but the ceremony could be a bit of fun.   But he wanted the whole pouffy bride thing with bridesmaids, groomsmen and flowers and 70 guests and I'd rather stick pins in my eyes.  Interestingly, he said he'd refuse to wear a ring because he doesn't like wearing jewellery.   I would have been happy with a registry office with just immediate family but he didn't want that.    Given that getting married was really just a bit of fun because we were already established and committed....and a ceremony is about only thing we've every really not been able to find a solution for,  we put the money towards a new bathroom instead.

Also, regarding defensive fury - people only go on the defense if they feel attacked.  Listen with an open mind and you'll see no defensive fury.

Edited August 10, 2020 by basil67

[Happy Lemming]

2 hours ago, notbroken said:

Won't be a popular position, but many guys don't marry because they believe the system is stacked against them and it is very risky for them financially.   Maybe they can retire with all their income, but can't afford to if things go south and they would have to give 1/2 away.    Just a bad risk for them so they won't do it. 

That was the exact reason I never married.  I was engaged once and it cost me a small amount of money when that went south, no way was I going to commit 1/2 of my assets.

I worked entirely too hard flipping houses, etc. to give half away.  Moreover, there is no way I could have retired early if I had married. 

The risk wasn't worth it, so I avoided it. 

I also enjoyed the variety of dating/sleeping with different women.

I was very nomadic in my youth.  Marriage and moving around probably wouldn't have gone together all that well.

[jspice]

There are these things called pre-nuptial contracts... or in my country we call them ante nuptial contracts (ANC) 

I’m not married, but if I were I would want an airtight ANC. 

I don’t have any money to speak of so right now have nothing to lose but I would still want one to protect me and him.

People often go on about how it’s “not romantic “ but romance goes out the door when it comes time to divorce. 
 

I advised a friend to get one before her wedding. They’d both been working about five years at that point. She told me I was raining on her parade. 
 

Ten years later her marriage was rocky. She played the lottery and won. 
Had to split that money with him. 
 

its always a good idea to protect yourself anyway. 
 

If your spouse is taking half your money upon divorce, you didn’t plan properly before your marriage. 

[Happy Lemming]

7 minutes ago, jspice said:

There are these things called pre-nuptial contracts...

I've seen those challenged and then you spend a boat load of money on attorney fees defending the original pre-nup.

 

[basil67]

6 hours ago, deepthinking said:

if you cam explain why people avoid marriage, I would be grateful.

@deepthinking going back to your original question....it's interesting that the "get engaged and have special rings and ultimately a ceremony and  party" which you think would make someone want marriage was ultimately what made me avoid marriage.  The quiet, private discussion we had was far more my style.   Blame my introvert self.  

[snowboy91]

Everyone has their reasons, but here's my line of reasoning.

To me, the whole idea of marriage is such that two people spend the rest of their lives together, and the legality of it is such that assets become equally shared between the two people. A lifetime is an incredibly long length of time - in that time feelings may start to fade, bad habits develop or people change such that they become incompatible. Or frustration starts to build that isn't obvious until well after the rings are exchanged.

My greatest issue is when the two people are clearly going to be happier apart, but they are stuck together because that's the whole point of marriage, right? I guess that's why divorce is a thing, but it's often a messy process and rarely ends well. I'm not saying that a relationship that is happy for life isn't possible (there are plenty of examples that are), but it's far less common than the fairytale might suggest, since a significant fraction of marriages end in divorce (and there would be many more unhappy ones that won't end because of vows, religion, fear of getting even more hurt, etc).

My point is that I find it difficult for marriage to be imposed on everyone and every relationship when it simply doesn't work for everyone. Sometimes the end game doesn't feel like it should be "the rest of my life and I"ll give up everything for it" - sometimes it's more like "it's pretty good the way it is, but I have the freedom to leave if things turn really bad".

[basil67]

Yep, there are plenty of miserable marriages of couples who are my parent's age.....the last generation before divorce became socially acceptable.    The "waiting till the children have finished school" was a running joke amongst much of my generation when referring to their parent's marriage.

[vjk]

13 hours ago, notbroken said:

Won't be a popular position, but many guys don't marry because they believe the system is stacked against them and it is very risky for them financially.   Maybe they can retire with all their income, but can't afford to if things go south and they would have to give 1/2 away.    Just a bad risk for them so they won't do it. 

That is the the primary reason for me.  The horror stories I heard and read about me scared me enough that I wouldn't even consider dating for many years .  (Then, I got accustomed to living alone).  Imagine losing a high paying job, you can't get a similar one for whatever reason, and you wind up in jail because you can't pay support that is based on the high income.

[Blind-Sided]

17 hours ago, d0nnivain said:

To me the commitment -- standing up before family & friends to make these promises about forever is deeper then just saying them to each other.   

Yep... but how many of us are here because our SO decided they didn't care about that commitment after a while? 

Oh well.... 

I have a neighbor who has been together with his "Wife" for +20 years... but they never got married.  I've lived up the street from him for 16-ish years, and we have talked about it.  But since looking at this thread... I'm now wanting to talk to him about why they never got married. (Since I'm probably going to be in the same situation) 

[d0nnivain]

1 hour ago, Blind-Sided said:

Yep... but how many of us are here because our SO decided they didn't care about that commitment after a while? 

I don't know.  I got married late in life, over 40, & have been happy for 12 years. 

Most of my close friends are married for decades 30+ years.  I do have friends who are divorced & some who are divorced more than once.  

But to me that commitment is important & it's more than a piece of paper

[GeorgiaPeach1]

15 hours ago, Happy Lemming said:

That was the exact reason I never married.  I was engaged once and it cost me a small amount of money when that went south, no way was I going to commit 1/2 of my assets.

I worked entirely too hard flipping houses, etc. to give half away.  Moreover, there is no way I could have retired early if I had married. 

The risk wasn't worth it, so I avoided it. 

I also enjoyed the variety of dating/sleeping with different women.

I was very nomadic in my youth.  Marriage and moving around probably wouldn't have gone together all that well.

As long as you expressed UP FRONT to all the women you slept with that you had no intention of ever marrying them, then that's fine.

[Happy Lemming]

1 hour ago, GeorgiaPeach1 said:

As long as you expressed UP FRONT to all the women you slept with that you had no intention of ever marrying them, then that's fine.

Of course not... I lied to every one of them.  I had it down to an art.

In one case, I even bought one a cheap Cubic Zirconia fake ring to shut her up about getting married (until I could replace her).  When I dumped her she said "Well I'm keeping the ring and I'm going to sell it." I just laughed and said "You do that.", knowing full well it was a fake $20 piece of crap.

I did tell my present long term girlfriend on our 2nd date, that I would never get married; to which she told me she would never get re-married, but we are both older (AARP crowd).

[FMW]

1 hour ago, Happy Lemming said:

Of course not... I lied to every one of them. 

Why lie?  Surely not every woman, or even most of them, you hooked up with expected you to marry her.  If one of them told you they did, all you had to do was say it wasn't going to happen and move on to the next one.  Lying is unnecessary and mean.  

It seems to me that people either don't have the conversation and just see how things go (and understand it can go either way), or if one is seeking marriage they put that right out on the table at the beginning.    

On the topic of the thread, I'm a woman and I'm the one that took the financial hit by losing part of my retirement funds and paying for things for my ex husband's benefit in our divorce.  I'm not avoiding marriage in the future, I'm just flat out not going to do it.  No reason whatsoever at my age to do it again except possible healthcare coverage issues.  For younger couples I can understand wanting marriage to raise children in a perhaps more stable situation. 

But with half of all marriages ending in divorce, and all that entails, it shouldn't be surprising when people want to "avoid" it.  For the 50% that have wonderful marriages, they enjoy the sacred union aspect.  For the other 50%, there is nothing sacred at all about it and that is made painfully clear.     

[Happy Lemming]

6 hours ago, FMW said:

Why lie?  Surely not every woman, or even most of them, you hooked up with expected you to marry her. 

I lied when the subject of marriage came up.  I didn't bring it up.  If it was a woman I only went out with once or twice or a one night stand, of course the subject of marriage didn't come up.  I was talking about the women that did bring the subject up. 

Some women brought the issue of marriage up at 3 months, some at 6 months, some at a year and some at two years.  I've only had two relationships that exceeded two years.  But when the subject came up, I was quick to lie, then bail.

NEXT!