I (38F) have been with my partner (43M) for 16 years. We have a kid approaching their teens. We never married and our verbal commitment to each other as far as an official date was the decision to start a family and combine our lives, instead of having a wedding. Any anniversary we celebrate, is just the day we had our first date. We met through mutual friends and colleagues and have been in love ever since. Life has had it’s ups and downs, but we feel very lucky and blessed to be part of each other’s lives and have weathered the storms and seasonal conditions of relationships. We both have parents who were the typical nuclear family, married, no messy divorces or unhealthy toxic relationships and trauma.
We both truly didn’t want to have a wedding, as we both were of the believe that weddings are built on a commercial money-making industry of status anxiety and corporate greed. We both believe that diamond engagement rings are also one of the most successful and overpriced scams of all time that impacted western society to believe that you have to spend X amount of money to validate love. We are also both atheists. So, walking down the aisle wearing a white dress in a church for the sake of tradition, seemed like a bit of an insult to religion.
Looking at our life, there is nothing that a married couple has that we don’t have, other than a piece of paper. We have joint everything, house, vehicles, bank accounts and finances, if one passes away leaving the other gets everything to help raise the kid, etc. We both work and contribute to our household, make all our decisions together, communicate well, and are faithful to our future and lifelong commitment to one another and our family. When there is a bump in the road, we are there to support one another in every way. We have both taken turns with brief periods of unemployment, study, and minor temp health concerns. We are healthy people that work hard on ourselves, maintaining a strong relationship with our bodies, minds and soul. We have an open access policy to all devices in the household and there are no secrets hidden behind passcodes. I cannot imagine him not being in my life, and he in mine.
I have no problem with the commitment to marriage as a construct and have committed to it without the paperwork as much as possible. I have done the stay-at-home mom thing, and the working mom thing too. He has always had the full wife experience, and I the full husband experience. When referring to each other, we prefer to say ‘partner’ most of the time, but sometimes in certain situations it calls to emphasize just how close our relationship operates and we will say ‘husband/wife’ in its place and it isn’t weird. We feel stupid saying boyfriend/girlfriend, like teenagers in a school yard, as we are adults and far beyond that.
Recently, I am not sure if it’s thanks to social media algorithms showing a lot more on the topics of marriage in my feed or a combination of the dynamics between other members of our family/friends and the relationships they have with their significant others. Whatever the reason, I am starting to feel like I am missing out on something. I still don’t want to get an engagement ring, or have a wedding day at all, but recently been leaning towards wanting to just be married to him, to make it official since we are practically married anyway. I want to officiate an already strong commitment with the man I love, not just a wedding day for the sake of it.
I know my partner will not go for this though after the status quo being what it has been for so long. I mean why change now. Especially when we literally have everything a married couple would have anyway without needing to do any additional effort and cost. There is almost no benefit to marriage as the law is clear that it is the exact same as marriage since we are set up this way.
Discussing with him I have done. There have been plenty of opportunities that have surfaced over the years where we could discuss certain relationship topics. As these topics have come to light due to someone in our lives in a circumstance we have never faced, we openly deliberate on it. From having colleagues experience cheating in the corporate space, the Coldplay concert viral video (with how much exposure that had for weeks), a friend divorcing a narcissistic douche bag, past other family scandals, etc. This has given us the chance to a deeper understanding exactly where we stand on these topics and why. In the past, whenever I approach marriage, even in the hypothetical view, he gets this awkward smirk, and backs away from the topic like it’s a trap. He is cute-sweet-awkward and looks uncomfortable. “Like… where is this going” (as he pulls a finger through his collar to loosen his tie), ‘is it warm in here!’. Cute jokes and great deflection. But I don’t think he realizes his responses to recent things have started to make me feel a little devalued. We expanded on a deeper concept with my sibling recently announcing their sudden engagement during a weird situationship we couldn’t fathom, it has made the whole institution around marriage for him something to avoid more.
I am okay with marriage as I think it is yet one more layer of commitment to a person you love. I’d also love to change my name but doing this through deed poll instead of marriage feels a little insulting to my father’s family name if I were to commit to my partners name without the promise of marriage feels wrong. My partner did agree that I could actually change it to his (and our child's) if I wanted and even gifted me the papers one time as his blessing to do so. But it felt very weird and I didn’t know how to react and never did it.
Being legally married means, you have all the societal benefits from doing so. People in general take your relationship more seriously, this includes your family, your coworkers, your friends. Exactly the reason we use the ‘husband/wife’ title from time to time so our relationship doesn’t feel less so. Marriage is an international standard of union and recognized wherever you go in the world regardless of race or religion. A civil partnership is an agreement on a local level, but doesn’t hold the same weight as a marriage in other places in the world. Being in a marriage makes you put more energy into making it work as it is something sacred and worth working on and protecting. Not that we don’t have that view already.
His views of marriage stem from fears of owning someone like property, and making things like separation harder and messier than it needs to be for everyone. He doesn’t want me to feel like I am being owned or like property. But he doesn’t realize that if I reverse that mindset, it makes it sound like by that standard, he doesn’t want to be owned by me if this is how he sees it. I know we all know that one grandparent grumbling about ‘the old ball and chain’. It sounded like grandpa was just trying to either be funny, or it was true and he resented his decision 50 years ago to marry Grandma.
I am aware of his other views, that he wants to make sure I feel I am free to do whatever I like and that I am not trapped to be with him forever, and he wants to make me comfortable that I am not bound, and don’t belong to him as I am a free person to do whatever I choose. It’s very considerate of him, but it is a two-way street and I can’t shake this idea if you reverse this mindset, then he cannot be trapped with me forever, and wants to make sure he is not bound and he is a free person. The mentality he describes is like having one foot out the door at all times. I can’t help but feel a little devalued by this too. I don’t want to leave a foot out the door, I want to be in the same room with him. In an attempt to ensure my independence and freedom from a contract that is harder to break, it makes it look like I am not worthy of being bound to and he wants a quicker getaway if ‘I do the wrong thing’.
Everything I've read seems to say that when a guy makes a statement around not wanting to be married, he's really saying through actions "I don’t want to be married to you”, or “waiting here until something better comes along”. This isn’t the case as he specifically saying he doesn’t want to leave and doesn’t want me to leave him. He chooses me and says he can’t imagine a life without me. And I know men say what they mean and mean what they say. So I can only go by his genuine spoken words.
We both feel that many people get into a complacency after getting married and let themselves go as far as poor attitude. They stop being the best version of themselves that they can be once the wedding is over. Some people feel like the deal is done and they can relax and take off the mask. Too many relationships we have seen where it’s one sided and one person throws their hands up in with an attitude of ‘F*** it, I’m married now’ and lets themselves go. They fail to put in the work to sustaining the marriage and the one that is doing all the work builds resentment. These marriages usually end in divorce or just staying together till the kids are older and then separating. Because of this, he feels that not being married keeps him in check and makes him continually have to work to better himself or I could leave him for someone else who does. However, if you reverse this mindset, it feels as though I can’t let myself falter for a moment either, or he could leave me for someone else too. Almost like, we better be on our best behavior or else. Having said this, we have been through so much together we know we aren’t going anywhere since it is tried and tested for so long, so this idea is outdated, and has just become sad to me,. I don't want to have this pressure of having the potential to feel less than adequate as we all naturally age, become less pretty, have body changes, etc.
Many points on the internet says actions speak louder than words. His actions of never wanting to get married on paper is saying ‘I'm just not that into you’. This is not the whole picture. Because if you reverse that mindset, and truly look at all of his actions as a whole, I am his whole world and he wants to spend the rest of his life with me. He is choosing me and giving me everything within his control and more. We literally have everything a married couple would have, and if it weren’t for our hard work and dedication to one another, we would have not made it this far. He has given every ounce of energy to work for providing for us. He had dedicated all his time to being husbandly to me and fatherly to our child. Every moment he has spent on himself to better his skills, emotional intellect, professional mind, benefits the family as he is a brilliant provider. He shows up for everyone, including himself, and is the complete package. So, if actions speak, this should speak volumes. He has given me everything I have ever wanted and more, and I give him the same in return. Our relationship isn’t 50/50. We both give 110% each.
Many reddit stories bring up these issues were if a person wants to get married and the other doesn’t, the advice is always that the person who wants to get married should leave to find someone who will see their value and marry them. If they don’t leave, they end up staying in the relationship far longer than the socially acceptable waiting for a proposal that never happens, building resentment and leaving far too late. This is usually followed with a story that the person who didn’t want to get married ever, finds a new person to be with and is engaged within a socially acceptable time. This is possibly out of fear of not wanting to lose the new person by making the same mistake again. This gives the appearance that the person just wasn’t ready, but instead they just knew they needed to secure love and follow the social norm this time around out of fear of losing yet another one. Leaving is not an option for me. I don’t want to leave. I love him dearly. The advice in this situation to leave is not sound at all. It would be breaking up a really stable happy household with a child over a concept that I didn’t want all those years ago, but stupidly want now.
It’s just this weird switch in my brain and I wish I could switch it back. I was okay with not being married for years, but now I am not and need to understand it better, not shift the status quo out of nowhere on him and make him feel trapped with stupid ultimatums and alienation. I just want to see if there is any advice on how to persist with a relationship as a defacto, not end something amazing and turn to struggling in world of single parenting unhappiness without him and a loving home for our kid over an ideology.
I know this is a long post, but I am at a loss with where to go from here. The advice I want and need is not usually the advice people give. I need advice on how I find peace within myself in the decision to never be married to a person I do want to spend the rest of my life with? It never bothered me before. But now it kind of does. I kind of wish we could just sign papers, or elope in Vegas, or a secret signing and even not tell family. I am relatively content, and enjoy everything about our life and never want to leave or risk damaging what we have. I am living a 99% dreamlife we have built, and the 1% is just me finding fault with myself most days. I just need to know how I can find peace with the fact I am clearly not marriage material to someone who is given me a marriage lifestyle but I'm not enough to make it official. I just want to know that I am valued enough that he would if he could and that I am worthy of even asking and committing to in an official capacity. But all these little subtle comments over the years, haven’t helped me feel positive. I also accept that I would never want to force him into something that he doesn’t want, just as he would never force me into something I don’t want. It’s just me trying to find acceptance with being a permanent place holder and to not feel bad for my self esteem whenever I think about it.