Doesn’t it take a lot of work for any close relationship to work? With or without a piece of paper? To be honest, I’m bothered when people say that phrase “marriage is a lot of work” - human relationships are a lot of work…sometimes. And sometimes not. I’m not anymore impressed by a couple who stays married 50 years then people who are close friends for 50 years. It’s not a contest it’s just a lifestyle.
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For some it is more than a lifestyle. It is a commitment to another person for life, hopefully, when one might otherwise disassociate from a friendship or merely intimate relationship. For most people the amount of time spent with a spouse, both good and bad, and joint undertakings ( whether that is buying a home together, moving, raising a child) dwarfs the amount of time and effort spent with any other adult.
Marriage is practiced disproportionately by the college-educated financially stable “elite” here. There is likely a reason why.
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Our daughter has already told us she wants a super fancy but smallish (40-50 guests) wedding. Now she just needs to find the groom. 
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S is really close to his cousins that are the offspring of my sibs. The cousins & their partners and my sibs and their spouses already gets us to 40 people. Fiancée has at least 20+ relatives coming. They are also having friends and H’s brother and his 2 kids and his SIL attend. S is trying to keep wedding smallish — as close to 100 as the can manage. H and I also gave him a short list of a few close friends we wanted to have attend and some significant checks when S announced his engagement.
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There was recently a thread where the “husband” said he was “spiritually” married (remember that article). I think that thread highlighted the difference that a legal marriage makes versus just a long term committed relationship. I am with others here in that I don’t want my daughter to feel alone. I want her to have meaningful relationships and people to share her life with (especially as she gets older). She is a workaholic, working mostly from home, and it is easy for the life work boundary to slip away. Since she is an only child and we have virtually no family, I think she has done a great job creating “family” with close friends. I would love to see her make a true family also (with a spouse and children), but that is up to her.
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We eloped. Went to Disney world for our honeymoon and sent postcards from Mickey Mouse telling people we were married. We didn’t account for postcards not all arriving at the same time - that created some poutiness but they got over it😉
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D1 and fiance will probably have about 120 at their wedding next May. Some of that will depend on who decides to travel to California where the wedding is from the east coast where most of fiance’s family and friends are.
H and I gave them a set amount of money and her fiance’s parents did the same. The couple has most all of the planning done and we think it will be the lovely event they are hoping for.
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OP here. As I suspected and said on the original post, this thread has riffed into wider territory. I love how cc does that.
The idea of ds living a great life and not being married was never in question. I think people can be deeply happy and not be in an intimate, lifelong relationship. It’s just not what I, personally, would want for him or me. I want grandkids, which I’ve said is my problem, not his.
I have a bff who is 62 and never married. She has an older sister who also never married. My bff learned earlier this year that the apartment where she lives is being sold at some unspecified time so she and the sister have finally acted on the plan they hatched several years ago – they would build bff a tiny home in the back yard of the sister’s paid-off house. The twist – they are taking my bff’s good friend, also in her 60s and also never married and with no kids, in as well. She has been on disability for more than 20 years and lives across the porch from bff so she’s losing housing, too. I was shocked to hear this. That feels like a whole other step to me, above and beyond. My sweet friend said she would take me in, too, if I needed it. I think this is an example of creating deep, deep family of choice.
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And an example of the considerable complexities involved in end of life care if you don’t have a partner and children.
It isn’t something you think about in your 20s and 30s, but amongst the (relatively few) people we know without children who are getting into their 60s, it is becoming a bigger concern, even though they almost all have partners.
In previous generations larger families meant there was usually a nephew or niece to take on some level of responsibility for an unmarried uncle or aunt, along with strong community bonds (eg churches). Nowadays not so much and people will need to figure out different approaches.
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LOL, they’ll be “The Golden Girls”.
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The sisters are very close to a 30-something unmarried niece and nephew, and I’m sure will have some kind of role in the whole family’s care when the time comes. Because they are the only children in that generation they stand to inherit everything.
Exactly. I have a friend. Long term relationship. Very happy but chose to never get married. She gets diagnosed with a terminal illness and he takes care of her at home. Her family never cared for him. She gets admitted to the hospital and the hospital and family (legally he is not family) will not let him in to visit. She dies at the hospital with her family around her but not him as he was not allowed by the family. Family won’t let him in to the funeral. He lives a miserable life right now with the huge regret that they never got married.
So whether they choose to believe it or not, that “piece of paper” means a LOT!!!
We have let our kids know how much that “piece of paper” means. They can choose to do whatever they want and they know they will always be loved and supported but they have intentions of marriage and kids.
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Exact same situation with my aunt. Never married her partner who had kids of his own from a prior marriage. They excluded her from everything including the hospital and funeral, I don’t think she even knew he had died for several months. She was left alone, became very solitary and had no one to deal with her own end of life care (she got cancer but ignored it until it was way too late), my parents had to fly over from Europe to sort out the mess.
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I am not sure I will marry my SO. I have LTC insurance, he doesn’t. At the moment, I am more financially secure. I’ve seen GFs go thru a lot of money plus time, caring for their spouses. I think being the caretaker feels different if one has been involved for decades, sharing finances and decision making, a late in life marriage is not the same.
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I think it’s also different if you both have kids of your own.
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Regarding the NY Times opinion article posted above, I didn’t find it offensive at all. Wanted to point out that the author makes a clear distinction between a happy marriage vs. an unhappy marriage so don’t think he is at all saying it’s better to be married in a bad or abusive situation than to be single. I fully support all the options that are out there, whether to remain single or be in a committed partnership without a marriage license, but think that piece of paper does speak to the commitment present. Not that it’s at all necessary to demonstrate a commitment to the relationship, but it isn’t nothing either as some of the posts above demonstrate from a legal standpoint (i.e. being allowed in the hospital if your partner is ill, or being allowed to make the hard end of life decisions that you know your partner would want).
Back to the topic of this thread, would I be sad if my kids chose to forgo marriage and parenthood? Yes, I would be. But I would also fully support whatever they chose as it is their life to live, not mine.
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It doesn’t have to be a marriage certificate, though. It just needs to be Healthcare Power of Attorney and any other associated legal documents you want to get taken care of in your estate planning like a will and making your partner your executor. Absolutely we should all get our ducks in a row about this, but it can be other pieces of paper besides a marriage certificate and a marriage certificate is no guarantee that the “step kids” won’t leave the spouse out anyway. Happened to a friend.
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Interesting information I learned from my DD today. My BIL complained to my DH that his 24 years old DD who is in five years relationship doesn’t want ever to get married or have children. DD’s cousin told my DD that she does want children but is scared of the pregnancy and childbirth process. I think most women are scared of it but they want to have family and kids and power through those fears. But some don’t
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Agreed, the column wasn’t offensive. A happy marriage is, on balance, a good thing for adults to strive for. But that “on balance” is doing a lot of work! Marriage won’t be right for some people. Still, as @roycroftmom noted above, it’s not for nothing that marriage is increasingly becoming a luxury good. My D19 and S22 have seen the example of their parents’ good marriage and those of others in our cohort (along with those that haven’t worked out), and they both have marriage quietly as a goal alongside their career plans. S wants to have kids but D absolutely doesn’t, all of which of course is fine.
I would note that some of the seemingly happily single do harbor private regrets. A friend of mine now in her early 60s has a great career, many good friends and enjoys travel, but she told me several years ago that she thinks often of the engagement she broke off in her late 20s. She never had another serious relationship, and she isn’t happy about that. She never had children, and she isn’t happy about that, either. She doesn’t mope through her days in misery, but the fine life she’s built is more in the spirit of making the best of a regrettable situation than a joyous celebration of chosen singlehood.
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Shame on that family. Their choices negated the relationship she clearly had with her partner.
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