My oldest daughter started dating a young man her last year of college. She continued dating him throughout law school - different cities, same state. He proposed her last year of law school - I believe she let him know that she expected him to do so. A number of her friends were married or well on their way to marriage, which I think played a part in her wanting to be also.
My youngest daughter just got engaged. She is the first of her friends to do so. Her fiancé moved her (not unwillingly) in that direction quickly. I don’t think either she or he felt pressure to marry but rather felt ready to marry, if that makes sense. Both have graduate degrees and work full time. Both seem ready to take that step into commitment.
@LasMa that was a big part of it. I think I’ve told this story before but I came home one day and Mr R had passed out in the bathroom and hit his head on the toilet. I took him to the ER and it turned out that he had the flu (real flu) and I realized that I was as good as a stranger if something bad actually happened to him.
Then after we graduated, it just made no sense for us to not get married because I got insurance through my PhD program and he was on an exchange plan.
So yes, it’s possible for us to get legal protections through a bunch of legal processes but he still wouldn’t be able to get on my insurance and by the time we went through all the other things, getting married would just be easier. But truly, not a darn thing has changed since we got married (other than we save $100+ each month because he’s on my insurance lol).
On a side note, even though Mr R and my parents both know my wishes if anything happened to me, I still have a pretty explicit living will. That way no one is pressured to do anything that I wouldn’t have wanted. Makes everything easier I think.
I have a 35 yr old son who gets asked all the time. Not by us. I feel if he’s not ready he shouldn’t. He usually has a girlfriend but moves on when he feels the pressure. His brothers were 24 and 27 when they got married. But the oldest claims he’s still too young. I was 23 his father 32. To each his own, but there is definitely pressure from others.
Very, very few of my kids friends are married and they are in their late twenties. They are all buying homes though. Two who did marry are already divorced. A few have kids but they are single, not supporting themselves and living with parents.
People asked this after you dated for 3 years, and you answered with a quip about a commitment “as quickly as possible”? I can understand why they didn’t say anything further. But it might not be for the reason you think. And some divorces are quick and easy-- unless you don’t want them to be.
A young woman at my office got married about a year ago, and she says it did change her relationship with her now-husband, even though they had been living together for several years. Part of this may be due to the fact that they survived the ordeal of the wedding together – an extremely large, extremely formal wedding that included guests from other continents. (One member of the couple comes from a South American family; the other from a European family.) But another part of the reason for the change is that they have made a commitment to each other that is far greater than the commitment involved in simply signing a lease together. My colleague likes the change. She likes feeling that she is now the wife of the man she has loved for so long.
@romanigypsyeyes, I suspect that your wedding was a bit less traumatic, which may account for your feeling that your relationship with your husband didn’t change as a result of marriage. My colleague’s feelings might be mostly PTSD.
Interesting topic. There’s a guy I sit next to in one of my classes - he’s a sophomore in college and is on his own pretty much, from what I can tell. He told the young woman that sits next to him (she’s obviously a friend) that he was going to be proposing to his girlfriend soon. They haven’t even been dating a year. Everyone around him was rather shocked. However, considering his background, it isn’t surprising to me. He comes from a really small town where not many people go to college, so a lot of the people his age get married. (And besides, he said he was figuring on a long engagement, he wants to finish his degree before he gets married.) He’s an incredibly bright guy and very kind, so I hope it goes well for him.
Thanks @jym626. It’s been difficult. Especially since her brother got engaged around the same time her relationship was breaking up.
She seems to be doing better. Making plans such as moving to a new apartment that she held off for a time as he kept promising that they would get engaged and move in together
I don’t think my D felt any pressure to get married. She will be 26 this summer, and has been with her fiance for 6 years, so to them it was a natural progression of their relationship. A lot of their friends have been getting married, last year and coming up this year.
@Marian perhaps. It probably has far more to do with the fact that I’ve never put a lot of emphasis or thought into marriage. As I’ve said, I would’ve never gotten married if it weren’t for the legal protections. I’ve never understood the need for the government to sanction a relationship (and we’re not religious so no issues there).
I didn’t even change what I called Mr R past our wedding day. We are partners and refer to each other as such, just as we have for years. Nothing changed for us- not our names, not our addresses, and so on.
Marriage certainly does change things for some people. I know my parents have similar views on marriage as I do and my mom says nothing changed when they got married and my dad disagreed (though he couldn’t say why lol). Mr R puts more of an emphasis on marriage but even he admits that nothing really changed.
I am sorry that she had such a traumatic wedding though. Weddings can be so stressful and that makes me sad. It’s supposed to be such a happy day
There are an awful lot of both responsibilities and rights that come with legal marriage (just ask any same sex couple who didn’t have the option before last year). There is more to marriage than “being tied down”. If my D or her BF died right now, none of their assets would go to the other. They couldn’t make medical decisions for each other. I know it is Wikipedia ;), but here is an easy to find list of what they CAN’T have or do if they don’t marry.
Oh no, bookworm. They have been working hard on that relationship!.
And deb, your daughter is a strong woman. That is a tough decision and the timing was dreadful. She will find someone who deserves her.
I have a 24-year old daughter who is not in a relationship, although I think she would like to be. So I don’t pressure her to be married at all, but I do encourage her to do things to widen her circle of acquaintances. She is out of the college scene by now, and works as a paralegal in a small law firm with only 2 partners so she can’t meet anyone at work, so I would really like her to figure out some extracurriculars where she can meet others. I wouldn’t use the term “pressure” but I do encourage her to think about ways to meet new people!
I’m totally in support of living together before marriage probably because it worked well for me, having lived with my now husband for 3 years before marriage. I can’t fathom, personally, knowing if you are compatible enough for someone to marry them without having shared living quarters together and the day in, day out routines.
Attitudes towards marriage rely vary from country to country. The marriage rate in many European countries has been dropping for awhile. In Iceland, something like 60% of children are born out of wedlock.
I’d love to have grandchildren some day, to see my own children get to experience the joy of being parents, and I hope those future grandchildren will benefit from being raised by two loving and committed parents, but that commitment doesn’t have to be a legal marriage. To me, its just a piece of paper that doesn’t always reflect or guarantee the right mindset and dedication desirable for a sharing a lifetime together as a couple. I’ve seen fantastic relationships where the couple haven’t tied the knot and unhappy ones where they have.
I’ve seen many friends and family get divorced and for some of them I think they got married because it was “that time” or “all their friends were doing it” instead of the reasons and timing that made sense for them.
What changed in our relationship, after marrying, was that DH now had a comfortable descriptor for me: my wife. He thought the terms significant other, girlfriend, partner etc, were awkward.
The insurance bit is one thing. But I don’t think any time I ever took DH to a doctor or hospital, or represented myself in other ways as his legal partner, that they asked for proof of marriage. For many years, I kept my own last name; that was on my DL. When I moved to this state, I got my new DL using both names. It was only in 2010, after decades of marriage, that I didn’t pass the stricter I-9, since my Social Security card was still in my maiden name. At that point, I changed that.
^ It’s not an issue until someone challenges you. If you present as someone’s spouse, pretty much no one is going to question that. But if something were to happen to your partner and you’re not legally married, his/her parents (for example) can challenge you and you can have zero legal claim to even seeing your partner let alone making medical decisions for him/her.
For us, it was important because his parents would absolutely have not let me make medical decisions on his behalf without us being married no matter how long we’d been together. And they would make medical decisions based on their religious beliefs and not on his wishes.
But her point is that you didn’t have family members challenging your right to be present and make decisions. If you had, you’d have been darn glad to have the proof.
