If you truly love your partner, does a ring and a ceremony really do anything?
I know there are certain legal situations where an official marriage changes who has certain rights, but aren’t those same rights available if you make other legally-official decisions E.G. a will or trusts, etc?
I’m generally curious why people get married beyond the “because I love them” when it costs so much money.
It greatly simplifies life from a legal standpoint. It’s basically like creating a tiny corporation of two people that can act as a single legal entity. If you’re married it simplifies buying a house together, inheritance, medical decisions, etc. As others have pointed out, these are important especially when your partner’s family don’t approve of you or the relationship especially for LGBT people.
I am going to break the mold though and say the actual ceremony is important too. Declaring your intention to stay together for life in front of your friends and family changes things. It adds a level of security and finality to the relationship- you have to put your money where your mouth is on the relationship. Although people frequently do it, I don’t know how someone can go through the wedding process without reflecting on how big of a deal it is to stand up in front of so many of your friends and family and declare your intention to stay together forever, even without the religious ritual aspect of it. I wouldn’t want to have kids with someone without having this commitment, for example. Ultimately even though marriage is a social construct, I think it’s still a useful one even in a world where women are no longer considered property of men.
My defacto partner and I have been together for 12 years. We’ve been trying to have kids for 6 years or so and got lucky with twins 2 years ago.
Being married wouldn’t strengthen our bond or commitment in any way.
It’s a shame my partner doesn’t have the same surname as our kids. I’ve been meaning to ask her how she feels about it.
I wasn’t married when I had my child. Chose to hyphenate. I’m unsure how I feel for your wife if this topic didn’t come up two years ago, goodness
I’m not quite sure what you mean to imply.
The topic of marriage did come up 6 years ago when we decided to have kids. At that time we decided it didn’t have much meaning for us.
We didn’t really think about her family name at that time.
When the kids were born she was emphatic that they should have my family name. She actually has a family name from a previous marriage, which wouldn’t be appropriate for our kids, and she’s estranged from her actual family so didn’t want her maiden name.
Since the kids have been born this has been in the back of my mind and I’ve been meaning to address it, I assume it’s on her mind too.
Honestly, just attending to all the things that need to be done in the last 2 years has been very challenging. This just hasn’t been a priority.
Also for context, de facto relationships have legal standing in Australia. So the law treats us as though we were married. Our situation is not uncommon.
I mentioned it to my sisters who suggested she could just use my family name as an alias, or just change her name to our family name, or we could elope. If she wanted to hyphenate that would be up to her of course but knowing her as I do I doubt she will want to.
Hey i wasn’t trying to be hard on you, sorry it came off that way. I’m not married either, and been with my, what we call, common law “husband” for many many years now. The last name thing is complicated for me too, you dont gotta explain to defend your choices, I don’t care what other folks do in their lives, not hurting anyone.
I just laughed and am knocking on you saying youve been meaning to ask her how she feels about the situation, and you’ve “been meaning to ask” for two years since you had the kids, goofball