Curious about marriage versus long-term partnership logic thoughts.
This is not intended to be judgmental; I have seen several posters refer to their significant others simultaneously as wife/girlfriend or bf/dh. I believe the person is intending to imply that while "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" are a casual relationship, theirs is "not as serious as death do us part but we are living together and married in all but name."
Sometimes these relationships are referred to as "fiance" (but they usually don't have a date for the wedding set, with it being "sometime in the future, when we can afford it/get around to it).
There is a current contestant on "The Voice" who has two children with her "fiance" who she misses dearly; the children (I believe) are six and two (I could be wrong?). They have been together for ten years. Are they still holding out for a better offer?
This is not intended to be a judgmental thread; there are certain legal obligations, rights and responsibilities that come with getting a "marriage license." The concept of having a baby and living with someone, but not getting married because you aren't ready for that type of "commitment" seems -- well, odd! Lol!
In the meantime, while the unmarried live-in population goes up, folks are fighting for the *right* to get married - but those who can, don't.
There is a stereotype that a woman wants security in a relationship; for me, it was a true thing, and after a few years of dating, since I knew I wanted a lifetime commitment and children, "the marriage talk" became a big thing. FOR ME, the idea of "living together" started feeling like a perpetual job interview, and it was time to "move on" either to a relationship with a future or preferably WITH HIM. It hasn't always been easy, but we are close to seventeen years married, and I love him (and our children) to pieces. Life isn't always perfect, and to be honest, if I had a mental "easy out" of "just breaking up" (instead of the "d" word), I might have been tempted to walk away a few times, but since I do have that "until death do us part" mentality, to me it means we work though things even when they are tough.
I was lucky/smart enough to marry my best friend, and to be fair, he is freaking amazing, so I do feel territorial about him (because what women wouldn't want an intelligent, handsome geek who goes to work, doesn't run around, loves his family, doesn't do illegal stuff, helps with the housework, and listens to me? he doesn't like to mow the lawn, and he plays computer games a lot, but he is also a reader, and that is a BIG DEAL to me - those guys are RARE - and he's MINE! - Lol!).
There are always reasons for other people's choices. I am curious about them.
If you are buying a house together, having children, and planning a lifetime together, what are the thoughts about that last step? Why not "put a ring on it?"
Share, please. 
= new reply since forum marked as read
I do know some other Very Nice Guys - how much older are we talking?
Unmarried property owners have issues if they split or one passes, unless they specify that it goes to the remaining partner / isn't to be part of the estate (for children or other family members).
There are also issues about having to sell the property as an asset if one person requires medical assistance beyond certain limits / can't have assets worth more than (fill-in-the-blank), but I am not sure how this works in the case of "unmarrieds".
Marriage is also about automatically designating medical decisions, including end of life care, and funeral arrangements. One could assume that families would respect the wishes, etc., but as our LGBT friends have found, when greed enters the picture, good sense can be gone quickly.
Please clarify your point. Are you for or against marriage generally or personally - and why? Thank you.
No woman is an "it"! 
But I'm not the target audience.
Auto accident, multiple months of a hospital stay, followed by physical rehab issues, etc. that take up to two years to recover from --
Would you still be there in year three? Would she, if the situation were reversed?
Please share your thoughts on this hypothetical situation.
pretty early on (when I was having an insecure moment about quitting my job/going to college full time); his attitude was that it was for *OUR* benefit, and it did work out that way. Later he was massively supportive while I was on bedrest with the pregnancy (five months - urk/thank you DU for helping keep me sane!), and great about me being a "stay-at-home" for the first year after they were born (which worked out great because of them being preemies), then still supportive when I did the "part time from home" for a while, before returning to full time work.
We consider ourselves a partnership - he couldn't carry the kids, for example - and we (mostly) have similar values about spending money/earning it. (There was a big fight about "baby shoes" of which I am an addict - lol!)
It would have been miserable if either of us thought the other was "taking advantage" of the other for financial reasons.
The "job interview" (for me) was more about "look, this is who I am - either you love and want to be with me, or you don't because this thinking about it crap after we've been sleeping together for a couple of years SUCKS." To be fair, it was a MAJOR decision for the both of us, with huge talks about values, and whether ours were compatible. He would probably have coasted for a few more years if I hadn't been antsy, which would not have worked for me. (I knew we were going to have fertility issues, and this was also something we both had to deal with/discuss; it took eight years before our twins came once we started trying, and the "help" was NOT cheap.)
My mother always taught all of her children that, while we shouldn't pick people who didn't take pride in their ability to earn a living (whatever that was), both spouses need to have income earning capacity just in case "something" happens; a family shouldn't end up homeless because someone ends up in the hospital (or in my case, on medical bedrest for a high risk pregnancy), or because GM goes bankrupt and people get laid off (which happened to him for a few months). She always said that our spouses had the right to count on us, just like we needed to be able to count on them.
My mom is a very smart woman.
It isn't easy, especially with all of the changes we all go through. Realistically, we are always free to walk away, and then deal with the consequences. I am *not* "in love" every single minute of the day, even though I *love* my husband to pieces. There are times when I look at him, and just see a complete alien, who thinks "wrong" especially when he isn't agreeing with my good sense.
A very long time ago one of us read an article about how people stay married for fifty plus years, and it talked about "unforgivable acts" - that long term marriages had, on average, seven incidents of "unforgivable acts" in them. The people who stayed married learned to live with them, and "moved on", while the ones who didn't got divorced.
I have a very verbal temper; I can say some incredibly unforgivable things in the heat of the moment. I am grateful my husband's memory isn't as good as mine, or that he is willing to let it go.
Both of us have dealt with depression at various points in our marriage, and the other one was always the person who insisted we "STOP IT ALREADY!" and get better. It was *very* bad for me after my first miscarriage; he didn't handle being laid off for two months well, either. I am grateful it got better.
I hope you are able to kick your love in the butt in a loving, appropriate way.
Are definitely issues! Thank you for sharing!
what each *brings* to it. Neither of us wanted someone who wasn't *a partner* in the fullest sense of the word. We also had issues/values that we considered important to us, with fidelity being one of them.
There were other "applicants" before him who I loved. Most were good men, but they would not have been good life partners with me for various reasons. Some I rejected just because I didn't want to deal with their specific drama, and a couple rejected me because of mine (my family was definitely *not* a positive selling point, and my interest in housekeeping can best be described as "haphazard" . (In my opinion) love is simply not enough; it is a starting point, but it is very easy for people to love who people *want* to be, instead of seeing who they ARE. And frankly, just because you love someone doesn't mean you want to spend the rest of your life with them. But I was asking about the "yeah, we're together probably forever, but no reason to tie the knot" folks.
He is *mine* and I am *his*, but not in an ownership way: in a *partnership* way. We work together to create the life we want (family, home, interests, etc.) and try to support each other emotionally.
When I was on bedrest, he took care of things I couldn't. When I wanted to foster puppies (87 by the end), he was there. When he wants to spend time gaming, I step up so he can step out. If things become "uneven" we talk about it, and try to work through it because we are both "fair minded" people (which is one of the values we had to verify we had in common, because who wants to ALWAYS be the giver?).
Like I said, my best friend and my partner. I am proud of him, and who he is; he says he is of me, too. We prop each other up, and kick each other's bottoms when we need it to be the people we both want to be.
I have literally had to trust him with my life when medical decisions had to be made when I got pre-eclampsia. He is a good man. I remember asking him the "lifeboat" question, and he gave the right answer. And when I watched him with servers, to this day, he tips well, and is courteous. (You probably know the sage advice to judge someone on how they treat servers, right? Because within six months of a new relationship, that is how they are going to be treating YOU, so look for courteous, polite, reasonable, generous, and kind - and if you don't see it, dump instantly!)
And yes, he is *MINE* - sometimes I can't believe how lucky I am that we chose each other for better or worse, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer until death do us part. (Did I mention he does the dishes? I *hate* doing the dishes!)
Plus, did I mention he is a geek? And I am a *total* geek girl! 
It said to me that we were both "done looking for better."
As I explained in another post, my mother had made sure all of her children were able to be self-supporting/earn a living, but there was a security that came with knowing he was taking care of things so we didn't end up homeless when I ended up on bedrest (an unplanned situation, but one we were able to handle).
I realize things can change, but as I said the "security of being together, regardless of how our bodies change in the future" was one of the things a public commitment was about.
I had a difficult time right before our wedding when I quit my job to return to school full time; I had been self-supporting my entire adult life, and to say that I had a small "freak out" would be an understatement, especially because he paid *all* of the bills, including the schooling, while this was happening. Granted, I did 75 credit hours of college in eight months - yeah, me! - but still, for a person who was *always* "paying her share" it was terrifying, and a level of trust I probably don't make a lot of sense when I try to explain.
That was when he gave me the "partnership" speech ("this is for OUR future, and the money is OURS" and that worked. Later, when I couldn't work (bedrest), and then stayed home with our babies, I didn't feel like a leech, because the trust that he wasn't going to use it to try to control me or be an ass had already been established.
Thank you for pointing out that "security" means different things to different people. I hadn't really connected it with anything other than "picking each other for keeps"...
I like listening to other people's logic, and understanding the choices they make.
It is also making me re-think some of my "expectations of normal" which I am very much enjoying.
At some level, MineralMan, I think I am just one incredibly lucky woman - know what I mean? I am generally speaking very happily married, so part of me is all "why doesn't everyone do this?" Which is really kind of ridiculous! Lol!
I am *so* going to give Mr. Briggs some massive smooches when I see him tonight!
Thoughts on post #59? It is an interesting hypothetical (I think).
We're getting married this summer for the first time (hopefully the only time lol). She's a foreign student with little ability to make a good income until she graduates. I want my property to be hers, so that she has the security of knowing that if anything happens to me, or to the marriage, she will not have to worry financially. She will also also get a green card and then citizenship. Marriage makes a variety of other things easier, especially with her parents who wanted her to get married.
Besides, the look on her face when I showed her the ring was worth every penny. 
I'm 49, he's 50. Been together 6 yrs. Neither of us has ever been married, we don't have/want kids. We are happy! If it ain't broke, don't fix it
