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Recently I had a discusion with my wife about a friend telling her that she's tired of playing house with her mate of 4 years. My wife defended her friend of couse saying that if you live together, sleep together, pay bills, and etc. you should get married. Why do women feel the need for paperwork and ring. If your happy the way things are leave it. I dont buy into that saying if your not married a person can just walk out at anytime he tired of being together. Even with a certificant ones can still walk out.
I think it has been instilled in females that respectable women get married. It is a status. If you plan on children, you dont want them labeled "bastards". Society has looked down on unmarried women and illegitamate children. These things die hard.
Hmm, I can ask the same thing of men. Why did most of my ex-boyfriends try to pressure me into marriage?
Nothing wrong with wanting to get married, maybe it's not for everyone. This issue should be discussed early in a relationship so that if marriage is not a long term goal for one but it is for the other, you can cut your losses and move on. I could do without the ring, but the marriage (paper, whatever you want to call it) is important to me.
If you don't want children or to buy a house together, there is little need to get married. Some couples do it for shared health coverage benefits from work etc... And regardless of being formally married, it's important that both in a relationship make it clear to their partner that there is love, trust and respect involved, and it's not a situation of convenience or compromise. I wouldn't live long term with a man that I didn't intend to spend the rest of my life with, it wouldn't be fair to either of us. And one should be verbalizing these thoughts with their partner and not be afraid of hearing something they don't want to hear. All strong long term relationships need maintenance and grooming. Never take your partner for granted.
I never pressured my Fiance to get married......we have lived together for almost 8 years and we got engaged a few years ago...........not in any hurry to get married. I am happy with the way our relationship as is. We love and respect each other and I have seen some marriages not last as long as we have been together. I feel very fortunate to have found such a wonderful person to spend my life with regardless if we are married or not.
I totally get this. I am in the same boat-somewhat.
For awhile this drove me crazy. Lately I have been focusing on enjoying a great relationship no matter what it's status vs. focusing on the fact that we have not yet arrived at marriage. I also don't want to marry someone who has to be forced into marrying me as this could make for some resentment later in life.
On the other hand I am so much like the woman OP posted about. Even though I am fairly open minded and try to tell myself that a peice of paper does'nt equal a better relationship and most people would just be thankful just to have a man treat them so well. Despite this somewhere deep down, I desire to get married. I absoultely prefer it to a dating someone for a lifetime.
At this point, I would advise her to find out if he is unintrested in marriage or unintrested in marriage RIGHT NOW. If he does not desire to get married at any point I would say she will have to decide if she can live with this or if she needs to find someone who shares marriage as a goal.
I personally am letting my relationship just be at the moment, BUT 4 years, that alot of patience if he knew all along she wanted this!!
As I wrote to a friend earlier, before getting involved with anyone, it's really important to find out about the person they are inside and what their life goals are. You can't start dating someone because you think that they are cute or hot looking. And for the women, if you want to have children, you need to find out right away if your man wants kids and what his timetable is. Plus to make sure that between the two of you, you can afford to raise the children properly. Living from week to week with kids gets old pretty quickly. And with kids, I'd want him to care about them getting into college and be concerned about how to pay for the tuition. And if kids aren't involved, get an idea of what he thinks his career path might be and what his idea of a good vacation or retirement is. If the guy is passive about his work career and it's enough to spend the rest of his life hanging out and working with his friends from high school or his neighborhood, then that would set my alarm bells off. Or if the guy is spending all of his extra money on modding his car or buying the latest in electronics.
well look at it from this point of view. women out number men (from the last time i checked ) 9 to 1. so lets say there are only 10,000 people in the world, 9,000 are women. 1,000 are men: 500 men are married, 200 are thugs or in jail, and 200 are practicing an alternative lifestyle, that leaves 100 men left. alot of women see the pickings are slim at best. so it would be a smart thing to go and find her a man, and place a strong claim on him. because, good men are rare, and if a woman sees a good man, it is almost guaranteed that another woman sees him too.
To all the women reading this post is it worth it to throw away years of a healthy relationship because you feel the need to be marry. Even though he talk about as a possible goal in the future, but 4, 8, 10 years later he's yet to comit. Do you go out on faith alone to maybe suffer the same consiquences in the next relationship or just stick it out. You may share the same goals in the begining of the relationship but over time he starts to rethink what he really wants. How much longer you hold on because he's unsure. What do you do?
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