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I think it's partly to "show" greater commitment to the world at large than just a girlfriend or boyfriend title.
I also find it strange though. What I've seen more of is this annoying state I call "pre-engaged" where a couple will talk all the time about wedding plans and engagement rings then never actually do it.
I knew a couple that lived together 4 years doing this before breaking up.
I had this. We'd moved in together, he'd bought me a ring and every time it got 6 months from the planned wedding date he'd want to postpone it another 6 months. (We were planning a small wedding so had booked nothing but the church and hadn't committed any funds to anything.) This went on for almost 2 years. Then I got pregnant. We were married within a month of the test coming up positive and divorced 13 years later.
Second marriage- we dated for 6 years and never referred to ourselves as engaged till we'd actually set a date- and that was the date we got married. We didn't actually move in together for another month, when we moved from NJ to KS for my career and FINALLY had a house together.
There seems to be a growing trend of "engaged" couples who seem to have no intention of getting married. One couple I know says they won't be getting married for several years and by that they mean 10 or 15, but a few I know have said flat out they will never actually get married. I'm not sure I understand the point of this. If you don't intend to marry then what exactly are you engaged in?
I guess it's not so much why they don't get married because I know sometimes people have very complicated reasons that they can't but sometimes it's as simple as they don't actually want to be married. I get that and I respect that but when that's the case why the charade of engagement?
It it just about labeling so you have better sounding titles than boyfriend or girlfriend?
Indeed....one time I was talking to a woman, she said she was engaged and I said, "Congratulations! When's the big day?"
Her answer: "We're in no rush"
If that's the case, no congrats is necessary.
Sometimes it's just a method of stalling a commitment.
My SO and I bought rings about 6 months ago. He got a wedding ring and I got an engagement ring. We don't say we're married or engaged, we just wear our rings.
I know a couple who have been "engaged" with no wedding date set for more than a decade. IMO, they are doing so because living together while engaged is more acceptable to their family members than plain old living together.
People generally have reasons for what they choose to do, even if they don't share those reasons.
There seems to be a growing trend of "engaged" couples who seem to have no intention of getting married. One couple I know says they won't be getting married for several years and by that they mean 10 or 15, but a few I know have said flat out they will never actually get married. I'm not sure I understand the point of this. If you don't intend to marry then what exactly are you engaged in?
I guess it's not so much why they don't get married because I know sometimes people have very complicated reasons that they can't but sometimes it's as simple as they don't actually want to be married. I get that and I respect that but when that's the case why the charade of engagement?
It it just about labeling so you have better sounding titles than boyfriend or girlfriend?
This isn't anything new--at least in my neck of the woods. I call it being a "perma-fiance(e)." It's something that I've mostly seen with couples who live together and have at least one child in common. Sometimes people don't marry due to alimony or social security income concerns, but often it's just because the couple feels as if being engaged (even with no real intent to marry) is more respectable than simply shacking up and/or having children together out of wedlock.
My own engagement was rather long at nearly a year and a half, but there's no way that my former husband and I would have waited any longer than that to actually marry.
We have one couple we are friends with who basically got engaged when they got pregnant with their daughter, who is now almost five. They did end up having a small, simple, private marriage ceremony this past summer...just them and their kids on a beach near their hometown. They were in absolutely no hurry to get married, and I think making the formal "engagement" back when they were expecting their first child together was really just a gesture to appease some family members and get them to chill out...They had every intention of going about it at their own time frame. They were both Navy Seabees serving in Afghanistan when they met, and the courtship progressed pretty quickly. When they got home and got out, they got pregnant. I think the whirlwind aspect of it had people raising eyebrows, and they might have felt like they had to slap a "Well, but we're engaged" label on it to legitimize it in some people's eyes. They each had their own military benefits, there were no big administrative reasons to make it legal right away, etc.
They're an outlier, though. Most people I know who bother to get engaged are in the process of planning to wed fairly soon thereafter. My husband and I took about five months to plan a formal wedding and reception, which is a little quicker than typical when you're doing a traditional ceremony and party, just from a venue rental perspective, many places. But it worked out fine. My husband took military orders shortly after we got engaged, and for me to go with, live in base housing, etc., it was simpler to be married. We did live in housing for about three and a half months before we got married, and it was no big deal, except that my husband's housing allowance only covered him, since I wasn't a legal military dependent yet. So we had to pay extra rent for me, essentially, for a couple of months. I also couldn't get on base without an escort, because I had no military dependent ID, couldn't shop at the commissary (again, no ID), and, had he gotten deployed, wouldn't have been legally at liberty to get any information from the command about anything relating to him. So it was better to get married sooner, versus later, for those reasons.
People I've known that are not married but have been together and intend to stay together for a long time usually don't refer to themselves as "engaged".... usually husband and wife / married even if it isn't via a legal or religious ceremony.
I can't say I've noticed what the OP observed.... Only the couple can answer and it really is up to them ..
There seems to be a growing trend of "engaged" couples who seem to have no intention of getting married. One couple I know says they won't be getting married for several years and by that they mean 10 or 15, but a few I know have said flat out they will never actually get married. I'm not sure I understand the point of this. If you don't intend to marry then what exactly are you engaged in?
I guess it's not so much why they don't get married because I know sometimes people have very complicated reasons that they can't but sometimes it's as simple as they don't actually want to be married. I get that and I respect that but when that's the case why the charade of engagement?
It it just about labeling so you have better sounding titles than boyfriend or girlfriend?
Sure it makes perfect sense.. It’s a way to show or have relationship progression without having to get all of the legal interwebz involved. In some people’s minds an engagement is equivalent to marriage but their view of marriage has sour’d with age or past divorces.
I think people should do whatever works for them. If that is a long engagement, or even staying at that place forever because that is where life feels right for those two people, then cool, that's what they should do. Use whatever words you want. Why would there be any hurry to get married? Why should they care what anyone thinks about their timeline? Their relationship is about them, not everybody else.
In fact I think it's wiser to take your time before making major life moves, than to hurry up and do it. I don't get the need to rush. The sense of other people questioning it very nearly smells to me like they're trying to figure out if that person is game to be poached or not, like well...if they're not MARRIED, then maybe I could hook up with them? After all, it's not like really REALLY committed? Or if they truly want to take that man/woman off the market, they need to hurry up and sign the damn contract already? Or what? I mean what purpose could anyone have, in worrying about the agreements between another couple. That is weird to me. Sorry guys. I know I'm going against the grain in saying it. But it is. It's not like an endless test drive of a car before buying, because people are not merchandise. They're both humans who can make whatever choices please them both, for whatever reasons they like.
Hell, I'm sort of in that boat myself. But I don't make a fuss of us being like officially "engaged" in any kind of ritualistic manner. There was no kneeling and proposing business. We have simply talked about getting married at some point in the future, and we both think it's a good idea and we probably will. If either of us changes our minds before the time comes, that's ok too, we'll talk about it. No need to "break" an engagement or anything. We don't throw around words like "fiance." We're just together, and think we'll probably get married at some point. We've got some logistical reasons that make it feel appropriate to wait a bit, and neither of us is in any hurry. Why do we need to hurry up and get it done, just because we are pretty sure that we eventually will? I mean, truly, what reason is there, to do so?
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