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Who do you Marry & how do you know they are the one?

All this talk of the need for a contract for social security benefits and so on is perplexing me... In Australia we have defacto relationships which are recognised by the government as being basically marriage once you've lived together and paid bills together etc. The same thing exists in Canada with Common Law relationships. These come with their own benefits and binding obligations. If you split up from a Common Law/defacto relationship, I believe that many of the obligations you have are similar to divorce. Anyone care to clarify? I am technically in a Common Law relationship but haven't bothered to get paperwork done because it is not of any benefit to either of us at this stage.

I don't really see marriage as a 'legal contract' so much as an emotional commitment to each other. Novella, the reason I enter into a legal binding with my real estate agent is because ultimately I don't trust them. If I need marriage to seal a legally binding agreement with my partner because I can't trust them, then I don't want to be married!! If kids came along then the situation would be slightly different because they need security in the event that things went bad between their father and I, but until then I don't see why a 'contract' is needed for a committed relationship to be validated.
 
"People who don't get married, I think, want to keep the option of walking away any time they feel like it."


People who get married can walk away just as easily...it's called legal seperation and/or divorce (I'm sure you know that....)

There's nothing that keeps two people together, other than those two peoples internal desire to stay together....no paper or commitment cerimony in front of a priest, and other people will do that any better than anything else...
 
I just want to clarify something here. I view marriage as a social contract., as I said in my first post. That's a tacit agreement to respect certain rules and courtesies. It's a concept written up by Rousseau regarding democracies and freedom.

To me, the same type of agreement exists between married people, but no such agreement exists between unmarried people.

Kook, it's absolutely nothing to do with security or health benefits or anything monetary--as I said in my first post. It's to do with mutually recognizing a long-term commitment in the eyes of society.

My experience of people who live together but refuse to marry is that they are protesting some part of this tacit contract, though they may not put it that way. Or one of them would like to marry, but the other one doesn't want to, and so they coexist unmarried. That's not the same thing as being married.
 
Personally I don't believe in 'love at first sight'- lust yes, but not love. I don't feel you can love someone until you really know them. You may find themphysically attractive but that's not to say they will have the type of personality you want.

I have absolutely no problems with people living together before they are married. Phil and I have been together for almost 4 years now and engaged for 2 of them. However we have been living together (in different circumstances) for almost 5. I'm perfectly content not to get married at the moment - we did start to plan it but nothing ever materialised and are perfectly happy to continue as we are.

If I ever have children I'd want them to take the fathers name, thus if I got married I'd most likely change my surname. It can be hard on children if they have a different name to either of their parents (or their siblings).
 
novella said:
In general, the less stress and anger and the more softness and humor are present, the better the outcome. Which belies the belief that 'true love' is the best predictor of a happy marriage.
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:eek: I guess Phil and I are doomed to fail then :eek:
 
I lived with my husband for a few months before we had our civil ceremony and a year later we had our religious ceremony. Many people still hold themselves to the religious standards they were raised with, therefore and civil/religious ceremony is a must. I married a very religious man and this is where my P.O.V. comes from, okay?
When a couple stands in front of family, friends, thier minister and the rest of the world and makes their promises, it changes things. Its not just a piece of paper anymore. I promised God, in front of my family and my friends that I would be faithful to my husband until the day I die. Still, I could just hop in my van tomorrow and leave, piece of paper or not. But everyone we know would know that I broke that solemn vow to God and to my husband. And I would have to face them. For me, and many people I know, the paper and the promises make you want to give it one more try, work harder to make it work. It is just easier, in my opinion to quit if it's not "legal".
 
I love the range of emotion, and opinion on this matter....hope to hear more...

I can't help but think that, for the most part, we get married more for society than for something deeper. I think two people can make the same type of commitment in private as they can in public, but it's society that views these commitments in different ways....
 
There is added pressure when the commitment is made public. A promise made and broken in private is just that, private.
 
cajunmama said:
There is added pressure when the commitment is made public. A promise made made and broken in private is just that, private.
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The divorce rate, and the amount of cheating that goes on.....that to me doesn't prove that making any kind of promise in public has much effect on anyone.

How many people do you know that have been married only once, and never been divorced verses people that have been divorced and remarried, or divorced and dating, or seperated and dating.....

My daughter is one of only 3 in one of her classes that is living with both her birth parents. That's about 3 out of 25 kids. The rest either have parent s that are divorced or parents that are remarried after a divorce. Pretty bad statistics for the institution of marriage.
 
I think that in a lot of cases, the blushing bride doesn't look too far past her magical fairytale wedding. For a lot of women (and I speak from experience with my close friends here) getting married is something that you look forward to from the time you are a young girl, and glorify it into something that doesn't even begin to take into account the responsibilities that are required. Living with your partner-to-be is SO important.

A question to add to this lively discussion: Do you think the higher divorce rates are more to do with a change in the acceptability of divorce, rather than people acting rashly when they enter into marriage? I can't imagine anyone going through a divorce on a whim. But perhaps it is a good thing in some sense that people are choosing not to live in a miserable relationship. On the other hand, perhaps divorce has become the scapegoat for not fixing and patching up the difficulties in your relationship.
 
Motokid said:
My daughter is one of only 3 in one of her classes that is living with both her birth parents. That's about 3 out of 25 kids. The rest either have parent s that are divorced or parents that are remarried after a divorce. Pretty bad statistics for the institution of marriage.
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Those statistics are really bad. From what I remember from my school, nearly everyone in my class lived with their natural parents. There were a few exceptions (one girls mum was on her fourth marriage - the poor girl was confused, she ended up calling them her half dad, her step dad, her real dad etc). The only other one I can remember her father was killed in a car crash when she was only a few months old.
 
Kookamoor said:
I can't imagine anyone going through a divorce on a whim. But perhaps it is a good thing in some sense that people are choosing not to live in a miserable relationship. On the other hand, perhaps divorce has become the scapegoat for not fixing and patching up the difficulties in your relationship.
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I know of no one who has gone through a divorce on a whim. Even in a miserable marriage, it is still difficult.
 
cajunmama said:
I know of no one who has gone through a divorce on a whim. Even in a miserable marriage, it is still difficult.
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Yes, I have seen quite a few, and even in the worst marriage it was still a very painful experience for both - particularly as there were children involved :( . I was sort of thinking aloud at the end, though. Perhaps people let the bad things in their relationships become 'issues' because they're not willing to work at them like they used to *because* divorce is more acceptable. Just a thought...
 
I do agree with you that divorce is more acceptable these days. I have a friend that had a miserable marriage at the end. He forced her out, and still their grown kids were like "It's about damn time you left, Mom". And she still gets choked up, a year later at times, as miserable as she was towards the end of it.

I think it goes back generations and generations to when religion ruled people's lives. You didn't live with someone unless you were legally and religiously married to them. You risked life and limb doing that. Now things have loosened so that a legal marriage isn't necessary, but it is still within most of societies' morals that it is more socially acceptable to marry someone than to just co-habitate.
 
Motokid said:
The divorce rate, and the amount of cheating that goes on.....that to me doesn't prove that making any kind of promise in public has much effect on anyone.
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There has always been and always will be cheating. It used to be tolerated, even flaunted at times. His attitude being "what's she gonna do about it, divorce me?"
 
well, speaking from personal experience, i got married at a very young age and it ended in divorce. we lived together for 2 years before we got married. the marriage itself only lasted 18 months. at the time when i decided to leave, which was a painful decision, and so far, one of the hardest decisions i've ever made, i knew that i was too young and the idea of marriage, as kookamoor said, was a fairy tale, romantic vision of the wedding and not so much about life after. do i regret getting married? yes....he was a good man, but didn't need that kind of hurt. it could have been so much easier had i decided to wait another year to realize we were not meant to be. so i guess what i am saying here is, you can live with someone before marriage and feel as though you are ready, but can you ever be sure? i don't know, and i struggle still, wondering if it's something i want to do again.
 
Well, I have been married to he who hates ceremonies for almost 8 years. We met, moved in and were married within 8 months. We got married for a reason no one has yet brought up in here... well started as one reason and became two reasons.

Reason #1 - I am American by birth. Kook will tell you that it is VERY hard and VERY expensive to become an Australian permanent resident on your own. I was given a choice, have another child (born here in Australia), get married or have $350,000.00 and a business plan. Right... Hubby and I may or may not have gotten married without that push, who knows. As it was, it was a fantastic party and we're happy.

Reason #2 - VERY difficult to have an international adoption! What if I dies tomorrow? What would happen to our daughter (who is not hubby's by birth but by mutual love and chance that I was a true single mother before meeting him)? We were advised to let everyone think that he's her legal father so that if it came to the crunch, no one would ask otherwise.

I love my husband very much and he loves me! I took his last name and so has our daughter. I feel sad that there is such a large number of divorces (my father is a marriage freak... I am on Step Mother Mach 2.5)!

That's my 2 cents.
 
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