#31. Let’s Dive In: My Partner Doesn’t Believe in Marriage
What do you do when you and your long-term partner have different stances on getting married?
Hey! It’s been a minute since I’ve done an issue of Let’s Dive In, but I have a great topic for you today. As always, if you have a question for me, you can use this form to submit it. It can be long or short, about literally anything, and you can also use the form as a submission area for any topics you’d love to see me write about, even if you don’t have a specific question. I’d love to hear from you!
And with that… let’s dive in!
Hi Kelly! Here’s my situation: I met my partner seven years ago while attending University. After Uni, we lived together for five years near where we went to school, and a few years ago we moved to a totally new country together. We just bought a flat here and through that process also sorted out legal terms in case of separation/death etc. Just like any couple, we argue sometimes, but overall he makes me really happy; I still miss him when I’m gone for less than 24 hours…. But here’s the thing: he doesn’t believe in marriage.
We have a flat, we talk about kids all the time, and I don’t feel like he’s not committed to me–he just rejects signing some license to prove our love. I feel somewhat differently, as I have always thought it was just a natural next step, but recently I have started to question why I even care?
I have never been the big wedding type–my best friend is getting married next year, and as her maid of honour, I am fully involved in all the details. Although I obviously love my bestie and am doing everything for her to have the best time, the whole process doesn’t make me want to go through the whole “show” of a wedding. So much money for one day–we could travel for months together with that sort of cash.
So why do I care about being someone’s wife when I’m already someone’s long term trusted and happy partner? There is such a focus on engagements and weddings at my age, I almost feel as though it’s pressure from the outside to somehow prove our seriousness as a couple or something?
Wow, that was a lot more than one question, but I hope you can understand my internal debate through my longwinded writing. Why do I feel sad about not getting married when I already have what so many people dream of: a happy, healthy relationship with someone I love? –Anonymous
***This question has been edited slightly to protect the questioner’s identity
Dear Anonymous,
I’ve been sitting on this question in my Let’s Dive In submissions inbox for a few months because it is seriously such a good question that I’ve been thinking about it for this long! Obviously as a person who is getting married I have a slight bias in that direction, but I will do my best to make my answer as well-rounded as I can.
I feel like this is a topic that is *extremely* relatable for so many people. And truthfully I think you already hit the nail on the head. The short answer to your question–why you feel sad about not getting married–is because society has conditioned you (and all of us) to believe that marriage is the pinnacle of any romantic relationship. Let’s take a look at that word and really dig in to what it means:
pinnacle, noun
The most successful point; the culmination (the highest or most climactic point of something)
When a couple decides to get married, it implies to anyone who believes in marriage that there are no further levels to reach within the relationship–it is the most successful point you can reach as a couple. I would argue that society is still generally pro-marriage, so choosing to get married communicates to the outside world that your relationship has reached its highest possible point. But I also used the word “implies” because I think we all know that what I just said isn’t true. People get married when they shouldn’t, people get divorced, and people cheat while they’re married. Marriage isn’t actually the pinnacle society tells us it is. But we’re conditioned to think and feel that it is, which is likely why you specifically used the word “sad” in your question. Society tells us that marriage is the most successful peak your relationship can reach, and it sounds like you are never going to reach it within your current partnership. And that, understandably, is a bummer. If you’re an “achiever” type like yours truly, you might also feel a twinge of failure if you never get married. Even if you know that getting married is not an accomplishment.
The key here is understanding that society doesn’t get to tell you or anyone else what a successful relationship looks like. Only you (and your partner) get to decide that.
Perhaps more interesting to me than society's views is that you and your partner have different stances on the subject of marriage, and how to deal with that. You seem to believe in marriage to some extent (though you’re starting to question why) but you aren’t super keen on the impracticalities of having a wedding, and your partner doesn’t believe in signing a piece of paper to prove your love. Two things jumped out to me about this:
First–marriage and weddings are not the same thing. A marriage is both a legal partnership and an emotional, symbolic endeavor, whereas a wedding is a party. You definitely don’t have to have a wedding to get married! With weddings costing as much as they do these days (the average cost of a wedding right now is $30,000), I can 1000% see why you wouldn’t want to have a wedding. It’s so, so easy to conflate the two–when I was writing this paragraph, I literally wrote “I can see why you wouldn’t want to get married” when I meant “have a wedding.” Your feelings about weddings being an expensive “show” definitely have truth to them, depending on how you go about it. From what you wrote I think it sounds like your partner is against marriage itself, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask him if he’s actually against weddings, just to make sure it’s 100% clear.
Second–marriage and commitment are also not the same thing. From everything you said–you own a flat together, have been together for seven years, your relationship is happy/healthy, and you’re discussing having kids–you’re in an extremely committed relationship. You can totally have one without the other. Marriages without commitment are the kind where one partner is either absent or cheating, but commitment without marriage is becoming more and more common.
Let’s be honest–even though it’s generally considered to be the “ultimate commitment,” marriage is not a guarantee of safety or success in a relationship, even though it’s tempting to think about it that way. And ironically enough, the leading cause of divorce (75%) is lack of commitment. So when you said “I feel like it’s pressure from the outside about our seriousness as a couple,” just refer back to this statistic when you need to be reassured that the idea of marriage equaling commitment is actually bullshit, lol.
I get why your partner says he doesn’t need to prove his love with a piece of paper (neither do I), but so much of why people get married these days is about the intangible warm and fuzzy feelings that can come along with it. In a 2019 survey, the top two reasons married people gave for wanting to get married in the first place were love (90%) and companionship (66%). Notably, these reasons trump other, more logical considerations like marriage making financial sense (13%) and convenience (10%) by a staggering margin. Long gone are the days of strategic alliances, producing offspring, and religious sacraments, haha.
But let’s talk about the legalities of marriage for a moment. I think it’s very easy to write marriage off as a piece of paper that either has no meaning or you see no need for, but there’s more to it than that. I’m not saying this is how it should be, but society (at least in the U.S.) is still set up in a few ways to benefit people who get married. So before you and your partner agree to say “I don’t need this piece of paper,” make sure you both fully understand the legal benefits that come with it:
– Depending on your incomes, married couples can qualify for more tax breaks when filing taxes jointly. This is especially important for couples with substantially different incomes (although there is actually a marriage penalty that applies in some states, generally for high-earning couples with similar incomes)
– Health insurance premiums can be lower for married couples (at least in the U.S., where healthcare is an absolute shit show) and being married means you can get on your partner’s employer-sponsored plan. 26% of people who got married in 2020 said they did it because they or their partner needed health insurance
– If one of you is incapacitated in an accident or from an illness, your spouse automatically has the right to make decisions on your behalf. A couple who is not married does not have this right, even if they are in a long-term, committed relationship. In that case you would need to obtain power of attorney (which is, ahem, a legal document) and an advanced healthcare directive before something happens, which most people do not do. (I am not going to go into detail about why I think this one is really important, but trust me, it is)
– And if that did happen, the federal FMLA law in the U.S. (depending on what type of company you work for, if any) entitles you to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave from work to care for a seriously injured or ill family member and be guaranteed to return to your job. Spouses (both opposite and same-sex) are covered under the definition of “family”; domestic partners and people in long-term relationships are not.
– And finally, if your partner dies, if you’re married, you can automatically receive your spouse’s estate without incurring any tax, and anything you own jointly will automatically be transferred to you. If you’re not married, a will needs to be drawn up to declare who gets what in the event of your or your partner’s death, which again… is a legal document that only 27% of people ages 18-34 currently have. (You said you did this already at least regarding your flat which is great, I just wanted to note it here for anyone else who might be reading and hasn’t done this).
I don’t know what marriage is like, legally, for people outside of the U.S., but I encourage you to find out all the details before making the decision to get married/not get married, and figure out what it means for you in terms of other action items (like getting power of attorney, creating a will, etc.). I know some of these are dark topics–like what happens in the event of you or your partner’s death–but they are just the legal realities of choosing not to get married when you live in a society that is set up in a way that assumes most people will do so. A friend of Paul’s (and mine) who was invited to our wedding died of cancer a few days ago, so life/death is something that has been on my mind lately.
And speaking of the legalities that come with marriage, many people who don’t want to get married are actually just afraid of getting divorced. Obviously! Divorce is stressful and expensive. Even though there is less negativity surrounding it than there used to be, there is still some stigma that people who get divorced will face. While it used to be said that about half of all marriages end in divorce, the divorce rates have actually been declining since the 1980s–by an estimated 24%. Millennials (and Gen X) are largely to thank for this statistic, and it’s not just because fewer of us are getting married (though that is true). It’s also because many of us saw our parents get divorced and we are getting married later in life, which lets us get to know ourselves and our partners better before marriage, leading to better outcomes.
Perhaps more than other generations before us, I think Millennials are/were willing to end relationships in our 20s and 30s that aren’t quite right and totally start over, leading to getting married later than average (hi, it’s me) versus getting married anyway when we are younger and then divorced later. Led by a desire to pursue our careers and personal goals, feel financially and emotionally ready, and find the right partner, people our age are slowly redefining marriage. Marriage today just isn’t the same as it was for our parents, and not getting married is starting to feel much more common. Many of us are also anxious about the future, so I think it’s very normal (and smart) to question something that has lifelong ramifications, in a way perhaps our parents didn’t.
No matter where you’re at personally with this question, you’re in good company. Among people who live together but are not married or engaged, 41% say they want to get married someday, 35% are not sure, and 24% do not want to get married. Among the 41% of people who do want to get married someday, when asked why they weren’t engaged or married yet, two-thirds cited financial reasons, but 43% said they weren’t ready to make that kind of commitment, and 38% said they weren’t sure if their partner was right for them. And people who aren’t sure if they want to get married listed these last two reasons as why they aren’t engaged or married as well.
Surprisingly, though, the research says that a relatively small percentage of people who live together but aren’t engaged or married feel pressure to do so. And if they do feel pressure, it’s coming from society (26%) and their families (26%) more than their partner (17%) or their friends (11%). What I’m sure doesn’t surprise you is that older people say that society is better off if couples who want to stay together long-term decide to marry. So I wonder how much of the pressure you feel comes from your parents, grandparents, or other people you might interact with who are older (and a little more old-school). And how much you care about their opinions.
I’m curious: What do you and your partner say to people who ask when/if you’re going to get married? Pay attention to those answers and see how they make you feel. Gently asking your partner to talk to others about it differently could go a long way in making you feel less sad, if his current responses are making you feel like he’s against marrying you instead of marriage itself. And coming up with your own response that feels more empowering than disappointing could help a lot, too. Try listening to / watching Shay Mitchell’s episode on Call Her Daddy and see if you can find any inspiration there.
I have no idea if the following applies to you and your partner or not, but I wouldn’t be doing my job as an advice columnist (and a person who genuinely wants to help you with this question!) if I didn’t at least mention it. It sounds like you are both nearing 30 and met each other in college, so your partner’s stance on “not believing in marriage” could be a sign that he’s not completely, 100% sure about the relationship, or just feels too young for marriage. You’ve been together since your early 20s, which means maybe he didn’t get a chance to date around very much or really get to know himself before you got together. There is a chance that he feels marriage–to you, or at all at your age–would mean like wow, this is it, forever. And maybe he’s not ready for that.
So my advice is to ask him! Have an open, honest conversation about marriage and what it actually means to both of you. Find out if your partner is truly, philosophically against marriage, or if he’s not ready for marriage yet and is hiding behind the idea that he doesn’t believe in it, or if he is actually wondering if this is the right relationship for him in a forever sense, even if it’s a happy one. You can ask these questions in a gentle, non-confrontational way, because you (both) deserve to know the real answers.
And I think it would be worth asking yourself some of these same questions, too. You’re in a happy, healthy relationship. What tells you that this is the relationship you want to be in for the rest of your life? What role would marriage actually play in your partnership if you got married? What would you gain or lose from marriage, if anything? To what degree is seeing your friends get married playing a role in your desire for marriage? Can you adjust your views about marriage slightly and spin it into more of a positive thing? Is not getting married a compromise you are willing to make for your current partner?
You also mentioned that you talk about having kids all the time. I assume you’ve talked about why/when you want them and how you would want to raise them. But have you both considered the legal ramifications for having a child without being married? (Only one of you can claim the child as a dependent on your taxes, you might have issues traveling with your kid(s) if you have different last names, and it’s super important to make sure your partner is listed on the child’s birth certificate to establish “legal parentage,” which grants him custody and visitation rights in case you end your relationship; super sexy stuff).
I’m really into statistics right now, so here are some other annoying/fun/interesting things about marriage to chew on:
– Married men benefit from a “marriage premium” at work: They are perceived as more responsible and dedicated, work harder and more strategically, and make more money than single men from similar backgrounds
– Married couples are happier than couples who are just living together (58% vs 41% say things are going “very well”)
– People who are married trust their partners more than couples who aren’t married but live together
– And married couples also reported being slightly more satisfied on all five specific elements of a partnership they were asked about (parenting, chores, work/life balance, communication, and sex), versus couples who just live together
– The average cost of divorce in the U.S. is between $15,000-$20,000 (yikes!)
– But neither person is legally entitled to alimony (temporary or permanent payments from one partner to another to prevent drastically reducing the lower earning partner’s quality of life) for unmarried partners in the event of a separation; this could become important if you have children and it affects one of your careers (like quitting your job to stay at home with your kid(s), or taking a part-time job)
– Married people outearn single people by anywhere from 4%-32%, generally because married people tend to have joint finances and can rely on their partner’s income while they look for work, so they can be more selective while searching for a new job
– Married men are happier than married women
– Women initiate 69% of all divorces, but breakups between couples who are not married are generally 50/50
– Women’s health is mostly unaffected by marriage, but men’s health increases after getting married because they take fewer risks (and are encouraged to go to the doctor for regular checkups)
– Single women without children face biases in the workplace, often being stereotyped as “too masculine/ambitious,” seen as lacking leadership abilities, or asked to stay later at work
– That being said, unmarried, childless women are the happiest of all the subgroups!
No matter what you decide on the marriage question, I hope this issue has given you some food for thought. And if you and your partner decide not to get married, I hope you can find an emotional place where you feel more neutral or even positive about it! You might not ever get to the point where you’re shouting about not believing in marriage from the rooftops, but maybe you’ll be able to truly make your peace with it and see it as a decision that you made together, rather than one that your partner made for you.
We can’t always change what other people do or feel, but we do have control over our own actions and emotions to a much larger degree. I was genuinely really sad a few weeks ago about not having a bachelorette party, because it was something I saw other people doing and I really wanted it for myself, and I wanted the people in my life to prioritize it. But when I learned about how big of an ask it is for other people and how many negative associations people have with wedding-related activities right now, I decided it actually wasn’t that important to me after all. And now every time I see someone else celebrate their bachelorette party on Instagram (I’ve seen two more since writing issue #29), it just doesn’t sting like it used to. I look at the people in the photos and wonder how many of them feel financially or emotionally strained by being there, and it has helped me so much in seeing the bigger picture. I wish the same for you!
K bye,
Kelly
Argh - I really felt for this person! I completely agree with everything you said, Kelly. You articulated it SO well (as per!).
I do think the societal pressure is MASSIVE and people need to give themselves a break. We are so conditioned to buy a house / get married / have kids. But WHY?!
My friends and I are on the fence and we keep having the same conversations - WHY do we want to get married? Because society says we should? For the wedding? For the party? For the honeymoon? Or for the actual marriage itself?
I know I personally have felt the pressure and I really need to sit down and work out my own WHY?
Anyway; loved it.
PS - Melinda and I are emailing!!!
Such a lovely essay Kelly - very well considered!
My partner and I are 30 and have been together over 5 years. We're both in agreement that we don't intend to get married. We live in New Zealand and here there are no real logistical/tax/legal benefits to getting married, so it really comes down to getting married because the symbolism of having a union and then getting to call each other husband or wife is meaningful to you (and, let's be honest, for many people, because they want to have a wedding - no hate if that's you).
For us that symbol has just never really resonated. My parents are in a 30+ year de facto relationship and so for me that's the norm. My partner and I find it pretty difficult to untangle the symbol of marriage from it's religious/unfeminist origins and so we're quite happy remaining in our unmarried state. I totally support my friends' marriages/weddings though - it's just very much a "great for her, not for me" thing.
One thing I'd note though is that it's been surprising how many sarcastic or just blatantly rude comments we get about not being married. We live in probably the most left-wing place in the country but still get frequent "jokes" about "living in sin". The conditioning that marriage = a virtuous relationship runs deep! The worst was when an ex-manager, who thinks of herself as very progressive, told me to enjoy my "single, child-free weekend with no responsibilities whatsoever" (wrong on so, so many levels!). This was after she'd met my partner at least 5 times.