Why Get Married? Or Not?

In My Humble Opinion
41

Married for 30 years. We got married for two reasons. First, we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. Second, we were hundreds of miles apart. I felt that it was just wrong to ask her to move and not offer the commitment of marriage. Sex had nothing to do with it, and certainly not religion or social pressure. And no pressure from her - she didn’t even know she was ready to get married when I asked.

It boiled down to, if we were right for each other, why not get married?
Never regretted it for a second.

42

[QUOTE=Eva Luna]
For those of you who are in long-term, exclusive, serious romantic relationships other than marriage, and have no legal or other logistical obstacles to getting married, why have you chosen not to marry so far?
[/QUOTE]

First, because we haven’t been together that long (2.5 years). Second, because we are still students, neither has decided on a fixed carreer path, and neither has a somewhat permanent job in sight. When I get married, I want to be able to start my new life and settle down. That, to me, means to own a home, have a job and a long-term plan.

As a (incidentaly, lesbian) friend of mine put it: “I will not bring my wife home to a crummy student apartment, I will bring her home to our permanent home”.

Also, as we are nowhere near ready to start a family yet (again, students, crummy apartment, part-time work only) there is no imidiate reason to marry right at this moment, although we probably will at some point.

43

That’s kind of a fallacy-I haven’t practiced family law in a long time but even in a no-fault state you have that 6 month “waiting” period for a divorce and annullments can be awfully difficult to obtain. I guess in a fault state you can collude to get out of the marriage quickly. But in general, it is a fucking pain in the ass to end a marriage as compared to ending your relationship with a live-in lover. Getting married is a statement that you wish to take on that pain in the ass, making it a better yardstick for reaping benefits related to partnering than your emotional spiritual whathaveyou that probably requires 17 listed characteristics and forcing people to reveal the details of their intimate life.

I kind of raise an eyebrow at the whole “we don’t need marriage” people because when they break up, they most certainly want all the rewards and rights associated with it, and frequently run to the courts to get their fair share. I think half the time all these declarations are philosophical claptrap bandied about to hold on to someone with 1 foot out the door a bit longer in the hopes that he/she will stick around permanently somewhere down the line. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. See also, Marvin.

44

[QUOTE=anu-la1979]
That’s not really what Quart is asking-obviously commitment comes in different flavours. But if you’re unwilling to meet the standard provided to you by society, why should you reap the benefits it provides? It’s an easy yardstick. If I were an employer, I would not want to help insure someone’s boyfriend of the week.
[/QUOTE]

What, really, is the connection between whom you live with and where you get your insurance?

I suppose back when, here in the US, it was Ward, June, Wally & Jerry Mathers as the Beaver. Ward was married and had a family to support. Insurance was important and employers offered it as a perq. Clearly there’s no obligation to insure people—plenty of places don’t offer it, simply by not offering full-time employment. Some go further, e.g. adding 401K or other things to sweeten the deal. By offering such things companies attracted the best they could afford.

But if you’re an employer and you’re agreeing to help insure marrieds and families, you can’t really choose the spouse for them. As Eva points out, if you’re talking about gays/lesbians and marriage isn’t an option, then what? And some may choose never to marry but live together for years anyway. The employer should just spell it out and let people choose where they work based on what the employee is being offered.

45

IME, people who rail against the institution of marriage (instead of their own particular marriage) tend to have overly stringent ideas about what “marriage” really is: for example, Shagnasty said in another thread that one of his main objections to marriage is being held accountable for his movements. Somewhere out there, there exist other people that don’t need to hold their spouses accountable for their movements. It’s possible to have a marriage where you don’t ever report where you are going to be. It’s an unusual deal breaker, but good marriages don’t have to be typical.

In my own marriage, my husband has never, ever, ever said he loves me. He never will–it’s not that he’s saving it up for a big moment. I don’t entirely understand why this is a big thing for him (ten years into the relationship), but I am willing to accept that because it really isn’t a big deal to me. If he had ended up in a more “typical” marriage, I suspect he’d have felt obligated to say it, but it would have left him uncomfortable and unhappy.

Whatever specific objections people have to marriage: monogamy, shared property. sharing living space, shared social life . . .all of those can be worked around, provided you find someone that shares that vision of marriage with you (or at least has a compatible vision). This isn’t to say everyone has to get married. There’s nothing wrong with being single, and if you hate everything about marriage, then it’s probably a bad idea. However, sometimes anti-marriage types get this snotty kind of tone “I don’t know why anyone would want to put up with ______________________”, well, you don’t have to put up with whatever your trigger is, provided you chose carefully, and don’t just work from the pattern of your own parent’s marriage.

46

I have no idea what you just said. Why should an employer be forced to take on the cost of insuring a spouse with a chronic illness or paying out the costs of a sudden catastrophic issue when they aren’t reasonably certain that the two parties aren’t colluding in order to pass the costs off on to the employer? Marriage, when it’s available, is an easy yardstick to measure that because getting out of it is pretty difficult. You can be reasonably certain that it’s family, not some random person they’ve tagged on because they can.

FTR: this is exactly why I’m a strong supporter of gay marriage and I agree that domestic partnership allowances should be made for gay couples. I have a pretty big problem with them being extended to heterosexual couples, who have the option of marriage open to them.

47

[QUOTE=anu-la1979]
I have no idea what you just said. Why should an employer be forced to take on the cost of insuring a spouse with a chronic illness or paying out the costs of a sudden catastrophic issue when they aren’t reasonably certain that the two parties aren’t colluding in order to pass the costs off on to the employer?
[/QUOTE]

In the system we have now, because they want to attract the best employees and this is one way to do it. Why do you think companies offer insurance at all? There is no moral issue to this choice, not in the system we’ve got.

48

[QUOTE=anu-la1979]
I have no idea what you just said. Why should an employer be forced to take on the cost of insuring a spouse with a chronic illness or paying out the costs of a sudden catastrophic issue when they aren’t reasonably certain that the two parties aren’t colluding in order to pass the costs off on to the employer? Marriage, when it’s available, is an easy yardstick to measure that because getting out of it is pretty difficult. You can be reasonably certain that it’s family, not some random person they’ve tagged on because they can.

FTR: this is exactly why I’m a strong supporter of gay marriage and I agree that domestic partnership allowances should be made for gay couples. I have a pretty big problem with them being extended to heterosexual couples, who have the option of marriage open to them.
[/QUOTE]

I have no idea what you are saying. I work for a mega-corp that administers benefits for millions of employees in some of the biggest companies. Companies offer opposite sex domestic partners health coverage and other benefits because they want to. Nobody is making them do it. That type of domestic partner coverage is negotiated by the insurance companies themselves. Like many benefits, it is a perk that they choose to offer. Not all companies offer it. I don’t see how you can be upset about this because the companies signed up for it on purpose.

49

I’m not quite sure whether anu was talking to me or Manda, but my thoughts:

[QUOTE=anu-la1979]
I have no idea what you just said. Why should an employer be forced to take on the cost of insuring a spouse with a chronic illness or paying out the costs of a sudden catastrophic issue when they aren’t reasonably certain that the two parties aren’t colluding in order to pass the costs off on to the employer?

[/QUOTE]

Who’s forcing an employer to do this? If I understand correctly, Wal Mart never hires full-time help (management excepted), so they’re not required to provide health insurance for them at all. The full-time managers, yes, health insurance but I’m guessing if they could have part-time managers, they might get around it entirely. And then there’s the question of “how good” the insurance offered is.

People who have worked at Target might tell you their health insurance is MUCH better (I really wouldn’t know), so maybe Target uses that to bet better managers as surely as someone would rather earn $12/hour than $10/hour.

Also, as posted by Eva, the employer chooses the rules. Maybe it’s a six-month waiting period; maybe it’s a health exam. But it’s the company’s choice to make these accomodations.

[QUOTE=anu-la1979]
Marriage, when it’s available, is an easy yardstick to measure that because getting out of it is pretty difficult. You can be reasonably certain that it’s family, not some random person they’ve tagged on because they can.

FTR: this is exactly why I’m a strong supporter of gay marriage and I agree that domestic partnership allowances should be made for gay couples. I have a pretty big problem with them being extended to heterosexual couples, who have the option of marriage open to them.
[/QUOTE]

True, but marriage isn’t for everybody and the company can qualify what they think is acceptable or not as part of the job offer. The other side of the coin, I think, is that some people are getting married because they need health insurance.

50

[QUOTE=Autolycus]
Guys get married so they never again have to worry about having sex regularly.
[/QUOTE]

They often move to Thailand for the same reason. :smiley:

51

[QUOTE=gonzomax]
Marriage will change a relationship. Better or worse, but it will change.
[/QUOTE]

Not always. Ours didn’t. We’re the same couple who were courting in Hawaii way back when. Always did fit like a hand and glove. I guess we’re lucky.