This question came to mind because of one of the commercials for the new reality series “Gene Simmons’ Family Jewels.” It implies (if I interpreted it right, although my interpretation makes sense, given Simmons’ reputation) that not only have Gene and his current SO not gotten married, but they have deliberately gone out of their way not to get hitched. They have two teenage (or slightly below) children. I wondered if they minded being technical “bastard kids.” With Gene Simmons as dad, it feels somewhat doubtful for some odd reason.
However, Dog (the Bounty Hunter) was in a similar situation with his three youngest before he married Beth recently. So I ask all of you out there: if your parents lived together and raised you, but never got married, would it bother you any?
My father’s biological parents were married, but after his father died in WWII she began living with another man who’s basically been a father to him and grandfather to me. 50-odd years later, they’re still together and have never had any kind of official wedding. They also still use separate names, with my grandmother still going by “Madame [bio-grandad’s name].”
My father’s never expressed any distress over the situation.
My aunt and uncle have been together for approximately twenty years. Unmarried. They have three children who don’t care, I certainly don’t care, and she uses his last name anyway. They’re both Catholic, but my uncle’s first wife died. When weighing the options, I guess they decided Living in Sin was favourable to having a second Catholic wedding.
My mother and father were not married when they conceived me or when they tried to raise me. They fought so much that I preferred them apart. Even when I was little. Eventually, the separated and I was pretty pleased about the whole thing.
Gene Simmons and his SO have been together like 20 years. She’s a former Playmate. She wants to get married, he is adamantly against it. Their kids are 17 and 13. The daughter seems to want them to be married, but I don’t think the son has an opinion one way or the other.
My son’s father and I never married. My son has no problem with it. We aren’t religious folk so that self-imposed problem has never been an issue with us.
I am now married, but we don’t have kids together.
Anyway, it wouldn’t bother me. It’s a piece of paper from the government that is a symbol and not the reality of a relationship.
Having seen many people, my parents included, who were married but obviously not “together”, I think we could do well to shake things up a bit in this regard.
My mother was born in 1940; her older brother was born in 1938, her younger brother in 1942. In the late '70s, my grandmother got some sort of a small inheritance from my grandfather’s family and had to prove that they had been married. My parents had planned a trip to Reno at about the same time, so Grandma told my mom to pick up a copy of her marriage license while they were there. When mom got the marriage license, she discovered that her parents were actually married in 1955! When she got home, she and my grandmother had the following conversation:
My mom: “Is this correct? This says you and Daddy were married in 1955!”
Grandma Alice: “That’s what it says.”
My mom: “It’s true? You and Daddy didn’t get married until 3 years before Bill & I did! Why didn’t you ever tell me this!”
Grandma Alice: “It was none of your business.”
And that was the end of that – Grandma refused to ever discuss it again.
My aunt and uncle got married when they were sophomores in college, because my aunt was pregnant with my cousin. Two years later, they had another kid. As sometimes happens with (a) a shotgun marriage and (b) a marriage of two people who are pretty young, they divorced soon after the second kid. They remained friends, however, and my uncle remained a devoted father, and I think both of them had a chance to grow up a little, so years later, they wound up back together, and about 12 years after their wedding/first kid, they had another kid. Two years later, they had another one. Now they live in a big, lovely home with their second two kids (to whom they are wonderful, devoted parents), still unmarried, and happy.
I don’t think anyone (well, except my brother, but who asked him?) has ever had a problem with it.
FWIW, the oldest of their kids had a baby (girl) when she was in sophomore in college. Her two-years-younger brother had a kid (girl) at the same time. Eight years later, each of them had a boy.
This doesn’t bother my mother, BTW – other than the curiosity factor. Her parents acted like they were married throughout her childhood – they used the same last name, they used 'Mr. & Mrs.", they called each other husband and wife. My grandfather (who was in his 50s when his children were born) had been married before, so we suspect that when my grandparents set up housekeeping together, he was still married for whatever reason and he and my grandmother couldn’t get married until the first wife either died or gave him a divorce. Mom’s father would have told her the truth about this if she’d asked him, probably, but she didn’t know to ask. And he was long dead by the time it all came to light.
You know, all this time before Dog and Beth got married, when her name comes up in the show, it says “Beth - Dog’s wife”. I didn’t think Hawaii was a common law state?
I don’t know if I would mind my folks no tbeing married if they lived and acted like they do now - like 2 married people. I imagine in some point of my life I might push for it, for sentimental reasons.
But if my parents had an open relationship my whole life and had various boyfriends and girlfriends, that might squick me out a bit. Or a lot.
My aunt and uncle were never married and I didn’t know this until my uncle’s death because we had to run around and figure out rights for common-law marriages in Ohio (I believe they qualified since they’d been together since the 70’s).
My parents couldn’t stand each other and they were forced to stay together because of the bonds of holy matrimony just don’t get broken in my culture. :rolleyes: I might have preferred an unmarried couple who was genuinely happy to be together.
My parents only had a religious marriage in a commonwealth country that recognises religious marriages as legally binding (here they’d be voidable or whatever), after which time they moved to another commonwealth country that let us move there without questioning it. They had to get legally married when we moved to Massachusetts, though, the INS were kicking up a fuss and actually made them bring in the wedding album to prove that they had been living “under the assumption of marriage” for some then fifteen odd years (now over 30). Not that they had anything against it, the only reason they didn’t have a license is that my grandfather died shortly before the first time my parents were supposed to get married and the license got forgotten and then they never remembered in time for their second (actual) wedding.
I remember them being very offended at the intimation that they were merely living in sin, though. My mom is kinda religious.
I have seen some of the commercials for the Gene Simmons show as well, and they make such a big deal about this point that I wonder if the big finale is going to be a wedding or something.
Responding to the question, I think it might be weird to find out about it after the fact, but more along the lines of being bothered by a secret being kept from me. If everyone had been very open about it all along, probably not such a big deal. Then again, my own parents are the opposite – they are married but have lived as if they were divorced (a pleasant divorce where they are buddies) for about as long as I can remember.
Certainly not at this stage in my life. But when I was younger, probably it would have. Kids in school can be cruel and it was not so common in my town in my youth.
I grew up assuming that my parents were married. They never seemed to be in love, but I just assumed that they were married, because, well, everyone else’s parents were. When I was 15 I tried to find their marriage licence by breaking into the safe when they weren’t home. Found some other skeletons, such as they were, but no marriage licence. I asked my older brother who told me of course they weren’t married. This bothered me a great deal at 15. At 21, I don’t really care one way or another, other than it means they can’t say anything about the fact that my boyfriend and I live together in sin.
If neither parents cared about getting married, or both parents were against the institution of marriage, I don’t think it would bother me.
But if one parent really wanted to get married and the other didn’t - I think that might. (or, in other words, that commercial bothers me.) One person forcing their partner to get married or one person withholding marriage from their partner- neither of those seem good or healthy. I think that in my ideal world the “Do we want to get married someday?” and “How important is marriage to us?” type questions should be settled before adding kids to the mix.
I’m assuming the OP means knowing the whole time that they weren’t married, not having thought they were and finding out otherwise.
If my parents weren’t married all this time, they wouldn’t be who they are and I wouldn’t be who I am so who knows if it would have bothered me. But even without religious issues, most people I knew had married parents so I guess I would have thought it was odd.