Why did you get married??

[aussienic]

a lot of people think it is harder to walk away (if things go wrong) once marriage is there. but in your case you have a house and a child together so it is just as hard. Some people think oh its just a piece of paper but it is also a public promise of what you want for each other and how you feel about each other.. Does that make sense?

Dh and i were just talking about this last month (our 12th wedding anniversary) We both agree our getting together date means more then our wedding date but that doesn't mean we don't celebrate our wedding date. We do. I also said I wonder if we would have ever gotten married if there wasn't a baby on the way. Dh said we would have but maybe not when we did. He was planning to propose on Xmas day but ending up asking me in November when I found out Ds was on the way.. but anyways.

What does marriage mean to you? I am not very good with words. I don't think I could really put into words what marriage means to me but I guess from a public point (ie family and friends) it is important. it is showing them I have the love and commitment to him and to our children.. I hope that makes sense. I am also not a fan of a huge wedding as I don't see the point. I would have been happy just to go down to the court house and get married lol but Dh wanted the whole family wedding thing (he has a large and very loving family) We had a lovely simple (and cheap) wedding.

i should add we were together for nearly 4 years before we got married. Moved towns together and bought a house.. but i knew he was the one for me as soon as I laid eyes on him. I can't explain that part it was just meant to be

[Cherished]

We got married for luuuuv dh proposed 2 weeks after meeting and it was very romantic! it's our 5 year anniversary in May and we've never looked back.

[Starlite]

DP and I are not married. We have been together for 6 years, 4 months and two days, and met afew months before that. I would have liked to do things the 'proper' way, he thinks marriage is silly. 'Whats a piece of paper going to prove?'. It sends me crazy. He asks me why i want it, and I feel that 'because I bloody well want it', should be a sufficient answer. There's heaps of reasons why I want it, some of which I can't really describe. For me, it's an urge, similar to the one you get when you know you really want a baby. I just want it

[LionsandBears]

I never believed in marriage or understood why people bothered. My parent's marriage was a disaster so not a very good example. I also started to believe it was all part of a patriarchal conspiracy to enslave women and formalise prostitution. It wasn't until my mum married my stepdad that I had an aha momrnt and realised it was about love and respect and honouring the other person.

I had a defacto relationship for a while that I kept thinking would end in marriage despite my mum's terror of me being with someone she thought was abusive ( what do mum's know....in my case she was so right). There were a number of issues i was too scared to address but i figured they'd be fixed when we got married. It wasnt until I had another aha moment that I realised you marry a person as they are and love and accept them for it. If you want someone to change, dont marry them. If you need someone to change that much, they're the wrong person.

Later, after taking a few years to grow up, I met my now DH. I didnt see the point in living with someone unless their was an acknowledged commitment. For me there was no point in shacking up and having kids if we weren't in it for the long run. This isnt a criticism of others, but from a practical and emotional point of view, I dont understand buying property and commiting to a 20+ year mortgage with someone unless there's a deeper commitment there. It's one thing to make a business decision but I'm too wary of sexually transmitted debt to make investment decisions with a bf.

Anyway, we had a chat and agreed we both wanted marriage and kids. He proposed 9 months later, we moved in together a month later and got married a year after that. I cant say anything's really changed except the commitment feels deeper. I would probably make more of an effort for my DH than I would for any BF. But then, he's the love of my life and he treats me like a queen. He's more than worth it.

[widdly]

We got married cause we had started trying for a baby and I wanted to have the same surname as my children. I LOVED being a wife and being married.

As it turns out, I am now divorced and have changed back to my maiden name, so having the same surname as my DS wasn't that important after all LOL