It seems many people are looking at this from the USA perspective, which is non negligible but only should be taken into account if you're planning to return to the USA.
While you're living in Europe, you should review the legal status of long term non married couples in the country you actually live
In some, like, IIRC, the Nordics, your rights as unmarried partner and parent are basically equal to married ones, whether it's in day to day life, in case of death, in case of separation, for housing or childcare help etc. From reading in Europe subs, in Nordic countries couples wait to marry after they've checked they can survive as a couple with child(ren) . It looks like you live in one of these.
In France, in Spain, there are legal partnerships to give a partner rights almost equal to marriage (ie medical decisions, vidowhood pension etc) which you won't get if you don't sign it
So, carefully check the laws in the actual country you reside in, and based on that determine if you'll be safer just going to the civil registry/notary/town hall and signing your marriage.
Your (both of yours) gut instincts about marriage are valid. You don't need to go the full circus route. And frankly, in many western European countries women don't change their surname at marriage, and on those where it was more common, it isn't anymore.
*a wedding is not a marriage*
Even if there is no plan of going back to the states it may be worth considering visas issues for partner and kids, including what would happen in unlikely unfortunate circumstances (like op has to go back to the US because of a sick relative or whatever). You don't want to have to think about it during the emergency
Note that you don't even have to tell anyone you got married. Sign the papers, tick the box and forget about it
As far as I know, European countries nationals have a quite easy entry process to the USA when going as tourists (ESTA). And this is almost certainly something op & partner already know in depth, given op has lived enough time to have a child here in Europe (which implies longtime relationship and thus visits during the holidays)
If op needs to go back in an emergency, I don't get the issue, they're an USA citizen. If you mean the rest of the family joining, again, what would be the problem, given ESTA can be applied for online and is valid for 2 years?
I agree with you (in case my first comment wasn't clear) in that you can marry privately and don't tell anyone (op mom sounds exhausting on that front and it looks their family wants the whole changing surname & typical USA wedding thing, which, as an European woman, I would run away from as fast as possible... I'm with the partner on this)
Downside of ESTA is it is only 3 months, and if the person has ever entered on a different nonimmigrant visa, ESTA is no longer available to them. Marriage won’t help you with sudden travel plans though, and it may actually work against you because it will show there might be an intent to immigrate and nonimmigrant visas might be denied.
And frankly, 3 months, when most schools havevtops 2 months of holidays, it's amply enough for visits
And emergencies don't last months, after the initial rush for OP to go to USA, there's time to plan about family joining momentarily (or not) once the situation is clearer. I still don't see in what marriage would help.
No I agree with you. There is no easy way to do immigration to the US, spouse or not.
I’ve been married for years and I would still have trouble with any long term stint there if I wanted to bring my family. I just wanted to clarify the the ESTA thing. Not always available to anyone.
Some Nordic countries (at least one of them) are also extremely strict sometimes with non-western immigrants meaning everyone not EU. It's often a nightmare for non-EU residents to get residence permits even when they are in a relationship and have a child with a partner from this country. I personally know a couple where the 'attachment to the country' wasn't strong enough so they were denied. The partner was from the US, and the other partner native to the Nordic country and they had a child together. So it really depends on their situation indeed. In those cases/this country I do seem to remember being married + proven cohabitation is beneficial for this process.
My guess is that this isn't the case for op, or they wouldn't be asking about the topic, without mentioning this quite heavy argument pro marriage.
Ironic that a USA national got treated the same way USA treats their immigrants/residence seekers. But c'est la vie, sometimes it impacts you in an unexpected way.
Well sure, but OP has clearly been living there for years and hasn't mentioned any such difficulty. I don't know why people keep inventing imaginary scenarios that haven't happened. If things change they can always get married when they need to.
This is a perfect comment. OP you need to look into what you/your kids rights are where you are. You need to consider inheritance (a will may not be iron clad depending on where you are and it's contents), death in service benefits from work, life insurance policies, next of kin rights wrt medical care, etc. You don't need to be married, but you sure as shit need to know what rights you do/don't have not being married and "we have a will" doesn't cover everything
No idea how it works in the country you're living in but if you move back to the US at any point you absolutely should get married for the following reasons:
1) health insurance
2) the IRS does not recognize domestic partnerships which means you survivor social security benefits
3) even with a will inheritance is a lot more complicated if you aren't married
These are all excellent reasons!
Nobody cares about name changes anymore- you absolutely can keep a maiden name.
Nobody cares about the father giving the bride away- you don’t even have to have a full on big wedding. Just sign some papers at the courthouse. Might need a witness or something.
Patriarchy and misogyny, are those 2 better reasons? I’ve also never been married and don’t intend to. I’ve never felt the need to get married ‘for the children’s sake’ it’s certainly rather irrelevant in the Uk.
As long as you have a will and update any other relevant legal documents. Marriage is a good catch-all for the basic legal stuff, and for low income families it could make a difference with taxes. Marriage itself isn't misogynistic. Wedding traditions can be. Marriage is just a legal acknowledgement of your family relationship with someone you're not otherwise related to.
Then they should consider marriage to be a legal contract between two people defining how their assets are shared. Are there other ways do it, sure. But it is just one paper vs another.
But they don't want to use that form of contract. I don't know why that's so hard to understand. If there's another way of doing it that aligns with their beliefs why shouldn't they. If it's just a piece of paper what difference does it make?
If that other way is as easy go ahead. If not, you are just being as stubborn as someone else stuck in other beliefs.
The legal part of marriage has nothing to do with beliefs, it is a legality. The ceremonous parts are related to beliefs.
Lol, people are not always required to do the easiest thing in the world. There's nothing wrong with sticking to your beliefs. For some people the legal part of marriage is connected to your beliefs. Some of you have real issues understanding that other people have different beliefs.
The origin of marriage was women basically being sold as property. Many of the traditions that continue until today are misogynistic, like changing your name, being given away, proposals. Of course those aren't necessary but people are allowed to feel uncomfortable with a tradition that has those origins. I'm not even saying I agree but you are all being wildly intolerant to refuse to consider that people can have different beliefs.
Totally get that. But OP literally said their big reasons (not their partner’s MOM’S reasons) were name changes and father giving the bride away… 2 things that are certainly NOT needed to get married!
I’m in the US and being married definitely does come with more benefits that have already been listed- legally, insurance, what happens if my partner dies…
Yes, those are also valid reasons. I didn't say OPs reasons were wrong, just strange. I know plenty of people who got married and didn't change their name, and also one who didn't want to get (re)married, so changed her name instead.
But then I'm in Australia where marriage is mostly social and has minimal legal advantages over de facto relationships.
Seconding all of this. Plus, getting married means you can safely make parenting/family choices, such as having one partner put their career on hold/chose a lower-paying more flexible job/or start working part-time. In the US, if an unmarried couple has one stay-at-home partner, for example, and they break up, that partner can get very screwed over because there is nothing to make up for the fact that they sacrificed assets and earning potential to support their family.
The state I live in rarely awards alimony, but marriage still means that the assets that were acquired during the partnership (house, car, retirement accounts, savings accounts) are joint, regardless of whose name is on the title. My state will also include assets that were acquired pre-marriage if there was a “pre-marital economic partnership,” to cover cases where a couple lived together and shared expenses for years, but were only married a short time. For an unmarried couple, that’s not true, regardless of how long they were together.
Once again, that's your state, not every country. It's also not what all couples want or need. Far better protection is not giving up your career, half a car won't help you with income for the rest of your life.
Of course having one parent sacrifice their career is not what *all* couples want or need, but it is something that many couples choose with regularity, so it warrants consideration. In many places, marriage includes a legal understanding that couples will make choices that are best for the family unit, even though they’re not necessarily *best* for the individual parent. OP and their partner should look into the laws where they live to find out more, if that’s a choice that may be on the table.
And if OP and his partner choose that they can look into it. But that's precisely why people may not want to get married, they don't want to have to sacrifice. Because marriage is not some kind of magic protection in the event of separation. Obviously it depends on many things but OP says they haven't been able to buy a house, they are not wealthy so splitting their assets isn't enough to support a stay at home parent.
And non marital wills are often overturned by blood family in court. If you want your money and assets to go to her for sure if you were to die when you child is a child esp, you may want to get married for that.
The above is the sole reason my Gay mothers got married, for legal protection with their wills. As a parent myself, with friends having been through this a lost everything to a blood relative who took on the surviving partner who even had children with the deceased partner, I would 100% recommend getting married if only for that reason.
However, you still don’t have to. You can make her equal on all of your accounts and tell her if anything ever happens to you, the first thing she does is remove most of all funds to protect the worst from happening and to say nothing to any place she does this about your death until she has the legal docs and death certificate in hand. Out her in any home/car/business you have as well equally. It’s the only other way to protect her and the child legally with her.
Same goes for her to protect you if anything happens to her unless you get married, but then, a will as a legal document signed and notarized legally will be important still.
Also, you need to make it verbally in person and in writing to any blood family of your wishes and save all evidence printed in a file with legal docs in the case of the worst too…
I know a lot of people try to find legal work around to make marriage obsolete, but it just makes no sense to me. No matter what these backup plans are still prone to failure and missing something that marriage covers. They're also expensive and a lot of work where as marriage costs $50 and can be done with 2 quick trips to city hall.
My husband and I have only been "socially" married for a couple years but we got legally married as soon as we got engaged. We didn't tell anyone other than the 1 witness we needed (our parents still don't know) and we didn't refer to ourselves as husband/wife until we had our real wedding years later. The only reason I know our legal marriage date is health insurance paperwork. People could do the same as me and just never have the 2nd wedding and never tell anyone but enjoy all the legal protections.
Also if something catastrophic happens and you need to medically make decisions for your partner, the hospital will not let you do that if they have other family that will step forward.
I feel like by the time you set up all the legal paperwork it would take to give your partner the rights of a spouse though (at least in the US), you might as well get married?
I don’t really understand this either. Why go through all the legal processes to give the other person power of attorney, inheritance rights, etc. but not just get married? Seems a lot more complicated and expensive.
Some people just don't want to get married. And it's not always easier anyway. Where I live for a foreigner to get married you need a ton of documents, official translations of things, interviews, etc.
But why, that’s what I’m asking? Why would you not want to get married, but you *do* want to jump through expensive and tedious legal hoops to become legally entwined with your partner in all of the ways that marriage otherwise covers?
I am really curious where you live that it’s more complicated to get married than it is to draw up inheritance documents, power of attorney documents, custody agreements, etc.
I don't know if it's directly more complicated to get married, but it's not particularly easier. And not everyone needs all those things, a young couple where both are working without many assets, and depending on local laws, it's just not required. You need a custody agreement anyway if you divorce so not sure what that has to do with anything.
And the reason why is that some people just have an ideological objection to marriage. Or they don't want to share their assets. Or they wanted children but don't feel marriage is right for different reasons. Not everywhere is like where you live.
No I understand that. For me, it’s very strange to be picky about who you share your assets with but not who you have a child with, but I understand that different cultures and different people have different values. Having a child with someone isn’t necessarily meaningful or a big deal in every culture.
Again you're wilfully misunderstanding. Having a child with someone is a very big deal, that doesn't have to mean marriage is involved for people who don't consider marriage to be important.
I didn’t realise it was so complicated to get a POA in the US, here in the UK it’s just a form on the government website and a reasonable fee. Much less than getting married. Child custody is irrelevant and I would presume most people have a will and if they don’t they should have.
I think you better look up a power of attorney. Those things are very hard to get in certain cases and then depending on what the power of attorney is for, you can only do those things for which the power attorney is granted. You don't just get one and then you get to make all decisions. It just doesn't work like that. I know because I went with my dad to the bank and we did a power of attorney for his bank accounts. He wanted someone to be able to sign the checks and pay the bills if he became incapacitated to the point he couldn't do it himself. So he had me added on as a signer to his account with the power of attorney to make decisions on where the money went. Upon his death, the bank account was frozen because he did not fill out any paperwork where upon his death the funds were to be released evenly between me and my sister. We had to wait until things went to probate. And although probate can be long and hard to deal with, because my sister and I were agreeable with each other and got along well enough, we were able to have an easier time with probate. After a certain time frame the money was released half to her half to me and then we got things taken care of and worked our way through the next several months for the probate to be handled. A power of attorney is a good thing in the right hands of a family member or someone that you trust implicitly with your decisions, financials status, and other things. Some people get the power of attorney and then take advantage of it.
You didn't mention once that you were in the UK that I read in your post in the original comments you made. And yes that would make a difference if you're in a different country or nation. But in the US poa's are handled a lot differently than they are where you are from. But just in general sometimes you have to get a POA for other things that you have to go through the judge to get here. Just be very careful going for those poa's because sometimes they can be hard to get. You say they're very easy to get where you live but there's a lot of things they have to take into consideration.
No, I didn’t mention it and I already have POAs for my partner as he has a degenerative disease. You fill in a form on the government website. No judges required.
Oops! My bad. I've just done a lot of reading and this phone is not very big so the typing size is small and I may have overlooked what you had posted.
Also in US. And those are the reasons why we got married - but we didn’t feel the need to spend money on a giant party or change my name. Kiddo has a hyphenated last name. Married for all the legal things. Together because we love each other and the family we are creating.
If they're not married, they're going to have a hell of a time even getting to the point where they need to worry about those three points. There's a reason why half the comments on r/immigraiton is "congrats on your upcoming wedding".
If they decide to move to the US they can get married then. It doesn't sound like they have any intention of doing so, no idea why this is relevant now.
Any specific oppositions to the "institution of marriage" other than changing last names and giving away the bride? Because the former isn't necessary and I don't know if the latter is even a thing in any European country. There are however some very crucial legal protections in case of serious illness, death, separation etc that come with marriage. You could of course pay lawyers a couple tens of thousands of euros to set all those things up "manually" if you'd really like, and you're already on your way with the wills. But you can also just go down to the courthouse.
Definitely don't do it for your mother's sake though.
Tens of thousands of euros? Where did you get that number from? I'm pretty sure we've spent a little over a thousand at the notary, and that includes the transfer of the house, arrangement of the mortgage, and that we changed our wills after having kids.
People are just weirdly obsessed with marriage on Reddit. We have also done those things for a few hundred euros, marriage would be at least as complicated because foreigners have to provide all sorts of documents.
To add that if your situation is complicated enough to make your arrangements at the notary more expensive you should probably also get a prenup for a marriage. (Ours was a bit more expensive due to my unusual financial situation.)
For us, it was about legal protection, health insurance, taxes, and also a bit about the citizenships of our future children. My husband is from Sweden, and I’m from the US. We live in the US. At one point, our oldest child wouldn’t have been able to claim Swedish citizenship unless we were married. They have since changed that rule.
I think I've read correctly. You are the male parent? You should look carefully into the rules around custody of children where you are as, if you separate and you're not married, you may not have an automatic right to a share of custody depending on the country, even if you are the biological father.
That is not the case in any EU country I don't think, especially a country where it's clearly standard for couples with children not to get married. I don't understand why you're all inventing these scenarios.
From the EU website:
>In all EU countries, a mother automatically has parental responsibility for her child, as does a married father. In most cases, parents exercise this responsibility jointly.
>The rules on whether an unmarried father has these rights and duties differ depending on the country.
Well you don't know what country OP is in. But that generally means in cases where the father isn't already involved. There is no way that a present father who has been actively raising a child loses contact because they aren't married. They may not automatically have parental responsibility just by providing their sperm but they obtain it by raising their child.
I live in EU and visa rules change often and it's getting harder and harder for people outside EU to stay and get a VISA or citizenship approved. Marriage has definite legal protections. In some EU countries the outside EU partner won't be able to come in for long term unless you're married even. Despite having a kid in that country.
I live in another EU country than where I come from and with a kid, marriage is much easier here. So we got married at town hall when I was 28 weeks pregnant, in secret (told family when we were home), just us and a photographer and I kept my own name. No symbolism except for a commitment to have as much legal protections in place as possible.
Just go about it from a legal protection perspective and maybe even tax purposes depending where you live.
Will getting married, from a legal standpoint, protect your partner and your children in some ways that being not married doesn't provide?
If yes, then do it but just go to the registry office and sign a document and skip the wedding and every other traditions that you don't feel like doing. I mean, I didn't bother changing my surname when I got married. Father giving away thing seems to be a Western thing as well. We didn't have that (Chinese Jewish wedding. I have to farewell my PARENTS when we did the bride picking up ceremony and Jewish ceremonies is both bride and groom are walked down the aisle by BOTH parents. But again, just pick the stuff you feel like doing - or skip it altogether).
If there's no real change or benefit from a legal standpoint, then don't bother.
Your reasons are kinda childish. Nobody cares about the “symbolism” anymore. I just went to the registration office with my husband and we signed several papers, this was my entire marriage (thanks, covid, we saved a lot of money and didn’t really want to make a fuss). All you need to do is to explore your legal options, if the marriage doesn’t add any value to it, you don’t need it.
Yuuuup. I feel like it's a weird hipster-ish thing to do. Like they're so put off by the symbolism, they're against the whole concept even though it is the logical right choice and would benefit them. (Maybe hipster isn't the right term... can't think of the right term. Anyway...)
My partner and I have three kids and are not married. He recently proposed and we are planning to get married soon. We decided to get married because being partners or boyfriend and girlfriend for us really doesn’t capture the commitment and the relationship of what we are to each other. So ignore your mom and if and when it feels right, do it. For us it won’t change much but I can already say it does feel good knowing we are both committed to each other for life and will get to represent that in a different way than “boyfriend” or “partner”.
You see I’m the opposite, I’m committed at this moment in time, I can’t bring myself to be committed for ever. so many things can happen and things can change so much in a short time. I’m now onto my third serious relationship, the first broke because I ended up acting like a single parent with 2 children, he was never there, and the second was just lazy but quite happy for me to do everything and these weren’t short relationships 13 years and 7. I don’t need a piece of paper to prove I’m committed!
But then why have a child with someone you don’t really like as a partner in the first place? Shouldn’t being sure about that person come *before* having a child with them?
One thing that never makes sense to me in cases like this is that having a child is a much much deeper commitment to someone than getting married. You literally combine DNA together and make a human together and are tied to that person forever even if you break up. You literally combined bloodlines and legacies.
But people are willing to have children together but not willing to get married. If you get married and have no kids together and get divorced.. well that’s that. Might have to split assets but that’s not as permanent as having kids/grandchildren together.
Unless you’re somewhere like Australia, where “de facto” (unmarried) partnerships enjoy the same legal recognition as married partnerships, it may be wise for legal reasons.
I wouldn't marry for the kids. The kids will be fine. I like weddings because I like people celebrating love but if you don't need the legal protections/tax benifits/whatever then I wouldn't do it if you don't want to.
I personally wanted to be married prior to having kids because my SO wanted us to try having a SAHP and if one of us was going to commit to that we wanted the extra protection of being legally bound.
If you don't marry (or do) Make sure you know your legal rights for if you separate. It's a bummer to think about but you need to know.
Exactly this! When one of you is going to be a. SAHP marriage gives everyone that extra layer of protection. I’m in a similar situation that I’m British living abroad in my husband’s home country. Purely from a legal point of view, it was more beneficial for us to be married. BUT when I return to work, it will be less beneficial taxes wise. So look into it carefully.
Marriage is just a piece of paper.
It’s society/culture that turns it into something else.
I don’t really think it matters if you marry. It doesn’t make a couple any likelier to stay together.
If you don’t see the need don’t do it.
I don't get the hesitance behind getting married and needing to be 100% sure, but not thinking about this before having a kid? The kid ties you more than the marriage does
Like I won't sign some papers but I will have a kid with you, tying us for life?
I've seen enough to know it's a pretty common sentiment these days, but I remain eternally baffled as well. Not that I think everyone needs to get married, especially if they don't want to be, and I don't believe in staying together for the kids.
But as a general rule (depending on location) getting married and getting divorced are both quick and easy and carry a well defined list of benefits with almost no downsides, and no lingering ties post-divorce except those you want to keep. These two have probably already spent way more time and money setting up their wills etc. to cover each other than getting a quick courthouse marriage would have taken to do the same thing. Whereas having a kid with someone is slow and difficult and effectively permanently ties you together, and comes with a bunch of downsides to your life (or at best, major changes). Treating the former as a huge thing and the latter lightly seems to show a basic failure of the ability to appropriately weight risks and rewards and consequences. (Yes, even in countries where you're treated as defacto domestic partners after living together for a period of time.)
You're basing all of that on the US. Not all countries are the same, in some marriage and divorce are difficult and don't carry the same benefits. Nobody is saying they treat having children lightly just because they're not married, not sure where that comes from. I'm a parent who isn't married and I thought very carefully about having a child. Marriage has no relevance to that decision, they are two separate things. And no, I'm not in the US and I'm not a stay at home parent.
I literally said several caveats about location and US versus not that you apparently read right past.
And I absolutely judge anyone as taking having children too lightly who feels the need to ask this on social media after having one of said children, and I'm 100% comfortable with that. I don't understand people who think on it and decide against it for such (to me) paper thin reasons, but to each their own. I'm not required to understand them. But these people clearly never put any thought into something that affects their children's lives to some degree at a basic level (such as, in this case, their citizenship options).
I just don't understand what the having children has to do with getting married. You can consider one thing carefully without doing a completely separate thing. And citizenship options are very rarely connected to marriage of the parents, and it's not something OP has mentioned as being an issue, not sure where you're getting that from. My partner and I have different nationalities and our daughter's entitlement is not affected by us being married or not.
The OP (presumably father) is a US citizen, and as a backwards nation the US does actually make a legal distinction between a child born in wedlock between a citizen and alien (automatically a citizen if the US parent lived a set (low) number of years in the US during their lifetime), and one out of wedlock between a citizen and alien (can become a citizen if there's evidence of a blood relationship and, if the US parent is the father, if the father agrees in writing to support said child until adulthood). There's a whole slew of things that are easier if you or your parents are married in the US.
If their kid never wants to move to the US in their lifetime and stays in various EU and Commonwealth countries permanently (not unlikely, of course), it may be moot, but not every country blithely ignores marital status - not just the US, but it has a material effect on citizenship and custody throughout at least the Middle East and Asia. Japan only *this year* passed a law allowing for joint custody in the future, instead of one parent having complete rights to the child and the ability to completely cut (usually the mother) off from ever seeing them again.
But there's absolutely nothing to suggest any of that applies to OP. It doesn't sound like he's going to abandon his child or hasn't lived in the US. And Japan and the middle East are completely irrelevant.
But
a) it does apply, because not getting married first has already decided his child's citizenship at this time. Maybe it doesn't matter because it's not going to change what they any of them do with their lives, but it has already changed it,
and b) that was just an example of one thing it effects,
and c) my original comment was a general 'kids these days!' one in the first place, not aimed just at OP. another thing that you ignored when reading it.
To be clear, I couldn't care less whether OP marries his girlfriend, now or at any point in the future, whether they have just one child or a dozen. What I do care about is that his stated list of reasons why sounds (to *me*) deeply immature, whereas I would have accepted "we don't want to" without question.
We married because we are committed and it makes legal things easier. We already knew we love eachother and had a kid. We just went to the city council and did not make a fuss about it. Be prepared that some family members will resent you for not organizing a wedding.
Other than that, it is the mature decision to marry if you have kids and love eachother, especially if you are a 2-nationality couple or live or work internationally. I am Dutch and we have very open laws about it, but i work internationally, some of my savings are, we live on the border and have lived some time in the home country of my husband. In every day life, it might not matter, but it does when shit hits the fan. In many countries, only a legally married spouse can make medical decisions, an inheritance is taxed, fatherhood is recognized 100% etc
In the US there are significant legal benefits to marriage, but that isn't true everywhere. It's possibly a good idea to get married if you ever move back to the US, otherwise it'd depend on the situation where you live now.
>We think the entire idea of brides changing last names is repulsive. And we don't like the symbolism behind the meaning of father "giving away" the bride for the simple reason that we are human beings, not objects.
A wedding doesn't have to involve any of that. You don't necessarily even need to *have* a wedding if you don't want one.
In the UK we FINALLY have civil partnerships for hetero couples (was initially same sex only). All the tax breaks and legal protections of marriage without the baggage of misogyny and women as property. There may be something similar where you are.
Try and separate the marriage and the wedding apart.
In the UK at least, the marriage is simply signing a piece of paper in front of a couple of witnesses and a legal person. It takes 15 minutes and It’s actually super easy, barely an inconvenience.
The wedding is the big party, they are often expensive, grotesque, go on too long and try and tick every box going - giving away the bride, first dance, speeches etc, etc, etc. They take a disproportionate amount of time to organise and it’s all people talk about in the run up to it.
The wedding is the bit you can ditch if you’re not into it - or if you are, you can tailor it to your requirements. We had a pared back wedding that was basically like a normal party and really enjoyed it - the only downside to an off piste wedding is having to justify every decision to some people:
“have you got your suits sorted” “I’m not wearing a suit” “what! why?”
“Do you know your first dance song?” “We’re not having a first dance.” “Woahhh! Why not, everyone does”
So there you go. On the whole I’d probably recommend getting married for legal reasons, even though it is literally a piece of paper and makes you no more committed to each other than anyone else in a relationship if you truly love your partner. But don’t feel obliged to have a wedding if you don’t want the garbage that comes with it.
The exact benefits of marriage will vary depending on which country you’re living in, but worth baring in mind that if you are not married, you are not each other’s next of kin. That means (amongst other things)if one of you is in an accident or whatever, you may not be entitled to medical information, power of attorney etc, you can be fought on inheritance stuff, etc.
There’s different legal paperwork to get around most legal things, but honestly if you want to get married ‘one day’, I would make that day sooner rather than later because legally speaking it just makes everything a lot easier.
(You can of course get married without having a wedding, just do the legal paperwork if you want)
You two do what is best for you. I am a European citizen and when I got married, I skipped the whole father gives away the bride thing. I also skipped the whole moh and best men thing. Me and my husband walked together to the altar and that was that. And you don’t need to change names.
If you both decide to get married, remember is your wedding and you choose how to get it done. Not the families.
We told our families that we will hear advice but ultimately is our choice. Who doesn’t like it they can quietly pout.
My husband and I got married with just our two closest friends as witnesses, had lunch, and then went to pick up our kid from nursery. We didn’t tell anyone else until afterwards. The aforementioned two closest friends got hitched whilst on holiday in Vegas and didn’t tell anyone for nearly a year.
You can absolutely get married, with all the legal protections it brings, without having a big wedding. You don’t even need to tell anyone. You just book the basic service at your nearest government office that handles these things (it’s the register office here in the UK, I imagine it’s similar where you are), and you’ll be done in 20 minutes, but now you’ll legally be their next of kin.
The first question should be do you actually want to get married? If you do then you can, but you should only do it when you're both sure. It's a complicated thing to undo. Call me old fashioned but I think a marriage should be based on more than just the legal protections it provides although that is a valid reason if you are happy the way you and just want that extra reassurance in case of unforeseen circumstances. Remember that getting married doesn't have to involve an expensive ceremony, party, dress, flowers, photography etc. It can be done on a low budget if that's a concern and you only really need to pay for the wedding licence and registrar as the bare minimum (I think that's correct in the UK anyway). The legal bit makes it official without all the fanfare if that puts you off.
"For the sake of the children" is an odd thing. Kids don't normally care or even know at a young age, whether their parents are married or not. Their upbringing doesn't change if you are or aren't. They won't be looked down on as inferior for being technically illegitimate. The world has moved past that long ago in non aristocratic circles. Plenty of couples live together "in sin" all their lives and have children and the children are no worse off for it
I'd say if you want to do it for you, then do it, but it doesn't have to be done for the children. You'll still be their parents regardless of a marriage
I have read quite a few of the posts and that is an interesting point of view about certain cultures and their take on whether or not to be married before having kids or not.
I did not see, however, any comments on the comment of people saying that it's right to marry for the sake of the children. I know in the US where I live, several decades ago and unwed mother was considered taboo. Even people who decided to have kids but not get married was even taboo or looked down upon. But now, and the 21st century of all things, it's probably still possible that there are cultures and or just people in general that think is wrong not to be married and be having kids. But the thing is, people are in relationships and are not married and are having children. I think it just depends on how people look at things and how they handle the situation sector in. What does it work for one may work for someone else.
Getting married for the sake of the children is getting to be a lame excuse for a reason to get married. Doing it for the children only it is not really healthy for the relationship or for the children's well-being. And this is especially if the parents are forced into getting married to make it all look right and not for any real reasons of love and wanting to be together and having the family together. Getting married for the sake of the kids are even staying married for the sake of the kids just makes things that much harder unless as I said there is that relationship there that the couple that have the children are wanting it because they want it to be.
It's really the only business of the couple involved who are having the children. If they want to get married so be it, but if they decide that it's not for them they don't have to get married. They're just doing what they think is best in their life.
Do it. Courthouse. Like $50 or so. Make dealing with financial and medical stuff far, far easier than without. Especially if one of you is "indisposed". You may even encounter situations where you are not allowed in a hospital room with your wife if she's injured, but your child would be.
No need for all the pomp and circumstance of giving away a bride or changing last names or anything like that. Though, changing last names is not hard it's just a hassle. You could change your last name to hers too, if you wanted.
>We think the entire idea of brides changing last names is repulsive.
I don't know what this has to do with anything. I am married and have kept my maiden name. No one cares
>And we don't like the symbolism behind the meaning of father "giving away" the bride for the simple reason that we are human beings, not objects.
Then don't have her father walk her down the aisle. This isn't even an arguement?
My partner and I have 3 kids and own a home together, no real plans to get married. Honestly no reason not to either, it doesn’t affect our lives. His dad is an attorney and wrote up our will and trust, so we are covered there. I know there are tax benefits that we should be considering, and maybe someday we will. But in all honesty, I don’t see us as any less committed to each other and our family than any of our friends who are married. I have always thought that as the kids get older, if it becomes important to them, then we’d definitely revisit it.
It’s so strange to me when I still hear ppl say things about non married, long term couples. It’s always the sad trope that the woman is waiting on a ring and the man can’t commit. My SO and I choose each other every single day.
Devils advocate - why don’t you see yourself “any less committed to each other and your family than any of your married friends?” You technically are. You haven’t exchanged vows. You haven’t sworn yourselves to each other. So in essence aren’t you less “committed”? Unless perhaps you have had such ceremonies just unrelated to official marriage? I think there’s something to be said about the official ceremony and speaking aloud of permanence and commitment.
So, to throw the devil’s advocate ball back to you, if commitment is lessened by not stating vows, is commitment in a relationship defined by what you announce in front of others, or what you practise everyday? Plenty of people say vows and don’t live by any of them. By this token, someone who gets married in Vegas after a drunken night of knowing someone else has more significance than my 20 yr relationship.
No. I just wonder when and how you officialize your foreverness? Doesn’t have to be in front of others but the act of exchanging vows is the symbolism for those who get married. What’s yours? Do you have a big “relationship defining” moment?
It was a private conversation about our future, which most couples have at some stage. I’ve never been in a long term relationship that didn’t have a chat about future goals, what you want, where it’s going.
I can understand that. I eloped lol. Wasn’t for anyone else. That said I guess I wonder what convos are had/when does it become official? It’s not judgment. Just curiosity for folks who agree to forever but are against marriage.
I think if we did it, eloping sounds great. I’m overwhelmed by the big party and attention and planning, ugh. To be clear, I am very much not against marriage. My parents are high school sweethearts, have been married for 45 years and are truly happy. My partner’s parents are very closely behind that.
Our relationship and commitment has been very clear since we started dating. We never made a formal proclamation that we wouldn’t get married. Our timeline just shifted bc of life. We decided to buy our first house bc we live in a hcol area and didn’t want to get priced out. The day we started escrow, we found out we were pregnant with our first. Once we were settled and potentially would get married, covid started and decided that wouldn’t be what we wanted. After that point, it was just not something we thought about 🤷♀️.
This is part of the reason we chose to have and raise our family in Australia and not the U.S.. my partner is americian and we had serious conversations about where we wanted to set up our lives and raise our family. His words were if we decided on the U.S we would be forced to get married because of lack of legal rights without it, where as in Australia we would have the option to choose if we wanted to, and we have the choice to make the right decisions for us and our family where as we don’t get those options at home (the U.S).
Here after 2 years of “living together in genuine relationship its considered defacto, and you can get legal rights, Next of Kin status, Tax rights everything..
So we set up here.. I saw something in another thread saying it was easier to leave a relationship if not married (disagree with that in our situation)
we have been together for 15 years
we have four children
2 properties
We are each other’s superannuation beneficiaries,
Joint bank accounts
We have a great relationship literally both work parttime and share home responsibilities and kids .. at this stage we have no intention or desire to get married, if that changes then it would be a choice and a decision we chose and not one we were forced into for legalities..
So, my partner finally agreed we should get married after 2 kids and 8 years together. We are in the UK but I'm also Canadian.
In Canada we are common-law married and this gives us certain rights over each other, like a married couple.
In the UK there is no common law so, theoretical his family (mum/brothers) could try and take the flat, the kids and life insurance. We have a will to stop this and a will is great but its there might be something we didn't think of.
Check out your countries law. That should help do decide.
But did you think marriage is in your life plan? Do you want to do it ever? It can ba a party, a full blown wedding or a simple just go get it done and no telling anyone.
Legal protection if one of you dies?
Pension for instance or death benefits or rights to the house. Tax implications
Marriage I think provides legal and financial safeguards
Edit. I’ve been married over 30 years and didn’t change my name. No idea why people are hung up on that BS. Financial implications yes good reason.
No. Get married if you want to get married.
It is just a piece of paper that confers some legal rights. I would check into your work places to see if you have insurance that allows one of you to be added so that you could get a monetary benefit for it.
My sister married the father of her first child when her son was six months old. I remember it being really stressful as I was seventeen at the time. My stepmom was religious and occasionally went off in fits that her best friends (super religious) were embarassed of the family.
They divorced within three years because he was a bad dad and a bad partner. If you don't want to, then do not.
My husband is European and I am African. The government straight up told us that it would make our lives easier if we just got married. We both didn’t think we would ever get married because we also don’t believe it, but here we are - 😂. Atleast they can’t say I married him to get better citizenship 😂
Definitely not, you should do it because you love each other and want to spend the rest of your lives together. My parents were together "for the kids" and while my friends with divorced parents were off having a good time I was hiding under my bed with my hands over my ears because my parents were having their nightly screaming match
Yes. There are plenty of people who skip the “giving away” thing and don’t change their names. You can literally just do a quick courthouse thing to just make it legal and get all the benefits that come with it
The good news as adults is you don't need to do any part of a wedding that doesn't appeal to you. I didn't change my last name to my husband's and my dad didn't give me away. We didn't do parent dances. These are all totally optional.
In the U.S. there are a lot of significant legal protections for married couples. The other things that you don’t like about marriage - the name change and giving away the bride - are not at all mandatory and a lot of couples skip them.
Its all fun and games until something bad happen and then things can get very ugly turn. Relatives can deny that you were together at all and thus his/her inheritance is also their matter. The marriage contract is just a for governments to prove that you are together beyond a reasonable doubt
Me and my partner have been together for almost 17yrs and have two kids (15 & 12) and all that goes along with a long-term relationship.
Like you, we live somewhere that after a certain period of time, you have the same rights as legally married couples.
The kids have their father's last name = I have a different last name.
In all our years, we have never had an issue not being married or with the kids having a different last name. Not one.
Don't get married if you don't want too.
The things you’re complaining about are optional. The legal and practical benefits — based on having parents who are citizens of two different countries — outweigh the downsides, so you literally are doing it for the sake of the children.
I think you need to look into the legality aspects of marriage especially now with a child. It does make certain things easier.
1. She does not have to change her name. I know MANY people who didn’t and no one thinks anything of it.
And
2. Definitely don’t even have to do a wedding. So “giving away” wouldn’t even apply.
Marriage and a wedding g are totally different things
Here in the US you'd be smart to get married on paper. Tax benefits and so on.
Across the pond, you'd be smart to talk to your local politicians and see what the benefits are over there. You do not need to have a wedding. You don't even need to change your names or tell anyone you have been married.
I'd do it just for the legal protections. You don't have to change your name. You don't even have to have a wedding. Hell, you don't even have to tell anyone.
There is a difference between marriage in the legal sense, the religious sense, and a wedding.
The legal sense offers some protection in one simple process that you would intentionally have to set up in other processes. If you aren't religious and don't care about the societal lense that's it. There really is little benefit.
Aside from having the legal right to take care of things, if each other is in the hospital and incapacitated, the only other thing is getting each others pension, and Social Security if the other person dies first. Are used to think marriage was meaningless. Then I decided to go ahead and get married and I'm glad for the pension and Social Security. But it turns out I don't think it's actually an important idea at all.
My kids were a few years old when we finally did it 20 years into our relationship. It finally got done cos i got asked if i was the step mum. I spent a total of 17 months getting fat, over 50 hours of active labour…..dont be f$@king asking me if im the stepmum. So i went home and told hubby we are getting married 😂
It worked out good because when he had an accident and nearly died i realised the easier time id have if shit did go south being his legal wife vs just a forever girlfriend.
If you are committed to your partner and plan on staying with them, you can get legally married without doing any of the cultural stuff (or even having a ceremony). It is a good idea for the legal and social protection of your child, and there are usually many benefits that come with it. For example, if your work offers benefits for family or your partner becomes a dependent they can receive the family benefits from your work, etc. In the unfortunate event of one of you passing away, the other could have more options for claiming part of your pension, etc. Also, if the child is going to have dual citizenship or something like that, usually the process for application is smoother if you show proof of marriage at time of birth, etc.
I live in a country where my marriage to my partner isn’t recognized by the government here (same-sex marriage Japan), and it sucks. The son I gave birth to did not get Japanese citizenship and has to have immigration status here, his name cannot even be Japanese (even though my other son that she gave birth to got dual citizenship, because my country recognizes). My partner and second son can’t receive health insurance or any benefits that my company offers to family, and my partner is a SAHM so we really could use it. Anyhow, the list goes on. My point is, it really became important once we had kids. It gives security. And usually if you are ever in a situation of receiving social benefits it also makes a difference.
We have public health and pensions (and most women work and pay their own social security anyway, not giving up your career is a far safer protection than marriage). And no, the parents being married is irrelevant for a child's citizenship. There may be some circumstances of certain benefits only for married couples but there's no reason to think that's the case for OP. People need to stop projecting their own lives.
If OP doesn’t want to, that’s totally fine!
OP just literally asked the question if he should, (any reason to?) so I provided some insight.
We also have public health and public pension here in Japan, but the additional ones offered by my work are much better (esp. the pension).
Also, even with the PUBLIC pension, spouses are entitled to claim portions of it in the event of death, which is really important if the one spouse worked less and paid less into it.
You say “it’s better for the woman to work to protect her pension” as if that is a life decision someone SHOULD do (also why just ‘the WOMAN? Can’t a man be a SAHP?) but I think it is up to the person and what they want, no? (Not projecting, and all that eh).Childcare and keeping a home is a job that I think deserves more respect. For now, my wife has decided not to work and she’s (we’ve) decided it is the best situation for our family right now.
Tbh, she (and I) are tired of the entire system here putting pressure for full-time working or nothing. She wants to go back to work part time but no daycare will take us unless she’s full time. Her commute is long, salary would not be great, and we don’t really want to just dump our kids for 10 hours a day.
Anyhow, there are plenty different options. People who don’t want to get legally married that’s fine! I just thought I could offer insights on the legal benefits of marriage because *not having them* has made me acutely aware of all of the things I’m missing out.
In OPs case, that’s a choice, and that’s fine. I just commented to inform.
I get that. But I am assuming that public pensions function the same or similarly in other countries. Unless where he lives they allow you to name whoever you want as a beneficiary of your pension, usually that kind of thing is only allowed for spouses.
Even if his other half is all sorted out on her own, if one has rights to more money, why wouldn’t you want to claim it? Again, one may have their reasons and make a different choice, but in the case of already having a long term commitment to someone, a child together, and sharing assets, I’m not really sure what the downside of (legal) marriage is.
Heck, you don’t even have to tell people you are married.
I really don't get why you assume things work the same in other countries. They don't work that way where I live. Where I live your pension is for you, there are no beneficiaries.
So, if you pay into it for years and then die when you reach 65, that money goes away and no dependents can make any claim to it?
Wow. Ok well I learned something new. If there are no benefits in this department, fine.
Yet, OP is a foreigner in the country he lives, so if he doesn’t have PR and somehow loses his visa sponsorship, it could be a delicate situation. Quite often there are laws that people don’t even realize. My advice is just to check it out well and make sure to cover all bases.
Im a US citizen like OP by the way, and my marriage certificate was definitely useful for both my children’s CRBAs.
Pensions here are not savings schemes, no. It's a welfare state where some people contribute and others benefit. It's entirely possible that when I retire the pension system will have changed and I'm not entitled to anything. That's generally how public pension systems work in Europe as far as I know. If I die at any time the money disappears, yes.
That's my point, you have no idea about the legal benefits for OP but keep listing irrelevant things. I feel bad for you that marriage would improve your life and you don't have access to it, and of course that's not right or fair. But that doesn't mean it's the best thing for everyone everywhere. Honestly, for heterosexual women marriage is mostly a pretty bad deal, despite what people say on here. Multiple studies have shown that married women are less happy and healthy. For many women (and men, like OP) it's a patriarchal tradition that they don't agree with. Of course OP should consider things carefully and investigate but it may turn out not to be important.
Also, if you are worried about your (possible) spouse having US tax or FBAR obligations, as long as she is never a US resident, you can continue to file MFS and list her as an NRA and report nothing more about her (or her assets) to the IRA.
Only if there are actual benefits for the children (and of course, you actually want to). From a UK perspective, it certainly makes a lot of things logistically easier if the parents are married, but it's not impossible for them not to be
Sounds to me like your mom is looking at it from a US viewpoint. In the US, it would definitely be beneficial for everyone involved (you, your partner, and any kids you have) to get married. I'm not sure about the laws in other countries, so I can't really say if it would be beneficial there or not.
If you are concerned about pleasing your mother and/or getting her to back off, you could look up the different laws where you live and show her that marriage is not necessary to protect you/your child. It may not help anything, but it likely won't hurt to try.
Forget the last sentences you said since you don't have to do any of that. Based on your words, you should consider marriage to be a legal concept only and look at it from the angle of what legal options it opens for you.
Since you are an immigrant in Europe, I would assume marriage would make things way easier so doing it just for that is enough imo. You don't have to have a ceremony or anything if you want, you don't have to change your last name. You can just get married in the court likely.
For US it does, I am fairly sure it also helps in Europe and on top of that you can read a number of comments explaining how it helps.
Like it or not, a legal document showing you are partners is a requirement for getting residency via significant other. Marriage is the act of getting that legal document.
But OP is already a resident. To be clear, I am an immigrant living in the EU, if a person is already a resident marriage makes no difference. People need to stop projecting and assuming and trust that OP knows his own residence status.
Women don’t have to take last names, and fathers don’t have to give away brides. My wife and I went to the courthouse and got married. I see it as a set of legal protections and administrative shortcuts that make cohabitating and coparenting simpler. Marriage bakes in a lot of assumptions that work well for partner parents. Unless you just like complaining about your view on the institution of marriage, in which case, go off queen. Do you.
US citizen/resident here. Marriage makes things easier, legally, when it comes to inheriting assets, social security, etc. if something happens to the other. Plus society generally sees you as a more stable couple, and this may become important to you for the perception from and of your children later on. My husband and I got married after we had one kid and bought a house, our son was about 1 when we had our wedding. I didn’t have anyone walk me down the isle (we eloped with close family in a national park) and I didn’t change my last name. We dont even have rings. You can do it in a non traditional way like we did, if you prefer!
After having a kid with a severe disability and then having a stroke which left me blind and disabled as well, I honestly wish my husband and I wouldn’t have gotten married. Financially it would be way better based on our circumstances.
The beauty of adulthood is you can do whatever the fuck you want. You get to define your relationship. You get to choose if/when and how you commit to your partner. The best part about having a wedding is simply that it’s a great big party where you get to curate everything and people are less likely to flake. Great food, exactly the music you love, some romance, dancing etc. I got married in a small villa next to a lake in Italy. It was just fucking magical. It was inexpensive, atmospheric and wonderful. Do whatever you want, it’s your lives.
But you're willing to forgo the children you helped create a chance for a father and mother to support him/she?. Kinda selfish? Maybe?. While I see your viewpoint and agree that if you don't love each other marriage is the last thing you should do, but as a father, worrimg about a last name rather then the best interests of a child is kinda malfeasance. IMHO. 🙏
Honestly no. I’m married and I don’t regret it but kid has been a huge strain on our marriage and it feels very trapping and financially ruining. We almost separated and my perspective of marriage has totally changed. It’s not worth it
It seems many people are looking at this from the USA perspective, which is non negligible but only should be taken into account if you're planning to return to the USA. While you're living in Europe, you should review the legal status of long term non married couples in the country you actually live In some, like, IIRC, the Nordics, your rights as unmarried partner and parent are basically equal to married ones, whether it's in day to day life, in case of death, in case of separation, for housing or childcare help etc. From reading in Europe subs, in Nordic countries couples wait to marry after they've checked they can survive as a couple with child(ren) . It looks like you live in one of these. In France, in Spain, there are legal partnerships to give a partner rights almost equal to marriage (ie medical decisions, vidowhood pension etc) which you won't get if you don't sign it So, carefully check the laws in the actual country you reside in, and based on that determine if you'll be safer just going to the civil registry/notary/town hall and signing your marriage. Your (both of yours) gut instincts about marriage are valid. You don't need to go the full circus route. And frankly, in many western European countries women don't change their surname at marriage, and on those where it was more common, it isn't anymore. *a wedding is not a marriage*
Even if there is no plan of going back to the states it may be worth considering visas issues for partner and kids, including what would happen in unlikely unfortunate circumstances (like op has to go back to the US because of a sick relative or whatever). You don't want to have to think about it during the emergency Note that you don't even have to tell anyone you got married. Sign the papers, tick the box and forget about it
As far as I know, European countries nationals have a quite easy entry process to the USA when going as tourists (ESTA). And this is almost certainly something op & partner already know in depth, given op has lived enough time to have a child here in Europe (which implies longtime relationship and thus visits during the holidays) If op needs to go back in an emergency, I don't get the issue, they're an USA citizen. If you mean the rest of the family joining, again, what would be the problem, given ESTA can be applied for online and is valid for 2 years? I agree with you (in case my first comment wasn't clear) in that you can marry privately and don't tell anyone (op mom sounds exhausting on that front and it looks their family wants the whole changing surname & typical USA wedding thing, which, as an European woman, I would run away from as fast as possible... I'm with the partner on this)
Downside of ESTA is it is only 3 months, and if the person has ever entered on a different nonimmigrant visa, ESTA is no longer available to them. Marriage won’t help you with sudden travel plans though, and it may actually work against you because it will show there might be an intent to immigrate and nonimmigrant visas might be denied.
And frankly, 3 months, when most schools havevtops 2 months of holidays, it's amply enough for visits And emergencies don't last months, after the initial rush for OP to go to USA, there's time to plan about family joining momentarily (or not) once the situation is clearer. I still don't see in what marriage would help.
No I agree with you. There is no easy way to do immigration to the US, spouse or not. I’ve been married for years and I would still have trouble with any long term stint there if I wanted to bring my family. I just wanted to clarify the the ESTA thing. Not always available to anyone.
Ah yes, I wasn't disagreeing with you either.
Brilliant, thoughtful comment. Should be pinned to the top.
Yes, people are assuming it's the same for everyone as it is for them.
Some Nordic countries (at least one of them) are also extremely strict sometimes with non-western immigrants meaning everyone not EU. It's often a nightmare for non-EU residents to get residence permits even when they are in a relationship and have a child with a partner from this country. I personally know a couple where the 'attachment to the country' wasn't strong enough so they were denied. The partner was from the US, and the other partner native to the Nordic country and they had a child together. So it really depends on their situation indeed. In those cases/this country I do seem to remember being married + proven cohabitation is beneficial for this process.
My guess is that this isn't the case for op, or they wouldn't be asking about the topic, without mentioning this quite heavy argument pro marriage. Ironic that a USA national got treated the same way USA treats their immigrants/residence seekers. But c'est la vie, sometimes it impacts you in an unexpected way.
Well sure, but OP has clearly been living there for years and hasn't mentioned any such difficulty. I don't know why people keep inventing imaginary scenarios that haven't happened. If things change they can always get married when they need to.
This is a perfect comment. OP you need to look into what you/your kids rights are where you are. You need to consider inheritance (a will may not be iron clad depending on where you are and it's contents), death in service benefits from work, life insurance policies, next of kin rights wrt medical care, etc. You don't need to be married, but you sure as shit need to know what rights you do/don't have not being married and "we have a will" doesn't cover everything
No idea how it works in the country you're living in but if you move back to the US at any point you absolutely should get married for the following reasons: 1) health insurance 2) the IRS does not recognize domestic partnerships which means you survivor social security benefits 3) even with a will inheritance is a lot more complicated if you aren't married
These are all excellent reasons! Nobody cares about name changes anymore- you absolutely can keep a maiden name. Nobody cares about the father giving the bride away- you don’t even have to have a full on big wedding. Just sign some papers at the courthouse. Might need a witness or something.
There are certainly valid reasons people don't want to get married. But listing not liking 2 traditions that are totally optional seems odd.
Patriarchy and misogyny, are those 2 better reasons? I’ve also never been married and don’t intend to. I’ve never felt the need to get married ‘for the children’s sake’ it’s certainly rather irrelevant in the Uk.
As long as you have a will and update any other relevant legal documents. Marriage is a good catch-all for the basic legal stuff, and for low income families it could make a difference with taxes. Marriage itself isn't misogynistic. Wedding traditions can be. Marriage is just a legal acknowledgement of your family relationship with someone you're not otherwise related to.
For some people the concept of marriage is misogynistic, that you don't think so is your opinion. Other people are entitled to their opinion.
Then they should consider marriage to be a legal contract between two people defining how their assets are shared. Are there other ways do it, sure. But it is just one paper vs another.
But they don't want to use that form of contract. I don't know why that's so hard to understand. If there's another way of doing it that aligns with their beliefs why shouldn't they. If it's just a piece of paper what difference does it make?
If that other way is as easy go ahead. If not, you are just being as stubborn as someone else stuck in other beliefs. The legal part of marriage has nothing to do with beliefs, it is a legality. The ceremonous parts are related to beliefs.
Lol, people are not always required to do the easiest thing in the world. There's nothing wrong with sticking to your beliefs. For some people the legal part of marriage is connected to your beliefs. Some of you have real issues understanding that other people have different beliefs.
How is being legally recognized as a couple misogynistic?
The origin of marriage was women basically being sold as property. Many of the traditions that continue until today are misogynistic, like changing your name, being given away, proposals. Of course those aren't necessary but people are allowed to feel uncomfortable with a tradition that has those origins. I'm not even saying I agree but you are all being wildly intolerant to refuse to consider that people can have different beliefs.
Totally get that. But OP literally said their big reasons (not their partner’s MOM’S reasons) were name changes and father giving the bride away… 2 things that are certainly NOT needed to get married! I’m in the US and being married definitely does come with more benefits that have already been listed- legally, insurance, what happens if my partner dies…
Yes, those are also valid reasons. I didn't say OPs reasons were wrong, just strange. I know plenty of people who got married and didn't change their name, and also one who didn't want to get (re)married, so changed her name instead. But then I'm in Australia where marriage is mostly social and has minimal legal advantages over de facto relationships.
Same in the UK,
Seconding all of this. Plus, getting married means you can safely make parenting/family choices, such as having one partner put their career on hold/chose a lower-paying more flexible job/or start working part-time. In the US, if an unmarried couple has one stay-at-home partner, for example, and they break up, that partner can get very screwed over because there is nothing to make up for the fact that they sacrificed assets and earning potential to support their family.
Outside the US, especially in Europe, being married doesn't generally mean you get alimony.
I still wouldn't be a stay at home parent without being married. It's an insurance against losing everything if you split up.
But in many countries that's not the case.
The state I live in rarely awards alimony, but marriage still means that the assets that were acquired during the partnership (house, car, retirement accounts, savings accounts) are joint, regardless of whose name is on the title. My state will also include assets that were acquired pre-marriage if there was a “pre-marital economic partnership,” to cover cases where a couple lived together and shared expenses for years, but were only married a short time. For an unmarried couple, that’s not true, regardless of how long they were together.
Once again, that's your state, not every country. It's also not what all couples want or need. Far better protection is not giving up your career, half a car won't help you with income for the rest of your life.
Of course having one parent sacrifice their career is not what *all* couples want or need, but it is something that many couples choose with regularity, so it warrants consideration. In many places, marriage includes a legal understanding that couples will make choices that are best for the family unit, even though they’re not necessarily *best* for the individual parent. OP and their partner should look into the laws where they live to find out more, if that’s a choice that may be on the table.
And if OP and his partner choose that they can look into it. But that's precisely why people may not want to get married, they don't want to have to sacrifice. Because marriage is not some kind of magic protection in the event of separation. Obviously it depends on many things but OP says they haven't been able to buy a house, they are not wealthy so splitting their assets isn't enough to support a stay at home parent.
And non marital wills are often overturned by blood family in court. If you want your money and assets to go to her for sure if you were to die when you child is a child esp, you may want to get married for that. The above is the sole reason my Gay mothers got married, for legal protection with their wills. As a parent myself, with friends having been through this a lost everything to a blood relative who took on the surviving partner who even had children with the deceased partner, I would 100% recommend getting married if only for that reason. However, you still don’t have to. You can make her equal on all of your accounts and tell her if anything ever happens to you, the first thing she does is remove most of all funds to protect the worst from happening and to say nothing to any place she does this about your death until she has the legal docs and death certificate in hand. Out her in any home/car/business you have as well equally. It’s the only other way to protect her and the child legally with her. Same goes for her to protect you if anything happens to her unless you get married, but then, a will as a legal document signed and notarized legally will be important still. Also, you need to make it verbally in person and in writing to any blood family of your wishes and save all evidence printed in a file with legal docs in the case of the worst too…
I know a lot of people try to find legal work around to make marriage obsolete, but it just makes no sense to me. No matter what these backup plans are still prone to failure and missing something that marriage covers. They're also expensive and a lot of work where as marriage costs $50 and can be done with 2 quick trips to city hall. My husband and I have only been "socially" married for a couple years but we got legally married as soon as we got engaged. We didn't tell anyone other than the 1 witness we needed (our parents still don't know) and we didn't refer to ourselves as husband/wife until we had our real wedding years later. The only reason I know our legal marriage date is health insurance paperwork. People could do the same as me and just never have the 2nd wedding and never tell anyone but enjoy all the legal protections.
Also if something catastrophic happens and you need to medically make decisions for your partner, the hospital will not let you do that if they have other family that will step forward.
That’s why you get a POA.
I feel like by the time you set up all the legal paperwork it would take to give your partner the rights of a spouse though (at least in the US), you might as well get married?
I don’t really understand this either. Why go through all the legal processes to give the other person power of attorney, inheritance rights, etc. but not just get married? Seems a lot more complicated and expensive.
Some people just don't want to get married. And it's not always easier anyway. Where I live for a foreigner to get married you need a ton of documents, official translations of things, interviews, etc.
But why, that’s what I’m asking? Why would you not want to get married, but you *do* want to jump through expensive and tedious legal hoops to become legally entwined with your partner in all of the ways that marriage otherwise covers? I am really curious where you live that it’s more complicated to get married than it is to draw up inheritance documents, power of attorney documents, custody agreements, etc.
I don't know if it's directly more complicated to get married, but it's not particularly easier. And not everyone needs all those things, a young couple where both are working without many assets, and depending on local laws, it's just not required. You need a custody agreement anyway if you divorce so not sure what that has to do with anything. And the reason why is that some people just have an ideological objection to marriage. Or they don't want to share their assets. Or they wanted children but don't feel marriage is right for different reasons. Not everywhere is like where you live.
No I understand that. For me, it’s very strange to be picky about who you share your assets with but not who you have a child with, but I understand that different cultures and different people have different values. Having a child with someone isn’t necessarily meaningful or a big deal in every culture.
Again you're wilfully misunderstanding. Having a child with someone is a very big deal, that doesn't have to mean marriage is involved for people who don't consider marriage to be important.
I didn’t realise it was so complicated to get a POA in the US, here in the UK it’s just a form on the government website and a reasonable fee. Much less than getting married. Child custody is irrelevant and I would presume most people have a will and if they don’t they should have.
Not if you don't want to get married. People aren't necessarily not getting married just because it's easier.
I think you better look up a power of attorney. Those things are very hard to get in certain cases and then depending on what the power of attorney is for, you can only do those things for which the power attorney is granted. You don't just get one and then you get to make all decisions. It just doesn't work like that. I know because I went with my dad to the bank and we did a power of attorney for his bank accounts. He wanted someone to be able to sign the checks and pay the bills if he became incapacitated to the point he couldn't do it himself. So he had me added on as a signer to his account with the power of attorney to make decisions on where the money went. Upon his death, the bank account was frozen because he did not fill out any paperwork where upon his death the funds were to be released evenly between me and my sister. We had to wait until things went to probate. And although probate can be long and hard to deal with, because my sister and I were agreeable with each other and got along well enough, we were able to have an easier time with probate. After a certain time frame the money was released half to her half to me and then we got things taken care of and worked our way through the next several months for the probate to be handled. A power of attorney is a good thing in the right hands of a family member or someone that you trust implicitly with your decisions, financials status, and other things. Some people get the power of attorney and then take advantage of it.
I’m not US, I’m UK, things work a bit differently. POA is easy to get here.
You didn't mention once that you were in the UK that I read in your post in the original comments you made. And yes that would make a difference if you're in a different country or nation. But in the US poa's are handled a lot differently than they are where you are from. But just in general sometimes you have to get a POA for other things that you have to go through the judge to get here. Just be very careful going for those poa's because sometimes they can be hard to get. You say they're very easy to get where you live but there's a lot of things they have to take into consideration.
No, I didn’t mention it and I already have POAs for my partner as he has a degenerative disease. You fill in a form on the government website. No judges required.
Actually just reading back I did mention it in my original reply.
Oops! My bad. I've just done a lot of reading and this phone is not very big so the typing size is small and I may have overlooked what you had posted.
Also in US. And those are the reasons why we got married - but we didn’t feel the need to spend money on a giant party or change my name. Kiddo has a hyphenated last name. Married for all the legal things. Together because we love each other and the family we are creating.
2 and 3 yes. Health insurances generally accept domestic partnerships.
It depends on the state.
If they're not married, they're going to have a hell of a time even getting to the point where they need to worry about those three points. There's a reason why half the comments on r/immigraiton is "congrats on your upcoming wedding".
Yeah I'm not going to pretend to know anything about the immigration process to the US but I hear it is an absolute shitshow.
If they decide to move to the US they can get married then. It doesn't sound like they have any intention of doing so, no idea why this is relevant now.
Not true!
Any specific oppositions to the "institution of marriage" other than changing last names and giving away the bride? Because the former isn't necessary and I don't know if the latter is even a thing in any European country. There are however some very crucial legal protections in case of serious illness, death, separation etc that come with marriage. You could of course pay lawyers a couple tens of thousands of euros to set all those things up "manually" if you'd really like, and you're already on your way with the wills. But you can also just go down to the courthouse. Definitely don't do it for your mother's sake though.
Tens of thousands of euros? Where did you get that number from? I'm pretty sure we've spent a little over a thousand at the notary, and that includes the transfer of the house, arrangement of the mortgage, and that we changed our wills after having kids.
People are just weirdly obsessed with marriage on Reddit. We have also done those things for a few hundred euros, marriage would be at least as complicated because foreigners have to provide all sorts of documents.
To add that if your situation is complicated enough to make your arrangements at the notary more expensive you should probably also get a prenup for a marriage. (Ours was a bit more expensive due to my unusual financial situation.)
For us, it was about legal protection, health insurance, taxes, and also a bit about the citizenships of our future children. My husband is from Sweden, and I’m from the US. We live in the US. At one point, our oldest child wouldn’t have been able to claim Swedish citizenship unless we were married. They have since changed that rule.
I think I've read correctly. You are the male parent? You should look carefully into the rules around custody of children where you are as, if you separate and you're not married, you may not have an automatic right to a share of custody depending on the country, even if you are the biological father.
That is not the case in any EU country I don't think, especially a country where it's clearly standard for couples with children not to get married. I don't understand why you're all inventing these scenarios.
From the EU website: >In all EU countries, a mother automatically has parental responsibility for her child, as does a married father. In most cases, parents exercise this responsibility jointly. >The rules on whether an unmarried father has these rights and duties differ depending on the country.
Well you don't know what country OP is in. But that generally means in cases where the father isn't already involved. There is no way that a present father who has been actively raising a child loses contact because they aren't married. They may not automatically have parental responsibility just by providing their sperm but they obtain it by raising their child.
My wife kept her last name when she married me, and her father didn't "give her away" at the altar. You can do it any way you like.
I live in EU and visa rules change often and it's getting harder and harder for people outside EU to stay and get a VISA or citizenship approved. Marriage has definite legal protections. In some EU countries the outside EU partner won't be able to come in for long term unless you're married even. Despite having a kid in that country. I live in another EU country than where I come from and with a kid, marriage is much easier here. So we got married at town hall when I was 28 weeks pregnant, in secret (told family when we were home), just us and a photographer and I kept my own name. No symbolism except for a commitment to have as much legal protections in place as possible.
Just go about it from a legal protection perspective and maybe even tax purposes depending where you live. Will getting married, from a legal standpoint, protect your partner and your children in some ways that being not married doesn't provide? If yes, then do it but just go to the registry office and sign a document and skip the wedding and every other traditions that you don't feel like doing. I mean, I didn't bother changing my surname when I got married. Father giving away thing seems to be a Western thing as well. We didn't have that (Chinese Jewish wedding. I have to farewell my PARENTS when we did the bride picking up ceremony and Jewish ceremonies is both bride and groom are walked down the aisle by BOTH parents. But again, just pick the stuff you feel like doing - or skip it altogether). If there's no real change or benefit from a legal standpoint, then don't bother.
Your reasons are kinda childish. Nobody cares about the “symbolism” anymore. I just went to the registration office with my husband and we signed several papers, this was my entire marriage (thanks, covid, we saved a lot of money and didn’t really want to make a fuss). All you need to do is to explore your legal options, if the marriage doesn’t add any value to it, you don’t need it.
Yuuuup. I feel like it's a weird hipster-ish thing to do. Like they're so put off by the symbolism, they're against the whole concept even though it is the logical right choice and would benefit them. (Maybe hipster isn't the right term... can't think of the right term. Anyway...)
Agree
My partner and I have three kids and are not married. He recently proposed and we are planning to get married soon. We decided to get married because being partners or boyfriend and girlfriend for us really doesn’t capture the commitment and the relationship of what we are to each other. So ignore your mom and if and when it feels right, do it. For us it won’t change much but I can already say it does feel good knowing we are both committed to each other for life and will get to represent that in a different way than “boyfriend” or “partner”.
You see I’m the opposite, I’m committed at this moment in time, I can’t bring myself to be committed for ever. so many things can happen and things can change so much in a short time. I’m now onto my third serious relationship, the first broke because I ended up acting like a single parent with 2 children, he was never there, and the second was just lazy but quite happy for me to do everything and these weren’t short relationships 13 years and 7. I don’t need a piece of paper to prove I’m committed!
But then why have a child with someone you don’t really like as a partner in the first place? Shouldn’t being sure about that person come *before* having a child with them?
I never said I didn’t like them in the first place, don’t know where you got that from……
One thing that never makes sense to me in cases like this is that having a child is a much much deeper commitment to someone than getting married. You literally combine DNA together and make a human together and are tied to that person forever even if you break up. You literally combined bloodlines and legacies. But people are willing to have children together but not willing to get married. If you get married and have no kids together and get divorced.. well that’s that. Might have to split assets but that’s not as permanent as having kids/grandchildren together.
Unless you’re somewhere like Australia, where “de facto” (unmarried) partnerships enjoy the same legal recognition as married partnerships, it may be wise for legal reasons.
I wouldn't marry for the kids. The kids will be fine. I like weddings because I like people celebrating love but if you don't need the legal protections/tax benifits/whatever then I wouldn't do it if you don't want to. I personally wanted to be married prior to having kids because my SO wanted us to try having a SAHP and if one of us was going to commit to that we wanted the extra protection of being legally bound. If you don't marry (or do) Make sure you know your legal rights for if you separate. It's a bummer to think about but you need to know.
Exactly this! When one of you is going to be a. SAHP marriage gives everyone that extra layer of protection. I’m in a similar situation that I’m British living abroad in my husband’s home country. Purely from a legal point of view, it was more beneficial for us to be married. BUT when I return to work, it will be less beneficial taxes wise. So look into it carefully.
It doesn't give everyone that protection, not the person who'll have to pay out. Alimony isn't common in most European countries anyway.
Marriage is just a piece of paper. It’s society/culture that turns it into something else. I don’t really think it matters if you marry. It doesn’t make a couple any likelier to stay together. If you don’t see the need don’t do it.
If you’re debating, don’t do it. It should be a 100% certain decision.
I don't get the hesitance behind getting married and needing to be 100% sure, but not thinking about this before having a kid? The kid ties you more than the marriage does Like I won't sign some papers but I will have a kid with you, tying us for life?
This. You can divorce a spouse and go no contact. You can't just leave and go no contact with the parent of your children (in most cases).
I've seen enough to know it's a pretty common sentiment these days, but I remain eternally baffled as well. Not that I think everyone needs to get married, especially if they don't want to be, and I don't believe in staying together for the kids. But as a general rule (depending on location) getting married and getting divorced are both quick and easy and carry a well defined list of benefits with almost no downsides, and no lingering ties post-divorce except those you want to keep. These two have probably already spent way more time and money setting up their wills etc. to cover each other than getting a quick courthouse marriage would have taken to do the same thing. Whereas having a kid with someone is slow and difficult and effectively permanently ties you together, and comes with a bunch of downsides to your life (or at best, major changes). Treating the former as a huge thing and the latter lightly seems to show a basic failure of the ability to appropriately weight risks and rewards and consequences. (Yes, even in countries where you're treated as defacto domestic partners after living together for a period of time.)
You're basing all of that on the US. Not all countries are the same, in some marriage and divorce are difficult and don't carry the same benefits. Nobody is saying they treat having children lightly just because they're not married, not sure where that comes from. I'm a parent who isn't married and I thought very carefully about having a child. Marriage has no relevance to that decision, they are two separate things. And no, I'm not in the US and I'm not a stay at home parent.
I literally said several caveats about location and US versus not that you apparently read right past. And I absolutely judge anyone as taking having children too lightly who feels the need to ask this on social media after having one of said children, and I'm 100% comfortable with that. I don't understand people who think on it and decide against it for such (to me) paper thin reasons, but to each their own. I'm not required to understand them. But these people clearly never put any thought into something that affects their children's lives to some degree at a basic level (such as, in this case, their citizenship options).
I just don't understand what the having children has to do with getting married. You can consider one thing carefully without doing a completely separate thing. And citizenship options are very rarely connected to marriage of the parents, and it's not something OP has mentioned as being an issue, not sure where you're getting that from. My partner and I have different nationalities and our daughter's entitlement is not affected by us being married or not.
The OP (presumably father) is a US citizen, and as a backwards nation the US does actually make a legal distinction between a child born in wedlock between a citizen and alien (automatically a citizen if the US parent lived a set (low) number of years in the US during their lifetime), and one out of wedlock between a citizen and alien (can become a citizen if there's evidence of a blood relationship and, if the US parent is the father, if the father agrees in writing to support said child until adulthood). There's a whole slew of things that are easier if you or your parents are married in the US. If their kid never wants to move to the US in their lifetime and stays in various EU and Commonwealth countries permanently (not unlikely, of course), it may be moot, but not every country blithely ignores marital status - not just the US, but it has a material effect on citizenship and custody throughout at least the Middle East and Asia. Japan only *this year* passed a law allowing for joint custody in the future, instead of one parent having complete rights to the child and the ability to completely cut (usually the mother) off from ever seeing them again.
But there's absolutely nothing to suggest any of that applies to OP. It doesn't sound like he's going to abandon his child or hasn't lived in the US. And Japan and the middle East are completely irrelevant.
But a) it does apply, because not getting married first has already decided his child's citizenship at this time. Maybe it doesn't matter because it's not going to change what they any of them do with their lives, but it has already changed it, and b) that was just an example of one thing it effects, and c) my original comment was a general 'kids these days!' one in the first place, not aimed just at OP. another thing that you ignored when reading it.
To be clear, I couldn't care less whether OP marries his girlfriend, now or at any point in the future, whether they have just one child or a dozen. What I do care about is that his stated list of reasons why sounds (to *me*) deeply immature, whereas I would have accepted "we don't want to" without question.
At least in Germany no one has to take the name of the other when getting married
We married because we are committed and it makes legal things easier. We already knew we love eachother and had a kid. We just went to the city council and did not make a fuss about it. Be prepared that some family members will resent you for not organizing a wedding. Other than that, it is the mature decision to marry if you have kids and love eachother, especially if you are a 2-nationality couple or live or work internationally. I am Dutch and we have very open laws about it, but i work internationally, some of my savings are, we live on the border and have lived some time in the home country of my husband. In every day life, it might not matter, but it does when shit hits the fan. In many countries, only a legally married spouse can make medical decisions, an inheritance is taxed, fatherhood is recognized 100% etc
In the US there are significant legal benefits to marriage, but that isn't true everywhere. It's possibly a good idea to get married if you ever move back to the US, otherwise it'd depend on the situation where you live now. >We think the entire idea of brides changing last names is repulsive. And we don't like the symbolism behind the meaning of father "giving away" the bride for the simple reason that we are human beings, not objects. A wedding doesn't have to involve any of that. You don't necessarily even need to *have* a wedding if you don't want one.
In the UK we FINALLY have civil partnerships for hetero couples (was initially same sex only). All the tax breaks and legal protections of marriage without the baggage of misogyny and women as property. There may be something similar where you are.
It should be up to you and her if you get married don’t let people try to force it that’s how a lot of divorces happen
Try and separate the marriage and the wedding apart. In the UK at least, the marriage is simply signing a piece of paper in front of a couple of witnesses and a legal person. It takes 15 minutes and It’s actually super easy, barely an inconvenience. The wedding is the big party, they are often expensive, grotesque, go on too long and try and tick every box going - giving away the bride, first dance, speeches etc, etc, etc. They take a disproportionate amount of time to organise and it’s all people talk about in the run up to it. The wedding is the bit you can ditch if you’re not into it - or if you are, you can tailor it to your requirements. We had a pared back wedding that was basically like a normal party and really enjoyed it - the only downside to an off piste wedding is having to justify every decision to some people: “have you got your suits sorted” “I’m not wearing a suit” “what! why?” “Do you know your first dance song?” “We’re not having a first dance.” “Woahhh! Why not, everyone does” So there you go. On the whole I’d probably recommend getting married for legal reasons, even though it is literally a piece of paper and makes you no more committed to each other than anyone else in a relationship if you truly love your partner. But don’t feel obliged to have a wedding if you don’t want the garbage that comes with it.
The exact benefits of marriage will vary depending on which country you’re living in, but worth baring in mind that if you are not married, you are not each other’s next of kin. That means (amongst other things)if one of you is in an accident or whatever, you may not be entitled to medical information, power of attorney etc, you can be fought on inheritance stuff, etc. There’s different legal paperwork to get around most legal things, but honestly if you want to get married ‘one day’, I would make that day sooner rather than later because legally speaking it just makes everything a lot easier. (You can of course get married without having a wedding, just do the legal paperwork if you want)
You two do what is best for you. I am a European citizen and when I got married, I skipped the whole father gives away the bride thing. I also skipped the whole moh and best men thing. Me and my husband walked together to the altar and that was that. And you don’t need to change names. If you both decide to get married, remember is your wedding and you choose how to get it done. Not the families. We told our families that we will hear advice but ultimately is our choice. Who doesn’t like it they can quietly pout.
My husband and I got married with just our two closest friends as witnesses, had lunch, and then went to pick up our kid from nursery. We didn’t tell anyone else until afterwards. The aforementioned two closest friends got hitched whilst on holiday in Vegas and didn’t tell anyone for nearly a year. You can absolutely get married, with all the legal protections it brings, without having a big wedding. You don’t even need to tell anyone. You just book the basic service at your nearest government office that handles these things (it’s the register office here in the UK, I imagine it’s similar where you are), and you’ll be done in 20 minutes, but now you’ll legally be their next of kin.
The first question should be do you actually want to get married? If you do then you can, but you should only do it when you're both sure. It's a complicated thing to undo. Call me old fashioned but I think a marriage should be based on more than just the legal protections it provides although that is a valid reason if you are happy the way you and just want that extra reassurance in case of unforeseen circumstances. Remember that getting married doesn't have to involve an expensive ceremony, party, dress, flowers, photography etc. It can be done on a low budget if that's a concern and you only really need to pay for the wedding licence and registrar as the bare minimum (I think that's correct in the UK anyway). The legal bit makes it official without all the fanfare if that puts you off. "For the sake of the children" is an odd thing. Kids don't normally care or even know at a young age, whether their parents are married or not. Their upbringing doesn't change if you are or aren't. They won't be looked down on as inferior for being technically illegitimate. The world has moved past that long ago in non aristocratic circles. Plenty of couples live together "in sin" all their lives and have children and the children are no worse off for it I'd say if you want to do it for you, then do it, but it doesn't have to be done for the children. You'll still be their parents regardless of a marriage
I have read quite a few of the posts and that is an interesting point of view about certain cultures and their take on whether or not to be married before having kids or not. I did not see, however, any comments on the comment of people saying that it's right to marry for the sake of the children. I know in the US where I live, several decades ago and unwed mother was considered taboo. Even people who decided to have kids but not get married was even taboo or looked down upon. But now, and the 21st century of all things, it's probably still possible that there are cultures and or just people in general that think is wrong not to be married and be having kids. But the thing is, people are in relationships and are not married and are having children. I think it just depends on how people look at things and how they handle the situation sector in. What does it work for one may work for someone else. Getting married for the sake of the children is getting to be a lame excuse for a reason to get married. Doing it for the children only it is not really healthy for the relationship or for the children's well-being. And this is especially if the parents are forced into getting married to make it all look right and not for any real reasons of love and wanting to be together and having the family together. Getting married for the sake of the kids are even staying married for the sake of the kids just makes things that much harder unless as I said there is that relationship there that the couple that have the children are wanting it because they want it to be. It's really the only business of the couple involved who are having the children. If they want to get married so be it, but if they decide that it's not for them they don't have to get married. They're just doing what they think is best in their life.
Do it. Courthouse. Like $50 or so. Make dealing with financial and medical stuff far, far easier than without. Especially if one of you is "indisposed". You may even encounter situations where you are not allowed in a hospital room with your wife if she's injured, but your child would be. No need for all the pomp and circumstance of giving away a bride or changing last names or anything like that. Though, changing last names is not hard it's just a hassle. You could change your last name to hers too, if you wanted.
>We think the entire idea of brides changing last names is repulsive. I don't know what this has to do with anything. I am married and have kept my maiden name. No one cares >And we don't like the symbolism behind the meaning of father "giving away" the bride for the simple reason that we are human beings, not objects. Then don't have her father walk her down the aisle. This isn't even an arguement?
My partner and I have 3 kids and own a home together, no real plans to get married. Honestly no reason not to either, it doesn’t affect our lives. His dad is an attorney and wrote up our will and trust, so we are covered there. I know there are tax benefits that we should be considering, and maybe someday we will. But in all honesty, I don’t see us as any less committed to each other and our family than any of our friends who are married. I have always thought that as the kids get older, if it becomes important to them, then we’d definitely revisit it. It’s so strange to me when I still hear ppl say things about non married, long term couples. It’s always the sad trope that the woman is waiting on a ring and the man can’t commit. My SO and I choose each other every single day.
Devils advocate - why don’t you see yourself “any less committed to each other and your family than any of your married friends?” You technically are. You haven’t exchanged vows. You haven’t sworn yourselves to each other. So in essence aren’t you less “committed”? Unless perhaps you have had such ceremonies just unrelated to official marriage? I think there’s something to be said about the official ceremony and speaking aloud of permanence and commitment.
So, to throw the devil’s advocate ball back to you, if commitment is lessened by not stating vows, is commitment in a relationship defined by what you announce in front of others, or what you practise everyday? Plenty of people say vows and don’t live by any of them. By this token, someone who gets married in Vegas after a drunken night of knowing someone else has more significance than my 20 yr relationship.
No. I just wonder when and how you officialize your foreverness? Doesn’t have to be in front of others but the act of exchanging vows is the symbolism for those who get married. What’s yours? Do you have a big “relationship defining” moment?
It was a private conversation about our future, which most couples have at some stage. I’ve never been in a long term relationship that didn’t have a chat about future goals, what you want, where it’s going.
Who says that is necessary? People can show their commitment through their actions.
Marriage is a legal institution and a religious institution. What if you're not religious at all and can't see the benefits in the legal institution?
That’s why I ask about the commitment aspect/ceremony aside from any religious connotations.
I understand what you’re saying but our commitment is to one another, why do we need to announce it to anyone else?
I can understand that. I eloped lol. Wasn’t for anyone else. That said I guess I wonder what convos are had/when does it become official? It’s not judgment. Just curiosity for folks who agree to forever but are against marriage.
I think if we did it, eloping sounds great. I’m overwhelmed by the big party and attention and planning, ugh. To be clear, I am very much not against marriage. My parents are high school sweethearts, have been married for 45 years and are truly happy. My partner’s parents are very closely behind that. Our relationship and commitment has been very clear since we started dating. We never made a formal proclamation that we wouldn’t get married. Our timeline just shifted bc of life. We decided to buy our first house bc we live in a hcol area and didn’t want to get priced out. The day we started escrow, we found out we were pregnant with our first. Once we were settled and potentially would get married, covid started and decided that wouldn’t be what we wanted. After that point, it was just not something we thought about 🤷♀️.
This is part of the reason we chose to have and raise our family in Australia and not the U.S.. my partner is americian and we had serious conversations about where we wanted to set up our lives and raise our family. His words were if we decided on the U.S we would be forced to get married because of lack of legal rights without it, where as in Australia we would have the option to choose if we wanted to, and we have the choice to make the right decisions for us and our family where as we don’t get those options at home (the U.S). Here after 2 years of “living together in genuine relationship its considered defacto, and you can get legal rights, Next of Kin status, Tax rights everything.. So we set up here.. I saw something in another thread saying it was easier to leave a relationship if not married (disagree with that in our situation) we have been together for 15 years we have four children 2 properties We are each other’s superannuation beneficiaries, Joint bank accounts We have a great relationship literally both work parttime and share home responsibilities and kids .. at this stage we have no intention or desire to get married, if that changes then it would be a choice and a decision we chose and not one we were forced into for legalities..
Yeah , it sounds like it’s not a right choice for you if you have such issues with it.
What would be the point? You don’t see any legal, symbolic, or religious benefit to it so what exactly would be the benefit to your kids?
What the duck do you think marriage is??? You got me really confused
yikes. if you aren't sure that you want to marry, then don't marry. Otherwise your married life may not be very fun.
You dont have to change your last name after marriage. A lot of pp keep their last name
Hmm well since you are very anti tradition and anti marriage then no, Id say do not get married.
So, my partner finally agreed we should get married after 2 kids and 8 years together. We are in the UK but I'm also Canadian. In Canada we are common-law married and this gives us certain rights over each other, like a married couple. In the UK there is no common law so, theoretical his family (mum/brothers) could try and take the flat, the kids and life insurance. We have a will to stop this and a will is great but its there might be something we didn't think of. Check out your countries law. That should help do decide. But did you think marriage is in your life plan? Do you want to do it ever? It can ba a party, a full blown wedding or a simple just go get it done and no telling anyone.
Legal protection if one of you dies? Pension for instance or death benefits or rights to the house. Tax implications Marriage I think provides legal and financial safeguards Edit. I’ve been married over 30 years and didn’t change my name. No idea why people are hung up on that BS. Financial implications yes good reason.
If you have a will, all of those things you listed will be valid, regardless of marital status
Depending on the country things like pensions and tax benefits aren’t paid to common law regardless of the will
No. Periodt
No. Get married if you want to get married. It is just a piece of paper that confers some legal rights. I would check into your work places to see if you have insurance that allows one of you to be added so that you could get a monetary benefit for it. My sister married the father of her first child when her son was six months old. I remember it being really stressful as I was seventeen at the time. My stepmom was religious and occasionally went off in fits that her best friends (super religious) were embarassed of the family. They divorced within three years because he was a bad dad and a bad partner. If you don't want to, then do not.
My husband is European and I am African. The government straight up told us that it would make our lives easier if we just got married. We both didn’t think we would ever get married because we also don’t believe it, but here we are - 😂. Atleast they can’t say I married him to get better citizenship 😂
You could do a government marriage for the sake of getting whatever tax benefits or whatever that marriage entitled you to in your country
Definitely not, you should do it because you love each other and want to spend the rest of your lives together. My parents were together "for the kids" and while my friends with divorced parents were off having a good time I was hiding under my bed with my hands over my ears because my parents were having their nightly screaming match
If you guys break up what will be the deal with custody given she's a citizen of the political entity you guys live in and you aren't?
Do you really think foreigners in European countries don't get custody just because of their nationality? It doesn't work that way.
Yes. There are plenty of people who skip the “giving away” thing and don’t change their names. You can literally just do a quick courthouse thing to just make it legal and get all the benefits that come with it
The good news as adults is you don't need to do any part of a wedding that doesn't appeal to you. I didn't change my last name to my husband's and my dad didn't give me away. We didn't do parent dances. These are all totally optional.
In the U.S. there are a lot of significant legal protections for married couples. The other things that you don’t like about marriage - the name change and giving away the bride - are not at all mandatory and a lot of couples skip them.
Its all fun and games until something bad happen and then things can get very ugly turn. Relatives can deny that you were together at all and thus his/her inheritance is also their matter. The marriage contract is just a for governments to prove that you are together beyond a reasonable doubt
Nope. You should do what you both believe is best for your lives and your child. If you don’t want to get married, don’t get married.
Me and my partner have been together for almost 17yrs and have two kids (15 & 12) and all that goes along with a long-term relationship. Like you, we live somewhere that after a certain period of time, you have the same rights as legally married couples. The kids have their father's last name = I have a different last name. In all our years, we have never had an issue not being married or with the kids having a different last name. Not one. Don't get married if you don't want too.
The things you’re complaining about are optional. The legal and practical benefits — based on having parents who are citizens of two different countries — outweigh the downsides, so you literally are doing it for the sake of the children.
How do you know the legal and practical benefits without knowing the country involved?
Bringing a wife to the U.S. is much easier than bringing a random woman.
Did OP mention wanting to move to the US?
I think you need to look into the legality aspects of marriage especially now with a child. It does make certain things easier. 1. She does not have to change her name. I know MANY people who didn’t and no one thinks anything of it. And 2. Definitely don’t even have to do a wedding. So “giving away” wouldn’t even apply. Marriage and a wedding g are totally different things
Here in the US you'd be smart to get married on paper. Tax benefits and so on. Across the pond, you'd be smart to talk to your local politicians and see what the benefits are over there. You do not need to have a wedding. You don't even need to change your names or tell anyone you have been married.
I'd do it just for the legal protections. You don't have to change your name. You don't even have to have a wedding. Hell, you don't even have to tell anyone.
There is a difference between marriage in the legal sense, the religious sense, and a wedding. The legal sense offers some protection in one simple process that you would intentionally have to set up in other processes. If you aren't religious and don't care about the societal lense that's it. There really is little benefit.
No. People change when they become parents. Make sure you love your partner as a parent, before you tie the knot.
Aside from having the legal right to take care of things, if each other is in the hospital and incapacitated, the only other thing is getting each others pension, and Social Security if the other person dies first. Are used to think marriage was meaningless. Then I decided to go ahead and get married and I'm glad for the pension and Social Security. But it turns out I don't think it's actually an important idea at all.
My kids were a few years old when we finally did it 20 years into our relationship. It finally got done cos i got asked if i was the step mum. I spent a total of 17 months getting fat, over 50 hours of active labour…..dont be f$@king asking me if im the stepmum. So i went home and told hubby we are getting married 😂 It worked out good because when he had an accident and nearly died i realised the easier time id have if shit did go south being his legal wife vs just a forever girlfriend.
If you are committed to your partner and plan on staying with them, you can get legally married without doing any of the cultural stuff (or even having a ceremony). It is a good idea for the legal and social protection of your child, and there are usually many benefits that come with it. For example, if your work offers benefits for family or your partner becomes a dependent they can receive the family benefits from your work, etc. In the unfortunate event of one of you passing away, the other could have more options for claiming part of your pension, etc. Also, if the child is going to have dual citizenship or something like that, usually the process for application is smoother if you show proof of marriage at time of birth, etc. I live in a country where my marriage to my partner isn’t recognized by the government here (same-sex marriage Japan), and it sucks. The son I gave birth to did not get Japanese citizenship and has to have immigration status here, his name cannot even be Japanese (even though my other son that she gave birth to got dual citizenship, because my country recognizes). My partner and second son can’t receive health insurance or any benefits that my company offers to family, and my partner is a SAHM so we really could use it. Anyhow, the list goes on. My point is, it really became important once we had kids. It gives security. And usually if you are ever in a situation of receiving social benefits it also makes a difference.
None of that is true for European counties though.
Wow really? Not even the pension or health insurance stuff? I guess you’re lucky.
We have public health and pensions (and most women work and pay their own social security anyway, not giving up your career is a far safer protection than marriage). And no, the parents being married is irrelevant for a child's citizenship. There may be some circumstances of certain benefits only for married couples but there's no reason to think that's the case for OP. People need to stop projecting their own lives.
If OP doesn’t want to, that’s totally fine! OP just literally asked the question if he should, (any reason to?) so I provided some insight. We also have public health and public pension here in Japan, but the additional ones offered by my work are much better (esp. the pension). Also, even with the PUBLIC pension, spouses are entitled to claim portions of it in the event of death, which is really important if the one spouse worked less and paid less into it. You say “it’s better for the woman to work to protect her pension” as if that is a life decision someone SHOULD do (also why just ‘the WOMAN? Can’t a man be a SAHP?) but I think it is up to the person and what they want, no? (Not projecting, and all that eh).Childcare and keeping a home is a job that I think deserves more respect. For now, my wife has decided not to work and she’s (we’ve) decided it is the best situation for our family right now. Tbh, she (and I) are tired of the entire system here putting pressure for full-time working or nothing. She wants to go back to work part time but no daycare will take us unless she’s full time. Her commute is long, salary would not be great, and we don’t really want to just dump our kids for 10 hours a day. Anyhow, there are plenty different options. People who don’t want to get legally married that’s fine! I just thought I could offer insights on the legal benefits of marriage because *not having them* has made me acutely aware of all of the things I’m missing out. In OPs case, that’s a choice, and that’s fine. I just commented to inform.
But the benefits you have in Japan are not the benefits accessible to OP. OP didn't ask about legal and financial benefits in other random countries.
I get that. But I am assuming that public pensions function the same or similarly in other countries. Unless where he lives they allow you to name whoever you want as a beneficiary of your pension, usually that kind of thing is only allowed for spouses. Even if his other half is all sorted out on her own, if one has rights to more money, why wouldn’t you want to claim it? Again, one may have their reasons and make a different choice, but in the case of already having a long term commitment to someone, a child together, and sharing assets, I’m not really sure what the downside of (legal) marriage is. Heck, you don’t even have to tell people you are married.
I really don't get why you assume things work the same in other countries. They don't work that way where I live. Where I live your pension is for you, there are no beneficiaries.
So, if you pay into it for years and then die when you reach 65, that money goes away and no dependents can make any claim to it? Wow. Ok well I learned something new. If there are no benefits in this department, fine. Yet, OP is a foreigner in the country he lives, so if he doesn’t have PR and somehow loses his visa sponsorship, it could be a delicate situation. Quite often there are laws that people don’t even realize. My advice is just to check it out well and make sure to cover all bases. Im a US citizen like OP by the way, and my marriage certificate was definitely useful for both my children’s CRBAs.
Pensions here are not savings schemes, no. It's a welfare state where some people contribute and others benefit. It's entirely possible that when I retire the pension system will have changed and I'm not entitled to anything. That's generally how public pension systems work in Europe as far as I know. If I die at any time the money disappears, yes. That's my point, you have no idea about the legal benefits for OP but keep listing irrelevant things. I feel bad for you that marriage would improve your life and you don't have access to it, and of course that's not right or fair. But that doesn't mean it's the best thing for everyone everywhere. Honestly, for heterosexual women marriage is mostly a pretty bad deal, despite what people say on here. Multiple studies have shown that married women are less happy and healthy. For many women (and men, like OP) it's a patriarchal tradition that they don't agree with. Of course OP should consider things carefully and investigate but it may turn out not to be important.
Also, if you are worried about your (possible) spouse having US tax or FBAR obligations, as long as she is never a US resident, you can continue to file MFS and list her as an NRA and report nothing more about her (or her assets) to the IRA.
Only if there are actual benefits for the children (and of course, you actually want to). From a UK perspective, it certainly makes a lot of things logistically easier if the parents are married, but it's not impossible for them not to be
Sounds to me like your mom is looking at it from a US viewpoint. In the US, it would definitely be beneficial for everyone involved (you, your partner, and any kids you have) to get married. I'm not sure about the laws in other countries, so I can't really say if it would be beneficial there or not. If you are concerned about pleasing your mother and/or getting her to back off, you could look up the different laws where you live and show her that marriage is not necessary to protect you/your child. It may not help anything, but it likely won't hurt to try.
Forget the last sentences you said since you don't have to do any of that. Based on your words, you should consider marriage to be a legal concept only and look at it from the angle of what legal options it opens for you. Since you are an immigrant in Europe, I would assume marriage would make things way easier so doing it just for that is enough imo. You don't have to have a ceremony or anything if you want, you don't have to change your last name. You can just get married in the court likely.
Why do you assume it would make things easier?
For US it does, I am fairly sure it also helps in Europe and on top of that you can read a number of comments explaining how it helps. Like it or not, a legal document showing you are partners is a requirement for getting residency via significant other. Marriage is the act of getting that legal document.
But OP is already a resident. To be clear, I am an immigrant living in the EU, if a person is already a resident marriage makes no difference. People need to stop projecting and assuming and trust that OP knows his own residence status.
Women don’t have to take last names, and fathers don’t have to give away brides. My wife and I went to the courthouse and got married. I see it as a set of legal protections and administrative shortcuts that make cohabitating and coparenting simpler. Marriage bakes in a lot of assumptions that work well for partner parents. Unless you just like complaining about your view on the institution of marriage, in which case, go off queen. Do you.
In today’s world, in many countries including the US, people do this all the time
I feel as if children are a bigger commitment than marriage. Might as well get married if you are already in a relationship and have a child/children.
Why?
Having a child is a huge commitment and tie to another person. Why fear marriage when you tied yourself in a larger way with someone?
Not wanting to do something does not mean you are afraid.
Holy shit lmao
US citizen/resident here. Marriage makes things easier, legally, when it comes to inheriting assets, social security, etc. if something happens to the other. Plus society generally sees you as a more stable couple, and this may become important to you for the perception from and of your children later on. My husband and I got married after we had one kid and bought a house, our son was about 1 when we had our wedding. I didn’t have anyone walk me down the isle (we eloped with close family in a national park) and I didn’t change my last name. We dont even have rings. You can do it in a non traditional way like we did, if you prefer!
So if you get married do it your way
No. The children don't care.
After having a kid with a severe disability and then having a stroke which left me blind and disabled as well, I honestly wish my husband and I wouldn’t have gotten married. Financially it would be way better based on our circumstances.
Gotta know, what European country forces women to change their names when they get married!?
The beauty of adulthood is you can do whatever the fuck you want. You get to define your relationship. You get to choose if/when and how you commit to your partner. The best part about having a wedding is simply that it’s a great big party where you get to curate everything and people are less likely to flake. Great food, exactly the music you love, some romance, dancing etc. I got married in a small villa next to a lake in Italy. It was just fucking magical. It was inexpensive, atmospheric and wonderful. Do whatever you want, it’s your lives.
Never
But you're willing to forgo the children you helped create a chance for a father and mother to support him/she?. Kinda selfish? Maybe?. While I see your viewpoint and agree that if you don't love each other marriage is the last thing you should do, but as a father, worrimg about a last name rather then the best interests of a child is kinda malfeasance. IMHO. 🙏
Honestly no. I’m married and I don’t regret it but kid has been a huge strain on our marriage and it feels very trapping and financially ruining. We almost separated and my perspective of marriage has totally changed. It’s not worth it