Dating for 5+ years and still not married. Question

[beowulf44]

So this isnt a question about me, rather, just about people in general who have been dating 5 years or longer (just, long periods of time i mean) and still have not gotten engaged / etc.  

 

My question is, why?  Why do people date this long without getting married? I know there are probably many answers to this, but Im just curious as an outside observer.  Is it because maybe the relationship was on /off? Maybe the timing isnt right? Is it possible that people who have been together this long can still be unsure whether they want to get married? Or is it that theyve discussed marriage and want to do it, but they just havent "done" it yet for whatever reason?

[BaileyB]

I’m sure there are many answers to this question including those you listed above.

For us, we were older and he had been married/divorced previously. He always said that he didn’t feel the need to have a wedding again. We were committed to each other in every way that mattered and we chose to direct our finances toward other things - specifically, building a home to share together. We did ultimately get married and neither regrets the decision to get married or the decision to wait. 

[Sanch62]

Any of the above. There's also a trend in younger people delaying marriage longer or opting out of the legal contract altogether. No marriage equals no wedding expenses, no potential pricey divorce.

[Gebidozo]

I used to be really excited by the idea of marriage and also couldn’t understand why people would wait so long, or even be together for life without ever getting married. I thought it signified a lack of commitment.

Later I understood that it had been the other way around for me, I’d wanted to get married to force commitment on relationships instead of developing it naturally.

Now all I feel about marriage is that it is, at best, a legal formality that might make certain things simpler and more convenient in certain cases.

At worst, it is an additional layer of pressure, stress, and limitation of freedom in a life that is full of those anyway.

[BaileyB]

1 hour ago, Sanch62 said:

No marriage equals no wedding expenses, no potential pricey divorce.

Unless you buy property together or have children… then the costs go up.

[Sanch62]

34 minutes ago, BaileyB said:

2 hours ago, Sanch62 said:

No marriage equals no wedding expenses, no potential pricey divorce.

Unless you buy property together or have children… then the costs go up.

Good point. Lots of couples just defer marriage until they opt for one or both of these milestones.

[basil67]

We've been defacto for over 30 years.  We talked about marriage at some stage in the 90's, but he wanted a big wedding and I wanted a small wedding with immediate family only.  We couldn't agree, so decided to not bother and spend the money on a new bathroom.  

Behind the decision to not marry (other than disagreement about wedding type), are the facts that we already have absolute commitment, we've got two adult children and own a house.  We also have recognition from the state giving us the same rights as a married couple in everything from making medical decisions for the other to separation.   

I'm not anti marriage though - our daughter is engaged to marry a good man and we couldn't be happier for her.  

 

 

[ExpatInItaly]

Marriage isn't everyone's goal. 

[LauraXX]

I used to be completely against marriage. I always liked the idea that two people choose each other every day — without a contract forcing them to stay together.So that’s why I never got married, even in my three long term relationships. 

But now, in my mid to late 40s, I don’t see things so rigidly anymore. I actually find the idea of getting married kind of charming … even if “forever and always” is a promise I realistically can’t make. 

[swirlingcloud]

I never ask others why as it can be a sensitive subject and is non of my business, really, LOL, but they have on their own told me and it's various of reasons, financial ones, I would say, the most. They are waiting to get there. 

I too think it can be about what culture you are brought up in. There was this assumption I would get married young by family and friends, but I got out of it (the relationship I was in), but not before I was engaged to him.

For a long time I detested the "ownership" in it, the engagement alone, as if my ex still thought he had rights he no longer had. Felt more like a dictation, as if the culture, society I was in dictated these terms to me. I couldn't breath. It was with the message it wasn't over til the ex said it was, only it was, especially out in the real world, and I had to fight him on it, for a long time. I don't want to think what it would have been liked had we actually married. Very few times still today I've woken up from nightmares about it. It has always felt as if I got away at the 11th hour. Even now as I am writing this I feel a part of me going back to the old me, sinking down in it. I'm happy I did not let those sad, frighten feelings dominate me for long without me taking my own action to get out. He would not have been happy with me. I would not have been happy with him. It was for the best. 

I don't know what it was, or is, but my ex did not marry, ti this day he isn't married, but from what I know, is in a serious commitment. He was without for a long time and during he was still trying to get to me. It has surprised me because I thought he would be married to her by now. Our wedding, us being married was something he talked about a lot. I think he had this vision that our wedding would somehow make us happy and that somehow we would be happy married, but we weren't happy even before so I can't think of why we would be happy later on based on a ceremony and one more ring to my finger. I think you are what you are, the relationship is what it is, and safety, love is what's  important. To me the rest don't matter. If you can't stay true, faithful and honor the vows even before taking them there is to me no fulfilled promise you do so after. There are couple more "married" to each other, unmarried, than some married. 

I respect the symbol of it, what it means to some, but I've been around and seen how disrespected married people can be about their vows when I was young being at places in the evenings and throughout the nights. They did not even bother to take off their rings. It sickened me. I was a nobody to them, of course, only young,  had nothing to do with that. It always amuses me when people who think they are so important erase in their heads that they are actually surrounded by other living thinking creatures, there to work, or to party, who see them and what they are doing. Had it been a neighbor of theirs on their important street they would have pretended to be someone else.  They think nobody can touch them. I've seen too much. In one way I think I needed to see it. 

It has always been the guys who has treated me, the courtship, according to the plan of us getting married, used to that being how it is for everyone, that guys were not disrespectful to you, I thought all guys are like that, that I knew. It was a shock for me to discover that the same guy who (only pre dating stage, but still) would treat me one way (pre-wife way) would treat another girl by the way it looked like when she showed me his text messages. I told her to not answer and forget about him. I felt protective of her. She answered anyways, and would hope he would change his attitude to seeing her as a pre-wife, then wife. In one way I think I needed to see that too. This is what's going on, these unwritten rules, somebody else made, but you don't have to make them yours. That's up to you. That guy had decided I was pre-wife, she was trash, she was to play with. You decide yourself your own worth, what things symbolize to you. You don't have to answer to anything else. Your opinion is worth even more than others when it comes to you and your own life. You can't let others decide that for you, they can decide it about themselves, not somebody else. 

It was very important to my husband we would get married because of what it symbolized to him and from a law point he saw it as us being more safe. He set up this plan when we would and I said yes to it. One of the reasons was too when we would go abroad that he hated it when they would take me aside to look through my papers and ask questions. I was used to it. They would still do it, after we got married, I don't think he got that part, but only now he could be running after us, exclaiming "She's my wife!", so everyone can hear, as if there's been some mistake, or that gave him rights to follow and stand by my side, it made no difference, I think, but I reckon he will keep doing it  

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 05:30 AM by swirlingcloud

[MsJayne]

Can be many reasons, but I think the three most common are;

1. The two people involved don't think it's terribly important because in Western culture de facto pretty much equals marriage these days, just without the hooha and expense of the ceremony. 

2. One partner isn't fully 'in'. In a heterosexual relationship I think it's usually the man, they like the comfort and companionship of the relationship but they're just marking time until The One comes along. Suddenly ten years have gone by, and this is where you might see thirty-something women becoming resentful because they're waiting for the commitment before they start a family but refuse to acknowledge it's not going to happen. 

3. Bitter Divorcee Syndrome. One, or both, partners have been married before and have more baggage than Bangkok Airport. Maybe they lost a house, maybe their kids don't speak to them, maybe they were a victim of domestic violence, there's plenty of possible reasons why they became bitter and unable to trust a new partner. This is quite common in middle-aged couples.