How important is marriage?

Would you have or would you leave DH/SO if he didn't want to get married? Does it make a difference to you if he WANTED to get married or just does it to make you happy and doesn't care?

Also, how long would you wait for him to marry you until you said forget it?

I don't plan on leaving mine. We've been together 7 1/2 years, but have just worked, then started having kids...but we have talked about it and will get married on our 10 year anniversary..lol

The import of Marriage is drastically different in each individual relationship.

For myself personally, I would like to get Married, it would make sense to get Married, financially. But it's not a deal breaker. if we didn't get Married I wouldn't think he loved me any less, or that he is any less committed to our Family. We've been engaged for almost 2 years, but haven't even talked about a wedding date, so it's not a rush, or a huge priority at this point.

I prefer being married just for legal purposes. Other than that I don't care that much about it.

Marriage is over-rated IMO. I have been wanting to get a divorce for some time now and from what i've heard it costs more then getting married  

Quoting ღSheilaღ:" Marriage is over-rated IMO. I have been wanting to get a divorce for some time now and from what i've heard it costs more then getting married  "

I had some friends that got divorced in civil court and it was relatively inexpensive.

It's important to me, so if he didn't plan on marrying me, I would leave. Obviously we would have incompatible morals and values if we cannot agree on the importance of marriage.

If it's important to you, it should be important to the person who loves you.

If they plan on "being with you forever" but they say "I just don't want to get married" they're liars and don't want to commit to you, because if something better comes along, they want to be able to pounce on it.

You need to establish whether or not it's important to you, and then ask if it's something they are interested in, in their future.

Then you both need to talk about what you think is a good amount of time to date before getting married or considering marriage. Generally you can agree somewhat on it.

But if he was like "No. I'm never marrying you" I wouldn't waste my time because it's important to me.

Never been married so I don't know which I prefer but I'm in a 5.5yr relationship atm. At the start, we both said we didn't want marriage. Ever. Now he's talking about proposing. I'm warming up to the idea, but I still don't know.
So no. It's not a deal breaker at all.
Marriage, in my experience, is something you cannot count on. Every 'happy' couple in my family ended up divorcing so I don't value it. No joke. I know the national average is somewhere near 60%, but in my family it's got to be in the high 90's. Even 25 plus year marriages have crumbled in front of my eyes. Bitter? Perhaps. Not to mention the fact that not everyone who wants to marry is able to, so why would I support that kind of legal union?
Then again, I'm a dirty crunchy hippie so.. yeah.

See I always thought marriage was like mandatory and I feel looked down upon by our old school families. I really want to get married but it doesn't look like it will happen anymore.

The only reason why we got married was for legal reasons and so me and him have the same last name as DD.

I could have been happy not being married  

<blockquote><b>Quoting Rydicule91:</b>" Would you have or would you leave DH/SO if he didn't want to get married? Does it make a difference to ... [snip!] ... just does it to make you happy and doesn't care? Also, how long would you wait for him to marry you until you said forget it?"</blockquote>
I would hate it if he didnt want to ever marry me. Marriage to me is so important.

I wouldn't stay with someone who didn't want to get married. We met in November, started dating in February, engaged in August married the following July. It would be a deal breaker for me if my DH hadn't wanted to get married. I believe marriage is sacred.

I wouldn't have left if he hadn't wanted to get married, but I admit it would have hurt me a little. Its just a sign of commitment to me...although I know a ton of couples who are totally committed without a wedding it still meant something special to me

I didn't want to get married but did anyway because he wanted to. He knows I married him because that's what he wanted and that I didn't care. I don't think he would have left me over it though.

If it was the other way around it probably would have played out the same way lol we do a lot of things that don't matter to one but is special/important to the other.

Quoting Danu♥2:" The only reason why we got married was for legal reasons and so me and him have the same last name as DD. I could have been happy not being married  "

Yeah, see that's how I feel. I wish I had the same (awesome) last name as my child. But at the same time, I have negative association with marriage so I feel like if we got married we'd be doomed to divorce in the end, like everyone else I know, if that makes any sense. And I want to be with SO forever and ever, amen.