My 28M boyfriend doesn’t believe in marriage, but will get married to me, 30F cause he knows it’s something I want.

47 comments

1. As a married person, marriage really doesn’t change the equation much (felt different for a few months, I’ll grant). Then life settles back into it’s normal rhythm.

   They’re willing to get married because it matters to you. You align in all the ways that matter outside of the one day where you tie the knot.

   You’ll feel like an idiot throwing out a good thing over them not being as excited about marriage as you are.

   Is it worth compromising on the positive aspects of the relationship to find someone stoked to be married? If yes, you do you, but it sounds silly to me to throw out a really good thing over this.

2. Is it just the marriage part that’s important to you or do you want a nice wedding too?

   There are lots of benefits to being married, so if you’re wanting to get married so that you’re legally tied, then maybe it’s ok if your partner isn’t bothered either way. You can go get married quietly and just feel better knowing you’re each other’s next of kin and share property etc. If it’s the romantic aspect of marriage that you want, then how important is this to you?

   If you want a fancy wedding, then yeah I can see why this wouldn’t really be a good idea considering his feelings on it. You’ll only be disappointed and possibly regretful as the years go on. I’d probably become resentful too if it were that important to me.

   It is ok for either to be a dealbreaker for you, but I think it’s a very personal choice.

   If you’re looking for other people’s feelings on it, I think I’d be quite upset if my partner didn’t care about being married. I’d probably stick it out for a while if it were a really good relationship but eventually it would be a dealbreaker. I couldn’t care less if they didn’t want a fancy wedding.

   Hope you figure things out ❤️

3. I am in almost your exact situation!! We did end up getting married. When I was about your age I just started hating calling him my boyfriend. There is no other term to clearly explain who is to me. Partner can mean anything now. It did used to imply serious life partner, but now I see it used by everyone to mean any kind of relationship. At first I suggested that we could just start calling each other husband and wife so that when referencing him to others it was clear, but my accountant husband did appreciate the tax benefits as well. LOL. Plus even though we don’t have kids, I changed my last name and our dogs have it too. I like being a little family with him.

   And to be clear, it’s not that I care necessarily what others think to justify my relationship, but sometimes you want to be clear that your “partner” is your chosen for life person who you plan to spend forever with. Not something you are casually dating, not a fling, not something new, not something for a year that you aren’t sure of yet. I can just easily say to anyone “my husband” and people know exactly who that person is to me. I know that’s not romantic, but it was important to me.

4. My partner doesn’t want a wedding, I do, we’ve agreed on something small and private ideally. Neither of us is actually getting married yet but I feel like we both win if it’s lowkey and filled with people we love.

5. I see you very much want the wedding experience and surrounding events/changes (e.g. taking his name). So you should endeavor to have them.

   That being said. My SO and I love eachother dearly. But I never cared about marriage for a lot of reasons, it just isn’t important to me as an experience and institution. Marriage would have been special to her to demonstrate my commitment, but was not a deal breaker. We would both be blessed and happy to live with her the rest of our loved without officially getting married.

   That being said, things changed for me after we had a falling out over several years followed by reconciliation. I’d done so much work on myself because of how i broke us up, and am now very invested in the symbolic aspect of marriage as a commitment… but I could still take or leave any of it, so could she. We already behave and have an enmeshed life like a married coupled, and our ceremony will likely be courthouse with no name changed on either side.

   If he’s the right man, you love each other, and are on the same page for the critical stuff that break up relationship (kids, finances, sex), there’s no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater. If he wants to go through it because you want it, that’s devotion to you, not necessarily a red flag if he’s ambivalent or and indifferent. We can be indifferent to a societal norm, but be completely invested in the happiness of his partner.

   If he’s the right man, he’ll marry you because he loves you and wants you to have everything you want from the experience and the union. But that doesn’t mean he has to be as enthusiastic or desirous of the act.

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7. If he doesn’t care for marriage, but will marry you because he loves you and knows that’s what you want, then I think that’s saying something. Relationships are about compromise, and he’s willing to compromise.

8. It is all about you. If you aren’t religious or a girl(yes it makes a huge difference in what you are told from day one and the advertising shoved down your face at an early age), the desire to get married isn’t quite there. People dont need to get married in the eyes of god to be together. anyways, what is there to compromise on? guy said he would do it. He isn’t buying into the fantasy that getting married solves any problems or much else..he is compromising a fuck ton. Thats not enough huh? he has to be all gung ho and bible thump? won’t happen for a good segment of the population..doenst mean he doesn’t want to be with you or anything else other than perhaps he isn’t religious and didn’t grow up bombarded with the marriage as the goal(you did)

9. Marriage was never important to me but it was something my wife 100% believed in. We’ve been married for ten years now.

   Marriage being unimportant doesn’t reflect negatively on you in any way. It means different things to different people.

10. Your boyfriend is saying out loud what many men keep to themselves.

    I’m glad I married my wife but I suspect it didn’t have the same emotional impact for me as it did for her.

11. It sounds like he’s saying that marriage is not something that he cares about, but *you* are something he cares about a great deal. It doesn’t sound like marriage is something he is supposed to, it’s not like it would be a sacrifice for him. I don’t see this as a reason to run or a red flag or anything, it’s saying that giving you what you want is an important thing to him.

12. I personally wouldn’t make a life with someone I wasn’t married to, and I wouldn’t marry someone who wasn’t over the moon wanting to marry me. But then again, I never dated people who didn’t want to get married, because of those reasons. You can’t go back in time and communicate and assert your needs at the beginning of the relationship, when you should have.

    If you take off the love goggles and look deeper, I’d be surprised if you didn’t find other incompatibilities. Your Forever Guy will *want* to be your Forever Guy.

13. You can’t make people *want* to do things. You want him to *want* to marry you, and if that’s your goal, you’re pretty much guaranteed disappointment. But you already have as much as you can reasonably ask for: what he *wants* is for you to be happy, and he knows that getting married would make you happy, so he’s up for it.

    Hasn’t there ever been something that he really wants to do that you couldn’t care less about, but you go along with it anyway because you wanted him to be happy? Is the whole experience ruined for him because he knows you wouldn’t have chosen to do the thing on your own, or is he just happy to have your support and companionship in a shared experience? How is a wedding different from any of those other times?

14. There’s not much you can do about it.
    He’s willing to go through it because he knows that you care, but of course you can’t make him change his mind about whether or not marriage is a priority.
    Would you be willing to throw away the whole relationship, which you described as very positive, just because of the feeling that you’ll be walking down the aisle mainly because you wanted it?
    Seems silly to me, and if he’s willing to compromise on this it’s not like he hates the idea, it’s simply not something he prioritizes, probably because your relationship is what it is regardless of its official status.

15. Idk about you girl but he sounds like husband material, he’s willing to marry you because you want that.

16. This is basically what I did. Never saw the point of marriage. It has zero impact on our day-to-day lives together. But my wife always wanted it, so now she’s my wife.

    Let him do this with you, for you. It will make you both happy.

17. I just got engaged and it was because I wanted it, and my fiance wants me to be happy. So even though he doesn’t care about being married, he cares about me enough to do something that is important to me. Everyone’s relationships are different and I’d be willing to bet many couples have had similar conversations around getting married. To some people it’s compared to giving the government control over your relationship.

18. Honestly, that’s the way a lot of guys feel about it. Most of us are smart enough not to say it out loud. Marriage protects the partner with less power, which is typically the woman in our society. And that’s why it’s a good thing that people generally agree to.

19. Marriage has legal rights and responsibilities. While some of them can be replicated in other ways, like a will, some can not. Things like tax breaks or inheriting pension benefits can’t be replicated. Being married also establishes what happens if you divorce – assets are usually split unless you have a prenup.

    If you care about the legal and financial piece that marriage brings, you should push for it. If your bf doesn’t want to commit to that level of legal and financial security, yes it’s a red flag.

20. Do you want to be a wife or do you want a wedding? Those are two different things.

21. I don’t believe in god, but I’ll go to church with you if you want to.

    He doesn’t believe in marriage but he’ll marry you if you want to. It’s not like he’s OPPOSED to marriage just that he thinks it’s unnecessary.

    There are clear legal benefits to marriage so whether or not you like the institution, the ability to advocate for each other in a crisis is worth it.

22. I personally don’t care about marriage but would do it for my S/O that i love because it’s important to them. I just see it as a piece of paper that holds no value to our bond as a couple. But of course I’d only do it with an S/O that I truly see a future with. A lot of guys just don’t care about marriage🤷

23. Maybe you should talk about in on counseiling,it will help to see more clearly and understand each other without taking personally the decisions of the other

24. He does not “doesn’t care”. He loves you enough to give you that, because that is important to you, and is ready to give you what you want for the sake of your love. Sister, is it too hard to see ?

25. u rich?

26. This is a little strange to me. You say you have a great relationship and share all the same ideals. He says he doesn’t believe in marriage but is willing to get married to make you happy. Yet your asking if you should break up? He is clearly madly in love with you and willing to compromise for you, and that’s what relationships are all about

27. Talk to him. There is a difference between getting married and being married.

    If he’s just not concerned with getting married that’s not a big deal, but if he’s iffy on being married that’s a much bigger deal.

    Find out what he thinks being married to you would mean. If that aligns with what you believe being married is then it’s a problem of semantics, and you can both clear it up before you get married.

    If he thinks “marriage just isn’t important” “whatever I love you and that’s enough” or doesn’t want to take the time to really discuss it and clarify exactly what the issue is, then you should think about walking away.

28. Next discuss children, finances and religion.

29. I am in the exact same situation! Despite actually telling me explicitly he wanted to get married some day to me, he changed his tune about a year ago or so and said “we can get married if you want” but it wasn’t something he actually wanted or needed. I laid all my reasons out for wanting it, from legal and practical to more traditional, sappy reasons. He was like “okay I mean if that’s what you want.” I don’t want to have a big ole wedding with someone who is indifferent. And no magical day of proposal or special story. “Hey girls let me tell you the romantic story of how I said I really wanted to get married and my bf said ‘yeah if that’s what you want.’ “

    In my case, we still haven’t gotten married but we haven’t broken up. He swears up and down that if he’s doing it for me why does it matter what he wants? I told him I want the magical moment of being proposed to and of having a day to celebrate with friends and family. And it doesn’t feel the same if he’s being dragged along. We are basically at an impasse.

    I guess what I’m saying is you have 3 choices: a) get the wedding and proposal you want, even if his heart isn’t in it like yours, b) keep dating perpetually, c) leave.

30. Sounds like if he’s not exactly into it and just doing it to please you, then he doesn’t actually mean what he says regarding the vows. Till divorce do us part…

    Edit

    Just remember though that it’s a legal thing to. If you’re not married and he dies you will not automatically be there beneficiary of the house or his pension. His half or the house will go to his next of kin and the pension will just be lost 🙁

    Edit 2 – of course dependent on where you live

31. He will like it more than he lets on and it’s not a bad thing to have a selfless partner

32. You’re the dishonest one. He has never deviated from his original stance, but you secretly set out to change him. This is not a deal breaker. He has agreed to this expensive party because he loves you and is committed to you. Relax a little and enjoy what you have.

33. My husband didn’t care about marriage but knew that I did. He proposed and put up with a big wedding he didn’t really want because he wanted me to be happy. If I had it all to do over, I would agree to elope or just have a courthouse wedding because I think I was being selfish insisting on the wedding I envisioned, but I’m not in any way sorry I insisted on getting married and I’m pretty sure he’s not either. We celebrate our 22nd anniversary this summer and are happier than ever.

    ETA punctuation

34. For him, it’s just another day wearing a suit.

    You think guys go out with their friends buying wedding suits or colour coordinating their shoes?

    It’s a big day for you. He loves you enough to want this for you. Enjoy it.

35. OP, why does marriage matter to *you*? Why do you need to make it a legal matter to love this person? Why can’t you two just love each other?

36. I don’t believe in marriage as an institution but I’m also not against it. It really is a take or leave it approach (but let’s not talk about the time and financial cost). I just don’t see it as a confirmation of my feelings or a requirement to prove my commitment.

    However when I married my wife I took from it that she wanted me. That marriage mattered to her and she wanted to be betrothed to me.

    So your bf may not care about the institution of marriage but perhaps he’ll take something else from it.

37. So your boyfriend isn’t into marriage but is willing to marry you because he loves you enough to realise it’s important to you and you think you should break up with him? Does that mean if you prefer pepperoni pizza and he prefers cheese but he has pepperoni because you like it, you should break up with him over that too? I’m struggling to understand the problem here? Marry the guy, get the security you want and live your lives together!

38. I am a female and I don’t believe in marriage. But I love my bf and will do anything to make him happy even getting married to him. I think he put you first is a good sigh not red flag. Don’t think too much into it as long as all he want to do is making you happy!

39. My boyfriend wants to marry, i couldn’t care less – it never had any significance to me. But he cares, so yeah, if he wants to me marry me, i’ll marry him. He knows that too and we are both find with it. Relationships are about compromising

40. I think this is pretty common, some people just grew up in a different familial situation. I was reading Michelle Obama’s autobiography and she wrote about how Barack never wanted to get married he only did it for her. He didn’t see the point because of his own upbringing.

41. why is it a dealbreaker for you? for him it’s the same, you get what you want. I’m the same, I don’t care about marriage but if that would make happy my partner, I would do it. It’s not a detriment or a compliment.

42. Let’s put your problem to the test. First, though, a prediction.

    I think it’s a mistake to marry a reluctant groom. I suspect he will not put more effort into the relationship than he does now, and if you call him on it, he will remind you that it was all your idea.

    Now a test. Right or wrong, my prediction will probably play out during the wedding-planning and preparations, which can involve a lot of time and effort. I predict he’ll give it the bare minimum, if not less, and do little or nothing to hide his annoyance.

43. I think we should do away with marriage pressure, or having a kid pressure. You choose to be together, honour 6 and stay loyal, everyday.

    Save money for a stellar honeymoon.

44. If he otherwise want’s to commit to spending his life with you and intends on doing so, and he isn’t opposed to marriage then I don’t think this should be a deal breaker for you.

    Yes, I thin marriage is important for both social and legal reasons. So I think you should take him up on his offer to marry you because it’s something you want.

    So have a conversation with him and ask him what his intentions are for the long term of the relationship. Then, if he does want to be a life partner with you, propose to him! Realize that him doing it for you is a gift to you that you should graciously accept. Also consider what he really wants in terms of a marriage ceremony and be willing to compromise if he’d prefer a courthouse wedding without big party.

45. i think even if marriage isn’t important to him, he’s still choosing to be with you either way. maybe it’s not any different to him having a ring & signed papers or being with you forever. the whole shebang doesn’t hold the same value, maybe, but he pretty much said if you want the shebang, you’ll get the shebang. he’s not opposing it. i think it’s better he be not opposed or indifferent about it than opposed at all, no?

46. Okay you’re assuming that because he could take it or leave it that means he won’t enjoy or appreciate experiencing it with you at all but being willing to participate in a cultural practice he doesn’t necessarily believe in to make sure you’re happy and have something you care about is something a caring partner would do. Many people who don’t believe in marriage would end a relationship before getting married but it sounds more like he wants to do it for you so that you feel good in the relationship, not for the piece of paper that tells the government “hey look we’re married” as long as he isn’t actively making the wedding preparations difficult or making you feel shitty about it and says he genuinely wants to do it for you then there really shouldn’t be an issue. It’s okay not to believe in marriage, it’s also okay to want a big white wedding but for some people meeting in the middle is very very possible too! Don’t stress ab it being a dealbreaker, keep conversation going and think ab if his behaviour once wedding prep starts is the real dealbreaker.

47. This reminds me of Jennifer Anniston and Ben Aflecks story line in ‘He’s just not that into you’ and he does it because it matters to her. He loves her so much and values what she does. It’s actually really lovely that he wants to marry you even thought it doesn’t matter to him if you are married because you are committed.

    I had a really terrible marriage (yay teen pregnancy resulting in a shot gun wedding) and I vowed, I wouldn’t do it again. When I met my now fiancé, he told me he wanted to get married one day and I told him I don’t think I could again and I don’t think my mind will change.

    We continued to date and he never once pushed me and just would say ‘as long as we are committed to each other, it’s okay if we aren’t married’ and this was fine for a bit but over time, I realised ‘holy shit I really love this man and he took on my children with no question and that is incredibly hard to do and comprise internally to raise another man’s children’.

    it made me realise relationships are about compromise and it really mattered to him so therefore it mattered to me.

    We are having a big wedding because it is important to him but we had a private court house ceremony secretly because I didn’t want a big spectacle.