Yes, what int said.
I don’t even think we have a copy of our marriage license other than the ceremonial one. We haven’t ordered one and we haven’t needed it. I should get around to ordering a copy of it eventually…
In 30 years of marriage no one ever asked for proof. I thought I needed it when I signed up for Medicare and ordered a certified copy of my marriage license from the state where we were married, but in the end Medicare just took my word for it when I signed up online.
We needed ours to change my name on official documents. We have also needed it for misc things–financial and legal.
I was responding to “I realized that I was as good as a stranger if something bad actually happened to him,” thinking she meant at the hospital. Now I see romani means beyond that.
Besides making medical decisions, there are other huge benefits to being married. The supreme court case was about a couple living together for years. One passed away and although she left everything to her partner, it was treated very differently than if they had been married. Spouses inherit tax free. Cohabiting partners do not. A spousal IRA is treated differently than one inherited. Employers will let you add a spouse to your health plan, some do not let you add a partner. There are so many more examples. It’s not just about forcing your partner to “make a commitment”. Personally, if he wasn’t ready to commit for life after a couple of years, I’d be out of there.
Agreed, @3bm103 . Exactly how long does it take to decide that you plan to stay with that person for the long run?
DS#1 was engaged for over a year before getting married last summer. They began dating exclusively in early 2011, and relocated after her job relocated her late that year. They got engaged in 2014. Other son has maintained a long distance relationship for several years. Don’t know if her parents are pressuring them to get engaged (don’t think so) but it looks like they will probably be apart for another year until she finish her grad school/internship. They have been dating for a long time (maybe 5 years) but wisely are waiting until they are in the same city to make any commitment.
How about online dating? It may seem weird to us, @b1ggreenca, but it doesn’t seem weird to young people.
I agree. People who want to get married someday shouldn’t waste time on people who say they don’t.
If one partner wants to be married and the other is resolute that it’s “just a piece of paper,” I think that indicates a deeper philisophical issue. If a person believes marriage doesn’t change anything or that it’s not necessary to show commitment, why wouldn’t they get married if their partner thinks it is necessary for them?
I’ve known a handful of cases where couples lived together and one wanted to be married and the other didn’t think it was necessary. After they split up, the one who didn’t want to get married often ended up married to someone else. While it’s not true in all cases, I think many times when people say they don’t want to get married, they really mean I don’t want to get married to you.
Around here, most college-educated girls tend to marry between 25 and 30, boys a couple of years later. My S1 is 24 and the only one of his friends in a steady relationship.
My 24 year old D met her bf via online dating. When she moved back to our hometown a year after college most of her best friends were living in other parts of the country. Since she was working as a nanny and taking a few classes before going back to school to get her teaching credential she wasn’t meeting many new guys. She didn’t like the bar scene so after not dating at all for the better part of a year she decided to try online dating. She went on 5 or 6 coffee or happy hour drink dates before she met her current bf.
I could have typed post #49.
After almost two years of a stagnant social life (for almost the same reasons listed in post 49), my daughter looked into online dating.* She “talked” (texted) with several young men but only met up with three. She went on 4-5 dates with the first young man and thought he was nice. She met a second young man for lunch - no sparks of further interest from either. She thoroughly enjoyed time spent with the third young man she met and still is. They just got engaged. She had a great experience overall and gives online dating a “thumbs up.”
She did not go into online dating looking for a marriage partner. She just missed going out and having fun and wanted to widen her circle of friends. That she met the man she’s going to marry was such a positive. He’s a great guy.
*She used the dating app Hinge which branches out from mutual Facebook friends. The theory is that you can check out the person you’re meeting by following the connections - a little less random than a total stranger. My daughter was linked with a friend of her brother or brother-in-law once or twice and just gave an online “wave.” Sometimes the connection was more distant - a friend of the friend of your friend. (If that makes sense.)
If you live in or near a large metropolitan area, have your son or daughter consider checking into young professional groups at the local museums, operas, or symphonies. Great way meet people, widen your circle of friends,listen to music and to socialize w/o a date. Here’s an example: http://www.laopera.org/Community/Young-Professionals/ One of D’s friends just announced her engagement with a young man that she met here.
Both of mine met theirs online. D1 enjoyed every young man she dated, they were great people and had a lot of fun, several stayed friends, though all but the last weren’t what she was ultimately looking for. But she was savvy about finding nice guys.
This last one- there’s some crazy thing about online dating. There are so many parallels in both of their lives, things that couldn’t show in a short blurb. They’ve been together about 1.5 years. It’s just that while her life is moving forward, he’s stagnating in some big ways. It’s something real that many young women face, today, with their own working options increased. She doesn’t feel pressured, doesn’t feel any “bird in hand.” She may move on.
We had a thread last year, I think, where a number of adult posters admitted meeting their current partners online.
D gets married in August. They have been together for four years. I don’t think she felt any pressure to get married. Unless you count the fact that he’s been asking for a few years. She’s kind of had it in her head to “settle down” by thirty.
Since the beginning of HS she has always had a boyfriend and since then they were always guys she met at school —including her fiance. Musicians in and out of school are a highly social group of people and they are always introducing their friends to each other. But she informs me that most of her current single friends rely on online dating to meet others. (Two of D’s “set ups” for others resulted in marriage. So if your kid is foolish enough to want to marry a musician. PM me. 
)
@ignatius Hinge sounds like six degrees of separation or the Kevin Bacon Game version of dating. Congrats to your daughter!
@musicamusica I know a musician or two my daughter wouldn’t mind dating. How broad are your connections? 
Of course, with so many groupies they might not be good marriage material.
In addition to being from NYC, this factor with a dozen-plus HS classmates who married before the age of 24-26, the fact several other classmates were children of divorced parents, association of many folks in my area of early marriages with fundamentalist religiosity or teen/early pregnancy*, and more meant most of us regarded peers and older folks who pressured us into marriage as folks with “marriage on the brain” and thus, to be ignored.
Among the HS classmates who married before 26, only 2 of those marriages are still going strong today as the vast majority divorced within 5-8 years.
The 2 exceptions were one HS classmate who was unusually mature for his age and from a conservative religious family and another who has a lot of fortitude to endure the difficulties in his long marriage(chronic illness of spouse and raising several children including a couple born in the last 2 years.). Also, despite both getting married during their college years(religious one married sometime in his freshman year), both them and their spouses made it a point to graduate college despite encountering some severe difficulties. Even so, the latter classmate has wistfully wondered how different his and his wife’s lives would have been if they waited a few years after college before getting married.
- Several older neighbors from my childhood NYC neighborhood including one who was picked by my Catholic elementary school as an older mentor and example later dropped out of HS and living in financially precarious circumstances because she had an unexpected pregnancy and ended up getting married under less than ideal circumstances very young(talking late teens well before 21).
Last time I saw her, I was just starting HS and she was a financially struggling 20 year old mother of a 3 year old with a 20 year old husband who was trying to do his best, but wasn’t able to find decent paying work easily due to his also being a HS dropout and their respective families not being able to provide any financial support despite having a desire to do so if they had the means.
My daughter is almost 28, and single. Only recently did she start feeling like she “should be” in a relationship, at least. Only a few of her friends are married, but more are starting to get engaged.
She says one of the reasons she likes living in NY, is that nobody asks why she’s not married, or in a relationship, and she has plenty unattached friends her age, both men and women, to hang out with.
In our immediate circle, the only person who persistently asks about her status is my mother. She actually TWICE asked if my daughter was gay.
Oy.
We had a few relatives like that who have now been effectively silenced as they were blamed by other relatives as one factor in why an older cousin rushed into marriage at 26 before he was ready…and then divorced* a few years later.
After that episode and another early marriage ending in divorce, no one will ask that question unless the relative concerned has already affirmed he/she is ready and willing to be married without any prompting from relatives or parents.
- He initiated the divorce as he really wasn't ready for marriage at that stage of his life.
“Personally, if he wasn’t ready to commit for life after a couple of years, I’d be out of there.”
I think that it depends on the age of the guy/girl you are talking about. DS is 21 and his GF is 20. They have been dating 2 years and are still in college. So maybe yes for the people that are older but not for those kids still in college.
Ah, the grandparents! My MIL always asked younger D if she had a boyfriend, which she never did until she was 20. Now she has her first boyfriend grandma seems happy. She never asks S if he has a girlfriend; he has never been on a date with anyone of either sex, perhaps at age 23 she has given him up as a lost cause. (her son, my H, did not get married until he was 33, and her other son is about to enter his 3rd marriage, so maybe that is why she does not seem to pressure my S)