I Still Want to Get Married...

[Anonymous]

A group of my friends and I were sitting down and having a conversation about marriage, and one of my guy friends piped up and said what I think a lot more guys are saying these days, and that is that he had no desire whatsoever to ever be married because he felt it was just a piece of paper and a way for some woman to milk money out of him, so he was intent on staying single for the rest of his life.

Fine. I can't change his mind, but just as he seems to know without a shadow of a doubt, he has no desire to marry, I know I want to, and state that I do, when asked. My grandparents were married nearly 60 years, my parents have been married 40 years, my brother 3 years. I had great examples growing up of stable lasting loving relationships in which of course there were hard times, but rather then turn tail and run, these people fought for each other and represented what I think many people these days have no earthly clue about. My brother who just got married, married into a famliy filled with equally stable married relationships, some married even longer than my grandparents. What is wrong with wanting that? With knowing you have someone to come home to, who will care for you and you them. What's wrong with wanting to share your life and your dreams with one another and support one another in any way you can? What's wrong with agreeing with one another that you want to do this for life with one another?

According to some people, marriage is just a financial contract and a useless piece of paper, but I would scarcily say my mother married my father, or my father, my mother for each others money or for some other unscrupulous reason. In fact, when my father first prosed to my mother, she said no the first time because she really wanted to sit and think about how her future life would be because it entailed having to leave the country and everyone she knew to move to an entirly new country where she knew no one. Those are some of the hard choices and things married people go through, but they do it, they struggle, they endure. I don't want to go through life with someone who's "insurance policy" on our relationship is that at any moment he can just pick up at will and leave because oh we're not married. Marriage forces you to put things into perspective and consider your commitments, your love, and asks you to ask yourself to keep fighting for what you agreed to all those months, years, decades ago.

This isn't about stars in the eyes, or a white knight, or wanting some big expensive fairytale wedding. Any married couple will tell you that's one day, that's one moment, a few hours, but a marriage is work and work you must be willing to commit to and do because the rewards far outweigh the work. If you're somone that doesn't want marriage because you consider it trivial or stupid or you watched as your own parents marriage crumbled before you and you're convinced it will happen to you, well everything in life is pretty much a gamble with no gaurantees, but I can't live my life fearing that something will happen to me or that I will ultimately fail because I may be missing out on my own happiness. My friend tried to convince me that there was no real benifit to marriage, but myself and my brother and now his children are the very benificiaries of my mother finally saying yes and creating a legacy with my father.

[Prettygurl12]

I, too, still want to get married.

And according to your schnazy scale thing... I will have a 14% chance of divorce lol

[Jager66]

oh but did you count the negative influences? if you make more then your husband women are much more likely to be unhappy, if you've had sex with 1 man before your husband before the age of 26 your risk increases by 30% and all the way up to a -60% at 6 partners, if you use social media your more likely.. lot's of other factors.

[Prettygurl12]

Yeah... it's still at 14% @Jager66

[Jager66]

Well you are far above the average for risk rate that's for sure.

[vekin]

Great that there are still people believe marriage is more then just a paper or that it will always end

[Bandit74]

Marriage doesn't garantee anything, it doesn't garantee love, happiness, loyalty, or even frequent sex. It only garantees some tax benefits while you are together, and also the strong possibility that the higher earner (typically the man) will be paying the lower earner alimony and child support.

Also it's really not that much of a complement for a woman to consider you husband material. A lot of women spend their youth having sex on the first date and trying out all their sexual fantasies with guys from parties or on tinder. Then when they feel it's time for responsibilities and sacrifice (buying a house and raising kids) they will find a guy who typically less attractive and less exciting than the guys she used to have flings with, and this guy gets to pay to take her on dates, wait maybe two months for sex, and have the wonderful privilege of buying her a ring and getting married.

It's basically "now that I'm bored of sleeping around I'm going to let you take on a bunch of risk by marrying me because you're convenient and stable"

Really not much of a complement in my opinion.

I know most girls will dowe vote this but it doesn't matter, since my opinion is becoming increasingly popular ammoung guys. The number of men who are marriage quality and willing to get married is smaller than the number of women.

Look at it like this. Assume there's a near equal number of men and women within a country.
1st thing is that there are a lot more men in prison than women. So that alone, disproportionately affects the number of marriage men. Homelessness also disproportionately affects men. Then you add in that a lot if men who would otherwise be good candidates for marriage just have no interest in it anymore. There will be more competition amount girls to fight for the guys who do still want to get married and unfortunately there will be girl who want marriage who won't be able to get it.

If you're a girl who doesn't want to get married then this doesn't apply to you.

[myTake Owner]

When you're young, regardless of gender, you're supposed to be young, single, and free to do what you want. Who are those girls you speak of having sex with or getting married to later in life? Guys obviously! do the same exact thing, but you're judging the girls over guys here and you seem erroneously upset that girls aren't married to super model type men in your mind---oddly specific. You date/have sex/marry who you want to. A lot of guys who talk marriage in the comments are not actually talking marriage, they are talking divorce. If that's your mindset, if you had some trauma with your parents growing up with a bad divorce, if you had that one friend who lost everything, then don't get married. I'm not trying to convince you too. Hell, the title is literally "I" still want to get married. I didn't say to you or anyone else who doesn't want marriage. I'm concerned with having a lasting stable marriage, not in divorce.

[myTake Owner]

All of these endless stories paint all women under the same brush as if we are all one woman. Well, I had this friend, and this one divorce, and you don't have to think about... ugh. Feel free to worry about what everyone else is or isn't doing or living your life by what happened to someone else. I'm simply wanting for what my family has which were my grandparents married all their lives, my parents married nearly 40 years now and still going in a loving marriage. If you don't get that or understand that, then I guess you never will.

[AleDeEurope]

Yes, life is a gamble, but I'm not gonna gamble with my money and basically my life. It's easy for you to say that cause if you ever lose that gamble and get divorce, you won't be the one losing half your money and paying for thw house he's living in.
You say you wouldn't be here if your parents wouldn't have gotten married, but that's not true cause your parents could have stayed together forever, have you and your brother, but without being married.
You don't have to be married to have a family and stay with each other till y'all die.
That's why I'm not sure if I'll ever get married, given that I can have the same life with my girlfriend married or not. The only benefits are those the government gives you, but is it worth it to risk half your life for a small benefit? I don't think so.
Thank god there's the possibility of signing pre-nups, but still if you get divorced you gotta waste more thousands of dollars in the divorce.
It's a tricky situation nowadays, you never know if the person you're marrying is gonna use you for the money or not. Many women aren't open to sign a pre-nup, which is a clear sign for what they're actually looking for.

[myTake Owner]

Everything in life is a gamble including marriage, but all of the negatives you are speaking of have not happened to my family, and I'm not ever going to say the negatives wouldn't happen to me, I'm not that naive, but I'm not going to go into thinking about marriage as if I'm sure its going to fail which is the way a lot of the nay sayers have taken things. Clearly if you've grown up with people all around you getting divorced and it ruining your lives, etc. you may feel that way, and i can't and wont' try to change that view for you, but that's not my experience. No one in my life is out collecting checks and ruining lives. In fact having grown up around successful marriages, it gives you that in sight on how to work through your fights, how to work through your troubles, how to stay together vs. turn tail and run. You just can't live life expecting everything to fail, because you'll never do or be anything.

[AleDeEurope]

I'm not saying it's 100% gonna fail, but there's high chances of that happening, given how almost 50% of marriages fail. What's even worse is that 75% of those divorces are filed by women, and what's even worse is that in almost every divorce, the woman ends up winning.
In my family only one marriage failed, and thankfully my uncle didn't lose, but he didn't win either.
But around me I've seen many friends whose parents got divorced.
I'm not saying marriage is, bad, I just don't see a reason for it.
And I'm not going through life thinking everything is gonna fail, but you gotta think of that possibility and act accordingly. If you think the negatives are more than the positives, you don't do it.

[WiseTruth]

It is so much more of an advantage when you have good examples in the family to show that marriage is supposed to outlast struggles and not jump the ship at the first big challenge. Unfortunately, we live in a consumer society where nowadays people are consumed also. Men are afraid of marriage in terms of the risks involved like your friend says. Deep down everybody wants to be in a marriage, but most without the bad label and image it already has. The biggest culprits to destroy marriage is the state and its feminism agenda. So the state becomes the father, the husband and weak men who are too soft to oppose it in times of atrocities. Like we see today.

I know some good women, not too many, who are also afraid to commit and not wanting to marry. The other type of women are just too insecure to be in a relationship with. You cannot trust them to be loyal and persevering, because they don't they have no faith. It is like their characters are formed by magazines, media and egos gratified by satellites of boys orbiting them for no special reason they give them other than being hot and independent. What makes a character for marriage is faith in relationships with someone good. But even if you find someone compatible, they'd choose career over marriage, cause somehow that does not work for them.
And then you see that over some time they portray sad, faded eyes.
Most people I know who got married also don't know how to make it work so they remain happy in it.
But things are changing and people are hopefully getting smarter and realising the important things of life.

[thetundrawolf]

Your friend who does not want to get married is too afraid of ever trusting a woman with his heart. Sadly, he will probably stay single, and he will stay alone, and he will stay miserable.

Every single excuse people give for not marrying can be shot down by asking them if they could ever fully trust and love a woman- every man who is anti marriage who is honest would say "no." Conversely, every woman who does not want to get married, is too afraid to trust her heart with a man. Which I can understand, because of the moral decay of our society, the quality of men being produced is frighteningly shallow, a woman is right not to trust her heart, her feelings, her emotions to most of the men I see today.

Good for you. Marriage is my ultimate goal. God is softening my heart to women, and giving me wisdom, so that I can treasure a woman's heart above her physical form, and love her for who she is, nurturing her, and cherishing her. Men like me are out there, but you have to wait. I encourage you to seek a relationship with God, only He can make you into the woman you aught to be.

[Anonymous]

As a woman with a stable good paying job, I get upset when some guys say that women just want to get married to take their money. I feel like it's not just some women who do this, but more and more men are like this as well. Not all of course, but I've been in relationships where I have had to pay for everything.

Sorry to rant. But that's just a pet peeve of mine.

I want to get married some day too. But it's scary. I don't want to marry a guy and have kids with him, only to find out he really doesn't love me or to have him leave me. Then to be thrown into a life of uncertainty and become a single mom. That's scary to me. I worry about it all the time. It's part of the reason why I have yet to have any kids. I'm only 26 but most of my friends already have a couple kids.

I've already had a pretty unstable life. I've worked hard to get where I am and hard to get where I am going. I have goals and a future plan for myself. I want a guy who is going to help me achieve those goals and not destroy them.

[myTake Owner]

I am so happy for your comments. There are very few comments of people who get it or understand what I'm talking about. Most of the guys who wrote in complained endlessly about gold digging women who will divorce them and apparently take all their money, but my goal in marriage is not divorce. I too have worked hard, built my own business and make my own money. Its degrading to be told that women only want a man's money or that according to men, we lose nothing in a divorce. I want what my parents/grandparents have, and had, which is a life with a partner who loves me, wants to share a life with me, wants to fight for us through bad times, and has dreams and goals of his own. Everyone worries about getting married because you have to really trust and love the other person and trust they will do the same back. I hope you find that in your life.

[Opinion Owner]

Yes exactly, thank you! :) I always feel like whenever a woman says she wants to get married on here, she gets attacked and told that all women just want a man's money and that women don't lose anything in a divorce.

I don't know about anyone else, but I know for myself I want to get married someday. Not because I want a guy's money, but I want a partner. I want to be in love. I want someone to wake up to every morning and cuddle with every night. I want someone I can take care of when they are sick and do fun stuff with.

Any time a relationship ends for me it really does hurt me. I feel like I will never find that person. So I can't imagine what it would be like to go through a divorce. To think you have finally found your person only to be served divorce papers. It must be devastating.

[myTake Owner]

100% agree! I've witnessed a lot of friends parents get divorced, and neither party is jumping for joy or celebrating or happy at all with it. It's this long painful process of breaking up their lives they've built together made even worse if they have children. Some men act like money is everything and that is 'the only reason' in their minds to get married for women. It doesn't matter if you mention for family, or love, or all the reasons you listed. It's disgusting. I've had great examples of marriage, and they have lasted for a reason. For me, taking my time, really talking to a partner about marriage and really discussing our similarities/differences, gives me a good view of whether they are marriage material. Doesn't mean we will, but in my mind, if that is not their goal as well, I know to move on, and I have absolutely no shame in that. Marriage is important to me, period.

[Drooogie4]

I personally never saw the point in marriage. It is basically a contract.
It was nothing I was ever see on at any point, I'd still be happy just staying with my guy, he's awesome.
But HE wanted to get married. And though I wasn't all about it, its a very sweet factor that he still proposed even knwoing neither of us required it,
Neither of us have religious reasons to marry.

We aren't rushing it, we've been engaged a year and are just now thinking into planning haha.

I can see both ways. Marriage is just a contract technically. But I'm certainly not against it.
In fact, I was way more excited to be engaged than I thought I'd be :)

[Anonymous]

For me, I've seen marriage last a while. But not something I'd want to duplicate. I'm not saying I don't want marriage; I'm saying I don't want a bad one.

But I'm also seeing a lot of women who drop a guy 24 hours a week after losing his job. I don't see a lot of support of dreams - I don't mean an unrealistic support; but I've seen a friend's wife tell him to quit his bad job and go for what he wants as far as career goes; the rest, forget it. In my life, if you're not pulling in a certain amount of money, and you're not financially stable, you're out of the house and she's done with you.

While I want marriage - a good healthy marriage where I feel confident that I won't be cheated on or left the second something shinier comes along... but I don't see that much where I live, so a part of me gets it. A guy who gets married and becomes the sitcom joke... or the wife divorces him because he's "not ambitious enough" and then to have little custody or rights to his children, and paying a lot of money to kids he doesn't see every day... that's a serious problem with the system, and I get how a lot of guys would not want to deal with the possibility of having that.

[Anonymous]

I really like your article, but things have changed very much these days. Like your parents, when my parents got married my mom too had to leave her country, her family/friends, everything she knew.

These days, everybody just wants what is easy. Everybody wants what is secure. These same guys who told you they will never get married, don't worry one day they will, and it will unfortunately be for the wrong reasons because they already view marriage in a negative way. It's really sad and it makes me sad.

I met a guy who I thought was perfect for me. I convinced myself that I was wrong and that it was all in my head, but I did that just to make myself move on. But in reality I don't think it was one sided because he is the one who pointed it out first, how we get along so well and how attracted we are to each other. But he lives far away, and he decided to settle for someone who lives in his city than work to be with me. He likes that girl enough to be with her and to move in with her, but he's not in love with her. Most guys are like this and I see so many situations like this. It would be harder to be with me because of the distance, and despite how much he likes me, he chose to be with someone he likes less. But now I see things negatively because I seen this happen so much. I feel like things have changed for the worse. I hope you find someone who like your parents will work hard for real love and for a happy marriage. But unfortunately most people these days don't. Most people jump for those divorce papers... most people don't want to work for what they truly want and will just settle for what's there.

[93stepsawayfromhome]

— "I had great examples growing up of stable lasting loving relationships"

Sure, but you don't need to marry for that. You can be an unmarried couple for forty years just as well.

— "knowing you have someone to come home to, who will care for you and you them"

You also don't need to marry for that.

— "Marriage forces you to put things into perspective and consider your commitments, your love, and asks you to ask yourself to keep fighting for what you agreed to all those months, years, decades ago."

No it doesn't. It really is just a piece of paper. You can also put your unmarried relationship into perspective.

— "If you're somone [sic] that doesn't want marriage because you consider it trivial or stupid […], well everything in life is pretty much a gamble with no gaurantees [sic]"

How does statement two refute statement one? Are they even remotely related? That everything in life is a gamble with no guarantees doesn't make the argument that marriage is invalid or stupid wrong.

— "myself and my brother and now his children are the very benificiaries [sic] of my mother finally saying yes and creating a legacy with my father"

So if you don't marry, you can't start a family and have children?

[singlebee]

I think people take marriage very lightly.. Even before they are married.. And when it comes to changing according to the conditions.. Some of them can't really do that and then they tend to take bad decisions and then the marriage breaks...
This is why its very important to know your partner and if they are on the same page as you!!! Before getting married..
I think many people may the wind person for wrong reasons at wrong time...

So find a good partner !
Get to know them real good
Take all the time in the world and then get married...

DON'T RUSH IT! :-D

I hope I will marry someone who i stay with my whole life and she stays with me too!

[myTake Owner]

That's a great way to think about it. I think the trend for married couples now is for them to take longer then the standard like one year, to really take time to get to know someone. Most of my married peers on average have waited at least 3 years before marrying. I think that's smart to sort of go through a few seasons and some hard things and some life things, before you decide to get married. I mean is anyone surprised when the 19 year old gets divorced, or the couple who'd only dated 7 months gets divorced, no, and for good reason... too young and inexperienced or not getting time to know someone outside of lust.

[Bluemax]

As one who was married, I have to tell you this is very well said. That which transpired between my wife and me was no mere piece of paper. The same could be said of my mother and father (married 51 years).

[myTake Owner]

That's wonderful. I absolutely feel the same of my parents and my grandparents. There is just such a beautiful rich loving and lasting history with them that didn't manifest out of deciding to stay single. It's the ideals behind that piece of paper; its a much deeper symbolism with purpose.

[Phoenix98]

There's nothing wrong with wanting to get married, if you want it then you go and search for it, just because your friend doesn't see any benefit to it doesn't mean you won't, you are not your friend. So if you want it go for it and don't let anyone deter you from it.

[Anonymous]

Oh I still want to get married too, almost all of my friends feel the same way, so you are getting your information from the wrong groups of guys. Now given me and almost all of my friends are religious, and non religious guys tend to care less about marriage, I still think that most guys want to get married at some point. The other thing is immaturity, a lot of people both guys and girls say things like "I never want to get married and have kids" because they dont want to concede part of their life to someone else, they want to be selfish, and I think that as we mature (hopefully) some of us grow out of our selfish tendencies, so people that are a little older will likely be more willing to get married. I am definitely planning on getting married though so know that not all guys are against marriage.

[myTake Owner]

Good to here. Just as my own personal rule of thumb, when I hear someone who is say 25 and younger saying they will NEVER do something, I take that with a grain of salt. I wouldn't expect someone who is 18 to start settling down. No, I'm all for get that young energy out, have fun, live your single life, but its more so when someone is like 30 and up where its like really, your goal is to be single forever? Um, okay. Not my life, so do what you will, but I'm a firm believer in marriage and making that life long commitment to someone.

[myTake Owner]

*hear

[Thor696]

Ever notice how the guys who complain they'll never get married because the woman will just "milk" all their money...

Have NO money? LOL

[Minxxie]

absolutely... and prenuptial agreements exist too...

[OldTimeFlicksChick]

Its been like a thing that people joke about from before our grandparents were born. That girls are always trying to "trick/tie" guys down and get them into marriages. Obviously this isn't true. I don't know how old you all are but I have noticed with my guy friends that the closer they get to the "typical" age that people get married, the more against it they are. Eventually though they will find someone and settle down. If they don't then guess what, Its None Of Your Damn Business. You do what makes you happy and you let other people do what they want.

[myTake Owner]

That's exactly why my take is called "I" still want to get married. I've been on dates where I've obviously been asked if I want to get married, and when I've said yes, there came the speech about how marriage is only paper and blah, blah, blah. Of course that person is entitled to feel any kind of way, but I know "I" want to get married, so I'm not looking to date someone that feels like its a useless endeavor or they've convinced themselves that all women are just money hungry harpies. I have no desire for a big wedding, I would definitely sign a pre-nup to protect my own business that I started, because I'm not wanting to marry someone for their money or for that fairy tale wedding. You are 100% right... just do whatever makes you happy, marry, don't marry, none of my business unless I'm dating that person.

[nakedalligator]

There is nothing wrong with marriage in itself, but marriage was never originally a legal thing, it was a personal thing, a promise between two people.

There is no reasons to be legally married, it's just a piece of paper, it doesn't mean anything and it won't change how someone thinks of you. If they were only staying with you because of their fear that you could take them for everything their worth, would you really want to stay with them?

People can make a commitment between one another without letting the law get involved, if I choose to marry, it will have no legal binding, simply because I don't believe in the law binding me to anyone.

[myTake Owner]

That's your personal decision then to not get married. I'm not trying to convince everyone else who doesn't want to get married to get married in the same way I don't try to convince those that don't want kids to have them. You live your life, while I'm busy living mine. These are of course very personal choices which everyone must choose to make on their own. I'm also a firm believer in the pre-nup if that's what's needed. If someone wants to say they get their money and I get mine if the marriage fails, then so be it because I work for my own and I've got my own money.

[nakedalligator]

Well I was only voicing my opinions on marriage, I didn't actually say that I won't marry, just that I won't "legally" marry.

I don't expect to make you change your mind just to offer some insight. I would be curious as to why someone would want to involve the government with your marriage, to me it is either a personal matter, a religious matter or a spiritual matter, not a legal one.

If I was to marry legally most likely I would want a prenup as well, but I rather not have the law involved at all if possible.

[oddwaffle]

Marriage is not a why not question but a why question. Because everyone wears funny hats is not very convincing reason for you to start a hat collection.

If you are not religious and have no problem with government idea of marriage then you'll find few reasons to get married. Esp when you have the option of living together.

Happiness. Often the most misused reason for marriage. People don't get married to be happy. Happy people get married. If you are Mr. and Ms. Grumpy then the chance of you getting married will be slim.

Wants a family. 2nd most used reason until you noticed that there is nothing preventing you from living together and have a family without blessing or government. The only obstacle you will run into will be the government as they want to define what a family should be so certain laws and definitions would apply.

Financial. Okay this is a very valid reason but you can get away with just living together.

[RationalMale]

"What is wrong with wanting that?"

No one is opposed to having a loving partner. Men are opposed to legal marriage because it offers nothing.

Want to live with a woman, have a home together, have kids together, build a life together?

You don't need a marriage license for that! What does a marriage license really change? That the higher earner will be royally screwed in court if the other person decides for any reason at any time they don't want to be married anymore.

Women initiate 75% of divorces... obviously, men will shy away from legal marriage and women will still want it!

[NatashaJ]

I think the problem is with the whole marriage thing is one. People married the wrong person
2. People change and the changes might end the relationship because its too much or its not what the other person wants (like someone changing into a selfish person and the other person can't deal with it.)
3. Money-Having big debts can stress out both parties and might cause divorce (its #1 reason why people divorce)
4. Some people won't grow up and that can affect the relationship
5. Some people don't want to work it out its easier to end it.
I can't think more but I think these are the main reasons for marriages to fall apart. I still believe in Marriage. :)

[VictoriousSausage]

I think marriage is a great idea, but i can see in america how this has become a problem, we don't see it as much in Britain, but i guess because of your society of "needing more money for more power" (it is semi true in Britain too, we aren't in the clear on this), it can make people more defensive of their wealth, and because of societal stereotypes of girls being gold diggers, it can make sense why he's worried. but a lot of people aren't, some are more than they used to be, but a lot aren't, most people see it as a way to solidify a relationship, and show your devoted love to someone. i think THAT is beautiful.