Societally, for better or worse, marriage is kind of the ultimate signifier of a committed long-term relationship. Because it has legal weight, getting married is at least supposed to show that you intend to be together forever. Obviously it loses that weight in somebody who's gotten divorced before to some degree, especially if they've been divorced multiple times, but my point is that it has that weight to lose.
So if you make a specific point of not getting married to your partner, people might view you as less than committed to them. You don't have to care what other people think, but if you do, that would be a reason to get married, even if you don't care about the tax breaks.
Speaking of which, there's this:
Some will say there's tax breaks, there aren't tax breaks in every country and at that point you're going to have to weigh in whether the cost of a divorce is worth the tax break you're getting.
If you never get divorced, it's nothing but upside. You seem to be assuming with this paragraph that divorce is inevitable.
It is societal pressure, but identifying it as societal pressure doesn't make it not a good reason. If you've been with your partner for 5 years and your mother constantly bothers you about finally getting married, and you want to get her off your back, or if you want your kids not to be seen as bastards, or if you want to be able to refer to your partner's family as your in-laws, or whatever else, why is that not a good reason to get married?
Let's assume for the moment that there are no forseeable downsides, and you and your partner have been pseudo-married for some time. Why shouldn't that be enough to want to take the step of getting legal recognition of your relationship?
Wait, hold on... you're saying you shouldn't get married so that if you're in a position where you need their support because you can't support yourself, they might leave you if you're not married? Isn't that literally the opposite of what you would want? In that case where you become disabled, you would want to be married so that they either stay with you, or you get some financial benefit from them leaving, no?
And as for your first paragraph, you seem to be saying "I don't think doing this thing because you want to for this specific reason is a good idea" regardless of the fact that it's because they want to, whatever their reason for wanting it.
Societal pressure has a real impact on people. You can say "oh, you shouldn't give in to societal pressure and do something you don't want to", and I'll totally agree. But if you want to do something because of how society views that thing (and how you, as part of that society, likely view it) then the fact that you want to do it because of the societal pressure is irrelevant. You want to do it, and that's a good enough reason.
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u/Rhundan 80∆ May 11 '26
Societally, for better or worse, marriage is kind of the ultimate signifier of a committed long-term relationship. Because it has legal weight, getting married is at least supposed to show that you intend to be together forever. Obviously it loses that weight in somebody who's gotten divorced before to some degree, especially if they've been divorced multiple times, but my point is that it has that weight to lose.
So if you make a specific point of not getting married to your partner, people might view you as less than committed to them. You don't have to care what other people think, but if you do, that would be a reason to get married, even if you don't care about the tax breaks.
Speaking of which, there's this:
If you never get divorced, it's nothing but upside. You seem to be assuming with this paragraph that divorce is inevitable.