Smug marrieds? **generalization alert!**

There's nothing desirable to me about legal marriage. So if anyone wishes to be smug about being married, don't go to all the trouble on my account.

Not even if it meant the difference between living in the same country or not? Not even if without it you may not be entitled to information at a hospital if your partner were unconscious (if god forbid something were to happen before they had the chance to list you as next of kin)? Just saying.

My wedding is in April. (5 months away!). I've been living with my fiance since I was 17, and ever since we even moved in, people have been telling us it won't work. When someone who is married/divorced finds that I'm engaged, they always go, "Don't do it! Oh, you'll regret it forever."

"It's the biggest mistake ever". To get married.
I find that kind of condescending and rude to say to a couple just about to get married.

Recently engaged women Arrrrrrrgh! (sorry)
Just iv got a few female "friends" who've just got engaged, they seem to think this is the be all and end all. Also slightly fed up of the pittying looks coz im not marrying my s.o yet.... The way i was bought up a peice of jewlrey doesnt mean love.
Ok rant over :flowerforyou:

I'm recently engaged. I certainly don't think that this is a be all and end all. I also don't pity people who aren't married yet. Marriage is a personal decision within a relationship. It doesn't matter whether you want to marry at 20, 30, 40, 90! Or even not at all! My sister works as a genetics researcher and she's decided that she doesn't wish to date, let alone marry. And I don't see anything wrong with that.

Marriage is also more than a piece of jewelry, to me, anyway. I was raised that love is more than a ring, and I'm still getting married. My grandparents have been married 50 years this year, and my parents 25. It's a personal decision for me to get married, and I understand that not everyone wants to. I personally don't see anything wrong with not getting married, honestly. My fiance's parents have been together for 22 years I believe. Raised their 2 children together, but never got married. The commitment is still there, and they don't need the papers or a ring to prove it.

Marriage is a commitment, but it's also something that will need to be worked at very hard. It's not easy, and this wedding upcoming for me is the continuation of the relationship that I've been in for the past 3 years. It will be hard, and definitely not a fairy tale, but I'm aware of that, and am prepared for it.

Just wanted to say that - not all recently engaged women are full of it or don't know the meaning of marriage.

ow i know, sorry i didnt mean to offend you.:flowerforyou:
Iv know lots of long and happy relationships with very nice people, just a few select people recently have been rather rude to me as a result of there new relationship status, which has needless to say annoyed me. There very happy and there lifes moved on to a new stage, mine hasnt, but were very happy and for now dont feel the need for anything more. Guess iv got the wrong kind of people in my life.
congratulations on your own engagement tho :happy:

Don't worry about what they say!
Only do what you're comfortable with ^-^ In this day and age, not many people get married at all anymore! And there's nothing wrong with that in my eyes

Married 16 years, a number of them happy, not smug in the least, and believe the term "hubby" is more offensive than the F-word (which I actually like a lot).

I love the F-bomb. Sometimes, no other word will do

My wedding is in April. (5 months away!). I've been living with my fiance since I was 17, and ever since we even moved in, people have been telling us it won't work. When someone who is married/divorced finds that I'm engaged, they always go, "Don't do it! Oh, you'll regret it forever."

"It's the biggest mistake ever". To get married.
I find that kind of condescending and rude to say to a couple just about to get married.

I got that all the time when we first got together, and then again when we got engaged. When I told my friends I was going out with now dh (when we were 19), they all said it wouldn't last 2 weeks. Then when we got engaged 5 months later everyone said "we'll see". Then when we got married at 22 everyone I knew said we were too young, we were ruining each other's lives (how finding someone you want to spend your life with is ruining anyone's life is still a mystery to me).

Anyway, we've been married 12 years now, and together for 16. We've known each other longer than we haven't known each other. We met at 13 (got together at 18/19). So I have decided people are mostly clueless about other people's relationships.

Um, let me think about this.
I met a guy who became a great friend and I fell head over heals in love with him. For some strange reason not only did he feel the same way but he decided to honour those feelings and our relationship infront of the people in our lives we hold closest to our hearts by promising that he would love and honour me forever. I grew up thinking I was worthless, miserable fat and ugly. I found a guy who all of a sudden made me feel like he was my home. I'm not smug. I'm happy. Happier than I ever thought i could be, much happier than i thought i deserved to be. It hasn't been an easy ride. we have had to work hard to hold our family together through financial and emotional rollercoasters,
I'm not smug that I'm married but I'm damn proud of how far we have come and I'm sorry if that bothers some people. Some people with new cars may seem smug, some people with cute kids, a big house, new boobs, whatever but its perhaps happiness not smugness and you don't always know the story of what got them there. Sometimes the happy took hell of a lot of obstacles to get over first.
That said. When I lose my weight I will be smug. Really annoying smug. I really will and I am going to piss so many people off and I won't care. Bring on the Happy!

This is brilliant!

There's nothing desirable to me about legal marriage. So if anyone wishes to be smug about being married, don't go to all the trouble on my account.

Not even if it meant the difference between living in the same country or not? Not even if without it you may not be entitled to information at a hospital if your partner were unconscious (if god forbid something were to happen before they had the chance to list you as next of kin)? Just saying.

Accept that not everyone wants to partake in marriage and maybe take the time to consider how messed up many rules and regulations are that force people to be married to receive certain things. Not everyone can get married.

To be fair, I didn't say that everyone wanted to be married or that it was fair. What I did say was that right now, there are certainly appeals to being married. If I were not married then I would literally be on the other side of the world from my husband (Australia/UK).

<-- happily married.

I actually feel like single people can be rather smug. Many of them "ditched" me after I got married.

without reading any of this, this thread reminds me of a passage from Aaron Karo's "I'm Having More Fun Than You."

"I think that the longer you're in a relationship, the more you begin to forget what it was like to have ever been single, and how the game actually works. Whenever I'm in a bar with a couple who I'm friends with, they'll inevitably say "Hey, Karo, check out that girl over there. She's totally cute - you should just go talk to her." Oh is that all I have to do? Just go talk to her? Well, thanks for clearing that up. because I was just gonna whip my d**k out and hope she came over and touched it. But just go talk to her? That's a foolproof plan! Is that how the two of you met? Who knew it was that easy? Thank God I have you and your girlfrined here to show me how the world works. Now stop holding hands and drinking chardonnay and get the f**k out of my face so I can continue stalking this chick from a distance!"

I'm a girl, but this is very true! All of my friends in relationships think it's so easy to go talk to guys and stuff, but it's really not. I sometime they think judge me and my other friends for still being single when they're starting to settle down.

I completely agree with this. I'm a single mom and have been since my first daughter was born, and all of my friends are in either long term relationships or married and they tell me things that piss me off. Example: I comment on how it took me forever to put together the toddler bed for my daughter and the married friend says "ugh I'm SO glad I have my husband for that because I'd never be able to do that! ". It's like :grumble: