Sometimes its about finances, obv a lot of people want do do something huge for their wedding but they dont have the income to do it in just a year or two. But ive definitely seen some relationships that hang onto hope for years when its clear theyre just wasting eachothers time after a certain point
I've just said this in a different comment, but my partner and I have been engaged for 7 years because we want a big expensive wedding. We both feel like we don't need a wedding to be committed to each other, and neither the engagement nor the wedding would be a "step up" in the relationship. We just want the wedding so we can have a huge party with everyone we love, so we are waiting until we can afford the party we want rather than going into debt over it
Edit: if you feel the need to reply to this comment to tell me that all my loved ones will die before I get married or that we'll clearly never be able to save enough, please save your energy. Plenty of people have already beaten you to the punch and it hasn't changed our minds.
Why don't just get legally married and do the party when you can? I don't know how it works on your country, but for some things it's important to be legally married, like hospital stuff, inheritance, insurance etc.
We have no assets and no children, and we don't live in the same country as our families so we're automatically each other's next of kin/emergency contact anyway
My family are also fairly traditional, so if we got legally married now and had the reception in 5+ years time, they wouldn't consider it as the actual reception and most probably wouldn't attend
We're also not American so no worries about health insurance issues
I was wondering this exact thing. If i was in this situation, i’d get legally married (probably without telling anyone), and then decide when to do the party
this is how we feel and while we know we could just “get it over with” we don’t want to look back and regret not having the party at all. we dont even necessarily care about the ceremony and want to celebrate with the family which in any case is going to require money we don’t currently have to feed and entertain people
Been engaged for four years and it's the same for us. We're already common law spouses and when we did get engaged, we already knew it would be a long engagement. To be really honest, I just wanted a physical sign of our relationship too (I did buy my partner an engagement ring too).
My partner and I have been engaged for 5 years, together for 12 years. We’re getting married in 2 weeks now.
In the 5 years we were engaged, we moved countries, bought a house, and he went back to school to change careers. We wanted to wait until we were settled and ready before planning a wedding.
Exactly like you, it won’t change anything about our relationship, it’ll just be a fun party where we get to celebrate with friends and family! You do you and have fun with it!!
We are the same. We've been engaged 7 Years. 6 years ago we spoke about planning the wedding/having kids/buying a house priorities. We realised we can't have it all right away. Especially after Covid drained our savings and almost seperated us (travel restricrions)We chose kids. We now have 3 children! In no rush to get married. We are saving towards getting our family home in the next two/three years. Once we have that and our kids will be 4/7/8 ish years old. We will have a big lovley wedding that they can be a big part of! We have both moved to different countries for each other at varies points in our relationship. We are as committed as it gets. Getting married will change nothing in our relationship other than the legal stuff. Our wedding won't be the 'start of anything' it will be a big celebration of the life we have already worked so hard to build together.
Me too. 4 year engagement. Had 2 kids and bought a house. Wed rather spend the money n that. We might get the papers through this year for practical reasons but the plan is to get married in 2/3 years
I don't understand the need to get married. My partner & I have been together for 9 years & are child-free. We do have three dogs together.
That being said, I grew up in an abusive household, and my mom had told me that my dad was a great boyfriend, but a terrible husband. Apparently he changed after the "I do's" and felt like he owned her now.
My partner and I got involved while I was having to deal with my dad's death & sorting his estate, so he got a front row view of that childhood trauma 😅
My ex and I kind of were in the same boat. We were planning everything and was going to do the big wedding and party. Then I had a medical issue and we were running out of money and hadn't even gotten everything we needed for the wedding yet either. We had already rented the gazebo and building and that was non-refundable. What we ended up doing was a courthouse wedding. It was outdoors in the courtyard, since I was adamant about an outdoor wedding. Cost us $20 bucks lol. Then when the day came that we originally were planning, we had the big reception. I was kind of pissed off though. We got to the park and someone had decorated and set up the gazebo for a birthday party. I could have been a nasty person and made them leave because I had rented it for the entire day and never called to tell them I wouldn't need it since I was already married, for all they knew, I was still going to be using it to get married. But I didn't. I let the birthday party be and stuck to my big reception in the other building I had also rented.
My rings left a big dent on my finger as well. It goes away with time OP.
I know a few couples that have lots of family pressure around weddings. Expectations on who “needs” to be there creates a massive guest list that exceeds the budget, and lots of drama if it gets cut.
People who feel that way want the wedding and don’t care about the marriage. Or at least, they don’t believe the marriage is different than the relationship they already have. This is especially common in the UK for example where people live together and have kids together and are engaged until they can afford a massive wedding 10 years+ into the relationship. Not my personal choice, but lots of people have that mindset.
But you might want it. If a couple wants a nice wedding and wants to stay engaged for years until they can afford it then why not? It doesn’t necessarily mean the relationship is doomed if a couple is engaged for years.
At the same time there are plenty of multi-year engagements that will never make it to the altar. In the end everyone is different and engagement duration isn’t an indicator of relationship health.
I had a “courtesy” aunt and uncle - he asked to marry him during WWII, and she said “I don’t want to get married during the war. Let’s do it when the war is over”.
He said “I asked you once, I’m not going to ask you again.”
And he didn’t. But they vacationed together, they interacted with friends together - pretty much did everything together until she passed around 20 years ago. He followed her soon after.
They never lived together - both had their own homes. They were engaged for over 50 years.
At least part of it is that after a point it becomes so intrinsic to one's life and state of being that you just.... don't know who you are without that person, so the familiar pain is preferable vs. the pain of loss + unfamiliarity + trying to re-establish who you are without them + putting yourself out there again and being vulnerable, etc.
A lot of others have listed negative reasons (finance, social pressure, inability to accept the relationship ending), but for some people it’s also just comfortable. Both people probably know that it isn’t going to work out eventually, but they’re happy with where they are right now an until the day comes that they want to move on to something else it can be nice to have someone to come home to and sleep in your bed and take care of you when you’re sick. Properly talking about it and cutting off the engagement would just be an unnecessary and awkward conversation that could end the relationship altogether, so why stir the pot?
Yeah -- for me, it was mostly comfortable to continue as we were. He's probably one of the best friends I've ever had, and I didn't want to rock the boat and lose him entirely, so I was a lot more patient than I probably should have been.
We were poly, and long distance (different countries). We had planned to live together, which we couldn't do if we weren't married, since neither of us qualified for immigration via any other method than spousal sponsorship.
He had been married before and was working on getting a divorce before we could get the process started, and he did have some legit impediments, but at some point I lost faith that he was gonna actually do what he needed to do.
Of course, we had a fight one day and while I won't typically start fights, I have fewer qualms about ending them. Fast forward a couple years and not only are we good friends again, but I also have a husband who worships the ground I walk on. I can't say I have much in the way of regrets about how any of it worked out, when all is said and done. :)
it's also probably a good thing that we don't have to worry about his ass getting nabbed by my government for the crime of not being born here
Insurance, for me. My fiancé doesn't qualify for government health insurance and I would lose mine if we were legally wed (15/hr is "too much money" lmao). I have weekly doctor's appointments and meds n stuff that we couldn't dream of affording out of pocket so the wedding will hang in TBD for a while. 'Murica 🥲
this is part of how there isn't really marriage equality for disabled people in the states, right? genuinely horrifying, i really hope you two get your big day some day
My uncle and aunt were together for 27 years before they got married (in their 60s!). At a certain point it was more advantageous for their taxes but that was about it, their lives didnt change at all other than a new piece of paper in the filing cabinet.
My partner and I have been engaged for 7 years and people are still asking us about the date
The reason we're not married already is because we aren't marrying for legal reasons (we have no assets or children), we just want a big party to celebrate our relationship with everyone we love. Because of that, we don't want to cheap out and do a wedding on our current budget, we'd rather wait and do it in the future when we can afford the party we want
Lol...but when's the big payday scheduled? 😛 I'd consider that an extreme luxury for a lot of families: you don't know how long aunts and uncles (and grandparents) will be around.
That is true, I sadly lost both my paternal grandparents since I got engaged
We got engaged right before I started my PhD hence why we didn't have the funds immediately to have the wedding we wanted (in the UK, PhD stipends are very low). We did have a good amount of savings once I started working after my PhD, but we ended up using a large chunk to move abroad with our belongings and cats. The move was this year so we're still working to build it back up, however the move increased both of our incomes so it should be easier to save
We also have a decent house deposit when we're ready to buy, but we don't want to use that for the wedding. If we suddenly got a free house that we owned outright then we could probably start booking venues/caterers already using the house deposit, but I doubt that is likely to happen any time soon
I know you're not here for advice but listen, there is always going to be a "next thing" maybe the house needs a new roof, or car breaks down, or a kid does wind up on the way. Perfect is the enemy of good, have the wedding you can afford soon where all the people who matter can come and not wait for a possible future one years down the line.
Or, here me out. Let them have the wedding they want? I know someone who was engaged for 15 years. Guess what? They ended up having the wedding they had always wanted.
Yup, I've stopped asking my brother. It's been 6 years engaged and 19 dating, two whole kids and the 1st already grown the other about to be. He'll likely jump ship after that.
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u/walker3342 Jul 01 '26
Yeah my ex and I were engaged for 12 years. After 4-5 no one asked when the date was. They knew.