16 years relationship close to breakup?

[AshitaNoIppo]

Just now, Batya33 said:

I'd either fish or cut bait not this limbo nonsense.  There are ways to protect her and your children financially without getting married.

Non it does not work like this here. To give you more détails, in France we have something called 'pension redistribution'. The effect is as follow: if a partner die, the other receives a portion of the money that was due during retirement. Only marriage can provide this protection.

[Batya33]

2 hours ago, A***aNoIppo said:

Non it does not work like this here. To give you more détails, in France we have something called 'pension redistribution'. The effect is as follow: if a partner die, the other receives a portion of the money that was due during retirement. Only marriage can provide this protection.

I’m not aware of legal ramifications. There are ways to set up trusts and accounts for another person whether married or not. Look into it since your priority is financial. 

[AshitaNoIppo]

13 minutes ago, Batya33 said:

I’m not aware of legal ramifications. There are ways to set up trusts and accounts for another person whether married or not. Look into it since your priority is financial. 

Yes of course, there are many ways to help secure my family's financially future. But this very specific pension redistribution is only through marriage.

It was also a way to achieve automatically other kind of protection that can be achieved by other means anyway, as you said.

This was my reason for proposing at first.

Now, it's irrelevant to the current situation: if she does not love me anymore I think we should breakup. If she loves me but does not want to marry me suddenly and do not know why... There is something to discuss.

As said by someone else on this topic, maybe she has a kind of gut feeling to not marry because deep inside she does not love me anymore but can't admit it herself.

To make it short, the reasons for proposing the marriage are unrelated to the reasons for putting an end to the relationship in case of mariage cancellation.

My reasons for proposing marriage: financial protection for her, making her happy as well as our kids

Our reasons for potentially breaking up: she may not love me anymore.

The  marriage cancellation would not be the reason for breaking up but a symptom of the reason.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to clarify this point.

[Batya33]

Ok got it. If you knew she was never going to marry you how long would you stay ?  Obviously you are assuming the reason is she doesn’t love you enough. That might be. Or not. 

[AshitaNoIppo]

10 minutes ago, Batya33 said:

Ok got it. If you knew she was never going to marry you how long would you stay ?  Obviously you are assuming the reason is she doesn’t love you enough. That might be. Or not. 

Unless she has excellent reasons to provide, which is not the case currently, I would assume that she would be planning a breakup anytime later in any case, so I would not be happy anymore in such a relationship.

In this case, the breakup would be instantaneous as I would be unable to trust our relationship anymore. Of course, we have kids and a flat so it would require time to organize it correctly.

 

[Wiseman2]

On 2/11/2024 at 10:25 AM, A***aNoIppo said:

•  I have been with my girlfriends for 16 years
• We have 2 kids, 
• I 

Why did you wait 16 years and 2 children later? What changed recently? 

[AshitaNoIppo]

3 minutes ago, Wiseman2 said:

Why did you wait 16 years and 2 children later? What changed recently? 

To propose for marriage?

I recently received a lot of money, enough to pay for the marriage she wished for. Nothing luxurious but it still a lot of money.

[Batya33]

1 hour ago, A***aNoIppo said:

To propose for marriage?

I recently received a lot of money, enough to pay for the marriage she wished for. Nothing luxurious but it still a lot of money.

Why in the world would you let party planning/funding be the catalyst for a marital commitment after all these years plus a lifelong commitment to parenting?? Why not use the money to financially protect her since that is your motivation for the piece of paper as you put it.

[catfeeder]

5 hours ago, A***aNoIppo said:

Non it does not work like this here. To give you more détails, in France we have something called 'pension redistribution'. The effect is as follow: if a partner die, the other receives a portion of the money that was due during retirement. Only marriage can provide this protection.

If the purpose of the marriage is financial, but your partner's family stresses her too much to enjoy throwing a big party where she'll feel exposed to criticism, consider asking her if she'd like to quietly take the legal steps for the financial protections without a public announcement. Then if she ever wants to host a party to celebrate, she can let you know, and you can both plan that together and enjoy yourselves. Otherwise, there's really no need for that.

[AshitaNoIppo]

28 minutes ago, Batya33 said:

Why in the world would you let party planning/funding be the catalyst for a marital commitment after all these years plus a lifelong commitment to parenting?? Why not use the money to financially protect her since that is your motivation for the piece of paper as you put it.

Money is important when planning a wedding. Only a marriage can provide the financial protection that I'm looking for her as explained above.

Cancelling the mariage or postponing is not the solution because the issue is deeper than just a disagreement on the reason for marriage or marriage organization.

 

[Batya33]

5 minutes ago, A***aNoIppo said:

Money is important when planning a wedding. Only a marriage can provide the financial protection that I'm looking for her as explained above.

Cancelling the mariage or postponing is not the solution because the issue is deeper than just a disagreement on the reason for marriage or marriage organization.

 

To you it is.  Our wedding 15 years ago cost a total of $1,500 including extras -this included the officiant fee, the clothing/shoes, the wedding ring for my husband, the license fee etc - our parents paid for the wedding lunch (10 guests).  You don't need much money at all to get a marriage license and get married.

I would consult an attorney to find out all options for financial protection - what if she was your sister and you wanted to financially protect her -can't marry your sis.

[AshitaNoIppo]

30 minutes ago, catfeeder said:

If the purpose of the marriage is financial, but your partner's family stresses her too much to enjoy throwing a big party where she'll feel exposed to criticism, consider asking her if she'd like to quietly take the legal steps for the financial protections without a public announcement. Then if she ever wants to host a party to celebrate, she can let you know, and you can both plan that together and enjoy yourselves. Otherwise, there's really no need for that.

To me, the purpose of the marriage was financial mostly. I also wanted her to be happy.
I have always told her that I was ok to marry her but I did not want to spend too much money on it. We were always able to pay the bills but not much more. Recently, I received a lot of money and paying for the marriage she wants looks reasonable now.

She does not want to go only for the legal steps. She does not even seem to care about this part. She is stressing herself alone. Her family does not put any pressure.

We always agreed for marriage, for different reasons and with a different organization (where money was an important part of the discussion) but in the end, we loved each other and wanted to marry. We were waiting for the right moment.

[AshitaNoIppo]

1 minute ago, Batya33 said:

To you it is.  Our wedding 15 years ago cost a total of $1,500 including extras -this included the officiant fee, the clothing/shoes, the wedding ring for my husband, the license fee etc - our parents paid for the wedding lunch (10 guests).  You don't need much money at all to get a marriage license and get married.

I would consult an attorney to find out all options for financial protection - what if she was your sister and you wanted to financially protect her -can't marry your sis.

I would have been ok for $1,500 but here she wanted something more around $10,000 and we did not have the money back then. Now we do.

Your comment about the attorney and sister is weird.

[Batya33]

Just now, A***aNoIppo said:

I would have been ok for $1,500 but here she wanted something more around $10,000 and we did not have the money back then. Now we do.

Your comment about the attorney and sister is weird.

LOL I find your comments about marriage and wedding receptions kind of odd too! My point is you're uber focused that marriage is the only way to financially protect her. I'm certain that's a wildly incorrect assumption - which is why I provided the hypothetical -what if you wanted to financially protect a person you couldn't marry -you'd be out of luck??

If your focus is financial blowing 10k on a wedding she now doesn't want makes no sense.

[AshitaNoIppo]

6 minutes ago, Batya33 said:

LOL I find your comments about marriage and wedding receptions kind of odd too! My point is you're uber focused that marriage is the only way to financially protect her. I'm certain that's a wildly incorrect assumption - which is why I provided the hypothetical -what if you wanted to financially protect a person you couldn't marry -you'd be out of luck??

As I told you, the "pension redistribution" can only be achieved through marriage.

There are other ways to protect someone but It just make sense to add all the possible ways to have the best protection possible. To explain it simply (with numbers given just as an example) it's best to have $2000 than $1000.

  

6 minutes ago, Batya33 said:

If your focus is financial blowing 10k on a wedding she now doesn't want makes no sense.

Yes, this is exactly why I'm discussing this topic here. Well... Not for the money or even the marriage, but the possible end to our relationship.

 

[catfeeder]

Sounds like the focus is not on getting married, it’s on getting ‘weddinged’.

Big difference. Good luck with that.

[AshitaNoIppo]

9 minutes ago, catfeeder said:

Sounds like the focus is not on getting married, it’s on getting ‘weddinged’.

Big difference. Good luck with that.

I'm not a native english and I don't understand the difference, please explain.

I had another quick chat with her. She said she loves me but discussed 4 things that she is missing in our relationship:

1. Not enough affection demonstration in public: I don't want to change on this, I'm uncomfortable doing it
2. Not enough affection in private: It would be a pleasure to give her more
3. No dancing: I hate dancing but I agreed to do it for the marriage
4. Marriage organization not to her liking: I don't have more details yet I just said that I'm open to discuss and update things to her liking up to a certain limit.

Now I'm thinking... While all these reasons are valid, they look quite small to me compared to 16 years together and 2 kids.

First option: I completely underestimate the importance of these things to her
Second option: as someone already said here, the issue is deeper. She has a gut feeling that she does not want to spend her whole life with me and these reasons are just symptoms.



My own gut feeling now: when I told her that we may be going to the end of our relationship, she did not display any strong emotion. It gave me the feeling this is what she wants and is just giving time and reasons to make it happen not too suddenly. Maybe she is even trying to push me to end the relationship myself so she does not have to do it. Unfortunately, I think the second option is the most likely.

[catfeeder]

35 minutes ago, A***aNoIppo said:

I'm not a native english and I don't understand the difference, please explain.

Marriage is the state of the relationship after the wedding.

So in your case, the marriage isn't really point. The wedding party is the point.

[AshitaNoIppo]

58 minutes ago, catfeeder said:

Marriage is the state of the relationship after the wedding.

So in your case, the marriage isn't really point. The wedding party is the point.

Thanks.

In French, the word "mariage" can be used both for the wedding party and the state of the relationship after wedding. Here, I was indeed talking about the wedding party.

[MissCanuck]

2 hours ago, A***aNoIppo said:

While all these reasons are valid, they look quite small to me compared to 16 years together and 2 kids.

Is she a very enthusiastic dancer or something? That's quite an odd thing to cite as "missing" from such a long and serious relationship. 

2 hours ago, A***aNoIppo said:

She has a gut feeling that she does not want to spend her whole life with me and these reasons are just symptoms.

I tend to agree. I can understand mismatched levels of affection being a bigger issue but lack of dancing or clear wedding planning are not generally dealbreakers. Maybe she can't even really put her finger on why her feelings for you have changed, or understand if she's already too checked out for this come back together.

 

[Batya33]

4 hours ago, catfeeder said:

Marriage is the state of the relationship after the wedding.

So in your case, the marriage isn't really point. The wedding party is the point.

To me the wedding ceremony -the exchange of the vows -was the important part -the part that made you married.  The wedding reception is not the wedding -it's a party to celebrate the wedding. I'm a firm believer in plan for the marriage -not for the wedding reception.  So I agree with you!

[AshitaNoIppo]

On 2/13/2024 at 10:19 PM, MissCanuck said:

Is she a very enthusiastic dancer or something? That's quite an odd thing to cite as "missing" from such a long and serious relationship.

 

No... I have seen her dance only once in 16 years and she mentionned dancing maybe 10 times overall during these years. It looks very trivial to me.

She said today that she does not want to leave me but I feel she puts me in a situation where I should leave her. I don't feel this relationship would be good anymore if we cancel the weddings, whatever the reasons would be.

 

 

[Tinydance]

OK, this is just my opinion. Do you really feel very strongly uncomfortable about dancing at the wedding? Like, you will become very nervous and have a panic attack? Or you just don't like dancing? Marriage is about compromise and it's actually you who really wants to get married. It seems she has the dream of a fairy tale wedding with dancing and so on. Can't you just do one bride and groom dance? You said you just want to get married for financial reasons but she's  woman so to her the actual wedding is important. I would want all that at my wedding too, like the bride and groom dancing together to a slow beautiful song. It's only one day but you don't want to do any compromise but you are the one who asked her to marry.

Secondly, you keep talking here like: "We are together 16 years, we have kids, that's it we are getting married." I actually don't think you are listening because your girlfriend said she's not sure if she wants to get married. It's you who is pushing. Don't push because she is not 100% sure about this. Even financially why do you want to pay for this wedding if you might just break up later? You need both people for the wedding and she doesn't know if she wants it. You said yourself, she's just going along with everything and it was you organising it all. You are pushing all this by yourself.

[Wiseman2]

5 hours ago, A***aNoIppo said:

.She said today that she does not want to leave me but I feel she puts me in a situation where I should leave her.

You have 16 years together and 2 children. This isn't about dancing. Please find a way to negotiate getting married whether it's a wedding or just a legal ceremony. 

[boltnrun]

If you two get married and end up divorcing would she still get this financial benefit?