Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Two days, two weddings..

Alistair that is a very good point about making it together through the children barrier, it certainly ramps up the pressures.

Thankfully it's a different world now and when we got married 47 years ago it was looked down on having children out of wedlock which does seem quite a heathen judgement by todays standards.

'Heathen judgement' .... at the risk of being contentuous I would guess it was likely the opposite!!


K

OK - judgement

Rich, like you and Heather, Lynne and I have been hitched for 47 years but then we didn't know any better !!!!! We were so young when we did the deed, I sometimes wonder if we really thought about the whole thing at the time, you know, going from nights down the pub with your mates to counting the pennies to pay the mortgage.
Those were the days with inflation at 15% but I still get annoyed by the silly people who get together, get a house then a dog, holidays in the worlds hot spots then, to complete the pack have some children. After a couple of years, a divorce then we start to read about "single parents" for whom we the tax payers have to pick up the bills.
Sorry, a bit of a rant I know but if so many of us did it the correct way, why has it changed so much?

Remember that it wasn't very many years ago that a woman had practically no rights at all in a marriage, all her assets were considered to be chattels of her husband. Economic, emotional, and physical abuse was just as widespread if not more so than it is today. I suspect that many people were stuck in unhappy marriages through social and economic pressures, whereas these days people are less willing do put up with such.

I'm not sure it's entirely fair to say that tax payers have to pick up the bill for single parents, the vast majority of them are in work. One could equally say that tax payer's money is going as a subsidy to employers to save them from having to pay their workers a decent wage.

Reg, we are definitely on the same page, we had known each other for three years and couldn't imagine living apart and nothing has changed there so we are very lucky, as you are.
A cause for celebration, I'll raise a glass to you and Lynne tonight.

Tim, I completely agree with you about the "In work benefits". Why should tax payers be subsidizing workers because employers don't pay a decent wage. It seems all wrong to me but perhaps it's got something to do with the fact that we all want to pay as little as possible for the things we want to buy.

43 years ago Caroline and I got married because of the financial and social benefits.

1. Married man's tax benefit
2. Tax relief on the mortgage
3 Wedding presents
4. Happy parents

The piece of paper was utterly unimportant to us: 9 years later we had kids. We are still as happy, possibly happier than we were at the beginning.

Would we have got the piece of paper today? There are no financial benefits, other than the tax free transfer of assets to the other party on death. So probably not.
We are seeing some of our friends, who have lived together for years, marry simply because of advancing years and inheritance tax benefits.

You old romantic.

I got divorced for similar reasons actually.

It has been said that Marriage is like Russian Roulette.
I'm not sure I disagree.
We have been lucky.