Flash back to somewhere in the noughties. I’m 32, and attending my fifth wedding of the summer. It’s yet another lavish affair – a hog roast, marquee with live band, and 200 guests in the grounds of an impressive stately home in Sussex. When I reflect on attending so many weddings back then (I’m now 52), it feels bizarre that I never considered taking the plunge myself. I had (and still have) a long-term partner – Paul.
It wasn’t that I was against marriage, just that I had this vague suspicion that it wasn’t right for me. Both my parents had divorced, and it had tainted marriage somewhat. I also associated divorce with a lengthy, difficult process – something that was stressful, involving hard financial conversations (this was from what I’d seen from my parents’ divorce).
Then there are the wedding horror stories: I remember when I was in my late twenties, going to a wedding where a huge drama arose because the food for the evening guests ran out. I wouldn’t worry about that kind of thing now, but back then, the bride was gutted when people complained.
I thought that living together was easier; that if one of us got fed up with the arrangement, they’d just take off with a rucksack. “No drama! It’s been fun.” Naive, I know.
I also grew up during the second wave of feminism, which was very much about women being independent, trying to have it all (I now tell younger women not to bother; life is always about compromise), and not conforming to society’s expectations. I was given the name Anniki because my Dad liked the way it sounded like “anarchy”, which tells you a lot about me.
I was, in fact, the opposite of rebellious, with a steady, often tedious job in market research and a small house in West London. As time flew past, two daughters arrived, and the idea of marriage seemed increasingly quaint. Why mess with a good thing? Paul and I had slept in the same bed for longer than we’d grown up in our respective family homes. We got on well, and we weren’t living in an episode of Bridgerton, so why not just happily cohabitate?
Sometimes our daughters would ask us if we were ever planning to get married. We’d shrug. We’d passed the stage of wanting a big showy wedding, and some people were starting to get divorced. Why not just continue as we were?
Then a couple that we knew well, also cohabiting with kids, suddenly got married. I’d been relatively green in terms of the financial ramifications of not being married, but it suddenly made me reflect: we are getting on a bit, and we now have two young dependents. I started doing some research.
One of the key advantages if you’re married is that you can leave assets to one another, free of inheritance tax. (I’d always been the main earner, and we still have separate bank accounts. I had always wanted to be financially independent, despite Paul and I sharing a lot of the household expenses). But if you aren’t married, and one of you dies, your partner doesn’t necessarily have the right to remain in the property (this was something I hadn’t realised). Plus, if there’s a medical emergency, it’s easier to be appointed next of kin if you’re married, whereas unmarried partners might be excluded.
On top of this, many workplace and state pension schemes pass survivor benefits to a spouse, but not to an unmarried partner. I felt like I was having a sudden midlife why-aren’t-we-married wake-up call. How had I not been aware of all this stuff? Was this why I was now seeing people in their fifties sharing social media posts about getting married? Was it a good idea to get married for financial reasons? Didn’t it feel a bit…well, unromantic?
Some of you reading this may be thinking that Paul and I don’t get on, and that’s why we’ve bottled it on the marriage front. And of course, like many long-term couples, we’ve struggled at times. We went through a particularly bleak patch last year (fuelled by my menopause, stressful work situations, the cost of living, and raising two kids). There is and was still a part of me that thinks that marriage might jinx us, might make us feel trapped. This is ridiculous, I know.
But when our cohabiting friends got married, the ones with kids, I started to get a bit carried away. I never thought I was interested in weddings, but suddenly I was! I started sending Pinterest mood boards with bridal outfits to my friend. I got excited on her behalf. I couldn’t help but feel this midlife marriage thang was sort of sweet. Wasn’t it more romantic to marry someone that you’d been through all the ups and downs of life with? Who had seen you at your best and your worst? And wasn’t it appealing to stage a small, fun wedding without all the pressure that you might feel if you were younger and more impressionable?
And now, at the age of 52, I’m finally leaning into this notion of marriage. And not just for financial reasons. I’d like to celebrate surviving all the difficult years and still being able to make one another laugh. It’s working together on something. The realisation that we’re probably better together than we are on our own.
I might just revisit that “midlife marriage” Pinterest board I made for my friend. It might finally be time to wear the one dress in my wardrobe that has always felt too OTT, but might work perfectly in a registry office setting.
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