^ wss.

I understand what you are saying, I want to get married as well - I'm even engaged. I think marriage is something special and I will love to be married to the man I love. It's just that I don't really mind if children are raised in a home with one or more parents, same sex or not, are raised by grandparents or uncles or by foster parents, as long as it's a good loving home.
Maybe my views are different because brazilian law is very good in this aspect, long-term partners have the same rights as married couples. Except some minor things with inheritance, but it's really not much. Here the children also are very protected, they always have the right to inherit, don't even need to be named in a testament.
Ok, just my point of view!

Thats exactly what I meant .

When I was younger I did feel that marriage was "just a piece of paper", but I was young and naive, and not in love with anyone when I felt that way. Now that I am with my DH and we are married it has changed my views on a lot of things, marriage being one of them.

I have changed for the better as a person, and feel now that marriage is a huge commitment and that I wouldn't have it any other way. My views are not that of some others, but to each their own

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This is something I am struggling with myself. My partner and I will be together 6 years in January. I feel in my heart that a piece of paper will not change my undying love for him, I also know the feelings are mutual.

We are in a good place right now, I feel we are ready and he does too. We both want to conceive. Our families support us 100% to have a baby and then get married. Our plan is to conceive and continue to plan a wedding for soon after.

I however can't stop thinking of the social stigma of having our child without being married. I am not religious in the "Christian" sense. I follow a pagan path and I'm not usually the type of person who worries about that sort of thing either. I was the girl in high school with pink hair for goodness sake, and yet at 24 going on 25 years old in December I worry about what people think? It's so out of character for me and yet I feel it big time.

I work at a Preschool and one of my biggest fears is one of my students parents asking if the baby was a "surprise" a nice way of saying an "oops" baby. I feel like I would get a negative reaction from them or coworkers by telling them no we absolutely planned this. It's a very difficult situation to be in. We live in 2011 not 1950, things are different. And I do know that I refuse to put my whole life on hold to do things the right way... I just don't like the idea of feeling bad in any way about our decision to make a family. It makes me sad to think we will most definitely be dealing with that.

Ah I say sod 'em. As long as the baby is loved it doesn't matter if you're married or not! For some, marriage doesn't last anyway and then the divorce process is even worse. But hey I may be biased as my parents divorced when I was 4 and I turned out alright. I think xx

I think that if you feel like this deep down then maybe you should talk to you partner about it? Is there a particular reason you have both decided to have a baby before getting married? You could talk about having a small ceremony and then later down the line after having children have a big party or renew your vows? I know exactly what you mean though, the social stigma is still there unfortunately in the backs of minds.

My parents were married before I was born, but for me personally marriage means nothing, its so easily thrown about and ended nowadays that it isn't really what it used to be.

I'm a single mum but thankfully never married their Dad, so when he left me I wouldn't also have to get a divorce!

I find the 'my children will be brought up with good morals if I'm married' malarky a bit offensive to be honest! There are all types of family groups out there, just because you have a piece of paper saying your 'married' it doesn't mean your child will have any better 'Morals' than anyone else

I'm not sure who you are referring to in this post but if you meant me then I am sorry if I offended you. I actually didn't say anything about morals at all, I pointed out that my parents being married influenced my own decision to be married first (as many others have said) and if I had a daughter then I would want her to have the same example.

Oh I just went back through the posts and saw that 'cinnamum' said something about morals. So I guess that's what you were referring to.