How do you know it's the right time to get married?

[hazelline]

I've been finding it really hard to articulate what I'm worrying about but here goes... I'm moving in with my boyfriend for the summer, and there's a good chance he's planning to propose. We love each other, are committed to each other, and make each other happy - I'm not questioning if he's the right guy for me. My only niggle is the thought that

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[scien]

I know a few couples who got engaged/married in similar situations to you. That is, it was a case of get married, or return to a transatlantic visits thing. The results of engagements made under this kind of pressure in the small and biased sample of my friendship group can be summarised as 'mixed'.

From what I've seen, this is a really hard position to be in. It sounds like if you could just stay in a relationship without getting married right now, you probably would. So the visa admin is a big part of why you're getting married. But it's not just a piece of paper legal formality type thing either, you do actually want to get *married*, with presumably a wedding and all that jazz. This is a super tricky line to walk.

One big thing to discuss with your boyfriend is what your marriage will mean to you given it's been partly forced on you by circumstances - and also how that works with the social context you're in. One thing a few people have said to me is that even though they saw their marriages one way (for example, as a legal necessity required for them to stay together, and not a change in their relationship status. Or, a public declaration of their love and commitment, but not a signing up to Official Gender Roles And Stereotypes Monthly) that didn't stop people around them from seeing it as a Standard Marriage. Are you comfortable with that, and the expectations people will have of you, or does it make you feel squeamish? Most of my engaged/married friends have said that at one point or another it was a bit of a shock just how much it changed in their relationship that they didn't expect, even though they'd talked about it and thought they and their partner and everyone else in their life were on the same page about what was going on.

So basically, my advice is: have a really good idea of what it is you're trying to get into. Make sure you and your boyfriend are on the same page about what this would mean. Seriously explore your other options for staying together so that this is a rationally made choice and not just the thing that seemed simplest (or most romantic!).

Good luck! It's awful that stuff like this gets in the way of two people in love... I'm slightly dreading it ever coming to that with my girlfriend, who is American. Luckily the decision is years away right now :)

[hazelline]

Thank you so much for your response, you make some excellent points.

We've had some discussion about what it means to get married with the visa stuff hanging over us. I think he actually does feel ready to make that commitment, and so to him the visa is not the reason why. It's not the number 1 reason for me either, but I think, as you say, I would be happy just to live together for awhile first. I'm hoping that this summer will put me more at ease.

We've been planning on legally getting married/doing paperwork way before announcing anything or having a wedding (I don't want to plan one during grad school!). But I'm just going to tell everyone that we are engaged and not the finer points about visa status. It's not that I have a problem with getting married and celebrating it later but I feel like I will go crazy if curious friends keep asking me why we got married without a wedding.

After writing this post, I had an important realization. Part of what is making me have misgivings is the fact that I can't confide in many people about this. I'm in a transitory position where I'm not in big contact with friends at home, but the friends I have here have only been in my life since last summer. I guess I had an image of my engagement/wedding as being at a time when I was more settled, and when we had a life together already with mutual friends, families having met each other. Being from 2 different places has complicated all that and so I'm trying to work through those emotions too.

Thanks again for your help and I'm definitely going to keep working through it. Good luck to you and your girlfriend too! For what it's worth, I think getting a UK visa is not quite as horrendous as getting a US one, but I could be wrong.