While marriage is considered an outdated institution by many, society still rewards those who decide to make their relationship official. Once you’re in a long-term loving relationship, you may consider the marriage license a worthless piece of paper, but it’s definitely more than that.
Find out more about the best 10 reasons to get married, reasons that have nothing to do with religion or traditions, but can have a big impact on your life as part of a couple.
1. Make the Ultimate Commitment
When you make a legal commitment to your partner, you’re truly beginning a new stage in your life. Even those who come from families where marriage didn’t end up as a good thing can benefit from a marriage license, if only to prove that a commitment can be done right.
2. Marriage Can Be Whatever You Want It to Be
Most people who hate marriage and ignore even the most reasonable reasons to get married forget the fact that they have the biggest say in what their own marriage can be. What you’re getting is a set of legal benefits, but the emotional part of the marriage is decided through compromise between you and your partner. Marriage doesn’t have to be monogamy or an institution of a patriarchal society, people made it that, but those people aren’t around to dictate to you and your loved one what your marriage is.
3. You’re More Likely to Work on Your Relationship
In many ways, marriage can become a safety net for both partners. At the very least, it’s a good way to ensure that you’ll spend more time trying to work out your couple issues before calling it quits. Since divorce isn’t instant or cheap, your marriage license can be the reason why you make a bigger effort to fix the issues in your relationship before simply throwing it away.
More: How to Fight Fair in a Relationship
4. Marriage Can Offer Financial Security
Tax breaks are definitely one of the best reasons to get married… when you’re in love. Even if you and your partner are perfectly happy in a committed relationship without the marriage license, the piece of paper gives both of you access to more benefits, from Social Security and Medicare to insurance benefits. When a spouse dies, the other will have access to retirement plan benefits and of course, spousal support is a good protection plan when one partner decides to take on the full financial responsibility and things end in divorce.
5. You’re Not Giving Anything Up
If you feel that marriage means giving up your freedom, you need to go back and read the part about marriage being what two married people want it to be. If your partner is demanding more than you want to give, marriage won’t improve or worsen the situation. Instead of thinking you lose the right to a quick breakup, you should realize that you’re gaining the chance to change your mind about ending your emotional partnership with a rash decision.
See also: How to Show Your Boyfriend You Love Him
6. Marriage Gives You Important Rights
If spousal rights were the only reasons to get married, it would still be worth it to make a legal commitment to the person you love. Married people have many rights that you may have never wanted to think about: visiting your spouse in a hospital when they’re sick or dying, making medical decisions and final arrangements for them. Without that “worthless” piece of paper, life and death decisions can be made by your partner’s family, even when they’re estranged or hate each other, because that’s the law.
7. Set a Good Example for Your Children
If you have children or plan on having them, marriage will allow you to show them that relationships are based on compromise and a real commitment that goes beyond cohabitation and love.
8. Marriage Extends Your Life
Did you know that married people live longer? That might be one of the most important reasons to get married, but it’s not exclusive to marriage. Nagging your loved one to go see a doctor at the first symptoms may end up extending their life, but medical benefits that spouses share also plays a part.
9. Bring All Your Friends and Family Together for a Milestone
If you still don’t believe the reasons to get married are enough, consider the fact that your wedding can be a magical moment when all the important people in your life are in one place, to celebrate your commitment to the person you love.
10. Feel Proud about Your Accomplishment
While the wedding is a relationship milestone, marriage also comes with a sense of emotional stability. Alongside the other reasons to get married, once you tie the knot you may feel like you’ve truly achieved something important in your life, something that matters to you, but also to everyone around you who will treat your spouse differently once you say those vows.
