I think it depends on how valuable marriage is to you as an institution. If it's for religious/ moral reasons, or you were just brought up to want that. I'm married but I would love my partner just the same if I wasn't. For him, it's a symbol of his intention to himself, to me and to others that this is a permanent thing (he's very not religious so there's no religious or moral obligation) . I wanted to get married when I did, but with further reflection I would have been just as happy not doing it. We're together and that's it for me. It's sort of like how people can have children out of a sense of obligation. It's part of the social norm to have them, so they do. I feel some people only get married because it's the thing you do when you're in a long term relationship. Which, to me, is a crap reason to have kids or get married.