I Don't

16 August 2006

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It's called tying the knot - but 'stringing them along' might be more suitable, if the findings of a new marriage study are anything to by.

Tens of thousands of people get married in the UK every year, but 12 per cent have 'serious misgivings' about the match as they are actually saying 'I do'.

A national survey of 3,000 married people by dating website www.milliondollarpeople.co.uk reveals that given the chance to go back in time, 17 per cent of folk wouldn't marry their spouse.

Nearly a third didn't marry for love - they wed for other reasons like wanting to have children, because they had bought a house together and through fear of being left on the shelf.

And a tiny minority even confessed that they only got hitched because they wanted the wedding presents and party.

The poll revealed that almost 20 per cent of married people had someone in their past they wished they had married instead.

A third said the person they married WASN'T the best sexual partner they have had and another third said that being single was more fun than being married.

The nationwide survey also found that Brits had an average of two serious partners before they met their husband or wife, although one in four had no previous serious partners.

Respondents slept with an average of four people before they met their marriage partner, though five per cent confessed to having 20 or more previous sexual partners.

Before finding their husband or wife, most people had been on an average of seven romantic dates, although 17 per cent had been on 20 or more dates looking for love.

One person who answered the survey said they had been on over 200 dates before finding their partner.

Fifteen per cent have lied to their husband or wife about their past love life. Seventeen per cent say they have decreased the number of people they have slept with, with two per cent saying they increased the number.

While searching for their marriage partner, 43 per cent went to bars or clubs looking for perspective partners while 22 per cent tried dates set up by friends. Twelve per cent went on blind dates while eight per cent hunted for love in the classified ads.

Over 55 per cent say that before they got married they spent more money on clothes, hoping to impress the opposite sex - and 60 per cent forked out more on socialising. Nine per cent of people said they stayed with their partner just because they couldn't be bothered to find someone new.

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