One of my personal rules is that Sims get engaged/married only if (at least) one of the couple rolls the wish: the result is that the vast majority of them remain unmarried. As a rule, "love Sims" fear marriage more than death (though I did encounter some exceptions), but "family Sims" don't seem to be very interested in it either (though they mostly want to have children). As far as I noticed, the "knowledge+family" combo is the most likely to get married.

Are your Sims different? And do you get them married, no matter what, or not?

I usually get them at least engaged if one or both of them roll a want to get engaged-however, I also look at the fears panel, and if it says, "be rejected for engagement" that's a sign to get them engaged.

Most of the time they do get married, but if there's any cheating done by either party, the engagement is off! Romance pixels don't like the idea of marriage in theory, and they'll throw the 'OMG my life is over, I"m getting married, and I am so stupid" but they do get used to it, and they do take care of their children very well, surprisingly.

I've seen that in my game-typical Romance sim got married (he didn't want to) but he's been pretty darn faithful to his wife and he loves his kids. I think they're only sometimes half convinced of staying single.

Maybe you don't date your sims enough. My unmarried sims roll marriage wants all the time, especially on dates, and including Romance sims - who are prone to suddenly filling up their wants panel with "get married/engaged to" wants for sims other than the one they're on a date with! My rule of thumb is that a Romance sim who has a want to marry/get engaged to the sim they're with, with no corresponding fear, they do it, and the chips fall where they may. Engaged Popularity sims are a little more likely to roll a want to throw a wedding party than to marry a particular sim, but I take it as read that they want to marry their fiancee.

In both cases I lock the want unless I have a reason not to, so they'll get the proper aspiration boost when it happens.

It's very easy to get them to roll wants to get married on dates. I also have that rule, and the vast majority of my non-Romance sims get married, and some Romance sims even get married.

I haven't seen the want to throw a wedding party in a long time! Good reminder for that one. I can't say I have too much trouble getting sims to roll wants to get married. As Peni mentioned, a date usually does the trick if they aren't rolling wants on their own.

You know, thinking back, I did have this problem with Kaylynn Langerak; she wasn't rolling the want, even after several dates. Another simmer suggested that it could be chemistry or that she was flagged as in a relationship with someone else. I find both of these to be true, especially if you use a mod like No Instant Love. With that in my game, sims with low chemistry for each other tend not to roll the Get Engaged/Married wants--and they shouldn't. That's part of what the mod does, but a pain if you want certain sims with low chemistry to get married for story reasons. But in the case of Kaylynn specifically, after I used the batbox to nuke attraction flags, she did roll a want to get engaged to someone. So you can try that if you think it's a bug in your game.

More generally, though, my Family sims do tend to roll wants to fall in love and get married, especially when their aspiration is low and when they start to get older. It's a little noticed feature that I love. Try keeping your Family sims' aspirations low (green or below) for a while, and they'll soon roll up the big wants--Go Steady, Fall in Love, Get Married, Have a Baby. I've also seen it happen if the sim isn't in a relationship at all--like if there's no prospects in sight, and they aren't in love with, or have crushes on, anyone. Family sims definitely notice when that happens and they'll start to tell you they want to get married. At that point, I've seen some roll wants to marry the first sim they get a crush on, chemistry be damned. Sometimes Family Sims seem just desperate to be in a relationship. Anyway, if Family sims aren't rolling any wants to get married, I'd say all you have to do is wait. Oh, and when they are close to aging up to Elder, they not only start rolling those wants, but also start rolling the fears of Being Old and Unmarried or Being Old and Childless. This happens a lot to my Family sims that are married to someone older who died before they aged up, or sims whose spouse died unexpectedly. They tend to roll wants to get married asap if they are close to aging up. Not sure at what days they roll those, but it's definitely a thing.

Another thing you can try is using a mod to set gender preferences for the whole neighborhood. ACR can do it if you have that, but the Sim Blender can too. I find that once sims' gender preferences are set and they start finding other sims attractive, they are more likely to make romantic interactions, and then more likely to roll romance-related wants. So you'll see your Family Sims start to roll wants to get married. Most other sims need a date to reliably roll a want to get engaged, but it can happen without one. Just isn't very consistent for non-Family sims, imo. But Fortune sims do roll the want to Marry A Rich Sim and occasionally even roll the want to Have a Baby. Not sure what the trigger is for those, but I know Dina often rolls those wants within the first few days at her household. I usually have to lock that Have A Baby want, too, because it's so rare. Oh--you know want, sometimes Fortune Sims (and maybe Popularity sims???) will roll a want to Have A Baby right after they get married, but it's usually a one time only thing and you won't see it again.

So I guess want triggers for each aspiration is a little different, and each aspiration may focus on different aspects of the event. Family sims are more likely to roll the generic wants, without any specific person attached. Popularity sims tend to roll the wants for the parties, like Peni mentioned. And I bet if a sim is poor enough, you'd start seeing Fortune Sims roll wants for marriage too.

Fortune and Knowledge sims in love will roll wants to marry the loved one, especially if they only have one. All Fortune sims roll the "marry a rich sim" want as soon as they reach adulthood, in my experience, but only once, and it soon rolls away if you don't lock it. As long as their own wants to make money are met, it's as easy for them to marry a poor sim as a rich one.

This must be the reason. Did I propose on the first date? No - though I did not propose until we were living together for a while either and the reason was political.

A lot of the time my Sims will get wants to get engaged/marry on dates. Also my newly grown up YA Sim rolled the want to get engaged the minute she interacted with the Sim she had gone steady with as a teen after I moved them into the same dorm, the fact they have three bolts also may have something to do with it.

Some of my sims never roll that get married want. No matter how much a try. But if they roll to get engaged I marry them and if they get pregnant they get married. Well except for romance sims who do not have the helpless romantic trait. Also sims who have the fear commitment trait unless they roll a want. I much prefer my sims to be married, keeps last names of all the kids tidy.
I want to get the autonomous engagement but I have noticed sims have not been autonomously going steady anymore, so I need to find out what is stopping that as they use to do so often.

Not everyone marries if they are not a family aspirant. Maybe they don't believe in church and state or have seen arguments between other married couples. They may live together and maybe are in committed relationship (steady).

Anecdotal, not hard data: I have observed that Sims tend to roll the want to get engaged right after falling in love, and it seems to happen more for young adults or new adults. If they don't roll it, going on a date usually will get them to tell me who they prefer.

Here's an example from recent gameplay. Solomon Burb just graduated. He had been going with Rey Curious since they were teens, and I wanted them to get married because he was the only Burb I had to pass on the name to the next generation. But he didn't have the want, so I sent him on a date with Rey to see if he would roll it. During the date, she rolled the want to marry him, but he didn't roll the want to marry her, and I noticed he had only one bolt with her but two bolts with another girl they went to college with. So I decided to have him break up with Rey (ask to just be friends) and ask the other girl on a date, interpreting it as him wanting to date for a while and choose his life partner that way. During that date, he rolled the want to fall back in love with Rey. Then Rey showed up on the community lot coincidentally. So he ended his current date, asked Rey out on a date, fell in love right away and rolled the want to get engaged right off the bat.

The long and the short of it is: I think going on dates is the best way to get them to tell you what and who they want. And I enjoy the storytelling aspect of it. Also, falling in love (again) may trigger the want if it wasn't rolled before.

There are times when I will have them get married just because they're in love and I need them to even if they don't have the want--for instance, I need the name to be passed down. If they don't seem like the type, though--like Don and Nina--I just have them live together and consider them to be in a committed relationship even if they aren't married.

Oh, Buck Grunt was family aspiration and never rolled the want to get married despite being in a relationship with Jill. He did roll the want to have a baby, so I had him get alien pregnant, and then he never rolled that want again either. Sometimes the aspirations aren't predictable.

On a similar note: some sims seem to be attracted to lots of others, and lots of others are attracted to them. I know sims don't care about skin color, or attractive - but I often want red heads to marry red heads. But even if I've set those to be "attractive" they sometimes don't like the people I want to set them up with. And some sims I really like don't like anyone, and no one loves them! So out of desperation I call the Match Maker - who is just as likely to give my sweet pretty blond a creepy old man!

to add to grammapat above, i was supposed to set up all of my batch 1 founder/pioneer sims with batch 2 but some of them are not interested in partnering up at all!
then one of em died from overheating and their friend saved them from the grimreaper and that turned to a whole new romance I did not expect.
sometimes I just leave them be and see who they choose on their own
and if they mutually roll the want several times, only then do I make it happen :3

My Sims don't need a matchmaker for that. I've been playing Pitchfork for quite a while and whoever made it created a lot of attractive elderly NPCs. It does not matter whether a Sim grows up or I make a new one, it does not matter what color or character or sign they are, there is always an elderly man waiting for them. Sometimes my Sims find an alternative and sometimes not; if not, they always get married (I guess elderly men are old-fashioned) and the marriage always works great - until the man dies. So now I have more widows with young children than in all of my previous games combined, and while they don't mind a fling or two, none of them wants to get married again.

[QUOTE=pico22]My Sims don't need a matchmaker for that. I've been playing Pitchfork for quite a while and whoever made it created a lot of attractive elderly NPCs. It does not matter whether a Sim grows up or I make a new one, it does not matter what color or character or sign they are, there is always an elderly man waiting for themQUOTE]

Well, that's the last thing I would want. And I've tried changing their turn ons; so I make an elderly woman LIKE grey hair... she could still get a young man. Likewise, could change a young woman to dislike grey - but she could still get an old man.
which brings up so new things to post..

Unless you use a mod to remove zodiac, that is one of the biggest parts of the chemistry system. That and aspiration. To make a match out of any sim you may need to change zodiac, aspiration and turn ons. All which can be done in game. Zodiac attraction is long gone in my game as I feel life goals (AKA aspiration) is the main thing. Turn ons are something I change as sims age/depending who they pair up with. If a sim cooks well I feel like their partner will come to appreciate that even if as a teen they were more shallow and had say make up as a top priority.
But yes, you can make any sim like another sim with a few tweaks.

I know people are very much into the organic, I want them to choose play style. Far more than me, although I enjoy some of that too. But if nobody likes anybody I figure I was the one who made a mistake in creating them incorrectly so I am the one to fix it.

My game is guided by Sims' wants (I like to keep them happy), but not controlled by them. Sometimes my Sims get married because it's what I feel they would do. As you probably know, I've had a couple of teen marriages in my game, and, as I don't have a "teens have adult wants mod", they never have in-game wants to be married. So I have to use other ways to decide that they "want" to be married. Actually the two teenage weddings I've done so far were both gay weddings, but I don't suppose that will come as any surprise to you. The first one was between the two founders of the island colony of New Desconia, Desmond and Cony, both of them Romance teens. They were and are genuinely in love with each other, but fidelity is not part of their definition of love. They continued to have other relationships after their marriage, just as they had before. In fact the master bedroom in their home "Abode de l'Amour" has two double beds, so they can "entertain their friends". Exactly why they chose to marry? Partly kudos I think -- as founders of the colony (it's named after them), they make the rules. I suppose it gives them a certain status.

More complex is the case of Andrew and Julian. They got married after a very long courtship, and I felt I knew them well enough to know their inner thinking. Since I've known him since day one of my game, now nearly eleven years ago, I feel I know Andrew better than any other Sim in my game. Over the years I've noticed a tension in his personality between a very strong love and respect for his mum Gloria, who is Romance, very outgoing, and, by inclination at least, sexually liberated. She enjoys almost daily woohoo, and encourages Andrew to do the same. Andrew (Knowledge) has a serious and thoughtful side to him. Some of his attitudes are progressive. Others are more conservative. He is openly gay and makes no attempt to hide it. It's one of the things I like about Veronaville, and about the Sims world in general. Boys like Andrew can kiss each other in public, and no one even raises an eyebrow. Andrew has been in a gay relationship with Julian, who is arguably the most beautiful boy in the town, for years. Julian is even more openly gay than Andrew. With his fine-featured face, Julian always goes topless, even to school. He wears very little below the waist either. Andrew finds him irresistible and knows he's lucky to have him. Andrew and Julian would constantly kiss, cuddle and make out together. At night they'd change into skimpy briefs and sleep together in a double bed. But they didn't woohoo because Andrew felt it would be wrong. For several years Andrew said they should wait till they knew each better. When that no longer worked for Julian, Andrew changed it to, "We should wait till we're married."

After years of going steady, Julian was finding this hard. Within the local gay teen community, there were many Romance boys, who would woohoo on a first date, or even before. Now I think Andrew may be a Christian. He's certainly a regular church-goer, being at St. Simeon's Parish Church every Sunday morning. He takes Julian and Garry with him, but whether they'd go without Andrew, I'm not sure. Eventually though, the boys got into conversation after church with their Rector, the Rev. Elspeth Anderson. She assured them she'd be happy to marry them in church, if that was what they wanted. By now even Andrew was finding it hard to hold back in bed, so he agreed. He also persuaded his mum and Garry to marry in church, and turn it into a double wedding. As Andrew pointed out, Gloria and Garry had been faithful to each other for years, so why not marry?

So the double church wedding went ahead -- possibly the biggest social event in my whole game. The ceremony in church was followed by a big party at home. One of the features of the day, was Julian removing more and more of his already skimpy wedding outfit as the day wore on, till by bedtime, only the tiny fancy briefs were left. Julian claimed the right to get married in virginal white. "Of course I'm a virgin," he quipped. "I'm Andrew's boyfriend!". Gloria also married in white, but made no such claim!!

So the boys were happily married until Julian and Andrew put the cat among the pigeons last year, by both simultaneously falling in love with Jack Gill, who is one of the most promiscuous Romance Sims in my game. They then told me to get a "no jealousy at all" mod, to make their three- and four-way relationship possible. And I of course agreed, because frankly, I'm putty in their hands!

They're still happily married. But it's an "open marriage" now.

oooohh!! may I know how I remove zodiac please?
I thought only aspirations and turn on/turn off affect attraction, not zodiac included. cos even in IRL you can't really partner well with someone with the same zodiac, not in theory at least (my house is 100% all earth signs and we...we're exhausted cos all of us are workaholic perfectionists, we need a jolly bloke or something!)

also I only know how to change turn on and turn offs with teenagers potion and university junior year? thing. (which I ...did not touch cos I didn't think it was important until all my sims said they're not interested :C )
I don't know how to change turn on and turn offs as an adult OTL

tips/help would be appreciated <3

Cyjon's study of chemistry (http://www.cyjon.net/node/86 ) runs all the attraction numbers for you, in order to maximize the vanilla mechanics for your own purposes. A lot of people find that the turn-ons/offs don't matter much, but it's a matter of playstyle. I have a rule connecting erotic wants to physiological states, and if there's no woohoo want I don't direct the action, and I have found that even crazy-in-love couples don't tend to roll the higher erotic wants without at least one turn-on on the table. YMMV, and of course with ACR the wants don't matter in that way. I believe there are mods to change how zodiac signs work on this site.

You can keep the teen potion till you need it. I believe turn-ons are one of the things the Ren-U orb aspiration reward can change. And of course you can always use an editing tool like SimPE.

OH! lemme check Ren-U orb. I used that before but it was so long ago I forgot what all it can do
Thank you so much

It's pretty easy to trigger the woohoo want regardless of turn-ons. Any date is guaranteed to generate them, if the sims have a high enough relationship, and you can reliably generate them outside of dates via the flirt -> make out -> woohoo tree. You can usually trigger the initial flirt want by having them do the check sim out interaction, although sometimes they refuse to roll anything useful. Pretty much guaranteed in Spring, though.

Ernest was fixated on Sage Ann but could not get onto the woohoo tree until I put earrings on her to match his turn on. It's true that after that I took care that any couple that seemed determined to match themselves had compatible turn-ons so I wouldn't have any more sims with ED, so that might have been a fluke.

This part of this reply got me thinking, maybe some Sims don't see any benefit/drawback to getting married. Mainly because this topic reminded me of a couple in my game that just seem perfect for each other, even moved in to their own house together, but neither have rolled get engaged and/or get married.

I was originally going to reply about this couple and how they might just 'live together' long-term or "permanently", but maybe they don't expect or want a mood boost for making a relationship they're already in "official". Or maybe I'm wrong and they're secretly plotting an escape from each other.

I remember- we all sent your sims a wedding card!
https://modthesims.info/showthread....057#post5693057

@simsample Thanks for the reminder! That means their anniversary is coming up on Sunday. I'll have to do something about that! And of course Thanksgiving is coming up too. Veronaville celebrates Thanksgiving on 30th November, which I think means it will be a week after our American friends this year.

Well, there's one reason to get married -- if you don't get married, you don't have any anniversaries!