My partner won’t marry me

Look out for yourself financially.

Of course he doesn’t want to get married: he is a high earner, and would increase his liabilities if you marry and subsequently divorce.

I hope you are on the deeds of your house.

And have been saving into your pension.

And have not disadvantaged yourself to his benefit career wise while doing his share of childcare.

He doesn’t want to marry you, he’ll string you along until a better offer comes up, and he’ll probably marry the next one after 6 months.

Whose name does your DD have @Glibe33? I'll bet he convinced you to register his only, as you'll get married eventually.

Take some power back, add your name to your DD's name if she doesn't already have it. Start looking after your career and your finances.

It was a typo error from my previous post that I corrected

I'd agree with this, and obviously if you wanted to get married you should've done this before having a child.

You need to start your own thread.

but yes, you’re not in the best position if your relationship doesn’t work out. Work on getting savings if he doesn’t want to marry you.

Leave nothing to chance, you don’t know for sure if he’ll put you in his will and go back to work to boost your pension

Marriage is a financial contract. There is NOTHING romantic about it. He just doesn’t want to be on the hook financially for you going forward.

So don’t give up your career, do make sure that you pay into your pension. Do not take on all the childcare and let that impact your earnings and pension negatively. He must do 50% of all household chores and maintenance plus pay 50% of the childcare costs.

If he doesn’t want to be financially responsible for you then you must look after your own earnings and make sure that he pays 50% of all childcare costs so that you can work. At the very least.

I wouldn’t want to marry someone with whom my relationship was not exactly good at the moment with arguing and falling out etc., either. That view makes complete sense.

It would seem sensible to try working on the relationship to see if it can be improved before thinking seriously about marriage.

How was it that you got engaged if you aren't planning a wedding?

I agree with @Whitesapphire; fix your relationship if you want a marriage. A marriage IS the relationship, that's the point of it, you are committing to each other. Stop discussing marriage and start discussing how to love and care for each other. If he won't do that, then you have your answer.

If you want marriage and he doesn’t - move on. Don’t sink any more years with someone who’s on a different page, you’ll end up resenting him

You are already engaged so tell him that you want to be married by X date, and that if he doesn't then you will need to re-think your relationship. You have to mean it though.

He doesn't want to marry you. Can you live with that?

Firstly, do you want to marry someone with whom you dont have a great relationship?

gave up after two weeks as he didn’t like the therapist

You know this is bullshit right? He can ask for a change of therapist or look for one privately. He sounds like he is going to quibble for ever because he does not want to be married- because at the moment you have no protection or rights. So it depends if being with him regardless is better than the alternative. I would not want to be with someone who has so little respect for me, but it is not so easy when you have children.

You have no legal rights. Unless you are married, or unless your partner has made provision for you in his Will (which sounds unlikely), then if your partner died tomorrow, the executors could sell the house and evict you. The only potential fall-back is if your daughter were to inherit everything and were happy to keep the house and let you stay there. If she's cut out of the Will she could contest it under the Inheritance Act.

Might be an idea to return to work as a finance manager?

Sounds almost exactly like my ex..... Run like the wind and don't look back, you'll be much happier, I spent far too long with my ex and wish I'd left a lot sooner than I did.

Why would you buy the cow when the calf came for free ?

God, are people still trotting out that misogynistic load of old crap?

Are you able to contact a Citizen's Advice Bureau, to check on what your position would be if you were to leave him?

I'm annoyed on your behalf.

My late husband wasn't wealthy, but the very fact that we were married has helped me financially. When he died, I was entitled to - I think - a hundred pounds a month for the first 18 months because he had a state pension and I wasn't pension age when he died. I also got a percentage of his teaching pension - I get about 450 a month. It's been a big help.

I can't imagine why your partner is being so selfish.

My stepdaughter's partner was older than her. They didn't marry - they 'didn't expect him to die'. It meant that she had no entitlement to his work pension, but their daughter got it until she left education.

As granny always said when I was thinking about having kids with someone who hadn't proposed marriage....

Why would you buy the cow when the calf came for free ?...

I heeded that advice .. and married first. If he doesn't love you enough to marry you then he certainly doesn't love you enough to support you appropriately when you have birthed his children !

Caveat : unless of course you have an independent income he can't tough which will cover your loss of income and pension payments whilst raising/birthing your children... if you ARE in this fortunate position then HELL NO .. unless you really love him enough to lose half of it ..

23 years together but not married
so I have been with partner 23 years, we have a 19 y old daughter, she is at uni. He is well off. We live in a big property with land. I have horses. He has a good job. No mortgage. I don’t have to to contribute to household bills. I do have 2 horses which I have to fund and I work full time with horses to fund them. I earned decent money as a finance manager till about 6 years ago then quit that to follow my passion to work with horses which is obviously low paid, and since then have only really funded my hobby.
I have zero savings in my own right and am totally hand to mouth every month. I am 50 now and starting to worry about my future as I won’t be able to keep up this physical job into my 60’s.
My oh is very careful with money. Marriage has never been in the cards. i suggested we get married the other day to just secure my old age and he reacted very angrily. It was a no chance answer. End of discussion.
i now feel like I have no option other than to leave him but do you think I have any rights to his assets at all?
we were getting on just fine until I had this bright idea, now I know exactly where I stand and there seems no way back.
any advice?
j know hindsight is a wonderful thing

Leave

What's in it for him?

What's in it for you?

You want.

He does not want.

The only date you should really be considering is when to call it a day. And mean it.

This. You don’t really have any bargaining chips left now you’ve had a child.

I think you have to accept it’s gone to far and if he’s the higher earner why jeopardise his income now?

I haven't voted because I don't think you're being unreasonable but I think your parter may also be right... if you aren't getting on getting married won't fix it.