To not understand why people get married?

Anyone getting married because they think it will prevent cheating is a fool. But I'm not sure anyone does do it because of that do they?

Next of kin
Inheritance
Financial security should we seperate.

In our case, we married when we had two DCs, and one more planned, and I was a full time mum with zero income, career on hold while his was flying.

In addition to the inheritance tax/next-of-kin/legal protection reasons mentioned above.....at the time DH was working for quite a conservative company, and if he were to die the pension benefits were only payable to a spouse, not an unmarried partner. It all added up to a pointless risk to put myself and the DCs in, just for the sake of a marriage certificate. The pendulum swung from "why bother to get married?" to "why would we NOT get married?"

That was 22 years ago, still together, still alive....and I sincerely hope the pension scheme have joined the 21st century for anyone who came after us.

Do you travel abroad? LPOA may not be of use internationally.

• Children - even if woman is higher earner pre-pregnancy, and intends to return straight to work, has generous Mat leave package, pregnancy and giving birth can have serious long and short term health impact if unlucky.
• Inheritance tax
• next of kin without expensive POAs

Ha, we had a really small wedding with me 8 months pregnant so nothing to show off. Our first DS was 3 y old. I have never wanted to marry but I wanted to have the same surname as my children so there you go for a reason...

Call me old fashioned buy plain love often is the cause. Mine had a sprinkling of religion too 😁😁

My long divorced parents who are back together are remarrying for inheritance reasons.

I married DH because I wanted to, no showy wedding though- we eloped.
Financially he gains but I wanted to be married before we had a child.

It’s not right or necessary for everyone though.

Apart from all the love stuff, marriage is a legally binding contract that offers security that co habiting can't as well as tax incentives, automatically next of kin etc etc. It solidifies a romantic arrangement into a legal/business type arrangement recognised in law.

Personally I don't understand why anyone would have children with someone without being married, but each to her own.

If you earn same and same pension it’s unusual. In lots of couples the woman has had a gap to child rear and then worked pt decimating her pension. Married couple divorce she has a right to his pension splitting. Unmarried split no right to pension. Pensions can be extremely valuable worth more than house. No issue for you if yours is enough to support you in old age.

Love,hopefully.Thats why we did anyway.

Marriage is for when things go wrong. In theory it makes things a lot easier when you separate, one of you dies, there are children involved etc.

The person who mentioned above about having Wills, POA etc. It basically just acts as one overarching contract to negate the need for all of those other contracts. And if you're religious throw in some fire, brimstone and eternal damnation if one of you cheats.

Divorce can also be cheap if you're both grown up about it and act in the best interests of your children.

Something else to consider is that without legal marriage/civil partnership you are not next of kin to each other in the event of death or serious illness.

All these reasons! Plus some people (definitely not all) may have social or religious reasons for wanting to acquire marital status.

It's not necessary to get married in order to change your name and title. It's perfectly legal to change your name by deed so I would never consider that to be a good reason. (In any event I'm married and still go by Miss Birthname.)

Marriage is about the legal protections. For a couple with no assets or children, it is the cheapest way to put in on ace those things you already have. With prior assets or children when getting married you would power of attorney and wills to be checked again.

What a waste of money and show to the world

My wedding was the chance for all my favourite people to be in one room at the same time. They all came to wish me the very best for my life. Even if we divorce, knowing all my loved ones wished the best for me and will still be there to support me meant a lot. Within 2 years of getting married we’d lost quite a few family members. Our wedding photos are the last photos we have of most of them and they look so happy. One of my relatives died very shortly after our wedding and they had an absolute ball at our wedding, it means a lot to know they had the best time before they died and their last few months weren’t just pain. Our wedding cost about £10-12K but it was worth it to celebrate with those we love the most.

If you think £25K is too much, then look for a cheaper wedding venue. Marriage is about compromise so it’s not just your partner finding a place he likes and that’s the end of discussion. If you get married, both of you need to be happy with the budget.

Well marriage is a legally binding contract.
It annoys me when people says it's only a bit of paper so is my job contract, the deeds to my house my birth certificate and my degree certificate but they all mean something.

I had a really inexpensive wedding. My friend's and family all mucked in to give us a great day.
We became each other's next of kin.
I've been married for decades and lived with him before. Marriage gave me a feeling of completeness, as if me, him and the boys were a unit. Of course it would be the same if we weren't married and many people are happy the way they are, but it suits me.

For many people marriage offers legal protection , it likely doesn’t apply in your case @Mummyto4WM as you and your partner have set things up to legally protect each other and are equals which is just not the case in many relationships . Weddings don’t have to be expensive and if you are living together and already have children to me it’s a waste of money spending 000s on a wedding as the money would be better spent in a savings account for your children .

My wedding cost £50 (cheapest room at the registry office and then dinner with everyone paying their own way).

However now I'm on the path to divorce and as the breadwinner my husband has already said he'll 'take me for everything I have'. No kids, he just chooses to work part time.

Stupid decision on my part.

Can't speak for anyone else but I got married purely for practical reasons, assuming that lots of things in life would be easier being married.

I'm not sure how many of those things we had in mind have actually ended up being easier. But it was worth the £150 at the register office just in case.

And since then DP has started a company which is now quite a big and growing concern. Being DP's next of kin has made a lot of legal things to do with the company much easier.

From an emotional perspective, being married means absolutely nothing to me. I don't wear a ring, I didn't change my name, I don't refer to DP as my "husband".

If you want IHT benefits and other protections then civil partnership route is open to you. No need to tell anyone just have certificate there same way as you have a will. It’s more popular with older couples. Cost under £200.
If you go abroad on holiday then I’d also think what if he died or got ill. On a practical level in England you are fine but it’s not case in every country and I can’t imagine anything worse than being denied access in hospital abroad or unable to sort paperwork to repatriate a body as you are only a girlfriend not family.

I don’t know, is marriage tax-advantaged in some ways? I’m thinking of mothers who take a career and pension hit while fathers build a big pot and move up in the world. It seems vulnerable to be unmarried in such situations.

This.

I'll add that you should strongly consider finances again if you agree to wed and make sure wills read accordingly.

And if he wants to get married and it's important to him, why not just make him happy if you're happy the finances work?

What specifically are you worried about there?.