Why get married?

You need to look at your circumstances. DHs work has a spouses pension as part of death in service for example, plus other benefits like accommodation.Its very unusual to cohabit instead of marrying in his line of work.

But it can be disadvantageous in other circumstances for example if you have children from a prior relationship and want to protect assets for them.

Again, you do not need to be married to have a say in healthcare decisions, nor do the wishes of blood relatives automatically override yours if you aren’t married.

You can only legally make decisions for someone who is medically incapacitated if you are their nominated power of attorney for heathcare. Otherwise the hospital will take family views into account but ultimately make a best interests decision on behalf of the patient.

You can nominate someone as your power of attorney without being married to them.

From someone who's a bit further down the line age wise and is in the thick of the divorce era, in the unmarried couples splitting up the women are getting spectacularly financially shafted, even more so than the married ones, and that's saying something.

I've been with my partner for 35 years.
We have adult children ( in my surname)
We have never married. ( I've never seen the need)
We own everything 50/50
Have matching wills
And for a couple of hundred quid, sorted out next of kin & power of attorney stuff if needed.
Get married if you want to.
If not just get everything legally sorted

That isn't true.

I've been consulted on medical decisions related to my father before I'd provided evidence of POA. Because somebody has to have those conversations and make those decisions. My father has a long term partner but they are unmarried and as such she has no rights whatsoever to be consulted on anything. Of course I wouldn't ever just leave her out, but I absolutely could.

Do you have good reasons not to marry? It's just a legal formality.

Many pp have mentioned the long list of financial and other advantages of getting married.
If you have a lot of time and money you could almost recreate some of these advantages with a mixture of of wills, putting partner as nominated beneficiary on pensions, creating legal documents with a solicitor etc etc.
But the far easier and cheaper way to benefit from all these advantages is to simply get married!

You aren't currently his next of kin and won't have the say if anything happens to him. and if he does ever sadly die don't assume you'll get everything automatically.
Once your children are over 18 they will
Inherit and could leave you out on the street.
If he leaves you you've no rights to anything.
It's a legal contract, I'm married for the second time. I like the title Mrs and wife but I also know I've a legal protection on the advice e

If you have a traditional setup in which one (usually the man) is the main earner and the second partner's (usually the woman's) career takes a back seat for childcare reasons (and in many cases never recovers), marriage is a legal contract that means family assets belong to both partners equally, thus providing financial security for the spouse who earns less or earns nothing but contributes in other ways. Arguably, raising children and taking responsibility for running a home is just as important to the family as income. Taking over these responsibilities has enabled my husband to develop his career in ways that would not have been possible otherwise (travel, etc).

That's not why we got married. We did it because we wanted to officially commit to each other for life and celebrate this big occasion with our loved ones. I only realised why it's important after we had children.

Because it isn't just pension and life insurance stuff.

If he ends up incapacitated you have no right to make decisions on his behalf as long as he has blood relatives.
If you don't own everything 50/50 and it be reflected as such on paper, you have no rights to it.
If he dies tomorrow and has individual finances you can't access them.
If one of you dies, the other has no right to inherit with a tax free allowance on top of standard IHT thresholds, which also has a knock on impact to your children.
And a tonne of other things. Marriage is a legal contract which makes your relationship recognised by the state.

Is this stuff not freely available information?

You get certain rights as a married couple - particularly if you break up - which you don’t get as an unmarried couple.

This is particularly relevant if you have children - did you take time off work for maternity leave? If so, was part of it unpaid, or statutory pay only? Were your pension contributions paused or reduced in that time?

Did either of you ever work part time in order to look after children, or give up opportunities for career advancement because they weren’t compatible with looking after children and / or your partner’s job?

Are you co-owners of your home? If not do you have a legal agreement in place covering what happens to the home if you split?

These questions are all indicative of scenarios which might arise in which you have better legal and financial protection if you’re married than if you’re not.

There are social / romantic / personal reasons for marrying too of course, but only you know if those apply to you. But I would encourage any woman with children to consider whether decisions made for your family have reduced your earning potential or actual income, because if so marriage can be an important form of protection.

It's hard to see the benefit when all is well, but life doesn't always run smoothly.
Inheritance tax is a good reason.
Being his next of kin, having a say in when to turn off his life support.
Imagine you become ill and unable to work and he finds it all a bit much after a while and leaves you.
It just means that your lives are truly shared.

If your not married and your property is in your partners name only you would have little claim on it. As a married person you are entitled to 50/50 as a starting point should you separate.
If you are richer than your partner as a women this doesn't matter but being a stay at home parent and not married makes you vulnerable.

Legal contract covers my rights and my DC’s rights easily and conveniently. DH is a good egg but it’s just sensible, you never know how things are going to turn out and how someone behaves when they love you may be very different to how they behave when they stop loving you. The women on mumsnet who have had painful divorces and then has to fight an ex husband and farther for every penny to support their kids are probably the experts here.

Having said that there are probably a few women who were relived they never married and it made it easier to cut and run when needed.

Legal protection for me and the kids.

Well he can nominate anyone as his next of kin/contact so that’s not relevant. Being married doesn’t give you any legal rights in a medical situation, you need to hold power of attorney for that.

How are your finances? If you are fairly equally balanced in terms of income/assets then it’s less beneficial to get married. However if you have sacrificed income/career progress to raise kids, or the house is in his sole name, or he is a much bigger earner then marriage can give you some financial protection if you were to split.

Marriage would mean you automatically inherit from each other so if you aren’t going to marry, it’s worth making sure you both have decent wills in place.

Being married reduces inheritance tax for your kids if you are likely to have significant assets to pass on.

You don't have to marry. A civil partnership bestows the same legal rights I believe. Was discussing this very thing with DD now she and her DP have a DC.

Because If you separate and he changes the financial stuff then you haven't a leg to stand on being unmarried. While if married you are legally entitled to a share.

For me it feels more secure, if we have an argument I think to myself well we aren’t going to divorce over something as silly as this and we work it and move on.

Financially for me marriage has been the best thing I could have done but this was secondary to the security/commitment aspect.
I like that my DH wanted to marry me, he chose me and I chose him and we wanted to show our friends and family our commitment.

All the time everything is going swimmingly, it doesn’t matter.

When the 💩 hits the fan, it can be extremely important, especially if you, as a mother, would be expected to take on any additional caring responsibilities that might arise.

Also inheritance tax! We we're together 15 yrs, realised our jointly owned home has increased in value.

You have more rights if he dies, if you are hospitalised, if you spilt up, if he withholds money from you. Not every relationship lasts or is harmonious.