Partner changed their mind on cohabitation agreement

@NeatBiscuit

The tone of your messages describing the desired financial arrangement is cold, but hopefully you use a different tone when you speak with her.

I can understand that you fear increasing your commitment through cohabitation / having a child / marrying her, if that then gives her the right to take away half of your accumulated wealth from your past work at any time and for any reason, especially given she has broken up with you three times over the past year. In fact those breakups over this short period might be a sign that you are not compatible anyway. How long have you been together?

However, I do also understand the point of view of PP who make the point that if one of you reduces work hours and income from work, then that person will be financially very vulnerable — especially if it is her. Whereas the PP who suggested that you just sign over half of your assets to her right now is illustrating precisely why you have a legitimate fear.

It may be too late to recover this anyway, but if you do want to try - perhaps start by asking her what are her fears and feelings about this agreement? And see if you can make her feel heard?

Then perhaps on another occasion, see whether you feel that she can hear your own fears about just proceeding with the relationship with absolutely no agreement.

If you want a third party to help with these conversations, then a couples’ therapist might be more effective than a lawyer.

Then, there may be a way to draft an agreement that addresses her fears and also yours. For example - if her (well founded) fear is about being trapped and broke if one of you takes a bigger career hit to care for children - especially if that person is her - maybe that can only be addressed by pooling income — including investment income —into a single pot for some period of time, which may well need to extend beyond an eventual relationship breakdown (see below) in order to be fair.

Or maybe you would need to put a portion of your accumulated savings (but not all of it) into a pot that will remain available to support any children and their primary carer up until the youngest child reaches the age of no longer needing to be dropped off picked up, brought to appointments, etc. — so I’m talking 16 or 18, not 7 or 10.

Like it or not - if there is no asset sharing at all from the outset, then if there are children involved, any sort of income pooling would need to extend beyond an eventual relationship breakdown in order to be fair because otherwise - what if you have children, and their needs result in her stopping work, and then you break up when they are 1 and 3 and you have completely separated finances - where would that leave her, and how would it be fair to her? Whereas if you are the primary carer, you could live off of your business sale proceeds for a good while. So your agreement, as worded, leaves her in a much more vulnerable position and I can see why she would not want to sign it as is.

If she emotionally does not want ANY agreement then you may just be incompatible. But if the problem is that she will not sign THIS agreement, it may be because you have given inadequate consideration to her needs and interests.

There is nothing more unattractive than a stingy, greedy man. It sounds like a transactional business agreement rather than a relationship. If you kept waving this ‘agreement’ in my face, I would have pissed off a long time ago.

What if you have children? This agreement doesn’t seem very fair on her. From someone who got fleeced during my divorce, I would recommend you don’t marry at all.

If I was her I'd run. She's going to be completely fucked financially as soon as you have kids, probably living off savings whilst on mat leave at the mercy of you whether you share your wage or not. You get to build your career, pension and assets and ring fence it whilst she inevitably takes a career hit like all mothers. Then when you divorce she gets fuck all. Good for her for not signing.

Also saying you'll build something fair into the agreement when you have kids? How about build something fair into it now?! Glad pre-nups aren't a thing in the UK, it's so hard to quantify the financial disadvantage you have when you become a mother and prenuptials are all about protecting men from having to share the financial hit.

If it was fair all the prenuptial would say is you get to keep your 10x savings you had before marriage and that's it, maybe ring fence inheritance but all the wage and shared asset seperation when you will obviously be in a position to out earn her if she takes the financial hit of kids is quite frankly disgusting.

I thought that.

Op, why do you need IVF anyway, if she has been on contraception until recently what makes you think there are infertility problems?

Your post does not seem real to me.

What happens if you have children then decide you don’t want to mutually look after the kids at the sacrifice of your career? What happens if you both have different ideas on how children are raised? How do you account for bias in the work place when her employers know she has a child and could well have another so she misses out on work progression? How do you account for possible post partum side effects that might affect her work for the year or five after birth? Sounds like she’s taking a bigger risk. I agree with money you had before the relationship but not so sure about everything else. You have said that the contract can be negotiated as your life progresses but what happens if you refuse to negotiate but life has changed since? You sound like you need to find someone to be with who has more money than you. Good luck.

You don’t want to be in a relationship or make this person your family.

Stop wasting each other’s time.

Apologies, you've lived together for a year and a half. Not sure how long you've been with her in total.

You are putting finances about everything else and as some hold over her staying in the relationship if you were married

this isn’t the relationship for either of you and certainly not for children to be brought into

I would support her during that time.

With your attitude to money, I would take the above assertion with a pinch of salt.

This sounds like a shit deal for her if you have children. You can blithely say that childcare will be split, and great, but pregnancy will take at least a year out of her life, plus more than likely she will need to be primary carer for at least 6 months. Plus the strain on her if you need IVF.
You want your assest protected by a contract, but seem to want her potential contributions of bearing children to be protected by her trusting you to do the right thing. You say you'll happily contribute more to your expenses as a couple but again, you are only now saying you could discuss getting that added to the contract.
It should be a definite, not a maybe. You can't have half and half. Either you work out every possible financial implications now and get it in writing, or you take things on trust as you are planning to commit to a life together.

Overall I think your agreement is shit. Ring fencing your current savings is fine imo. Ring fencing your future income and trying to sign away spousal support is not.
All of the above assuming you have children, if you don't then it's significantly different.

But also- your relationship sounds quite unstable and you don't really sound committed to HER as a person, just how you'd like a hypothetical relationship to look. So I'm not convinced you are likely to be good together.

I'm in Canada.

It sounds like you’re in a soap opera. New relationship, pre-nups, egg retrieval, therapy, 3 breakups…Do you want to live in a soap opera or not? Why are you having therapy with someone you’ve basically just met? If you find it’s not working in a new relationship then you give them the “I think we work better as friends” talk and delete their number, you don’t get therapy and egg retrieval. How are you going to get through the next 40 years if you have broken up 3 times in 18 months? You have no shared assets, no kids, you don’t like each other and you break up more often than most people sort their under stairs cupboard out.

Having read your posts, especially your last one, you've been together for a year and a half, you've been in therapy for much of that time, and she's dumped you 3 times during that period?
The universe is sending you a message that she's not the one for you.
Separate, learn the lessons for the future, and move on. This relationship is only going to bring you grief and heartache.

And they say romance is dead

Honestly, just reading about this relationship is giving me a headache, so it must be very stressful for both of you who are actually in this relationship. Doesn't sound like there's much love or trust here, probably best to call it a day on your relationship op.

If you get married, you know the agreement will be null and void, right? We don’t have prenups in the U.K. They aren’t valid.

Yep. And any pre nup would likely be rendered invalid just on this. There are clear undertones of MH issues and coercion.

Op
You say you would support her if you had kids but it is what comes after that's important.
Woking less to accommodate school pick ups and drop offs/ illness/ and generally just being present.

We have also been in therapy for the majority of the year. She even broke up with me three times while living together.

I don’t think there is any point going into the rights and wrongs of the agreement because this says everything. You have been living together 18 months and this is where you are! Please just break up and don’t bring kids into this mess. You obviously aren’t suited for many reasons.

She is insane to consider having children with you when this is your position.

Im married with 2 children.
i make over £200k pa and am the breadwinner in my marriage.
I was shocked at how badly children impacted my career (I’m still earning well but my progress is blocked and the pressure of FT demanding job and 2 small children is unreal)
In hindsight feel very stupid to have believed I was immune from the motherhood penalty.

if she is left disabled or unable to work ft after children because your child(ren) are disabled she can’t claim spousal support???

she is taking a huge financial hit having kids and instead of looking to build a life with her your contract reads like she’ll need a kick in an extra £15 if she has the audacity to order a dessert at dinner.

id be telling you to fuck off and keeping my egg retrieval separate from your sperm tbh.

you want to share children with the her but not a penny of your good fortune. That’s fucked up and a sad way to live.
and I say that as someone who believes in financial protection.

What you are proposing given you are looking at starting a family is t fair, isn’t right and if you were her I don’t think you’d want to take this (shitty) deal either.

This looks like a badly written AI post and makes about as much sense.

I don't think you should call her your Partner because she clearly isn't that.

You may be better off separating and using the transactional services of an escort.

She's just trying to protect herself too - that prenup doesn't work for her - also a business decision

If a woman is planning to provide for herself and her children then she has nothing to lose by signing a pre nup with a financially more stable partner. If she’s planning on being kept by someone else, then obviously she’s not going to want to sign a pre nup and her genuine intentions are clear.

No ones career is damaged irreparably by six months maternity leave.

Sure, as long as it's a fair pre-nup with provision for what happens when/if they have children. And also sure, 6 months maternity leave is fine.

Then 2 years later another 6 months, and through all of this, OP decides that he's not willing to do any pickups and drop offs or contribute to a nanny, that he's going to continue to do his hobbies at the weekend and never do a bed-time. And there's nothing OP's partner can do to force him, and the prenup means she's not entitled to anything in compensation for it should she decide to cut her losses and split with him.

Does that sound far-fetched? Shouldn't do - it happened to me. At the start of my relationship with ex, I earned more. Until children, I earned more (and actually had assets unlike him TBH). After children, when he decided his career was more important than mine, he stopped doing anything for the kids, leaving me to struggle to keep my career while his rocketed. I'm doing well - but not as well as I would have been with a partner who took on his share of the care for the kids.

and that's before we get to there being no obligation to share the financial burden of the child/children.

That prenup is fine for 2 single people. Completely inappropriate for a couple with children, or who are planning to have children

I’m glad others have picked up on your lack of love language here - this isn’t a business deal, you are supposed to love her - even if you were both broke and homeless. It’s meant to be a partnership.

Not to mention the great risks that I have taken to get here

Woman take great risks having children, their careers take a dive (never happens to men) there bodies suffer, mentally parenting is exhausting, men get pushy and demanding.

Please leave. At least do the right thing and allow your girlfriend to find someone who loves and appreciates all of her and not someone who is more concerned about cash.

The fact she is going through egg retrieval speaks volumes. She doesn’t trust you to want children, even now of after ‘the signing’ or during a marriage. Deep down she knows you aren’t committed to her, and she not risking her potential window to have children.

Do the decent thing and leave - get councilling and don’t date until you are ready to find love. .

This. 100%. Without provision for children it wouldn’t hold up legally anyway as it would be deemed unfair. But rather than take that chance I would 100% want to see that provision made in black and white before l signed anything.

I disagree with the assets earned during the marriage being kept separate as one person could suffer financial hardship at the expense of the other. For instance if your child needed care at home by one of you. If one of you was unable to work for any reason.
Keeping your own assets/ money before marriage separate, I do agree with. You have 10 x more than her....you should be entitled to keep it.