Tell me why marriage is important

[shouldhavecalleditoatabix]

Together with DP 15yrs or so. Engaged about 5 but I'm in no hurry to marry. We have 2DC and he owns a business. It doesn't make loads but he pays his way and we're comfortable. I also work full time and earn good enough money and have a public sector pension. He, as far as I know, does not regularly pay into a pension. He has always been a little unreliable with money. Not in that he spends it on frivolous things but rather his income is sporadic and he's often robbing Peter to pay Paul. About 6 years ago I decided to start a new FT career because I am a little controlling with finances and I couldn't handle missing bills and worrying about money. All our finances are separate but he gives me a decent amount of money each month to cover half the bills and we both just buy what's needed. For instance he often does the shopping and buys electronic stuff like tv, gadgets etc and will often pay for things on the cars. I buy clothes and 'soft furnishings' etc and things for the kids that he just wouldn't think of. It works really well and we don't really want for much. We don't own our own home and we rent a place which I do not feel particularly attached to. It's a nice enough house but I could walk away from it in a heartbeat. If I die, he and the kids are the beneficiaries on my pension lump sum payout though I'm not sure he would qualify for 'spousal' pension on top. I can see how he would benefit from being married just on that basis but not so much me. Are there other benefits financially or legally that I'm not considering?

NB: this is not a discussion about commitment. He asked me to marry him and we are both happy to do so. It's just with me changing careers and having young children it was never a priority. We still intend to do it one day but being on here lately has got me thinking perhaps it's about more than just love/commitment

This page on citizens advice bureau is pretty thorough on this (link below). The major benefits to marriage are around inheritance and inheritance tax (not necessarily an issue if you don't have assets above the threshold for IHT), life insurance, death in service benefits, spousal pensions, government bereavement benefits and maintenance/division of assets in the event of a split if one party earns substantially less than the other, particularly if this is because they made career sacrifices to raise children. If none of the above is an issue then marriage may not be necessary.

You'll want to think about wills and the ownership of any property if you do choose to become home owners in the future, plus potentially for the very long term future powers of attorney to give your partner decision making rights if you lose capacity to manage your own health/finances.

MN on the whole is very pro-marriage and for many women (and some men) it is the best form of protection, but if you are an equal or even higher earner than him and you have carefully thought through the issues IMO it can be a perfectly sensible choice to stay unmarried...

www.citizensadvice.org.uk/family/living-together-marriage-and-civil-partnership/living-together-and-marriage-legal-differences/

If you don’t own a home together and you are more financially stable than him then it might not be a benefit to you to get married.

It would benefit him for the two of you to be married - should you die, he possibly won’t get a spouse’s pension (but you should check).

As far as I know, inheritance tax only kicks in once your estate is worth just over £300k. I don’t know whether this is the case for the two of you - if you don’t own your house then possibly not.

I think he would benefit more financially than you would from marriage because of your pension.

@maxelly, thank you for that link. It's actually really interesting. It seems on the whole there is a slight benefit to marriage for tax and ease in dealing with death related issues. DP is named as father on dcs birth certificate so no issues there and as yet we don't have any valuable assets. Definitely something to consider moving up the timeline for though. Perhaps I should start the pre wedding diet!! 😂

My partner died when I was pg with DC2 and not being married made things difficult. Luckily, he had a will & we were below the Inheritance Tax threshold, but it meant that the children and I could not claim widowed parent's allowance or funeral allowance and I couldn't put his name on DC2's birth certificate without going through the courts.

Had we known the implications, we would definitely have got married.

(Have since married a lovely man and we had a great wedding on a budget of less than £1000 - could easily have done it for less, too).