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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to think that people will be too wary to move in together?

136 replies

tuggy · 03/02/2011 07:44

Just read this article and it saying that there is the possibility (not set in stone blah blah) that they will be giving co-habiting couples the same rights on break up, as married couples. Now I'm sure that in plenty of cases, there are people who have lived together for 20 years, without getting married, broken up, and been royally screwed when they had no more rights that the neighbour, to a fair settlement. Doubtless all those people will leap on to tell me their story and proclaim IABU.

However what I'm thinking is that in GENERAL (cue flaming) you date someone, you like them, after a year you think yeah I could live with them, give it a shot living together, it works out, you maybe get married voilà. But if it doesn't work out, you can walk away because phew you didn't actually tie the know.

If this new law comes in then suddenly when you move in together you are making the decision at THAT stage that this person may be eligible for half your worldly goods. When I moved in with my DP (hopefully one day DH) I was in love, I was hopeful for the future, but I don't think I'd have wanted to necessarily commit to him definitely having rights over my flat/business/savings. If I'd felt that certain I'd have married him, not moved in with him.

In my mind marriage, and just deciding to give it a shot and move in are two very very different steps and should be treated as such.

(dons hard hat from people who have co-habited for years and are in the anti-marriage brigade)

Discuss ;)

OP posts:

Morloth · 03/02/2011 07:49

It is kind of marriage by stealth isn't it. I would also be interested in how it would work out with regards to long term flat mates who then fall out, seems like you could really fuck someone over.

Original poster

tuggy · 03/02/2011 07:55

Yes I thought that! You could say well I've been in a lesbian relationship with this girl (flatmate) look here is our joint gas bill, and joint lease etc! Probably the easiest way to lose a friend! I like the phrase marriage by stealth...

Marriage is a very clear, legally set out idea. If you want it, and you want that protection you are free to take it from the age of 16. It is open to all.

I just think we already HAVE the protection they're talking about, you just have to be married. If you want that, get married, if you don't get married, accept that you dont get all the perks.

How soon before after you've flirted in a club with a man you're entitled to half the contents of his wallet at midnight? (tongue in cheek)

OP posts:

bronze · 03/02/2011 07:58

What Tuggy said. There is alreeady something you can do if you wan that protection.

Kind of glad I'm married because I don't have to worry about what sounds like a pretty scary situation

ENormaSnob · 03/02/2011 08:05

Yanbu

I wouldn't have moved in with dh (then just bf obv) had this been the case then.

onceamai · 03/02/2011 08:09

Sorry OP. Have never understood where you are coming from. No you don't go out for a year, think you could live together, move in and see if it works out.

You date someone and if you continue to really, really like each other you might become boyfriend and girlfriend. That relationship bonds and gets stronger - you might sleep together and spend most of your time together. Together you make a rational decision about whether you have a future together and talk about things that really matter like children, politics, religion, family, whether you like enough of the same things to be compatible are prepared to compromise over certain things that could be issues. Together, sure of your love, you make a long term commitment to each other by combining property, etc.. That commitment may involve marriage (in my opinion it should but I can only be prescriptive for myself and understand others feel differently) but whatever form the future relationship takes it should be carefully thought out to prevent people getting hurt.

PS: Met my DH in 1989 - took one look at him and thought "I shall marry you". Took another two and half years to happen though.

LornMowa · 03/02/2011 08:17

I think that if the Government really wants to have a good look at the laws around marriage/living together, then they could be really radical and say that, you are given all the rights and responsibilities associated with marriage if you take the step of producing a child together (includes same sex partnerships) regardless of whether you actually live in the same property.

To my mind this would be much more sensible as it would provide more protection for the partner who is left looking after children on separation and it would reduce the burden on the state as there would be a clear responsibility to maintain the more vulnerable partner.

Morloth · 03/02/2011 08:25

Really onceamai? I knew/know plenty of people who moved in and out with each other over and over again when we were young. A couple of them got married, a couple decided that it was fun while it lasted and a couple had massive horrible break ups.

I am not so much 'pro' marriage as protective of the right of people to merely shack up together for a bit if they like and not have to worry about being committed in the long term.

One of my nieces has been living with her boyfriend for a couple of years, she has just dumped him and moved out because he is a dick. She is 25 why should she owe him anything?

octopusinabox · 03/02/2011 08:57

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

FabbyChic · 03/02/2011 09:07

People don't have to get married to be committed to each other.

I lived with my children's father for ten years, but I would never have married him.

Some people don't see marriage as a necessity.

They could put a time limit on it that after two years you are considered married for the sake of financial reasons i.e if you split you get half of what is theirs or you get what you are entitled to.

What you are proposing is that people have to get married to show committment, that my dear is pure bollocks.

RealityIsKnockedUp · 03/02/2011 09:14

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Peachy · 03/02/2011 09:19

Having been in exactly the break up described in Op and happy to just say keep the bloody lot to get away I agree.

I think there should be more easily available middling contracts for people who don't want marriage (or a civil partnership; spoke last night to friends togetehr for 18 years who don't want a CP becuase they feel it is second rate marriage but are worried that they do not have next of kinship- actually think marriage should be mariage whetehr you are gay striaght or whatever; I wasn;t amrried in a Church and I still got to be wed, why the hell should the fact I am straight matter- sorry rant LOL) and then it would all be solved.

More advice, more options.

Bramshott · 03/02/2011 09:21

I think they'll have to put some limit on it - say if people have been living together for more than 5 years. Can't see it working as it is currently.

Mind you, I remember being horrified and to find out when I was 23 and lost my job, that just because I had decided to share a flat with my boyfriend (now DH!) 2 weeks before, I was not eligible for income support and he was expected to support me.

MrsAlanKey · 03/02/2011 09:26

It can difficult to define exactly when people moved in together. I think people could really get screwed over if it becomes he said/she said. I heard about a man trying to claim an inhertitance from a woman he claimed was his partner but the woman's dcs said he was a friend who she was letting stay in the spare room for a bit.

DuelingFanjo · 03/02/2011 09:47

"I think there should be more easily available middling contracts for people who don't want marriage"

My ex and I had a legal agreement drawn up which protected the inheritance I had used to put a deposit on the house we bought together. So these kinds of things are easily available, you just have to go and see a solicitor and get it all signed and sealed. Thia is why my ex wasn't able to take half the equity in the house when I left him.

I wonder how these new proposals would work when a couple already have a legal agreement drawn up.

Also - even in marriage is it really true that people who split get 50/50?

frgr · 03/02/2011 09:55

LornMowa

"if the Government really wants to have a good look at the laws around marriage/living together, then they could be really radical and say that, you are given all the rights and responsibilities associated with marriage if you take the step of producing a child together (includes same sex partnerships) regardless of whether you actually live in the same property.
.... provide more protection for the partner who is left looking after children on separation and it would reduce the burden on the state as there would be a clear responsibility to maintain the more vulnerable partner."

I actually think this is a wonderful idea!

Appletrees · 03/02/2011 09:57

Seems like a great idea to me. Astonishing that people are more wary about a financial commitment than having a baby.

marantha · 03/02/2011 10:00

I am totally against this: I am not a traditionalist and have no rosy view of marriage at all, but I believe in good old-fashioned freedom of choice and I would hate to be married to someone just because I lived with them.
Imagine just finding yourself being married because some arbitary date had passed. What a nightmare!

MrSpoc · 03/02/2011 10:02

I think it is completly mental.

You know what you are letting yourself in for with marrage and people choose not to marry for the protection it offers.

If I was to meet a wealthy women who had her own business, house and nice car, we dated then thought we would try to live together to see how we get on but we drive each other mad and split up. What gives me the right to demand half of her wealth? i never earned it.

If you feel that you need this protection then there are already ways to get it. You can get legal contracts drawn up etc.

mackereltaitai · 03/02/2011 10:04

Having read a lot of posts and tru-life magazine stories which essentially say 'Slowly we got to know each other and our relationship developed over time... and then we moved in together three months after we'd met I have to say I think it's basically a good idea and quite clever. Not a bad idea to have to talk to our children about new partners who seem intensely romantic and sweep you off your feet and want to move in after a week - usually a bad call IMO.

LDNmummy · 03/02/2011 10:06

I doubt this would just be asessed on whether you live in the same property. You would most likely have to fill in documents to register as a cohabitting couple. I can't see it getting to the point where housemates and lodgers can start claiming to be your spouse.

marantha · 03/02/2011 10:09

Yes, I would hope that the couple would have to fill in documents to register- at least then the choice would be theirs.
Nevertheless, it would beg the question: why not just get married if legal protection is all that is wanted?
After all, if a person is commitment-phobic they're hardly going to agree to signing a cohabiting couple register, are they?

PoledrathePissedOffFairy · 03/02/2011 10:09

And how would it work wrt to Inheritance Tax? IIRC, estates pass to spouses/civil partners free of inheritance tax. Would the co-habitee then also have this right? Which then leads to the injustices like this, where two sisters who have lived together all their lives have to pay inheritance tax upon the death of one, but someone who has lived with a partner for more than 2 years pays nothing??

marantha · 03/02/2011 10:10

It's sh*t anyway, this judge's idea, if a person really does not want to legally tie themselves to their partner, they won't live with them in first place.
Law of unintended consequences would kick in, if the govt takes this up, they'll have to consider building new single bed flats for people to live in.

MrSpoc · 03/02/2011 10:18

good point marantha.

Can I ask how many boyfriends people had, lived with before they met their husbands.

Would you expect to give half of everythingt you owned to each of them or for them to give you half of everything they own?

I can see some scrupilous poeple doing this as a career.

BuzzLightBeer · 03/02/2011 10:19

its never going to happen.

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