to be really pissed off that dp has gone and done a pre-nup without telling me!

[miarosemum]

have been with dp for 3 years, and has been step dad to my dd of 4. she has not seen her real dad since a baby, so dd know dp as daddy which is fab. dp has his own house outright, and has just spent a great deal of dosh having a loft extension done to accomodate us to all live together. really looking forward to this next period in our lives when he comes home today to tell me her has been to a solicitor today to get pre-nup done to protect his house in case our relationship fails...now that is all very well but he cannot understand why i am so upset that he done all this secretive and not discussed with me, i feel let down that we could'nt talk about it and yet here we are about to move into a lovely new refurbished house.

[Dozer]

Agree with others that not good plan to move into his house or ttc until you have paused for thought and information gathering. You need to take the risks to you and dd as seriously as he is taking the risks to himself.

[SheCutOffTheirTails]

Well said swallow

I also think that you should not become the main man or woman in a child's life if you are not prepared to be their father or mother.

This isn't a child with a Daddy who lives elsewhere, this is a little girl without a Dad. You can't come into her life as a father figure unless you mean it.

And you can't father more children by her mother unless you will love them all equally.

Getting legal "agreements" drawn up behind someone's back is not decent, and it's certainly not sensible.

Don't move into his precious house. If it means that much to him he can live in it all alone.

And ask him for the rent he owes you for the last year.

If this relationship is about separate finances and being protected from exploition by the other, let's make it fair, eh?

[Mitmoo]

I can see why the OP DP's needs to protect himself, he should have discussed it with your first. It could be argued that he is not commited to you which is why he is doing it but it seems very sensible to me to given that over half of marriages end in divorce.

[Tarenath]

I agree with the others that the pre-nup isn't the problem, but the fact that he's gone and done it seemingly out of the blue and without consulting you.

In my opinion that constitutes a serious breach of trust and I'd be wanting to have words about the direction the relationship is going when one half of it deems it ok to make such a major legal decision without consulting the other partner.

[AnansiGirl]

I also think any concerns he has are misplaced, since you own your own place already (and therefore can hardly be mistaken for a scrounger) and he benefitted from living in it while his own house was being done up - a benefit that his newly drawn up agreement ignores.'

'he has practically been living in my flat for the last year (privately rented) while the building work is going on at his for us to move into.'

OP does not own her own place, she's renting. If she moves into his property, she will presumably give up the flat.

[VirtualWitch]

Added to above post OP, I know of more than one woman who married later in life, to slightly older men with adult families, only to be thrown out by the adult families who wanted to get their hands on the house they'd been left in the will. The will which ignored the second wife, who had nursed her husband through his final illness.

We are talking about going to the Council's Homeless Department and telling them they had been given 6 weeks to move out and find somewhere else to live, in their late sixties/seventies...

[VirtualWitch]

Hmmn. I don't think you would have any claim, being unmarried, on his home anyway, unless you contributed directly to the mortgage repayments (if any) or deposit - in which case you would be entitled pro rata to have back what you put in.

Therefore I can't see any point in the cohabitation agreement, other than to be able to say at a later stage if you split up "nah nah, told you so, you're not entitled to anything".

A cohabitation agreement will have cost him quite a bit to draw up. One wonders why he didn't just draw up his will to favour his own family, if thats what he wants. Or to put it into a deed of trust.

The law would award you financial provision if you were married to him and got divorced, so I would be suspicious that he is trying to have the benefits of a relationship with none of the risks.

The law would benefit you on divorce because the law recognises the contribution of the non-entitled spouse, financially and in other ways. In other words, it is not unreasonable to expect to be compensated for giving up your time and effort, as well as the possibility of establishing your own household or getting joint ownership of a house with a more generous man.

I am therefore left thinking that this relationship is a big risk for you, in terms of your future security, and that your DP doesn't care one iota about your future security. I also think any concerns he has are misplaced, since you own your own place already (and therefore can hardly be mistaken for a scrounger) and he benefitted from living in it while his own house was being done up - a benefit that his newly drawn up agreement ignores.

I don't like the sound of this and personally wouldn't accept it, as I place my future security ahead of a relationship.

[TooJung]

Get legal advice, preferably from more than one professional. My brother told me that by the time he had told his situation to the 3rd lawyer he met, he was far more comfortable. By then he was more focused on the advice he was being given than on the stress of trying to explain himself.

[ChaoticAngelofGryffindor]

I don't think anyone has said that the pre-nup is a bad thing HappyMummyOfOne. It's the way he's gone about it, behind the OP's back, rather than discussing it with her, that pp's are saying is wrong.

[WhereYouLeftIt]

I asked the OP (at 14:26:33) if he had contributed over this period AnansiGirl, but she has yet to return to the thread.

[AnansiGirl]

Where does OP say that he lived with her rent free? She just said he'd been practically living in her flat. No mention of whether he'd been contributing cash towards bills, rent or food.

[spookshowangel]

he stayed with you rent free for a year........... now i know how wonderful he converted his place so you could all live together but he obviously sees that place as an investment so adding extra rooms to it would not be a hardship to him.
you have already added value to the property in him not having to spend any money else were while his property is being converted, how lucky for him that someone wanted to take him in at that time.
think very carefully about what you are doing here make sure you say to him thats fine but i need to provide for my future if we ever break up and i cant be putting any money in to a house i will have no claim on so you will be paying for it.

[TadlowDogIncident]

Sorry EggyAllenPoe, I didn't refresh the page and we cross-posted! Great minds...

[TadlowDogIncident]

Hmm, I'd be putting moving in on hold if someone sprang this on me, and I certainly wouldn't be thinking of TTC.

It's not that I'm against cohabitation agreements (I'm married and wouldn't have even considered a pre-nup, but cohabitation is legally messy and it's better to have thought about this sort of thing in advance), but I'd be furious if the first I heard of it was that my DP had been to see a solicitor.

The whole point about these things is that they're agreements: they ideally represent a position that you both feel is fair and reasonable if you split. Not talking about it in advance rather defeats the purpose. And then saying that you're "due a letter in the post" to explain it, rather than talking to you about it, seems quite bizarre. It implies that he (a) doesn't trust you, (b) doesn't think you'll discuss it reasonably or (c) both.

What do you feel, OP? Would you be happy with the idea of an agreement, but just aren't comfortable with the way this has been sprung on you? Or do you not like the idea of signing a bit of paper at all?

[TigerseyeMum]

Run. Run as far as possible.

If you have been financially secure and independent for so long, think seriously about the implications of moving in, possibly taking care of and contributing to a home that you will have no legal right to. Wil you invest your own money? What if you have kids together?

He sounds controlling and self absorbed. This whole thing is quite horrible and I personally would retreat, say, thanks love but no thanks, I am an independent woman, I'll take care of myself. And while you're at it, stop freeloading off me in return.

[EggyAllenPoe]

a sensible way to go about this, would be to sit down together and discuss things.

That's is not what the ops Dh has done though.

he has sprung this on her without discussion.

it is important to iscuss financial matters. You shouldn't get soething drawn up and posted to the woman you are menat to be in love with without these converstions!!

[ImperialBlether]

I agree with you, swallowed. If he says she will get nothing if they split up, then she really needs to sort herself out with somewhere to live in that eventuality.

[WhereYouLeftIt]

Just a quick question OP - you said

" he has practically been living in my flat for the last year (privately rented) while the building work is going on at his for us to move into."

Has he been contributing financially during this last year?

[HappyMummyOfOne]

He is being sensible, I actually cant believe that somebody who is trying to protect what they had worked hard to achieve is being made to be the bad guy and that the OP shouldnt move in with him. Why not? Its his house, if she chooses to move in then she does so with the knowledge that if the relationship breaks down she'll need to move out - its what thousands of people do.

[SiamoFottuti]

if you aren't getting married it isn't a pre-nup. And having a legal agreement is sensible, however the problem is in not discussing it.

[niceguy2]

I have to say that I think under the circumstances what he's doing is very sensible. Not at all romantic but sensible.

Right now when things are working, of course it's a bit of a slap in the face to realise your partner has thought about the fact things may not work out. But hey, we buy home insurance don't we but we don't expect the house to burn down!

I had a similar issue with my exGF a few years back. Before we moved in together, we'd discussed it and she was all like "Oh I'd never be one of those women who wants to get every penny out of the man if things didn't work out."

Let me tell you that's BULLSHIT. If/when things do go wrong, she's sat there all pissed off because you had the audacity to dump her ass. She's plotting some revenge......"I'll take him for every penny I can!"

Luckily we were not married and I'd researched things so we had the house as tenants in common rather than the normal joint tenants. It still cost me to get rid of the psycho but it was worth every penny.

So OP, your man is being sensible. Hopefully that sensible level headness will stand you both in good stead. Try to overlook the emotional slap in the face. Get your own legal advice, if he's a decent man, he'd insist on this anyway but try to not overthink it and move on.

[lady007pink]

Sorry, but I can see it from OP's DP's POV. God forbid, but if I was widowed or seperated from my DH I would not allow anybody to move into my house (which we own outright) without signing a pre-nup.