to not understand the benefits of getting married?

[RitaMorgan]

Putting aside the romantic and religious reasons or the big party/lots of presents (lovely as that would be).

What exactly are the benefits of legally being married over just cohabiting, for a woman with children?

DP very definitely doesn't want to get married, I would quite like a big party/lots of presents but am not sure if there is any point to it beyond that.

AIBU? Should I be insisting on a trip to the Register Office?

Doesn't it have a big impact on inheritance rights?

Well, for starters, it makes your spouse your next of kin automatically. He/she can make some very vital decisions for you as such should you become incapacitated.

It gives a woman with children more legal protection in the even of a split as well.

Oddly we were having this discussion the other night.

We like being married to each other as opposed to being shacked up. It's the ultimate committment - plus neither of us would have wanted illegitimate children.

Well if one of you dies, your estate will pass to your husband/wife tax-free. If you were unmarried there would be (potentially quite hefty) tax implications...

The next of kin is the big issue IMO.

Common law spouse has no legal definition. Being married gives you certain rights (esp if you're the father I think) that you don't get if you just live together. I'd check out the CAB website as I think they have a summary on there of the differences...

Rights to property and finances such as pension in event of death/divorce.

In fact....here it is! link

You are also entitled to (part of?) you're husband/wife's pension should he/she die.

Here in Germany single people pay more tax....

Pension rights - some company pension schemes don't recognise unmarried partners.

Life insurance/ financial affairs if one of you were to predecease the other at a young age. Unless you have a very well written will all of these things are covered by getting married and not if you don't.

ONe of my friends has been widowed. Her life would have been significantly more shit if they hadn't been married.

Basically, it's the legal stuff but I think you could sort all of that without being married.

As for illegitimacy, who really cares these days? Unless you have a title to inherit and I'm not even sure that would be precluded.

Well I'm probably slightly older than you, when it DID matter - and I would still be pretty pissed off disappointed in any of my children if they did have children out of wedlock.

I have to say though I never understand why people are reluctant to get married but willing to have kids together.

Which is the bigger commitment?

Surely ensuring the future stability of life for your children is far more important than any ideals about 'not getting married'. Another friends parents were ideological refuseniks to marriage. They rather shamefully confessed to their children at UCAS form time that actually they had got married (for inheritance tax reasons) some 10 years earlier! Neither of them wears a wedding ring and neither changed their name. Truly a marriage born of legal necessity. Interestingly friends Dad is a solicitor. He decided it was easier to just get married than trying to draft legal documents to cover all eventualities.

'I'm pretty sure children are nit illegitimate anymore.'

Yes, they still are legally.

illegitimate children? are you for fucking real???

as for the ultimate commitment? having children is a far bigger commitment IMO.

If I was with a man I had children with and he didnt want to marry me then that would tell me all I needed to know tbh.

My dh dragged his heels-we were engaged for 3 years. When I told him I was considering leaving him he booked our wedding and we were married 4 months later!

Because it's a permanent legal commitment which requires a formal process to break it. If two people commit to each other for life, to have children and buy property I don't understand why they wouldn't also have the commitment to get married and legalise the relationship.

I was an accident (my mother married in an Empire Line dress). It was more than 50 years ago but even so the odd unsavoury comment still rings in my ears from a small minded provincial community and although times have changed I never ever wanted my children to hear things like that. I always wanted to be the epitome of respectability.

For the posters who are frothing at the mouth re the illegitimacy thing-I am technically illegitimate as my parents werent married. Also my dads name isnt on the birth certificate as he was in prison when I was born!

It did embaress me when I had to show my birth certificate.

Heres they are considered legally illegitimate when it comes to inheritance unless you make provision otherwise.

Sorry but this is true.

You only have to read the threads which come up on MN all the time where women have lived with men for years and years, assume they have rights then later find out they have none.

Yes, I guess you can go and protect your rights separately by writing a will, declaration of trust and whatever. But then I assume if you are in a committed relationship with someone and have had kids then you'd want the house to be theirs and for him to take on the kids as their father. In which case you have to ask yourself why go to all that trouble and not just get married instead of all those separate arrangements.

If your OH isn't the defacto person you'd leave most things with then you have to ask yourself what you are doing together anyway. In which case marriage is the last thing you need.

I wouldn't marry again.

I ended up paying the adulterous ExH good money out of the equity on the house despite the fact that I'd paid all the deposit on it. He left with me two young DC to raise on my own. I could hardly sell the house - the DCs and I had to bloody live in it. Because we were only married for five years I didn't have any rights to any of his within-marriage savings [saved because I was earning more and paying for more of shared costs] and I certainly had no claim on his pension.

I lost my job because he left me with small two DCs at a moment's notice. I had to borrow money to buy him out, I had to pay towards the divorce out of money I no longer had, and he continued to threaten and harrass me for years after he left about how I bring up the DCs, until I got the (very good) Domestic Abuse Unit involved.

I believe that if we had not been married I would not have had to 'let him leave the marriage' with so much, at the expense of myself and my DCs.

Although I've heard of live-in partners who are pretty avaricious.

lurkerspeaks - do you mean getting married ensures future stability for children? In what way?

Inheritance tax won't be an issue Luckily I don't live in 1950 so illegitimate children aren't a concern either. Looks like next of kin status is the only benefit so far?

Having a child together is a much bigger commitment, so personally "proof of commitment" wouldn't be a deciding factor for me.

rita-sorry but you are wrong-legally it does make a difference if you are married.

Hmmm let me see - all the ladies on here and the gents who have multiple children with multiple partners - never quite get the same level of "committment" from all their ex's do they? And I doubt any of them are serial divorcees. Thus having children whilst co-habiting isn't a committment at all - it's a soft option that allows one disaffected partner to extricate themself from a relationshhip much quicker rather than working through difficulties.

Any of us on here who are married (by and large) will have had a difficult time in their relationship but rather than chucking in the towel, generally they work through those problems. Marriage creates stability. Stability creates happy children. Happy children do better at school.

Of course there are lots of single parents out there who are doing a bloody marvellous job - but ask the kids, "Would you like a full time Daddy" and I bet the answer would be yes.