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?

Either get married OR both of you go to a solicitor and tie up all the legal threads.

What worries me is how many people simply don't know that "common law spouse" is NOT a legal status equivilant to spouse.

I only got married because my brother walked out on my SIL and their child when she was 8 months pregnant with their second child. Neither she nor I were prepared for what the solicitor told her when the fact they lived together was put on the table.

To be honest I chose marriage cos it is a one time deal with rights that cannot be taken away behind my back. Even if SIL and Ex Brother had done all the legals I'm 100% sure he would have changed all the paperwork, like wills, insurance etc behind her back. Not that he needed to really, considering that he was free to marry immdediatly, which is what he did, thus confering rights on OW that would have cut SIL out of the loop anyway.

I am with DH becuase I want to be, not cos we are married. I was married before and a peice of paper is not a ball and chain when things go so bent that being together is pain rather than pleasure.

Divorce is a pain in the bum, especially if you and your husband are from different countries and you are trying to sort out a divorce in a thrid country. Still a million ti es better than what SIL went through.

I love and trust my husband, but then I loved and trusted my brother.. for my son's sake and my sake I want to aviod an additional practical nightmare just when emotional pain is taking all my attention should DH inexplicably have a personality translaplant and turn into a right lying, cheating, duplicious, moral free bastard.

I know lots of people who live together happily, but it was the handful who didn't get a happy ending that swayed me. But then I am a very glass half empty person, in the sense I have a hard time believing that I am somehow immune from becoming one of the very unlucky ones who got blindsided by behavior they in no way could have predicted.

I quite fancy having a wedding, but really can't face the idea of being married. (Despite my partner's frequent invitations to commit a spot of matrimony with him.)

I am 48. Perhaps Young People These Days worry about these things more than my free-thinking lefty generation, eh?

LOL, MI. I'm afraid I find the idea of a wedding even more dreadful to contemplate that being married.

The thing that always amuses me in these sort of threads is the suggestion that 'if marriage is so meaningless then why not just do it anyway'. It always comes up and I genuinely don't get it.

There are many things in this world that have no relevance whatsoever to my life - I dont feel the need to run off and do them just because lots of other people think they are a good idea.

I think a lot of people simply don't accept that marriage is utterly and completely meaningless to a lot of us. There is no incentive whatsoever to actually take the time to toddle down to the registry office and change the status of our relationships.

DP and I have been together 11 years and we are expecting our second child. Every aspect of our financial and legal affairs has been tied up to our satisfaction - to be honest, if a lawyer and someone working in finance couldn't do that then there would be something wrong!

There is nothing at all that marriage could do for us as a family. Illegitimacy is a non-concept these days - I am surprised it is still being cited as an issue when the law makes no distinction anymore. Our finances are sorted, as are our wills. Our house is held jointly and we have appropriate insurance and pension arrangements.

The only possible issue would be if we were ever so wealthy that our estate attracted IHT even without the house being an issue. This is unlikely, and I think the IHT rules will change in any event, but that might be the only thing that would make us get married.

I predict in the future people will get married on Facebook by changing their status. It will be legally binding and there will be no ther method.

"but really can't face the idea of being married."

Why? It isn't any different to just living together. OH and I lived together before getting married. We got married because we wanted to, but the actual practicalities of day to day life aren't any different.

kungfupannda - are you concerned about next of kin status at all?

Interestingly, my NOK is my ex partner. I don't have any family- certainly not any family who i would want involved in any way with my medical decisions.

And I was my father's next of kin- which still didn't stop an almighty fking bun fight with his girlfriend and his side of the family.

The IHT thing affects us so I'm extrrememly glad I'm married.

again, marriage is what you make it. Why it should be intrinsically different from non marriage I have no idea but non marrieds seem to think it means nothing but won't do it because it changes everything and means something

Ritamorgan - no. We are each others next of kin wherever there is an option to make that clear, such as antenatal notes, Gp surgery and various important documents. You have the option to nominate next of kin at hospitals etc and they have to accept your nomination - there is no legal basis for them refusing to accept a cohabiting partner and most nhs trusts have got on board with this these days.

If either of us ever have any concerns about emergency admissions and not being able to verbalise our wishes, we will use the next of kin card at you can fill in and carry. But at the moment we have no such concerns as I have a close relationship with DP's family and no important or contentious decisions would be made without reference to them anyway, and I have no close family that hospital staff would have any prospect of tracking down in an emergency to overule DP.

In normal circumstances like ours, the next of kin issue can be made watertight, just like any other issue.

Lookattheears. - see my last post. For us it is meaningless and the reason we won't do it is because it is meaningless and we don't do meaningless things.

Nothing to do with it changing everything and meaning something.

i think the thing that would worry me about co-habiting and having everything sewn up legally is what's to stop one or other partner going back to the solicitor and changing everything?

If you were married and decided you didn't want your spouse to inherit your things you could presumably go behind their back and write a will though? Could you prevent your spouse from getting your pension too if you really wanted to?

OP, I would want to know from my DP why he definitely didnt want to get married. Usually, when someone says this its not that they dont want to get married, just that they dont want to marry you. Every person I know that has professed an aversion to marraige to their partner has ended up leaving that partner and getting married to someone else. Its just been an excuse to someone they dont feel enough for, biding their time till 'the one' comes along. If I was living with someone and they didnt want to marry me that would tell me everything I needed to know about how they felt about me.

katz - that would worry me too, that and the fact that you have actively do the paperwork and it would be very easy to miss something, to not fill in a form or update a record, either through absent-mindedness or because you simply didn't know that a form needed to be filled in. For example, if you have to nominate somebody to get your pension benefits which would automatically go to a spouse but which requires you to do something if you want to nominate somebody else.

The other thing I like about marriage is that it is a short hand. I don't have to explain to anybody what our relationship is. If you are unmarried how is anybody to know whether you have been together 2 months and it is just a bit of fun and nothing serious or 20 years and it is as committed as any marriage? You may think, who are these other people to make judgements and that it doesn't matter what they think and you would be right of course - your business entirely - but the fact still remains that people do make judgements and sometimes other people need to ask how committed you are, in a roundabout why or directly, like if you have to actively nominate somebody as NOK and marriage allows you to avoid all that.

You have been sensible kungfu and got it all sorted. I don't think the majority do and I don't think they have a clue what would happen if they didn't continue being alive, being healthy,being in love and having DP's family approval.

I'm a married SAHM to 3 children. In my situation it is much better to be married than not - if my dh upped and left me I would have the right to stay in the marital home till the children are 18, and that would be important to me. As I understand it, I would not have that right if we were unmarried - even if the house is in joint names - which it is. I'm pretty sure if I were unmarried, the other partner can petition to sell the house/ would need to be bought out? I'm happy to be corrected if that's not the case.

I think it's fine to be unmarried, I have no problem at all with that - and in fact my first 2 children were born before we married. Marriage did seem a lovely way to make us 'all one family', and we did ' legally legitimise' the children at the registry office afterwards. I was surprised that this was a step we were strongly advised to take, as my views on the topic had always been so liberal - the registrar basically told us it was in the children's best interests to be 'legitimised'. I don't want anyone to be offended by my use of that term - it was the word the registrar used.

I think in KFP's case, she is obviously very savvy, and knows exactly what she's doing - so it's fine. I do think it's a problem when unmarried SAHMs think they have the mythical 'common-law spouse' rights, which don't actually exist irl. OP - fine to be unmarried as long as you do all the legal necessities such as life insurance, wills etc - and know exactly how you would cope if your partner died/walked out.

If you were married and decided you didn't want your spouse to inherit your things you could presumably go behind their back and write a will though? Could you prevent your spouse from getting your pension too if you really wanted to?

No, a spouse's position is watertight.
Kung fu panda, it's good you have a good relationship with your partner's family. If you are unmarried you will need to. No matter how many NOK cards you carry or wills you have made. You are not married and therefore you do not have the status of a wife or husband which means that his parents are at least as important legally as you, if not more in some situations.

Ooh, or indeed if you died OP. Sometimes in the event of the death of the mother, an unmarried Dad can come across problems keeping the children (I think a lawyer referred to some of the stories further up the thread).

Only if I died before the baby's birth was registered though.

And you don't think that's possible?

Possible, but fairly unlikely.

*Eight out of every 100,000 pregnant women die shortly before, during or after giving birth in the UK.

Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1265572/British-women-likely-die-childbirth-communist-states.html#ixzz1daZGoZfe*

That's pretty high odds. If those were the odds of winning the Euromillions we'd all be placing bets.

rita you are correct - being married doesn't stop you leaving things to people other than your spouse. Furthermore, just being married does not preclude the need for a will - read here

Quick example quote: "Other beneficiaries
You can leave up to £325,000 tax-free to anyone in your will, not just your spouse or civil partner (tax year 2011-12). So you could, for example, give some of your estate to someone else or a family trust".

As a wife you could challenge this in the courts and may win, but you may lose - being married is not watertight!

There's a lot of scaremongering and misinformation floating around on this thread. You will always hear of horror stories about partners dying overseas, or parents/other family trying to get involved. But if you have taken sensible precautions (wills, discussing your wishes re NOK with family, filling in NOK paperwork with doctors/hospitals etc) then there is no reason to fear your wishes being ignored should your partner get sick. As some of us have said upthread, we have gone through being sick ourselves, having sick partners and encountered no problems. There are risks to everything in life and the idea that I should get married just in case my partner ends up on life support overseas and there is an issue with my wishes being disregarded over families wishes (who would respect my DPs wishes anyway, as would I) is frankly ludicrous to me.

Don't have time to go through everything above right now - but to the person who claimed that only people who aren't serious about each other refuse to get married, I suggest you re-read the thread and the entries from the large numbers of people here who are fully committed to their partners but against marriage for various reasons. To suggest we aren't committed to our partners, or are just biding time until something better comes along is rude and offensive. I'm sorry you feel this way, you could be missing out on some fantastic potential partners because you fail to understand that not everyone feels the way you do about marriage.

Inheritance tax, (some) pensions and widows state benefits are the key things that cannot be sorted out by means other than marriage. If these aren't an issue for you, then you have options other than marriage to protect yourselves.

Got to go now - life offline is calling me!

Nothing says 'NOK' like Spouse though does it? I think this would be the thing that most worried me if I wasn't married.