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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To feel discriminated against because I cannot enter into a Civil Partnership because we are not Gay.

323 replies

happyclapper · 12/07/2012 17:37

Having been married twice before and feeling it is, for me, a meaningless institution, I would like some legal form of commitment to my partner of 13yrs.
We have 2DS and I now only work part-time in order to facilitate my partners career and a stable home.
Consequently I have no pension and would be left fairly high and dry should anything happen to my partner.
This could be covered by a Will I quess but that would not help me if we simply decided to split.
I had a good job, pension scheme etc but have no chance now of returning after a 8yr abscence.
I think a civil arrangement would be perfect and can't understand why only same sex couples can enter into it.

OP posts:
Dprince · 12/07/2012 20:21

Oh and lots of abuse happens is relationships where the couple aren't married. Getting married does not turn anyone into an abuser. An abuser is an abuser.

VegansTasteBetter · 12/07/2012 20:21

metafarcical sure they got divorced when katy realised it wa just a gay-gay marriage

GnomeDePlume · 12/07/2012 20:38

Julia, I'm not saddled with a medieval institution. Marriage has a history but I am married in the present and the future (hopefully).

A modern civil marriage is a very simple thing and can cover all eventualities. It was valid in all the countries we have travelled to. Uncomplicated and not easy for other jurisdictions to ignore.

Non-standard arrangements are easily undermined.

Iamsparklyknickers · 12/07/2012 20:58

The words marriage or civil partnership are essentially just the legal terms that refer to exactly the set up you appear to want.

you're free to attach as much of as little romantic or traditional importance to them as you want. It seems ridiculous to get yourself in a tiz when what you want is available to you and simple to do because the legal jargon bothers you.

You just want a bit of paper, you can have that. Or you can go to a solicitors and have lots of bits of paper and achieve the same ends.

Sorry, the only problem I see is the op been unable to get past a personal attachment to a word.

happyclapper · 12/07/2012 21:28

Sorry have been MIA but been doing bedtimes, homework etc.
Right, firstly, to all those people who keep saying 'just get married and don't worry about it' it wouldn't matter if no one in the world knew except my DP and me it is not a state of mind I can feel comfortable with and, sorry to disappoint, but that is not due to some horrible past experience of adultery or abuse.
Both my exDH were perfectly nice people.
BTW I am astounded at some of the assumptions you guys make and your downright abusiveness.
Secondly, I am sorry if I have offended anyone with my over-privileged hetrosexual life but the definition of discrimination is and I quote 'the prejudicial treatment of an individual based on his or her membership to a certain group, class, sexual orientation' etc. Now I don't pretend to be suffering the day to day hardships that for example a gay person may, but none the less my inability to make use of a legal status because of my sexual orientation IS discrimination.
As so many people have said if it is available abroad, why not here?

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happyclapper · 12/07/2012 21:32

Riverboat. It's not a case of being petulant, merely a fact.

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FarelyKnuts · 12/07/2012 21:40

Hang on a second, you want all the legal protections and rights of being married without actually being married?
Gay people wanted marriage and got some but not all of the legal protections and rights of being married and got a fobbed off version known as Civil Partnerships. You are not being discriminated against by not being offered this watered down church pleasing bullshit non marriage state!!

happyclapper · 12/07/2012 21:51

Well because I don't want the marriage bullshit, despite being in a loving 13yr relationship with 2 DS I actually have no rights at all. I am not my DP's next of kin, in the interest of our family life have given up my rights to a pension and face the possibilty of an impoverished old age if anything unexpected should happen. That sounds fair.

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GnomeDePlume · 12/07/2012 21:52

What is the disadvantage you feel you are suffering?

If it is that you want to be able to go off to some solictors office without telling anyone then that isnt going to happen because it is quite simply too important. The commitment is made in public in front of witnesses because it matters that much. The commitment confers rights which cannot be set aside by other contracts.

If it is that you dont like the idea of referring to each other as husband and wife have you asked if that part can be removed from a civil ceremony?

happyclapper · 12/07/2012 22:02

Maybe I am just asking too much.
I am happy to sign any form of legal document but I just want my relationship to my partner to remain exactly as it is but have some status in the eyes of the law.
Obviously many of you feel that to be an unreasonable request.
Maybe I should not have bought CP into it but as I wouldn't expect a government to cater to every individuals wishes, it seems to offer an acceptable option to marriage and I cannot understand what would be so heinous about making it available to everyone.
As many have stated, other countries do.

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perfectstorm · 12/07/2012 22:02

I don't think people are being fair.

OP isn't a deliberately inflammatory homophobe posing a question to be idiotically provocative. She isn't missing the terrible history that lies behind the fight for gay people to have human rights under the law. i would also point out that quite a lot of women struggle to accept the idea of marriage, because in the recent past it legalised rape, and in the not that distant past it deprived women of all rights whatsoever, short of actually being murdered. In her case, the thought of promising love and fidelity forever makes her squirm. The wording makes her squirm. And there IS a more fluid version of lifelong commitment available now, to gay people. Even if the unpleasant side of that is that they are denied full equality under the law, and the right to marry the person they love. I agree that it's something of a privilege to be able to say, well, I just don't want to have to say the marriage service words (and the simple solution would be to allow people to write their own marriage vows, regardless of sexuality) but the very term "marriage" is loaded to some people in a way that makes them very, very uncomfortable.

In my view we won't have full equality until there is no "equal but different", no muddled compromise, but I also think civil partnerships should be retained, for all. I also think it's worth pointing out that surveys a decade ago found that 70% of people thought if you lived together long enough, you had a "common law marriage" and similar rights. An awful lot of women have been screwed over by that mistaken belief, after shying away from a wedding, or drifting into cohabitational families without any clear understanding of the legal risks. Others have found their DP dies, and they are treated as strangers under the law. Most people don't think that hard about the legal consequences of their family arrangements until everything's gone tits up. If a civil partnership option - without the full emotive wording, or the significance of the word "marriage", but with legal consequences - was allowed to straight couples, coupled with a publicity campaign explaining that you have no more rights to support after raising a man's kids for 20 years than a stranger in the street would, maybe a lot less women would be in dire financial straits after childrearing outside marriage.

I should add that I've responded to the gov.t consultation on gay marriage in order to express strong support. I just don't see why a smaller problem should trump a larger one (and when it comes to cohabitants being penniless through lack of a piece of paper, when they'd be in a strong position were they married, I don't think that is a small problem, either, though the OP's reasons may be comparatively trivial).

lotsofcheese · 12/07/2012 22:02

So, it's "too important" to be done in private then?

Perhaps we should change the law so that registering a child's birth, buying a house etc should be public occasions, with witnesses & declarations?! Because they're "so important" - right?

I feel no need to make public declarations about my love for DP; I have demonstrated my commitment in many other ways. I don't want to be a "wife" just an equal partner

attheendoftheday · 12/07/2012 22:03

If marriage and civil partnership are as equal and interchangeable as some posters are saying then it would be an issue that gay people can't get married. It is clearly an issue.

I am with the op, I do not want to get married but would like a civil partnership. I would like to see a situation where anyone gay/straight/bi could choose either option as best suits their needs and preferences. I cannot understand why this isn't the case, tbh.

I think civil partnership could also be extended to adults not in a romantic relationship, like elderly siblings or friends who live together, giving them the same protection as couples should one of them die.

happyclapper · 12/07/2012 22:13

Perfectstorm, thank-you for adding more meat to my argument. That is a fair summary of my point of view except that my personnalreasons are not trivial otherwise I would not be risking my future welfare.

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Chubfuddler · 12/07/2012 22:15

The thing you say you want does exist op, but can't be achieved by reciting three sentences in front of a registrar the way marriage can. You need a cohabitation agreement, mirroring wills and life assurance policies. A lawyer will be delighted to take your money and it will cost a lot more than a wedding licence.

perfectstorm · 12/07/2012 22:23

Happyclapper I didn't say trivial, I said "comparatively trivial". Honest, that was intentional. I mean, losing a leg is comparatively trivial, if the comparator is complete disembowelment. ;)

happyclapper · 12/07/2012 22:23

Has a cohabitation agreement been tested in law Chubfuddler?

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Chubfuddler · 12/07/2012 22:27

All the time. Some stand up some don't.

GnomeDePlume · 12/07/2012 22:29

lotsofcheese it is too important because it supercedes other contracts and also in the future it cant be unilaterally superceded by other contracts.

You cannot be in a CP/CM with two people at the same time. This is one of the big advantages of such formal arrangements. You know when they start and you know when they end.

I think that it is right that there is a very clear distinction. You want all the commitment then you go through the formality and make that commitment in front of witnesses. If you dont want to make that commitment then dont but understand that you cant claim rights later.

perfectstorm · 12/07/2012 22:43

But Gnome, the problem there is 1) most people don't decide not to marry in a thought through and conscious way, they just drift over years into a family without marriage (half of all babies are unplanned, I seem to remember reading), and 2) most people actually think long term couples do have rights accorded to them. I've seen people on MN aver with great confidence that if you're together long enough, you're common law spouses. It's usually when they split that they find out that there's no such thing. That's a problem that needs addressing, whether that be instituting some kind of de facto legal arrangement, or CP backed by a publicity campaign, or just the campaign. If people don't know there is a gulf in legal protection, they don't know why they need to marry at all.

I can't help thinking there's a terrible irony in modern marriage usually tending to protect the financial interests of the person with primary responsibility for caring for the kids. So some women won't marry because it's historically a sexist institution under which women were chattel, only to discover that they've thereby ensured their non-financial contributions to the family go completely ignored.

happyclapper · 12/07/2012 22:44

I am already committed. In my and my DP's and D'S's eyes. I do want formality. That is the very thing I am seeking but my whole being rails against the antiquated structure of marriage and the marriage service.
In one way I cannot take it seriously it seems so riduculous to me so it seems a sham and in another way it makes me feel overwhelmingly suppressed.

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FarelyKnuts · 12/07/2012 22:48

Of course your situation isnt fair, but you have the option to change that. By getting married. You are rightly or wrongly comparing that to a civil partnership currently available to gay people which also isnt fair. It doesnt confer the same rights as a marriage does and you are still not protected in many aspects under the law.
For example, if you were as a hetero couple able to have a civil partnership (as it currently exists) your DS's would not be protected under the law in the same way as those of married couples.

happyclapper · 12/07/2012 22:53

Ok, for arguments sake, say we do get married and as I predict it changes the dynamic of our relationship and we end up divorcing.....great ! No more family but financial security. That's kind of ironic.
And something I have seen happen more than once.

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Chubfuddler · 12/07/2012 22:54

I don't understand why you think it would change your relationship. You're actually less like to split if you're married than cohabiting.

happyclapper · 12/07/2012 23:06

Well as I feel more like an individual than a statistic , plus the benefit of previous experience, I know it would change the way I feel and not for the better.
I can't really explain why but it's to do with my liberty I think. I am in this relationship because I choose to be, not because of I am being told to be.
Don't get me wrong, we have been through just about every relationship testing event there is including infertility, redundancies, debt, illness, but we always supported each other and came through stronger.
I don't need or want any piece of paper to tell me we are a committed couple. No one who knows us would ever doubt that.

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