To think that anyone who has Dc's with a Dp without getting married doesn't realise how precarious their situation is ?

[kittensinmydinner]

Just that really. Have just spent 6 months supporting best friend after her 'd' p met and left her for OW and 'soul mate' in May. leaving her with 5 dcs. He married in September despite not believing it when bf wanted to. She is entitled to nothing except maintenance (which wouldn't come close to paying the mortgage). She has been SAHM for 19 yrs and supported his carreer trajectory as a very big earner but is not entitled to anything in the way of pension or property. So aibu in thinking that primary carers who give up work or reduce their income to look after dcs do so without being aware exactly how vulnerable they are financially. (unless of course they have their own private income . )

OP, I meant to say, I'm very sorry about your friend's situation. Has she had to move out of the family home with the children? That's unbelievably shitty if she has. Is she the primary carer? Does he share any of the child rearing? Truly, the law is an ass in this situation. I wish for her there is some legal hope or persuasion.

Well they say you only 'need' the plus points of marriage when the shit hits the fan- someone leaves, someone dies, someone gets sick, someone gets arrested and you might have to testify against them.... You can dander along for years thinking you're sorted and then the rug is pulled out from under you and you realise "common law spouse" means Jack Shit.

You do see posters on these threads saying listing the various bits and pieces of paper you could get, at great cost, which almost recreate the protections of marriage. I just wonder why you'd bother, when a fifteen minute service down the registry office would have the same effect at a fraction of the price. You don't need to change your name, you don't need to tell anyone. Marriage is what you make of it, if you decide to see it as purely a contractual agreement to keep your affairs in order that's all it needs to be.

I do also scream inwardly when people say, "having a child and a house together is a much bigger commitment than a bit of paper". In instances like your friend's at least that bit of paper would act as a speed bump on her ex's road to a new shiny life with his new partner. You just need to read the relationships board to see how "having a house and/or child" doesn't mean that you'll be decent to each other should you split, or that your DP's family would let you inherit their assets should they die.

Has anyone mentioned Next of Kin yet?

If you're not married, and god forbid, anything happens to your partner and you're not so named, you have no authority wrt to medical or other intervention.

Stormimgateacup Amen to everything you say. Even then wills can be challenged and nominations for pension and death-in-service benefits are nit binding on the pension provider.

• not

Brilliant thread, lots of knowledgable people.

For me my Dad drummed into me that the best contract in law is the marriage one, my Mum said you can only rely on one person in life, yourself.
I had my own house when I met DH I made him pay rent, I also charged him more than my other lodger as I provided food and entertainment.

So yes I prostituted myself but I was not happy to live with someone without protection and I held all the cards at that time.
We earned the same at the time
Got married I have been stay at home, part time, full time, Dh in and out of work, he earns 6 times what I do at the moment if we where just partners I hate to think what a shitty mess I would be in. I couldn't afford the rent on our place even if I worked full time, I would have no claim on our property abroad because the state we lived in I had to sign paper work to make me liable but I couldn't be be on the deeds as I was non earning... Bitch of a system but why they do alimony

YANBU DH and I got married when I was pregnant for mainly practical reasons. DH wanted DC to have his last name I wanted us to have the legal certainties provided by marriage. Okay not the most romantic reasons but 11 years later we have no regrets.

I think yabu ! It all depends on how you deal with the finances. I'm not married we live together and have a child ans hope to have more I will never marry but absolutely everything is legally in joint names. The house and any savings as well as anything else so I have every bit as much right to my share of half than a married couple have. your friend sounds a little naive tbh not to have had all this sorted incase.anything ever did happen

marriage as a concept didnt really mean too much to either me or DH and initially he was kind of dismissive of the idea - thinking we would stay together regardless of a 'piece of paper' - basically just asking me to trust him: which I do, or I wouldnt have been with him

However - I pointed out when having children what I could be compromising - short term and long term earnings, possibly pension, possibly career progression, possibly health, irreversible changes to my body, unpredictable care needs of children etc while he was making no similar commitment to the relationship and could theoretically walk away without a care in the world (btw, I am the higher earner it wasn't about money). And he got it - If i trusted him enough to commit and start a family with him accepting all these possible consequences, making a legal commitment was the least he could do

we could have made other arrangements but marriage was the easiest way to sort it all out

I would say it's essential to be married when you have children (from a legal viewpoint). I have just witnessed a friend pretty much "lose" an application under The Children's Act, some of her "clout" lost due to them not being married. I am also in the middle of stressful litigation with my STBXH, given the position he has left me in, I have discovered that my standing is far stronger than if we hadn't been married. Just my personal experience.

Another thing that I don't think has been mentioned is benefits payable from the state if one of you dies. If you are married at date of death the widow(er) is eligible for some (not sure exactly what!) benefits. Maybe widows allowance and possibly something for any children under 18? If you are not married I doubt you'd get anything and even if you could, you'd have to prove you were financially dependant/living as married - not something you want to be sorting on top of everything else when your spouse dies.

So even for those who don't have any savings or assets there is the state benefits to consider.

With regards to pensions there are still some "types" of pensions that have to be paid to the married spouse on death under legislation. Anything else is payable under the scheme's rules, which may only consider a married spouse as an "eligible spouse".

It is entirely possible (and I have seen it happen) that if a man doesn't divorce, but leaves his wife and has a partner for a long time (say 20 years) and then dies, the spouse's pension could be paid to his legal wife who he hasn't been with for 20 years+, not his long term partner. It is final salary schemes that will have old rules about spouses like this, so if your dp has a final salary scheme, it's worth asking about spouse's benefits on death.

I also think in the situation i mention above, the wife could contact the DWP and receive the benefits from the state.

Marriage isn't just about protecting yourself if the other person screws you over, it's also about protecting yourself if/when something happens to one of you.

Here: www.gov.uk/browse/benefits/bereavement

Sorry morbid, I know. But it is good to be prepared.

She made poor choices not to protect herself, and now she's seeing the consequences.

I do think it's foolish to have a baby, house, and financial dependence on a person without some sort of contract in place as a safety net.

But that doesn't make him less of a dick. Why does he, the high earner, not have all the kids where he can take care of them, instead of leaving them badly off? At least if he had them, even temporarily, she could get back on her feet and have the stress of a living situation taken off.

People think it is 'just a piece of paper' and it is only when things go wrong that they realise it is a vital 'piece of paper'. If you don't have it you need to go to the solicitor and pay a lot to get the same rights - even then you may miss out on some things. It is a lot cheaper to have the marriage certificate- you only need the registry office and 2 witnesses.

I totally agree, I have a friend in this position. They're buying a house without her on the mortgage and therefore without her on the deeds. She's worked pt since their children were born, with all the career hit that entails. I've begged her to consider marrying but she's stubbornly set against it. Her OH is a decent man who adores his children so it's not so much a worry that he'd leave her, but if anything were to happen to him, she'd be stuffed.

She may be sure that he won't leave her but has she considered her position if he dies tomorrow? Does she understand inheritance laws etc? Does she know what happens with his pension? There are 101 questions she needs the answer to and if she won't get married she needs to visit a solicitor asp to find out.

"My / her salary didn't cover the childcare" is a phrasevi have seen a couple of times in this thread as one of the reasons women got trapped with no income. This is the wrong way to look at it, IMO. Each parents income only needs to cover half the childcare. The childcare enables both parents to work, not just the mother. And working in a low paid job is the stepping stone to a higher paid job....

However I am and always have been the higher earner in our household.

again thanks people. Lots of good points made. I am still ð??± at those saying have dcs and not married but I'm happy with that ! how about if you were to fall ill and not be able to earn ? how about if your dp were to die and there next of kin challenge any will leaving money to you ? (or worse still because you haven't made one, entitled to nothing) how about your state pension rights , ? these are inherited by spouses. All those NI contributions paid for years by one or other of you, dissapearing to the exchequer rather than the bereaved spouse. The list goes on, I was unaware of the half of it until bf went through the trauma . For the life of me I cannot understand noe why anyone would have a child without marriage. Why , if committed enough to make a baby not interested in getting married. Sure you can go to a solicitor and make it 'nearly' the same, but costs a fortune and still doesn't change things like pension, whereas marriage costs a fraction and provides all of the above. As for bf, some posters have suggested she send the kids to dad while she picks herself up. (I love that idea as nothing more likely to spoil the honeymoon with new bride than 5 v angry kids 24/7 ) but she is too traumatised to be seperated from them and twatchops has moved to Dubai. plus one in last year of a' levels , one finishing gcse' s one at uni and two at primary. Plus, older ones not even talking to him.

Me and the ex were together around twelve yrs, when we met she had a mortgage, she had cash from the sale of another house which she used as a 30% deposit...
Together we paid it off and we undertook a series of massive home improvements, which we both paid for and I supplied the labour and know how..
The gist of it is when we split after I found out about her affair I was entitled to nothing, my accountant confirmed this to me as well..
That person who you share a bed with every night will change if you split and money will become a big issue..

Now I'm married and a director of my wife's company so from a financial standpoint I won't have my pantalons pulled down again..

Another point is 9 out of 10 children born to unmarried, cohabiting partners will be living in single-parent households by their teens.

i feel for your friend .but you can,t have the benefit of marriage without the final commitment .our eldest son was 3 when we married .because we were buying a flat and the lawyer told my hubby that to protect us ie me and son .we would be better doing so .so my hubby came in and announced this .how bloody romantic .but if the house in joint names she may be entitled to something

This experience has completely changed my view on marriage. I am married divorced and remarried so just assumed living together was almost the same and it was really a matter of personal preference. My divorce was fairly amiable, but made easier by simple division by 2 and him paying maintenance. There were plenty of things to argue about but at least money wasn't one of them !. My opinion now is that women in general have done themselves a disservice by agreeing to. children without marriage. Its all very well to say that many men do the child care and lower paid work (a fifty fifty split would be ideal ) but in rl it is 90+% women who do. Yes ideally women would work in highly paid jobs and men would work around children, then how many would 'not believe in marriage' ? To me it seems that too many women are selling themselves short, many (like my friend) would never have refused marriage as she had no intention of going elsewhere but kept hoping that he would change his mind. Sadly he did, with a women half his age who he married 'for her cultural reasons ' as her parents did not want her living with him as it left her vulnerable !!! . To which he readily agreed and was of course free to do so without the annoying hindrance of divorce.

"marriage is a set of legal protections"

This.

You don't lose any legal protections when you get married, and you gain several. What's to lose?

for the life of me I can't understand why anyone would have children without getting married

Erm, because he doesn't want to and has good reasons, which I respect. Marriage isn't important to me so I didn't mind. Of course, things changed when I gave up work but I feel strongly about children being in nursery at a young age so I wasn't going to stay in full-time work just in case we split up ten years down the line. We have all the protections I described earlier, which incidentally didn't cost us anything. You don't need a solicitor to have your name on the mortgage, or make a will, or get named as a beneficiary on the pension. That's all just form-filling.

I could 'insist' on marriage like some posters said they did but I don't think a marriage based on one party nagging, cajoling or giving ultimatums to the other is something to be desired.

As some posters have said, it's not so much being unmarried, it's more about drifting into a vulnerable situation without realising it.

Plus plenty of ex-husbands screw their wives over, refuse to pay maintainence, lie about their earnings etc. and women have to drag them through the courts so if that's what he's going to be like, then that's what you've got to deal with, regardless of whether you're married.