Status of unmarried women in long term relationships should be taught in schools.

[prorsum]

A friend of mine has recently separated from her partner of 16 years, 2dcs under 14.

Legally she is entitled to nothing, common law wife is not a legal status. She has performed all the acts a sahm wife performs yet it counts for very little.

Her partner would not get married despite her wanting it and I know why, he knew.

She's not a money grabber, just wants some security for her children in case he meets someone else and has other dcs.

We've both done google to get some information as she cannot get legal aid and it's not happy reading.

I'm not man bashing, I think that it would be useful for both sexes to be aware of the implication of living together but it does impact more negatively on women.

Remember 16 odd years ago computers/internet were far less common and we didn't Google things the way we do now. If you had wanted to find out your legal status it would have required an expensive trip to the solicitor or some clued up reading

Exactly.

Maybe they should also teach boys that if you get married and you get divorced and are lucky you will only loose half your house, half your pension, half your savings, if your unlucky you will loose an awful lot more, you will be fleeced for life...

How many parents sit down with their children and discuss marital law? How many children would actually listen to what may be advice from the shittiest parents, in the view of the child, ever.

I have two daughters in their 20's and they have heard about this from me on numerous occasions prorsum. It's not just the schools job to educate our children. It is up to the parents too.

On of them was married before she had children and I'm as sure as I can be that the other will marry first too.

It's not just the schools job to educate our children. It is up to the parents too.

The whole point of this discussion is that many people don't know the facts. How can people educate their children in things they don't know about themselves?

peggy I have stated several times on this thread the information would be useful for both genders. I did not give the thread the right headline. I am not interested in shafting men. sigh

My dd will receive all the information she needs about protecting her assets and maintaining her financial independence which may be about getting married but may be through other legal/financial methods.

She's learned through my situation that being able to support your children and yourself is vital, it gives you choices, like being able to stay in your home.

The idea that men lose half their house, pension, savings etc. is nonsense when both parties have earned money and contributed to the family finances.

Now there is the internet it is easy to find the facts.
This is one of numerous threads in MN about it.
I always tell people- my life would have been very different if being widowed had just been a partner dying and not a husband.
You will run into huge problems if your DP is injured abroad - especially if he isn't conscious.
CAB will tell you for free.
If you are not married, and don't have a legal contract I would make sure that you are best friends with his parents and they love you. If he dies, you do not have a legal status and they never liked you- you are in for problems.

I don't understand the people who say 'the information is there if you look for it'. You need to know that you're supposed to look for it before you can do so.

Yes! Fantastic point Jayne and I can't believe it took until page 6 for someone to point this out. It's only obvious if you know it. If you've lived in a community/family where hardly anyone's married, where people think it's just a piece of paper, why would you as a teenager presume this isn't the case and go and research the matter? Especially if you live in a society where the term 'common law marriage' is in fairly frequent use, which everyone in the UK does.

I don't think anyone's really pointed out so far, either, that on this particular subject, a little bit of knowledge can be as bad as none at all. Take what cardibach says below:

I'm not entirely sure marriage or the lack of it is the problem here. Surely if someone in this situation is on the house deeds, named on the children's birth certificates and both parties have made a will recognising the other as beneficiary then matters of inheritance and separation are just as 'nailed down' as in a marriage?

Cardibach you clearly know something about the issues. You're aware of the need to own property jointly, PR issues and wills, which is more than a lot of people. This post sounds quite well informed, initially. But you've not thought about IHT, or Next Of Kin arrangements. A couple could have exactly the protections in place that you describe and the shit could still very, very much hit the fan. The home could be over the IHT threshold and, as the unmarried couple don't have the right to use the other partner's unused allowance, in the event of an untimely death it might have to be sold. With no NOK arrangement, if one of them falls under a bus it could be the parent they've been NC with for 20 years who gets to decide whether the life support gets turned off. Marriage would solve both of these problems. An NOK lodged with your GP would probably solve one, nothing will solve the IHT one.

If even people who know enough to know about mirror wills and PR don't know this, we have a big fuckoff problem. It's not just about the 'marriage is a piece of paper' brigade either. There are women on here who think marriage protects all women better tan cohabitation, which isn't the case. It protects the poorer party, which is more likely to be a woman, but if you're the woman and the one with all the assets, it really doesn't.

Exactly chicken . There are all sorts of weird things - I get my first husbands inheritance tax allowance for example.

I don't think we should be teaching that marriage is the ideal state, but we should be teaching everyone (regardless of gender) about how to protect themselves financially in the future.

My DP won't get married. I'm fed up of all the pitying looks I get off people as though I'm stupid for staying with him. They think I'm just some silly little girl who has no idea what I'm getting myself into.

What they don't know is that I have done a lot of research into my non-existent rights and have my own plan of how to protect myself - I won't give up my job if we have children (I have a very good salary) and I am paying into my own private pension. Before any children come along I will ensure that they would be protected in the event that he died, and everything wouldn't go to his brother.

I was answering the op's point that children wouldn't listen to their parents. I think she is wrong about that. Not all children respect their parents, but many do.

Educating school children will do nothing to help those who left school years ago and are now living in ignorance either. Personally I have found forums like this to be a useful starting point for information like this. Obviously it needs to be taken with a pinch of salt, but it might make some women investigate further ad find out for themselves.

So while I don't much care for the thread title of the OP, yes there is clearly a very persuasive argument to teach this in schools. Could be part of PHSE or whatever they call it now, or as part of general financial literacy that another poster upthread mentioned.

And the comments about it being easily googled are just risible. Even if we accepted this to be true, there are so many things our children are taught in schools that they could find out online. If you're going down that road, we might as well fuck off most schooling altogether because hey, we've got wikipedia.

I've seen far too many threads where unmarried partners are finding themselves shafted (usually because they abandoned independent earning, and time away from workplace reduced, in at least short term if not permanently, their earning power).

So yes, SRE should cover the legal status of any/all relationship choices. Anything that reduces ignorance over key issues within important decisions is good. And as SRE is on the timetable anyhow, not a problem to include.

It won't make a dramatic change (as not everyone pays attention to what is on offer in school) but at least there'll be a somewhat greater awareness that This Stuff Matters.

My DS certainly listened to what I said , I asked if this has been taught in school and he said not. To a certain extent I agree with you Peggy although it's not losing half of anything is it its about splitting things equally which to my knowledge is half and half ?

I think the fact a few posters have said they thought cohabiting meant the same as marriage shows even now there is a lack of knowledge on this subject.

It's very easy for people to talk about educating yourself or taking responsibility but in the real world life isn't always so cut and dried. If a discussion has taken place before any pregnancy and its agreed that marriage should come first then that's great. However lots of people don't especially want to get married and this is where knowledge would be power.

The CAB can give you the information.

Ok is fairly nebulous in this country, but if your DP has eg an arsey brother, it could all end up in the hands of lawyers at exactly the time when you don't need the stress and may be uncertain of income.

Also, it's an extremely clear matter in some countries, including mainstream holiday destinations, so you would need to check in case there was an accident whilst you were away.

The comments about it not helping adults seem to miss the point as well. Nothing we teach kids in school helps adults who don't have that particular skill or knowledge, but we still do it. We don't say there's no point having literacy drives in schools because a shameful percentage of the adult population (shameful for society not the individuals who have been failed) still can't read and write properly. We don't decide not to bother encouraging our youth to get qualifications because there are loads of adults with none at all.

Chicken The title is definitely misleading but I do think my op gives a clearer picture.

Totally agree with your last paragraph. Nails a lot of the nonsense that's been spouted on this thread.

I'd find it pretty awful if we were forced into having marriage type responsibilities towards one another just for being in a relationship for a couple of years. It's good that there is a distinction between the two types of relationship, I'd rather reserve the right to be in a relationship with someone without having legal responsibilities towards them if neither of us want it.

We are adults that should be able to decide for ourselves how committed we want our relationships to be without the state deciding for us, so I'm very glad we don't have rules like those in austraila.

The CAB can give you the information.

If people don't know something is an issue, they won't seek out information about it. If you know enough about the issues of being unmarried with children to go to the CAB to find out more, you're already ahead of the crowd. It's the unknown unknowns issue.

I understand your exasperation, op. I don't see what there is to teach though. "There is no common law marriage" only takes 5 seconds to say.

Google, books about marriage etc all yield the same, look up common law wife, answer: no such thing. No idea why this weird myth persists.

What people need to be better informed about isn't getting married vs not it's how important it is for women to be financially independent regardless of marital status.

I'm not married to long term dp and I'm in a much better legal position for it.

We have always lived in places in only my name.

All the bills/finances go through the bank account in only my name.

If I die my dcs will inherit my full estate which is what I want. I have a dc that isn't dps who would be disinherited if we got married. Even if I didn't have this dc if I married dp then died, he would inherit from me. Then he could get remarried then die. So my assets could end up in the hands of some stranger I've never met! All my dcs are better off with me unmarried.

If dp died he has no assets and no pension so I wouldn't lose anything. His dm would pay for his funeral. I'd become eligible for childcare tax credits so I'd be able to continue working.

I'd be 'stupid and ignorant' if I got married, as would most women who stay financially independent. That's what we need to be teaching girls at school not 'get married & depend on a man'.

reni1 but it does and intelligent people get shafted, not just the so called irresponsible ones.

Access to Google is so much better now than it was then. Most of us have it all time if we have a smart phone. Technology is nothing like it was 16 years ago; I remember my first brick motorola and my dial up internet connection. I just can't with this idea that the knowledge was simple to access. It wasn't.

I absolutely agree violet

When I think back to how not only was I unmarried but also gave up work it makes me shudder at my stupidity

Except you weren't stupid; you just didn't know. When did we become so knowledgeable? Was it when MN started?