To have kids before marriage?

[PandaEyes25]

I'm desperate to start TTC with my Partner of 7 years. Everything is pretty much spot on regarding timing as I am in a good job which will allow me to work flexibly, we have a good amount of savings and live in a nice area in our own house with a couple of spare bedrooms.

The only thing is, we are not married.
It's not the my OH doesn't believe in marriage. He says that we will get married at some point but I'm not sure if I want to bring a baby into the mix without having the stability marriage provides.

I'm just curious to see if other people agree with me that getting married first is definitely the right thing to do or if I'm just getting a bit hung up over it and that it's not worth putting off having children for.

I would always have preferred to get married before kids anyway, but my views were entrenched after a few years on the relationships board. Pallisers put it very well- you gots to hope for the best, prepare for the worst (I think I've seen that on a mural in Belfast?). The old "kids are more of a commitment" is a load of old tosh. People walk away from relationships with kids all the time, and most of the time the person doing the walking is the (male) higher earner. After a split their ex finds themselves realising that the man they thought was decent and caring actually isn't so much when it comes to paying a reasonable amount to support his kids.

In your shoes OP I'd have a small wedding now followed by a beast honeymoon/last hurrah and start trying with aplomb straight after.

I have two DCs with DP. We aren't married and aren't likely to get married.

I saw a solicitor after our first DC was born, to see how the land lay legally. She said the quickest way to get maximum legal protection in terms of money and property would be to get married.

However, if you want to remain unmarried, there are ways you can replicate most (not all, but most) of the legal protection via other remedies. So DP and I did the following:

Own the house 50/50. We actually own as tenants in common because some family members leant us significant sums of money towards buying the house and we wanted to protect their contributions. But ideally you'd own as joint tenants.

Each made wills with really explicit instructions about who gets what inheritance if the other dies

Took out life insurance policies and named each other as the beneficiary

Willed our pensions to one another (although, because we're not married I wouldn't be allowed to claim the state widows' pension if DP died)

I think those were the main things.

One thing I did say to DP was that if, for any reason, I had to give up work or significantly reduce my hours/earning potential, then at that point I would want to be married. Because then, in the event of a split, the hit to my career would be recognised in any settlement. This is of course also still true and applicable if the roles are reversed.

IMO people romanticise marriage too much. It's a legal contract binding the individuals into agreements about property and money.

If you want to be together and have children, then be together and have children. Just make sure you hold onto a legal claim to your house and your money. Whether via marriage or some other means.

Why wouldn't you just get married, though?

And Wills can be changed without your knowledge, don't forget.

I wouldn't have had children without being married first. Definitely not, for all of the reasons people have stated above.

In your shoes I'd do the registry office wedding (and then lovely child-free honeymoon if you can!). Once kids arrive nothing is the same in your relationship, small kids are a grind. A lovely, gorgeous grind. And your relationship takes second place. It's nice to look back on your romantic days when you are knee deep in sticky children and constant 'mummy' shouts!

Plus (and this is just my personal view) I also wanted to change my name and for us all to have the same name as a family. Of course this element might not matter to you, I'm probably a bit old fashioned in that way.

Marriage is essentially a piece of paper.
Children are a much bigger commitment.

Marriage doesn't make any relationship more or less stable than others.
The only thing it will affect is you not all having the same surname for a while.

You can prepare a will, which you would do anyway if you are worried about how responsibilities for parenting if anything were to happen to you, and how to issue assets. That can always be altered once you are married.

How old are you? That may be a factor on TTC.

Good luck though, whatever you decide. Hope it goes smoothly for you.

Why wouldn't you just get married, though?

Because right now I'd be worse off in a divorce. And DP isn't arsed.

Marriage doesn't make any relationship more or less stable than others.
The only thing it will affect is you not all having the same surname for a while.

But it clearly isn't. It offers massive legal protection and you don't have to change your name. The point of marriage isn't to keep the relationship together but to provide legal protection if it falls apart (and other legal advantages if you ever move abroad or one of you finds yourself in hospital etc.).

Agree with Jackie , I wanted us all to have the same surname too, I'm glad we do. However many women, including people I know keep their own name after they get married.

I have two dc and am not married. I'm also a SAHM. The legal and financial benefits of marriage are dependent on how much money you have. 50% of nothing is nothing. We don't own a home and don't have significant savings. If we did they would be joint. Being married doesn't really give you financial security -having a job does, and I was well aware of the risk i was taking when I gave up work. However dp has a fantastic pension, which is costly, comes out of 'family' money and is his. My sister wasn't married to her now ex-dp and he had a really significant pension which she not only can't touch but can't even find out what it's worth. Had they been married there would have been a divorce on splitting and it would have been part of the settlement.

Pleasetellme- how did you will your pensions to one another? I was told that it was an expression of wish if you aren't married

We've been together 19 years and are very happy together. I said that being married would make it easier for should one of us die and me should we split, so he said fine. We're just going to pick some Tuesday, probably late Summer and go do it, with just our immediate family there followed by a curry. I won't change my name or wear a ring. Nothing will change between us but at £200 it's cheaper than getting a solicitor to sort it out. I know it doesn't sound very romantic but as we're not actually opposed to marriage it's just easier!

The way I see it is if your partner is to become unreasonable in the future, you're stuffed either way. Unmarried you're potentially left in a very vulnerable financial position; married you're facing an acrimonious and expensive divorce with no guarantee of a fair outcome.

If your partner remains reasonable then an unmarried split can be very fair and a divorce can be fairly cheap and simple.

It depends entirely on the hypothetical question of future partners and relationship breakdowns and no one has a crystal ball.

I was firmly in the camp of marriage before children but life didn't pan out that way and we're getting on a bit. So we got on with the children and put adequate financial protection in place for me (will, life insurance, etc). We've also discussed any future split in terms of what we both consider to be fair to both of us. The only thing being unmarried has affected so far was the very tiny pain in the arse of having to go together to register the birth with our toddler in tow. It would have been far preferable for DP to just go and do it and leave me at home!

Nicky that sounds like a nice way to do things to me. It's the way you're happy with. And you're doing it because you love one another and want to be secure in the future. Good reasoning I think.

I'm sorry pink1982 but there's so much dangerously bad advice in your post that I'm going to have to go through it.

1. Marriage is not essentially just a piece of paper. It's a legal contract. It's only a piece of paper in the sense that legal contracts are pieces of paper. People never seem to say your will, your birth certificate, your passport, your insurance documents or the Land Registry entry for your house are just pieces of paper. Yet we still hear it about marriage.

1. Marriage will affect shitloads of things. It won't necessarily affect the relationship. But it will affect your legal and financial obligations and entitlements when the relationship ends, which it will, with death or separation.

1. Marriage has nothing to do with surnames. You won't necessarily all have the same surname just because the parents are married, and you can all have the same surname without it.

1. Yes, you can make a will. And the other person can change theirs to disinherit you without telling you about it and, if you're not married, you've a minimal chance of challenging that. They can also change it if you're married, yes, but the distinction is that it's much easier for a spouse to challenge the will- fundamentally it's easy to disinherit an unmarried partner, not so a spouse.

None of these are necessarily reasons to get married, but they are things people should know.

Is the family business owned by your family or his?

Good points Eurus

20 mins down the registry office and £200 or less is cheap compared to setting up the equivalent legals.

No need for frilly frocks, flowers, favours or any other fatty stuff!

I cant believe some posters are naive enough to think children are a bigger commitment. Men can and do abandon children. It happened to me after 20 plus years of a happy marriage. I trusted him with my life too. People change.

Marriage does not stop break ups. But it affords a level of protection in all sorts of areas.

My divorced friends receive spousal maintenance on top of child support. Its the only thing that has kept their heads above water as child support is set at a disgracefully low amount.

I would also like to point out that there is a middle ground between a zero frills registry office wedding and a big, expensive one... you could literally go to the registry office to get your marriage certificate, no guests, no celebration... but you could also have a very modest wedding by inviting a small number of people (e.g. immediate family or best friends) to the registry office and have a meal in a nice restaurant afterwards. You could also exchange rings and wear special outfits, even if you don't go for full on expensive "wedding" outfits. Obviously it can cost as much or as little as you want it to.

I'm not one for the 'morality' of marriage before kids, just for the legal protection it'll give you.

^^this. I never get why people postpone getting married so they can have a bigger / better party, but each to their own of course.

Yanbu to go ahead with TTC now, but would I do it? Probably wouldn't choose to no, for all the reasons pps have mentioned.

Marriage is shorthand for legal protection. That's it.

The bit about having children being an all-binding commitment made me laugh. Right. So no man has ever abandoned their kids in the history of time?

Marriage won't protect your relationship from breaking down. It's just a hell of a lot easier legally if it ever does.

I'm married and highly recommend it

Marriage for us and for virtually all our friends is an essential before having children. It is more than a piece of paper - it is a commitment for life. Personally, I believe marriage vows taken seriously are the foundation on which a family should be based. Our children grew up secure that we were together forever and there would be no disruption or abandonment.

Me and DP aren't married and have a baby together

We have 2 DS. We are not yet married, although he has now proposed and we have set a date. DS1 was due the day his sister got married and we always joked that children were probably a bigger commitment than marriage as she could just walk away from him if she wanted. We are tied forever by the DCs x

For me, it would be a no. I wanted those vows before making such a huge commitment to another person.

Nothing to do with financials as the house was joint anyway but wanted as much security in the relationship as possible before taking that step. Marriages can and do fail but when just dating and no commitment it's far far easier to just walk away.

I would get married before having children for the legal protection you get. It sounds like it means alot to you. You dont have to have a wedding, just a marriage which wouldnt be that expensive.