Insisting on marriage

[Marcine]

DP and I have been together for many years and have 3 children together, but aren't married.

We are thinking about buying a property in the next couple of years. The deposit is my money, however DP is the main earner (I am at home with the children and earn a small income self employed). I couldn't buy anywhere on my own.

DP doesn't want to get married, but I feel a bit nervous about putting all my savings into a property with him without being married. He reckons it makes absolutely no legal difference but I'm not sure.

AIBU to insist on marriage first?

Alright guys, sorry if I'm misinformed! - that example was one of many similar situations I had been told about from friends and family regarding common law living but those people must be misinformed also, I was just trying to help with what I thought may have been useful information. My apologies, no need to call out like a cow mind, a simple 'i think you've heard that wrong' would have sufficed. I'll go now.

babybarrister some countries do accord rights to common law spouses I believe. So maybe this is the source of the UK myth? Or maybe just wish fulfilment - it does seem remarkably tenacious.

Yeah, that. It's incredibly important to tackle the misconceptions. I appreciate you may feel a bit bruised givemestrength but if nothing else, you won't forget this information.

Not sure what a cow mind is...

Fair enough if you've learnt something today, but you don't have to be on MN for long before you realise how dangerous it is when women either don't think these things through, or do and assume what you've said is true and end up royally fucked over when their "D"P leaves them high and dry having fobbed them off for years and promised them support should they split up.

All our income is shared at the moment, all in and out of the same account essentially.

I could cover childcare on my income but we wouldn't have much left over and life would be stressful, whereas if I am self employed/wahm we have no childcare costs and end up with more money in the pot, although I am earning significantly less.

DP doesnt have any savings for a deposit and could not buy without me. He does have a good pension. My money is a few grand rather than millions unfortunately! Maybe 15% of properties we are looking at.

I know there have been suggestions mooted by some MPs and pressure groups that there should be a concept of common-law spouse, or rights extended to cohabiting partners. Personally I'd be against this - as I pointed out upthread, there may be people, like me, who might not want the financial entanglement that marriage brings. To have one's relationship default to that option after a certain number of years seems to me to be wrong.

Baby barrister is right - we need better education. This should be covered in health and relationships lessons in school. (Also, I'd be in favour of extending civil partnerships to heterosexual couples, as there are people who genuinely have "in principle" objections to marriage, with its patriarchal and religious history).

I think some parts of Canada Australia and Anerica recongise common law spouse
Personally I think as long as people know ecactly what they are letting themselves in to its up to them ,but most don't ,

get married and have the protection it offers

Set up wills mortgages insurance and pensions to reflect the contract of marriage but this can easily be changed without the other persons knowledge

Do nothing , but don't bitch when you end up with SFA and your homeless, jobless with a few kids and can't screw your ex ass to the wall 😂

Yes, Scotland introduced some protection for unmarried spouses (but England has not and many people Englan would not want that change - as someone said above those of us who are older with children would not want a boyfriend to take our children's inheritance on a split if we were to move a man in - so it can work both ways).

You cannot force him to marry you. You could invest the money somewhere else I suppose but you'd be best off putting it into a house and make sure your share is perhaps higher than his as you aren't working and have that all documented - a solicitor can do this for you. You can take out insurance against paying inheritance tax although I suspect the value of your house will probably be under the inheritance tax limit even the single person one that applies to me so that might be something to do later and you can take life insurance out against the other person so if they die you can use the money to repay the mortgage - in fact your mortgage company might require it even.

Going back to work is probably your best practical protection but might not be easy. We both worked full time when we had 3 little children and it was certainly a lot of work for both of us domestically and otherwise.

GiveMeStrength - as babybarrister said, you shouldn't feel bad. It's a really common misconception - there should be some kind of education campaign.

If you have children together, I wouldn't buy a house together unless you are married.

You need to protect your future with your children.

What is his reason against marriage?

This is where we need civil partnerships.

It happened to me a lifetime ago, I was the one who didn't want to get married as I wasn't sure it would last long but baby was coming and living in the same house was practical.

Found a simple solution. Gave my savings to my parents, who then lent us the money for the deposit (all done through a solicitor) and a charge was put against the property.

Two years later ex walked out and we had to sell the house. The debt to my parents had to be paid back first then the rest was split 50:50 simple.

I recovered my deposit, of course ex didn't like it but nothing they could do.

I can understand why people believe the common law myth. After all, cohabiting is almost as common as marriage now, and such couples are rightly viewed in much the same light by society. So, it's unsurprising that people think that the modern way would be recognised in law.

Off topic but I read that in Norway, cohab couples with children end up with the same rights after a certain amount of time. I assume some other countries are the same. This could also contribute to the confusion about the laws in the four U.K. countries.

I agree that better publicity is needed.

Cohabiting is not 'the modern way' it's the naive way.

There are a number of other countries where they do have common law, de facto etc unions. But some (not all) of them are relatively new things, whereas the UK term has been in use for decades. It's as puzzling as it is pervasive.

Scotland does have some protection for unmarried couples but it's something that will ebb away rather than increase. They ended it in 2006, so it's only unions that existed before then. Quite a few legal oddities too, the parties need to have been holding themselves out as married. Obviously a lot of cohabitants never do that. So the numbers aren't massive and they continue to reduce with time.

Op , as others have said there are ways to protect yourself with out marriage but there not water tight and once it's all done costs more than popping down the reg office,

What you need to find out now, is the real reason behind your partners reluctance on it. If it's that he knows he has the upperhand without marriage and is trying to protect his interests and his alone then you have a problem. If its a simple not liking the idea of a wedding and all that goes with it then you could discuss it and put it out there that a quick simple and cheap registry office, not even a party after.

That then gives you both all the protection of the marriage and your children as well.

I wouldn't want to be proceeding with the house buy without something in place first.

I could cover childcare on my income but we wouldn't have much left over and life would be stressful, whereas if I am self employed/wahm we have no childcare costs and end up with more money in the pot, although I am earning significantly less.

Totally understand that. However, if you split up or he keels over tomorrow, what happens then? You're the one assuming all the risk of being out of work, even though the financial benefits accrue to both of you. Stopping work something you have to think very carefully about doing when you're not married.

I really do think it's important that cohabitees don't get the same rights as married couples so that couples who live together are not forced into that particular set of rules.

Scenario 1: Mr A's career gets going in his 20's, but he doesn't earn enough to save. On his 30th birthday he gets a big pay increase. For the next 20 years, he earns at a rate of two houses per decade, before retiring at 50. On retirement, he actually "only" has three houses, as one house-worth of earnings was spent on general living expenses. Nevertheless, he is well off, with one house to live in and two generating retirement income from rents.

Scenario 2: Mr A marries Miss B on his 30th birthday. The trajectory of her earnings follows a roughly similar path to his, in the sense that she earns a similar amount at a similar age. She is younger than him though, so that by the time of his 50th birthday, when they divorce, they "only" have four houses between them, the three he would have had if single, and one she earned. (She has contributed nothing to joint living expenses. Given two can live together for the same cost as one alone, the house he bought to live in and the one he spent on living expenses have taken care of all their needs during the marriage.) In the divorce settlement, they each get two houses. Mr A's retirement income for his 36-year remaining life-expectancy is half what it would have been if he had remained single, as he has only one spare house to generate rent. Miss B is now earning at a similar rate to his peak, and if she works another ten years, she can expect to have three houses generating rents for her, in a retirement of similar length to Mr A's. Her disposable income will be triple Mr A's, and 50% higher than it would have been if she'd remained single all her life.

Mr A and Miss B earn the same amount over the course of their lives, but because of their age difference their high-earning years overlapped their marriage to different degrees. Consequently a 50:50 divorce settlement resulted in Mr A living one third of his life with his disposable income half what it would have been if he had never married, and Miss B living a similar period with her income 50% higher than it would have been if she'd never married.

(Does scenario 2 make sense? Could Mr A have got Miss B's future earning potential taken into account during the divorce? Would Miss B have defeated him if he tried this, for example by temporarily "retiring?")

(A and B are not common as in most divorces there is hardly any money for a start. In scenario 2 why hasn't the woman paid half the living expenses during the marriage though? Also all those syaing if you are married it is 50/50 are wrong. that's just the starting point in England. Plenty of couples with not much money end up with the lower earner getting more than 50%)

Do you mean future earning potential as in getting a cut of future earnings? That's only in very occasional and specific circumstances.

I'm with PPs saying don't buy a house with him until you are married.

I think you need to establish exactly why he doesn't want to marry and point out the benefits of doing so with particular emphasis on security/financial benefits it gives your children.

He is NBU to not want to get married but YANBU to refuse to invest in a house without the bit of paper.

FTR, I would probably have refused to give up my career to become a SAHM without being married.

Good luck, I hope you can make your DP see sense.

I’ve just come across a very informative website for women on how to best manage their money - and it says

“No ring, no rights, if you live together you have very few rights”.

I can’t post a direct link, but the website is:

www.savvywoman.co.uk

It has excellent up to date information in the ‘Living Together’ subsection.