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?

What are his objections to marriage?
A possible compromise might be to do the registry office thing and tell no-one. No fuss, but all the legal protection.
This is why people are campaigning for civil partnerships for heterosexual couples, btw

I have to say that I can't understand how, in an age of mass access to Google, the common law marriage idea persists when about two minutes of searching would show you it's legally worthless.

OP, you haven't said what your partner's objection to marriage is about, but if it's about avoiding a fuss, just book the register office one day and get it done, without any bother.

Haven't read the full thread so sorry if repeating.

If you are not married you can own the house in differing %ages as tenants in common. If you are married, you can still do this, but if challenged the 50/50 split will win.

Even if you don't separate, you are almost certainly going to die at different times. Whislt not romantic, marriage does give you the ability to leave your share of the house (and rest of the estate) to your spouse without paying inheritance tax

If you've been together for years, have 3 children together and are planning to buy a house, what on earth could his reason be for not wanting to get married? Surely having children together is a commitment for the next 18 years, if not the rest of your lives? So why is he against making that commitment public and legal? It seems very odd to me.

I can totally understand a couple living together in rented house with no children not wanting to get married. But not your circumstances. Why does he not want to stand up in front of your family and friends and make a commitment to you?

Your legal rights are different if you are married. There is no such thing as a common law wife.

Hi,an independent financial advisor is your best bet.and have a think about your will.If (I really hope not)you were to die and your partner got all the money,house etc,then moved in another woman or married,she'd nd up with some entitlement to your money.would it be better to divide it between the children with partner or husband,being able to live in house for the rest of his life and the money in trust for the children with an amount of money annually for expenses ?.just a thought.
're the wedding,you ,I guess,either have to shelve the idea or give him an ultimatum.
I feel for you,wishing you all the best 🌼

Because you have to realise you need to google it buttery. If you already know, why check? The fact that a person is wrong doesn't mean this isn't the thought process.

You should really have tied the knot (even if in a registry office with one witness each) before having kids but much much better now than never, go for it.

This is largely right "If you are not married you can own the house in differing %ages as tenants in common. If you are married, you can still do this, but if challenged the 50/50 split will win." But it is not the case that on marriage everyone has a 50./50 split. The courts look atthe overall picture, who earns what, how the chidlren will be housed. Sometimes that means the parent who looks after the children (which can be the man of course) gets more than 50%.

A man who refuses to marry his low earning SAHM partner is either a dick or a dimwit.

A man who refuses to marry his low earning SAHM partner is either a dick or a dimwit.

I agree with this and that’s speaking as someone who earns 10x my DH’s salary and hates fuss. We did registry office and pub lunch.

The difference being married will make is that if one of you has contributed vastly more financially by the time you divorce, that person will bitterly regret ever having got married. And the other will be very happy they did.

A SAHP should definitely want to get married. And the person supporting her (/him) should definitely refuse.

This.

The standard advice I've seen on mumsnet, usually in the relationships forum, is that you should definitely get married if you're financially less well off than your partner, but definitely shouldn't if you're better off.

I think the idea of common law spouse exists because people want it to be true. It used to be used as a kind of courtesy title in the media in the days when unmarried couples living together were less common than they are today.

The standard advice I've seen on mumsnet, usually in the relationships forum, is that you should definitely get married if you're financially less well off than your partner, but definitely shouldn't if you're better off.

Well sort of, although that's an oversimplification. Marriage has an impact on so many things, there's no one size fits all. It's true that as a generalisation, marriage provides better financial protection for the more financially vulnerable party. But there's more to it than that.

People also need to take into account things like inheritance tax. Any couple with a home that might be over the limit will need to think carefully about the surviving spouse getting hit with IHT on the home. Or the less well off partner might have assets they want to leave to their children, and thus be determined not to marry, whereas the better off partner might not. If your career would take off if you had a SAHP to cover all the home stuff but wouldn't if you had to do your 50/50 share and your partner won't do it unless you marry them, you might be better tying the knot.

Unmarried partners are often accepted as next of kin now, but nonetheless anyone with toxic parents who wants to prioritise ensuring those parents are never involved in any medical decisions would be best advised to marry their partner. Even if they're the one with the money in the relationship. A man wanting to ensure he has automatic parental responsibility for a child at birth should marry the mother, a woman who wants to guard against this shouldn't marry even if her partner is wealthier than she is. Etc etc.

It's about priorities and circumstances. Marriage tends to be the better default on average, simply because people are often a bit shit about things like wills and adding partners to death in service benefits, and marriage covers most things if you've not bothered sorting anything else. However, that's also a generalisation.

Not all those who don't want to marry are shits, of course. Some have longstanding objections to the whole patriarchy/ownership aspects and, tbh, if you have neither assets nor DC, then that's not really a big deal.
Some, as demonstrated upthread, really don't know the legal implications of not marrying. They have no intention of stiffing the partner they love and have children with, they are just unaware of the potential problems.
And then there are the ones who want to make damn sure that their assets stay theirs. The men (it's usually men) who don't mind having several DC and a mortgage with a woman, but still believe, deep down, that this woman is ultimately disposable, and that if they haven't married her, they will be able to trade her in for a newer model with a lot less fuss.

We don't yet know what the issue is with OP's DP.

It's more convenient for him not to get married. It leaves him free to come and go from your relationship as he pleases, knowing that your pension/ earning opportunities are much reduced, and that you have no savings as the house deposit will have absorbed them. He could easily dump you and the children at any time, and still keep his pension, his job, and potentially the house.

You and the children will have much greater financial and legal protection if you are married.

I haven't rtft so apologies if this has already been asked. Is it marriage he doesn't want or a wedding? Dh & I didn't marry for ages (4 dc in fact) because we didn't want a great big wedding & we were worried about our families reactions. In the end we thought 'fuck it' & got married quietly with just our dc, dad's & his friend & partner in attendance & had a nice pub lunch after.

Ignore the wills. They are useless because anyone can tear up their will at any time. Or simply write a new one secretly that replaces the old one.

Much as I accept that marriage has patriarchal connotations ReanimatedSGB, not getting married purely because of the misogynistic history of marriage is a logic fail when the woman is the more financially vulnerable of the two. Which is the majority of the time.

You're basically saying, because we hate sexism we're going to leave the woman in a less advantageous position than she'd be in if we got married. Obviously this doesn't apply when the woman is the one who'd be financially less advantaged by marriage. But when she's not, there's fuck all feminist about a stance that potentially gives her fewer rights when the relationship ends (which they all do eventually, be it death or separation).

OP I think it's also worth finding out if your partner has some other money saved that he is trying to protect.

the only thing you can do is ask, of course, but if you are getting married or into a house owning situation together, you need to have all the facts.

Just to reiterate the legal above comments in a more simple and understandable fashion:

Your solicitor will ask you whether you want to hold the property as (a) joint tenants or (b) tenants in common.

-- > If you chose (a), you will both own 50% of the property legally, whether married or not. If you sell and break up, you get 50% each. My Ex-DP and I had this arrangement and it was fine - 50% each despite his moaning about having put more deposit in (which was cheeky as i paid 1/3 more of the mortgage and bills for 2 years).

-- > If you choose (b), you will own whatever % each that you instruct the solicitor to atrribute to you. usually a % based on the amount of money contributed.

The legal arrangement above doesnt change based on marriage or not.

However, marriage has a separate regime for splitting assets which must be considered alongside the above. if you are married and then want to divorce and split your assets, then the court can take into account each party's contribution to the marriage and re-order the % split based on this. You usually find that SAHPs who haven't got a stake in the property are awarded one or mothers that have raised children while the father has worked all hours and built up signficant savings and pension pots are awarded part of those for their own contribution. If you aren't married, this won't happen.