AIBU to think if you want marital rights then you should get married?

[KitKat1985]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42134722

According to this BBC article, 2/3rds of cohabiting couples wrongly believe 'common-law marriage' laws exist when dividing up finances, and there are calls now to introduce some form of legal financial protection for 'common-law marriages'. AIBU to not get this? Surely if people choose not to get married (or have a civil partnership for same sex couples) then they do so knowing that they don't have the same legal protection as married couples. It was one of the reasons me and DH decided to get married after co-habiting for a couple of years. Surely if you choose not to take on the legal and financial commitments of getting married, then you can't expect to have the same rights if you break up / your partner passes away? And surely for some couples the whole reason they don't want to get married is so they can just walk away from things if the relationship fails, without having to have the legal and financial complications involved in getting divorced? Is it really fair to then force those people to have to support their partner if they break up even if they actively choose never to make that commitment in the first place?

genever I would love the formal recognition thanks. Now....how do we get that...oh yes just one way to do that.....

"ut what is wrong with being married?!?! Sorry I still don't get it"

I don't want to be married. I think marriage is deeply rooted in a patriarchal, misogynist system and I want no part of it.

What would you keep and what would you lose?

I would keep all the legal bits. Basically, I'd like the civil partnership model to cover the legal aspects - IHT, division of property etc - and if you want to also sign up to monogamy, god's presence, the cultural history aspects you have a marriage ceremony with a celebrant of your choice/religion/whatever.

Also, unfairly, it brings your insurance premiums down. I get house swappers insured on our car and the cost of insurance shoots up if the couple is unmarried.

leftbehind, PLEASE answer my question. I'm not being facetious, it is honestly headfucking me. You say you're a lawyer so you must know.

You want various benefits that come with marriage, such as IHT exemption and being the next of kin. But you won't marry. You'd have a civil partnership if you could, but you can't. Ok. But what - please, tell me - what is it in the marriage contract that you object to? So much so that you won't accept it as a price for getting the benefits you want?

What would a marriage tie you to that a civil partnership wouldn't?

Kitkat so the assumption is that married couples are less likely to hate each other than non married couples? And I thought this wasn't about the world judging how much we loved each other.

The people most hurt by this are usually women. I cannot believe so many people are not aware of their lack of rights. Women who have children with people they are not married to are very ill-advised, if they give up work and don’t have a share in the property - they are mad.

It is OK if you keep your well paid job, have you own property etc, but otherwise you are in a uncertain position. The man, usually the higher earner, will know he can get out of the relationship, especially if the children are grown up. Seen this many times, I am afraid.

"What would a marriage tie you to that a civil partnership wouldn't?"

Again. Being married.

Yorick - Betrand and Violet have nailed it.

if you want to also sign up to monogamy, god's presence, the cultural history aspects you have a marriage ceremony with a celebrant of your choice/religion/whatever.

Is that not why we have the choice of getting married in a Church or in a registrar's?

Again. Being married.

Which is the bit with the benefits. So you want the benefits but just don't like the word that's used to describe the status of having those benefits?

If we changed the lexicon so that the word 'marriage' is replaced with 'sparklyunicorn'' and married people are instead referred to as 'sparklyunicorned' people, would that be better?

I'm just not buying that someone would deny themselves protections they really want because they don't like the word associated with it.

Logical/practical objections to marriage:

You don’t have to tell anyone if you don’t want to, but if you actually want to do anything with that next of kin status, revealing to his parents you are in fact married as you sit at his bedside arguing about his life support machine, isn’t going to smooth family relations.

Make a list of all the people in your life who would be upset if they found out you got married and didn’t tell them/invite them.

Marriage does not negate the need for will making and future planning. Many here are treating it like it solves everything. It does not, especially in complicated families with previous marriages and children from previous relationships.

Monogamy and lifelong commitment. Marriage comes with the expectation that it will be to the exclusion of all others and that it is intended for life.

Divorce. To dissolve the partnership you need to prove why you wish to end it. You need to have further contact with someone who may be reluctant to acknowledge you, at best, be violent and abusive towards you, at worst. Divorces can be very complicated, length, and expensive.

To get married more than once you first need to be divorced. If your spouse does not agree to a divorce it can be many years and thousands in court fees before a divorce is granted. That is time spent tied to someone that you do not want to be tied to, and time in which you are not free to enter into the ‘protection’ of marriage with someone else.

Financial implications. Concentrate on the idea that a partnership is financially unequal, and sympathise with the lower earner, and you can see how a marriage, with its implied shared resources, is a good idea, and on an ongoing basis, when the marriage dissolves, offers protection to the less affluent partner. The picture changes if you are bringing much more money or earning potential to the partnership, or if you suddenly find yourself married to a gambling addict or substance abuser, someone in jail, someone tens of thousands in debt. It doesn’t become such a glowing prospect of ongoing support there.

I don’t have an estate liable for IHT.

Hundreds of years of religious and patriarchal traditions in one handy, government sanitised package which may or may not benefit you.

"'m just not buying that someone would deny themselves protections they really want because they don't like the word associated with it."

I haven't denied myself protections. We have all the legal stuff in place.
It's not hard.

Marriage= turn up, sign a few forms, hand over your dosh

Wills=turn up, sign a few forms, hand over your dosh.

Easy to protect yourself already if you do or do not want protection.

But why should those who can't be arsed get the same protection for free?

Divorce

No one is saying that divorce can't be messy. But any legal binding of people whether you call it marriage, a civil partnership or anything else will need to have a way of being dissolved. The nature of the contract (NOKs, tied finances, children etc) will mean that that will still potentially be messy depending on the people involved.

leftbehind....I don't think you're a lawyer.

Bertrand's post made no sense. Violet's seemed to say that the thing that puts people off marriage as opposed to civil partnerships is the monogamy element. So that's it? The fact marriage can be dissolved on the grounds of infidelity? I don't think religion's got anything to do with it. You can have absolutely no religious element in your marriage. I had a civil ceremony and we wouldn't have been allowed anything religious even if we'd wanted it.

I can understand that reasoning. You don't want to be tied to monogamy. Ok. Makes sense. But God it was driving me round the fracking bend with all this 'I want to have the status of being married but I don't want to be married because I don't want to be married."

Seriously, my brain was sodding melting.

leftbehind I agree, as I had said before it seems a bit mean not to have the option of civil partnership for oppersite sex couples. It would bring a more inclusive option to the table for people like your self who wont on the basis of the branding.

KERALA1 Personally I agree that marriage is there to provide that legal aspect. But clearly the branding of it is putting many off. There fore what would be the harm in a rebrand, or another product name to choose like civil partnership (although someone did point out there is subtle difference) if it makes the legal obligations of marriage accessible to all without attaching connotations that people object to?

KERALA1 - yes yes! to your advice about getting married invalidating existing wills.

My Nan died aged 60 nine months after a marriage she was already planning to leave as her new husband quickly became emotionally abusive once the wedding too place. She and her 6 children thought it would be fine as she'd previously made a will.

Her very new complete arse of a husband profited from a 10 bedroom guest house being sold, plus all her other assets.

Fucker even sold all her jewellry which had a great deal of sentimental value for all the family and she'd previously willed to her Grandaughters.

if branding is an issue surely you can just apply online to register your 'marriage' and be done with the branding, i see no sense in something that isnt a civil partnership/marriage having the same benefits where do you draw the line? how long before a one night stand is entitled to half your assets, imo a slippery slope

Kitkat so the assumption is that married couples are less likely to hate each other than non married couples? And I thought this wasn't about the world judging how much we loved each other.

Of course it's not and I never said that. I've met plenty of married couples that hate each other too! I'm just pointing out that how do I as a nurse know that you want your partner to be told your medical information and to make choices about your care? For all I know, you may have actively chosen not to get married precisely because you didn't want that to happen. If you have gotten married then I know you have actively chosen to make that person your next of kin.

It just to me seems odd that there's several posters on here essentially saying 'I don't want to get married and make financial and legal marital ties to my long-term partner, but I would like to have financial and legal ties to my long-term partner please'.

Yorick I'm sorry you can't get your head round it.

But equally you haven't answered my question as to why such rights should not be available to adult couples outside of the state of marriage?

I most definitely am a lawyer by the way.

Even if they did draw up a contract that was supposedly as favourable as marriage there would still be the question of inheritance tax. Married couples can pass their tax free portion on to the other partner. Unmarried people can't.

Agree with Purple Traitor.

I never wanted to be married, initially because of the unpleasant historical patriarchal overtones of ownership, but I am definitely better protected by not being married.

I work full time and earn enough to support myself. I own my house and car and have savings. My partner (father of my DC) is admirable in many respects, but is a financial disaster and it is definitely in my and my DCs best interests to keep our finances legally separate.

As we are not married, we are far more careful about keeping wills, living wills, power of attorneys etc up-to-date than we probably otherwise would be.

(Plus I still really just don't want to be married )

I demand that my rights to last week’s lottery jackpot be recognised. OK, I didn’t actually have a ticket. But I’ ve been choosing numbers for yrears, quite often in front of witnesses like last week. No-one should judge my commitment on the lack of a ticket. How about I just pay the £2 now so I can have my share of the winnings?

But equally you haven't answered my question as to why such rights should not be available to adult couples outside of the state of marriage?

Yes I have, several times. Because you can't creep legal commitments up on people. They need to make an active acceptance of it, like a marriage contract. If someone doesn't want to be married, you can't deem that they are, with all the resulting commitments, just because they lived with someone. Several posters have made it very clear they do not want their finances affected and that's why they don't marry. And they don't want it sneaked up on them.

As OP pointed out, if you don't make an active legal statement that you want your partner's legal status towards you to change, how is anyone supposed to know? We should assume what you want when you've chosen not to take a simple route to make it known?

Most posters on here who choose not to marry, including you, have very strong feelings that you don't want to be married. So why would we make assumptions about you based on what marrying would do?

I'd be totally in favour of civil partnerships for straight people, but it was driving me mad you not telling me what the difference was for your purposes. You actually still haven't, I'm gleaning it from Violet's post about monogamy.