Women who have children before marriage

[FissionChips]

..but get upset when their partner does not want to/ has not asked to marry them , yet still insist they are too traditional to even contemplate asking their dp to marry them or just discussing it like adults.

I dont get it. Most of the complaining women give the child their partners surname as well which isn’t even traditional if the parents are not married. They live together for years. They are in no way following tradition.
AIBU to not understand why they lie about being “traditional “?

Can't agree that it's about hypocrisy. You seem to be about the only one who's characterised it as that thus far.

@neon

All the sahms I know did “get a job”. They all had careers. They then gave up those careers because the cost of daycare meant they were losing money by going back to work. They didn’t have family nearby and their children would have seen very little of their parents for no profit and with the added hassle of having to stay off work and lose AL if one of the dcs was sick and couldn’t go to nursery etc. They decided it just wasn’t worth it. All of them who have children at school have since gone back to work.

What bothers me about these types ofthreads is that is all anecdata about how an MN user (typically an educated woman with, therefore, access to the social and financial rewards that confers) assumes that all women are now capable and knowledgeable and have access to all 5he same rewards.

What are the actual stats on household breakdowns, NRP not paying fair share (if any), SAHP, the real number of people vulnerable to their breadwinning partner, wills, financial stability etc

PaulDacreRimsGeese

The original post:

Women who have children before marriage but get upset when their partner does not want to/ has not asked to marry them , yet still insist they are too traditional to even contemplate asking their dp to marry them or just discussing it like adults.

I dont get it. Most of the complaining women give the child their partners surname as well which isn’t even traditional if the parents are not married. They live together for years. They are in no way following tradition.
AIBU to not understand why they lie about being “traditional “?

What do you interpret this to be? Women who "lie" about being traditional i.e. say they are traditional but act in non traditional ways? Isn't that hypocrisy?

What am I missing?

I couldn't care less about marriage and DS has my DPs surname, again it just wasn't a 'thing' to me. I'm secure enough in my relationship to not need a fucking expensive ceremony to prove it to everyone else.

Haven’t RTFT but these days getting married is sometimes not seen as a priority as people are more focused on getting careers off the ground and trying to get on the housing ladder. Then before you know it the old biological clock is ticking loudly and having kids becomes a priority.

It’s all very well saying getting married doesn’t have to cost a lot and just pop to the registery office before you do anything but many people still want to mark the occasion in some way and they are burdened by family expectations. By the time a couple have paid for an engagement ring, wedding rings, wedding dress and even a small wedding party for family it could come to a few thousand pounds and if you are just managing financially then this will not be a priority. I know many people that have been in this situation, they wanted to get married but could not afford to do it how they wanted to until their DC were a little older.

It's only an issue when one person jacks in FT work to look after the kids. There's nary a week goes by without someone looking to do with an unmarried partner, one last week was even going to do it to work for the partner! She was going to do all the donkeywork whilst he continued to enrich his business. BAD idea. Just always, always a bad idea.

TheFatkins All the women you know. Really?

I know some women in the circumstances you describe but I know more mums who chose to give up work to be with their children. Some of them are well off, some are managing.

‘Yes SAHMs have simply decided not to get a job. Nothing at all to do with wanting to be around more for their children or believing it's best for their children. hmm You may not agree with this rationale but choosing to depict SAHMs as spongers that just can't be bothered to work is disingenuous.’

This ^ and caring for young children is a full time job in itself.

There are plenty of good reasons to be a stay at home parent.

But if you give up work to be a stay at home parent and your partner is the breadwinner and you aren’t married, you are legally and financially vulnerable, there’s no two ways about it.

If you’re the one who doesn’t want to get married and your partner who is bringing the money in would be happy to do it but you understand the risks and don’t want to, that’s your lookout.

But if it’s your higher earning partner who doesn’t want to get married but is happy for you to stay at home and take a hit to your career and your earning potential, and they could give you some extra financial security but choose not to, it doesn’t sound like they’re in it for the long haul, tbh. Which is all the more reason not to give up work, because one day you’re probably going to be a single parent with small mouths to feed.

TheFatkins All the women you know. Really?

Do you mean when I said “all the sahms I know”? I don’t know that many. And yes, ALL of those that I know gave up a career before being a sahm. And all the ones with now school age children went back to work when the youngest started school. I don’t get why that’s hard to believe. I live in SE England, so nursery in my previous home town (where all my nct mum friends are) is around £90 per day for babies. It simply isn’t worth it for women with more than one very young child, unless they’re earning a lot.

What do you interpret this to be? Women who "lie" about being traditional i.e. say they are traditional but act in non traditional ways? Isn't that hypocrisy?

What am I missing?

The more accurate and pertinent characterisation would be inconsistency and unwise decision making.

What are the actual stats on household breakdowns, NRP not paying fair share (if any), SAHP, the real number of people vulnerable to their breadwinning partner, wills, financial stability etc

If you want pros tailored purely to lower income couples sofa, which is a valid way to look at it, let's talk about bereavement payments on death, which are inevitably going to matter more to couples who are already on lower incomes and thus less likely to be able to afford insurance. Married or not, educated couples are more likely to be earning better and thus to be able to pay for insurance.

There's also the issue of the intestacy provisions- again, remember that the majority of people don't have wills.

www.yourmoney.com/retirement/49700/

It would of course be theoretically possible for the 40% who do to be the poorest 40%, but let's be honest we all know that's not how it is. Not least because wills, if you get them done properly, cost money. More than getting married, in fact. If you look at the intestacy provisions (I think they may differ in Scotland) a spouse or CP comes at the top. Unmarried partners barely get a look in, and even then only in quite limited circumstances.

www.citizensadvice.org.uk/family/death-and-wills/who-can-inherit-if-there-is-no-will-the-rules-of-intestacy/

And the thing with the intestacy provisions is that, with a number of important exceptions, on the whole they do an ok job for a lot of married couples. They together with the marriage certificate provide a deal of protection. This is not so for unmarried couples.

Gimble
Why do you think Ken Dodd married his long term partner shortly before he died? Was he suddenly insecure in his 40 year relationship?

Or was it his last laugh on HMRC - there are inheritance tax benefits to being married.

Absolutely agree Purple but I do not hear you asking for the same legal/financial protection that marriage affords.

Yes, if you think marriage is about proving to other people how secure you are in your relationship, you've misunderstood somewhere along the line.

Lovetokyo that is bollocks you know.

I'm surrounded by longtime unmarried couples,many of whom have teens,who don't want to get married but are committed and have no intention of leaving either parent of kids in the shite.

I honestly don't get how some women have any self respect when they bully partners into marriage just for financial security. Isn't marriage supposed to be focused on love not doing the supposed right thing because they have to. It's bonkers and looks so false and just a little bit sad. I really feel sad for women who can't stand on their own two feet and don't trust their partner to commit and stay out of choice.Doesnt say a lot for any relationship that needs a ring to give value to it.

The sad thing is marriage really doesn't give you absolure security. Many don't last and many women would struggle if divorced. Many unmarried mothers have jobs,security and commuted partners. A marriage really doesn't guarantee you anything.

I think the "tradition" is just an excuse. If they were tradional they wouldn't be having children out of wedlock.

The reality for many is that they know the man doesn't want to marry them so they have a child hoping it's enough to keep them. Others don't believe it's a relationship or a family without a child.

The reality for many is that they know the man doesn't want to marry them so they have a child hoping it's enough to keep them.

^^This

They don't realise having babies doesn't keep someone whether you are married to them or not.

How many times does someone need to say it is a LEGAL CONTRACT before people realise it is NOT about love but about a legal contract.

You seriously think women with brain cells have a kid to keep a man and they think that all the stress a child brings will stop him from leaving.

It's so rude and ridiculous.

Teenage pregnancies are down. Many unmarried mothers are not young,have lived and are not that naive.

So let me get this straight. There are posters who think love has nothing to do with marriage. The whole point of marriage is a legal contract.

'Others don't believe it's a relationship or a family without a child.'

There's a lot of this, too. The need to have a child with every 'partner' you have in life. Fair play as long as you're not sacrificing your earning power to enable that when there's no financial commitment.

'So let me get this straight. There are posters who think love has nothing to do with marriage. The whole point of marriage is a legal contract.'

People realise that marriage confers some very important legal implications that are very costly to obtain otherwise.

Isn't marriage supposed to be focused on love not doing the supposed right thing because they have to.

Marriage is a legal contract. That's all it innately is. The rest is up to the individuals involved.

We do ourselves a disservice if we think of it purely about love, since it's of course possible to love someone deeply and not be married. Plenty of couples who would otherwise not have felt the need have done it for the legal protections.

Which no, are not perfect and it's not like that's what's being suggested, but they are superior to what's on offer outside marriage if you're not the richer partner and/or if you are but IHT is a concern. And if you fall into the latter category, whether you intend to leave your partner in the shite means the absolute square root of fuck all if they have to pay IHT they'd otherwise have avoided.

So let me get this straight. There are posters who think love has nothing to do with marriage. The whole point of marriage is a legal contract.

You don't need to be married to be in love and committed emotionally to your partner

You could stand up in front of all your friends and exchange vows of commitment and have a celebration without being married.

Marriage itself changes a long-term partnered cohabiting couple into a long term partnered cohabiting couple with additional rights and responsibilities under the law

Now whether or not one partner is willing to make that legal commitment to the other may well be a sign of their love in some circumstances. If a woman wants to get married but her partner won't marry her, and she has taken any kind of hit to her career and earnings potential in order to have and raise their children, then that suggests that their partner doesn't love them enough to consider it vital to ensure they are protected by the law

You don't get married without being in love with someone and wanting to make a lifelong commitment to them, and be partnered in the eyes of the law

But you can be in love with someone and want to make a lifelong commitment without getting married, but the difference is you won't have the same rights and responsibilities in the eyes of the law as if you had signed a marriage contract