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 “?

No, tealights, I’m just sick of seeing the same sad stories over and over again on here and on the relationships board where unmarried mothers talk about how they have ended up in the circumstances we are all warning about, and which you do irresponsibly dismiss as scaremongering.

There was one on the conception board the other day.

19 years old, been with her 34 year old boyfriend less than a year, gushing about how “the time is right to start a family”. When a couple of people asked her if she was thinking of getting married she was all, “oh, I don’t think marriage is really that important to my generation, is it?”

FFS.

I think anyone with a brain can predict how that one will end up.

YABU they can do as they wish

@ Hannah I think all this thread is trying to do is make sure women know marriage is a legal document in the eye of the law. As long as you know the financial implications and you make that choice that's fine. I had a child without being married and we are still together 28 years later. We are now married. I would never judge a woman who had a child without being married, I would judge a man who did not financially support his family. I don't think this thread's title is worded very well.

YABU they can do as they wish

Nobody is saying they can't. But you can't then complain that you don't have the same rights as married couples when you've chosen not to get married.

And actually you said anybody wanting a cp doesn't mind homophobia.

Wrong and insulting.

The fact is cp however they came about are the best we have for those that don't want to get married. Not our fault. How they came about is entirely separate to our views on homophobia.

I "merrily" had children with my partner of ten years (now 18 years). In that time we've seen at least five couples we know get married and divorced. Often this has resulted in ugly wranglings over money one partner has gone after (pension, inheritance), just because they 'can'.

Can someone please explain how I am putting myself at risk financially when:
a) We are joint tenants on the house
b) We have wills
c) We have separate finances (apart from money paid into a joint account for essentials), independent and pretty similar incomes, individual pensions.

I am not financially dependent on my partner, nor he on me.

If we split, we'd sell the house and split the money. We'd continue to receive our independent incomes. We'd each retain our pensions. We'd arrange custody in exactly the same way as a married couple getting divorced, and financial child support arrangements would apply in the same way as if we'd been married.

If one of us died, perhaps we'd miss out on some sort of widow/er's benefit. I accept that- probably wouldn't amount to cost of the average wedding over the course of a lifetime tho.... ;). But on the other hand, the one left behind would receive money from the deceased's pension, and the life insurance we have on our mortgage would pay off the mortgage.

I'm genuinely interested to know how I'm not financially protected.

@okthen

As has been said many times on here, it isn’t as simple as marriage = better, unmarried = worse. People, like me, are simply saying, don’t sleepwalk into it without even bothering to research.

You’ve researched. Fab! You’re earning as much as your partner. Also fab. But most women don’t and an awful lot of them end up fucked because they give up work and also don’t have the protection marriage offers. It doesn’t totally mitigate the fact that the woman has given up work, (in that hypothetical scenario), don’t get me wrong. It just offers some protection. I think it’s important that people are aware of this. Nobody should judge anyone for their choice, but at least you have the knowledge to make that choice if you look into it first.

And the “married people all end up divorced anyway” comments which I’ve seen a few of on here are a bit irrelevant really. The only people you know who are divorced will be previously married couples, (obviously), so it’s hard to say if they’d have stayed together for a longer or shorter time if they weren’t married.

Yes, okthen, YOU are financially protected. The keys things are that you're not financially dependent on your partner, and have an independent income. The real problems are for women who do end up financially dependent on their partners, because they become SAHMs due to choice or circumstances, or they go part time or don't pursue their career to the same extent as their partner does because they take on more childcare and housework responsibilities. To do this without the protection of marriage is really unwise.

Okthen. You will miss out on the tax free allowance that is available between Spouses on death. On the death of one person, the spouse inherits everything tax free. This is not true for an unmarried couple.

Also if you have a final salary pension, you must be married to be eligible for a spouse pension.

Finally your partner could change his will cutting you out without even telling you.

@HannahGraceDunning23 you stated you'd rather spend money on your daughter than getting married. As a cohabitation agreement is usually upwards of £750+, vs £120 for a civil marriage. I was curious how much a cohabitation agreement could be obtained for, as the costs vary so wildly. And as you didn't want to spend money on a marriage, I wondered if your cohabitation agreement could have been obtained for less. As that would be fantastic if they could be, as the cost of solicitors fees usually makes drawing one up fairly costly

Thanks for clarification (genuinely- it's interesting to know).

On balance, given the eye-watering financial cost of getting divorced my divorced friends have told me about, I don't think I'd personally miss out financially in the event we do split up.

But as others have said, I'm in a particular position. I absolutely get that if you're financially dependent, marriage offers protection.

Yes, and you can also miss out on the widowed parents' allowance of just under £120 a week, which is payable until you're no longer entitled to child benefit. So, approximately £500 a month for potentially 18 years if your partner dies during pregnancy or when your child is very small. That amount of money can make life a LOT more comfortable (and easier) for someone who is grieving the loss of their partner/children's parent.

Well what happened to me was that I fell pregnant (after being told I was infertile) only a week after meeting now DH, when he found out (as soon as I knew) he proposed to be 'proper' and I replied with, no way I barely know you!
When DS was born and we were ready we both had a grown up conversation and discovered we'd both want to get married for legal reasons more than anything (we're not religious or into big 'doos') so we made the joint decision to quietly marry on holiday. There was no proposing.

And the kids have his name before I did because I don't give two shits what they're called and he does, we all have the same now anyway since marriage. Again because I don't have an attachment to my name and he did.

@okthen Right now you are protected however it's worth thinking what would happen if one of you suddenly became too ill to work or one of your children required additional support that required one of you to stop working? Your arrangement has the potential to leave one of you in a very vulnerable position if you don't marry immediately. Of course you could remedy this by indeed deciding to marry, but I don't really see why you wouldn't marry earlier at a time/place of your choosing rather than potentially being forced into a rushed marriage as you now need the legal protection marriage offers.

I guess this is why the bit about sickness and health is so important in the vows. When you're in great health and times are good it's easy to forget that things can change suddenly and you actually can be forced to rely on your spouse to support you even if it goes against everything you stand for.

Very few people are lucky enough to have a final salary pension these days. In some circumstances you could still get it if unmarried. Think you have to prove you're financially dependant.

As most mums are working these days most will have their own or/and will be named on their partner's. It crops up when you sign the forms.

Instead of foisting marriage perhaps some could focus their time on pushing the things unmarried partners could do unmarried for protection. It's far healthier.

We both have income protection. Why do you need to be married for that?

"Married people end up divorced..."

Yes, this is precisely when you need the legal protection. Contracts of any kind often don't come into play until things go wrong. That's why you have them. That's how protection works. You hope not to ever need it but you'll be glad it's there if you do.

As we always have to keep explaining on these threads, marriage is not proof that you love each other. If it were, it would be illegal to marry someone you don't love and the contract would automatically dissolve once either of you falls out of love. (Good luck legislating for that!) The idea that we should ideally marry for love is a pretty new one. The Victorians certainly didn't see love as the priority for marriage.

okthen, if you're happy with your situation that is great. It's nobody else's concern. There are, however, a fair few differences in the protections you get relating to inheritance tax (i.e., you'll pay it), accessing each other's private bank accounts if one of you dies, legal responsibility to support each other if you break up, parental responsibility and so on. It's all here:

It sounds as though you don't want to be married. So isn't it great that you can go your entire life cohabiting as you wish without ever being married unless you want to be?

That's another reason I'm pro-marriage - so that people who want to cohabit WITHOUT marrying can do just that!

It's nothing to do with how long the relationship has gone on for or how much you love each other. The law is concerned with things it can prove and legislate for. It cannot prove or legislate for when a relationship started (first date? First kiss? First shag? First house? First child?) or whether or not you love each other. All it can prove or legislate for is the simple question: did these two people, at any point, choose to legalise their relationship?

If they did not, the law will not hold them to a legal commitment they did not make. If they did, the law will act accordingly and afford them those protections.

I honestly don't understand where the debate comes from. It's so simple. But I think the biggest problem is people not actually knowing what marriage is before they decide whether or not it's for them.

Fucked up the link, sorry.

www.citizensadvice.org.uk/family/living-together-marriage-and-civil-partnership/living-together-and-marriage-legal-differences/

Toomanytealights

Clearly you are never going to stop banging your anti-marriage drum, but you cannot go round pretending that you can replicate all the benefits of being married without being married. You can’t.

Maybe you will be fine. Maybe okthen will also be fine. But other, less well educated, less well informed women - perhaps women in a more precarious financial situation than you - could read your posts and think that they don’t need to insist on marriage before having children.

I think it’s a little irresponsible.

From my own post last night.

Smug high earning women who like to crow about how happy they are not to be married. Woohoo for you . You are in a TINY TINY MINUSCULE MINORITY. Something like less than 3% of women are the higher breadwinner compared with all the lower paid/part-time/sahms. (Look on the ONS website for the actual numbers) So good for you if you're financially secure but don't presume to use your experience as 'useful' information to the 97% of women in much less fortunate situations. It's simply irrelevant.*

Maybe they just get worn down by the lack of status they have in this society as an unmarried cohabiting parent. You learn to be thick skinned about it or give in I suppose.
Don't you think it says more about our society than individual women or men?
Marriage was a very haphazard affair until industrialisation amongst the majority of the population in this country. Was very heavily promoted in the Victorian era as the small family unit was seen as a good social unit for an ever increasingly industrialised society with all its vices and ills ( gin palaces...music halls...rampant prostitution)
So, my guess in answer to your question is that it's probably always been external forces promoting the benefits of marriage rather than individual desires?
Who knows? I don't know any women like this. The people I know who aren't married don't intend to, and if they suddenly decided to can you blame them, when they can get tax allowances and so on.
Also in many cultures it's common to take both parents surnames, or one parents.
Does it really matter what someone else chooses to name their offspring, I really wouldn't worry about it if I were you 🙂

It's the "uncle Bert smoked 30 a day and he lived til 90" style of argument. So that's alright then smoking is safe after all hooray!

So poorer more uneducated women have to suck up marriage when they don't want it and look to it as their source of financial protection.

Do you know how depressing and wrong that sounds.

Surely we should be offering something else and giving them the power to protect themselves without looking to marriage as the only answer.

@Aranchini

DP and I chose children before marriage, largely due to DH's age, my own fertility and finances. It's cheaper to have a baby than it is to get married. Also, the desire to pro-create is very natural, no other mammal gets married beforehand!

Sorry but it took me about 5 minutes to stop laughing at this. 😂😂

Having a baby/raising a child is cheaper than getting married?

On what planet?!

And no other mammal gets married. What the actual fuck? 😂😂

Like @bananafish81 In my social circle, I know hardly ANYone who has kids who didn't get married first. I think the daft 'it's only a piece of paper' bollocks has been consigned to the history books where it belongs, and most sensible and intelligent women now refuse to have a child unless they are married to the man they are having the child with - for a multitude of very sensible and valid reasons.

@neonyellowshoes (top of page 19.)

It's still not clear from this thread what these amazing matrimonial benefits actually are? Unless you're going to be a full time house wife your entire life and who does that these days?

Bahahahahahahahaaaaaaaa.

Took me a minute to stop laughing at your post too. God help you if your post is serious. I think you are VERY young (19-ish???) Probably a remoaner and a vegan.

And don't bother with any stupid-ass 'legal agreement' to 'protect yourself' because it won't be worth the paper it's written on. You won't be entitled to any more of your flatmates partner's assets than I am. And their next of kin is not you and never will be, and if he is on life support, his parents, grandparents, and even his siblings will have more right to decide whether to switch it off than you. (His dog will probably more rights actually!)

@frufru27

Absolutely spot on!! I have two kids with a man I’ve been with for 23 yrs not married. Marriage is such an outdated concept, move on ladies because a band of gold is not a measure of your self worth.

Oh dear, he has really got you convinced hasn't he? You poor love,........

If a woman really wants to protect herself AND her children, she MUST get married to their father. If he won't marry you, don't have children with him for fuck's sake!

@LoveInToyko

There was one on the conception board the other day.

19 years old, been with her 34 year old boyfriend less than a year, gushing about how “the time is right to start a family”. When a couple of people asked her if she was thinking of getting married she was all, “oh, I don’t think marriage is really that important to my generation, is it?”

FFS.

I think anyone with a brain can predict how that one will end up.

Makes you wonder how people this dumb make it through a day!

@fontofnoknowledge

Smug high earning women who like to crow about how happy they are not to be married. Woohoo for you . You are in a TINY TINY MINUSCULE MINORITY. Something like less than 3% of women are the higher breadwinner compared with all the lower paid/part-time/sahms. (Look on the ONS website for the actual numbers) So good for you if you're financially secure but don't presume to use your experience as 'useful' information to the 97% of women in much less fortunate situations. It's simply irrelevant.

THIS. That is very relevant to the post by @okthen -- thought I think even SHE will have some nasty surprises if/when she and her partner split, and she realises how few rights she has and how little she is entitled to compared to if she had got married to him. Very foolish indeed.