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 “?

@moyesp not sure I understand what this has to do with legal rights, responsibilities and obligations for cohabitatees with children

The fitness to parent is irrespective of the age of the mother and of their marital status

And as we have established, child maintenance obligations are irrespective of marital status

Did you mean to post this on this thread?

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that @moyes was on another thread, which then got deleted, and she wants to garner opinions about the deleted thread from people posting on this thread.

You don't automatically have responsibility for your spouse's debts because of marriage. That's not a thing

Well it appears to be a thing with friends divorce.

If a single sahm/part time working mother who lives in their partners home, wants to come on this thread and tell us why they are happy to be unmarried then I will be interested to listen

I don't think the unmarried bit is what makes the situation unstable. its the fact she moved into his home. That for a lot of women would be the precarious part. If you are going to move in together make sure your name is on the deeds either by seeing a solicitor to make the property joint or by buying another place together.
Wouldn't dream of setting up home in someone else's house and thinking it is mine.

It's all very well for the independently wealthy, high earning women with joint home ownership to keep blathering on about how they have made the right choice, - but you are a minuscule minority

You don't have to be independently wealthy or high earning to be joint owners. This is another fallacy I have seen people on here say.
"I couldn't be on the mortgage or the deeds because I didn't earn enough/dont have a job etc"
Nothing could be further from the truth.

That is what should be shouted from the roof tops.

Equally I have heard stuff like the live in gf of 25 years couldn't register her bfs death as she didn't have a marriage certificate. She couldn't be named as NOK so she was left high and dry and wasn't allowed to organise the funeral as they weren't married.

Again utter rubbish.

These are the things that need teaching.

I don't know a single shacked up no marriage couple in real life who even appear to be somehow better off than married couples

Meet me

Those women sad at the realisation they won't marry the man they love/father of their children etc are the ones crying on the end of their married girlfriends' phones

PMSL at this patronising bs. I have just spent the afternoon listening to my friend crying down the phone that she wished she had never married her husband.
And it is not the only phone call I have had over the years.

I am in a solicitors office next week trying to sort out friends divorce. Trying to work out how to get things moving forward as it has entered its 2nd year

We should certainly be shouting from the rooftops that it's possible to jointly own the family home even if you don't have an income. Most definitely. It seems from reading threads on here that lots of people don't know about that.

It would still, however, need to be combined with a message about not having the same rights as a married person. Because otherwise we'd end up with people who didn't bother with the paperwork to get on the mortgage because they don't need to, what with being common law and having rights that way.

And let's not assume that an unmarried woman living in her partner's home moved into his existing home, iyswim. There are posters on here where the move was planned and agreed together.

I don't think the unmarried bit is what makes the situation unstable. its the fact she moved into his home. That for a lot of women would be the precarious part. If you are going to move in together make sure your name is on the deeds either by seeing a solicitor to make the property joint or by buying another place together.
Wouldn't dream of setting up home in someone else's house and thinking it is mine.

The 'unmarried bit' is exactly what makes it unstable. It doesn't matter if you move into a house that belongs to your partner or one is bought solely in his name because he earns the money while you look after the kids. It is precisely the lack of marriage that makes it unstable.

Marriage makes the home a marital asset regardless of whose 'name' it's in. If you separate whilst married your interest is registered by the solicitor immediately to prevent a sale without your knowledge or agreement.
During a separation between cohabiting couples no such safe guard is available and the home can be sold making the partner homeless. (With some very occasional exceptions under schedule 1 of the housing act) .

Would it help if someone (cleverer than me) came up with a flowchart that shows which is the best option, given one's personal circumstances? So many of the benefits that have been listed here here don't apply universally and it seems very difficult for some to understand that.

Even better, an interactive version where you plug in your individual income / assets etc and it gives out exact cost & benefit figures. Perhaps MNHQ could build it??

@ Oliversmumsarmy I am in a solicitors office next week trying to sort out friends divorce. Trying to work out how to get things moving forward as it has entered its 2nd year
At least she has something to sort out ! Without Marriage there is no divorce. Her only 'sorting out' would be a phone call to the CMS ! (Good luck with that ..)

What we will be sorting out is how to move this forward. She can't after over a year get her decree nisi because he isn't filling out any forms fully.

Without the decree nisi she has now been told they can't make a judgement on the finances. Not that he has filled out any of those forms.

So she is left wondering why the insistence on going to court , paying for a Barrister etc x2 if you can't sort the finances out and he just gets asked to sort his paper work out for next time. Which he takes no notice of

At this point a call to the Child Maintenance and a court date to sell the family home and rental property is looking far better than what she is facing.
Plus the bill would be substantially smaller

Had a go at a flow chart . Not brilliant but on the other hand never done one before.

What does it say in the red bubble!?

Oliversmummy - I don't believe a word you've said.

Casting an eye over the Relationships board is a good snapshot of life. It's truthful.

The post was about people being selectively traditional. Not showing off about the convoluted hoops jumped through to be married in all but ceremony.

Married women can be stable too, people don't suddenly lose financial sense at the sight of a wedding ring.

MistressDeeCee that's your prerogative if it doesn't fit in with your imagination that all unmarried women are crying because we cannot get a man to marry us. That's your choice. You can believe what you like.

But if you do cast your eyes over the Relationship board you will see I have spoken about friends divorces before.

And yes this afternoon I did have friend on the phone crying because she has no money and the injunction she has out on him he wants it off and is taking her to court to get it removed.

She is scared to death because she knows if it is removed he will return to the house to take up residence again . I cannot go into what he has done and threatened to do to her but it doesnt end with her alive.
The court case could cost £3500. She is on £22 per week and he has given her nothing ever. She is not capable of work because of her injuries. She has no way of keeping him away.

Believe what you like. In the meantime I will continue to help my friend.

There is so much anecdata on this thread that people extrapolate without considering how the majority of women, in unstable living arrangements, need help in understanding the law.

Just because an educated, articulate woman on MN earns more than her partner and wishes to protect her assets ( lucky, clever her) does not mean that that is the case for all woman.

I'd rather the vulnerable were protected and educated on marriage rights and the clever found the loop holes, as they can.

Oliversmummy whilst you're writing your own words & story version re what I said you could at least stop projecting. You commented on what I said first anyway so yes..I will continue to (dis) believe what I like

@fontofnoknowledge it was actually my statistic backed up by personal experience. I also said I didn't dig into figures for those who earned equal.

I come from a family (- a large one -) and social circle where the women earn more or equal to their male partners. Not all are high earners and not all are educated. Most in long term relationships are married and there are very few SAHPs.

Anyway one thing missing from this discussion is lack of family and peer pressure. If you are in a circles where people know rights either due to being divorced, people being in broken up co-habitation relationships, or with solicitors then you have pressure on you not to do certain things and are told to your face you are basically stupid or mean.

Resorting to internet forums and being told by teachers, marketing campaigns or newspaper reports isn't the same as meeting and knowing people who have gone through it. Married non-family members telling you what to do doesn't work either.

Btw your view of how relationships build up is funny. As a lot of my siblings were engaged within 6 months of meeting their spouse, married as soon as they could get an acceptable date, and the first child was born within a year of their marriages.

It seems I'm surrounded by people who realise they have to talk to each other and make their intentions clear even if there isn't going to be a long term relationship if they have children.

@oliversmumsarmy

I understand that your friend is in the middle of a fairly horrendous situation and it must be very hard to watch someone you care about having to go through that.

What I'm trying to understand about that situation is whether there is something about the process of the divorce that's causing the issue or whether it's the fact her ex partner is a controlling abusive arsehole who would have made separation difficult regardless.

If they were unmarried but the house was jointly owned he'd still have a right to access it (unless there was a court order preventing him which is sounds like your friend has got) and he could still refuse to sell the property or buy her out. In that scenario she would be forced to take him to court to get the court to force the sale and I suspect he would be just as obstructive in those proceedings as he is now. Being unmarried would be an advantage if she owned the house outright undoubtedly as she could just ask him to leave but unless I've misunderstood that's not the situation here.

I have huge sympathy for your friend, I'm sure she does wish she'd never married him! If we strip it back to the practicalities though I'm not sure that she'd actually be having a much easier time of it unmarried. The only positive in this scenario is that hopefully a judge will eventually get hold of it and force her stbexh to comply (a friend's ex had his passport taken and was threatened with prison). There is also the hope that she will eventually get her share of more than just the house. I appreciate that's cold comfort in the current situation though.

Plus, Olivers pal and the walking shitstain have DC. When a person is an abuser who wants to use the legal system to punish the other partner, if there's nothing else like the joint property they have in this case, they use the DC.

It's a shame, on a number of levels, that this person didn't die a while ago. She'd have been rid of him and got bereavement benefits too.

Anyone who finds out they're married to an abusive arsewipe is going to wish they hadn't married them. More to the point, they're going to wish they hadn't met the person at all (except perhaps for the kids they've got). Marriage is not the key point there.

The idea of marriage is that if the abusive arsewipe got the woman into a financially vulnerable position, as a lot of them do, she'd be entitled to her share of the assets when she finally manages to break free of him.

It must be horrendous going through, or seeing a friend go through, such a situation and it's possible that in this case, marriage didn't serve her as it was intended to do. I'm still not convinced though that if they'd been unmarried she'd be able to escape him without threats and abuse, especially since they have kids.

At any rate I hope she is ok and I agree that the world in general would be a better place if an anvil falls on this shitbag's head.

The only positive in this scenario is that hopefully a judge will eventually get hold of it and force her stbexh to comply

Well the judges have had opportunities to do this.

There are supposed to be 3 court hearings in total. 3rd one is as a base description for those couples who cant reach an agreement after the second case where the judge has indicated what he thinks is fair.

After over a year she is still on the first case. She is on her 3rd time at court. Every time she arrives with a Barrister to sort things out only for the judge to say he needs to fill out the paperwork. They cant do anything till then. Next court date 5 months from now.

Issue is judge could have moved this forward but they don't.
Friend is now at the point where she has no more money and he knows it.

She cannot afford to go back to court and he has now offered her a paltry sum and for her to agree this as a settlement if she signs over everything else to him.

The divorce system doesn't take account of abusive manipulative spouses and although there are things in place to prevent what my friend is experiencing they are not used.

Whilst if it was a split of property there would be one hearing. No asking him to prove his income. No asking him about his business. No asking him a lot of stuff.

It would be so much simpler.

She cant afford to keep going back to court for the

Can she not get a divorce on the grounds of desertion/separation/whatever it's called when you've not been living together for X years, no matter what the other person does?

But you still have to go through the courts for the finances to be sorted.

Is your friend confident in her solicitor? It sounds as though the system should be doing a better job for her. Unfortunately some judges are better than others. Has she looked at accessing counsel on a direct access basis to reduce cost?

A friend of mine was in a similar situation and although it was tough she represented herself most of the time and instructed counsel directly for the big hearings. She did well out of it in the end.