To think that women should stop starting families before they get the ring?

[MeteorGarden]

Ok so hear me out.

I’ve read a few threads now from women who have got themselves into the same difficult situation and judging by hundreds of comments, they are seriously not alone!

They desperately want to marry DP who ‘always said he would’ But now (a few children/ years later) has declared he has no intention of marrying them.

It follows the same pattern, OP wanted to marry early on and DP was open to it but didn’t actually pop the question. OP didn’t force the issue (god forbid she be labelled ‘pushy’ or ‘crazy’) and instead started a family with DP (OP seemed under the delusion that having his children would make him propose).

Why!??
A) Would anyone ‘start a family’ with a man who isn’t proposing to you? If he’s open to it why isn’t he doing it?
B) Is having children becoming just an alternative to getting the ring/ security you want?
C) Would anyone think having his children will make him propose? If you have the kids without a ring it’s fair for him to assume you’re happy enough with the current situation!
D) are so many women put off flatly asking for what they want? It’s terribly backward to just quietly have his children and keep his home in the hope that one day you’ll be ‘rewarded’ you with a proposal! We’re living in a society where you can carry his children but feel uncomfortable asking WHEN he’s going to propose and pushing the issue?!?!

The stories I’ve read are horribly deflating and I empathise with their explanations of frustration and humiliation but wonder if perhaps it could have all been avoided?

We have so much more freedom and independence than our grandmothers, but we’re expected to pretend we don’t care about marriage or kids for the first year of dating so as ‘not to scare a man away’!! WtF?

I wouldn’t ever plan a family with any man I wasn’t married to. It was spelt out to me that the time to lock down my chosen relationship was BEFORE I had children or made irreversible sacrifices!

This kind of thinking seems to instil fury in a lot of modern women but why? Taking the more ‘modern’ approach really doesn’t seem to be working out very well for alot of women so would a bit more tradition In our approach to getting the ring really be that bad?

Maybe if women banded together and made ‘getting the ring’ more socially acceptable we’d be able to push the point and get answers before wasting years with a guy and learning the hard way! Right now it feels men have more power over the marriage process than they really should!

* This applies only to women who ‘want’ to marry but aren’t getting the ring. Not those who don’t want to marry!

Have to say that you have made some good points. Personally, I wouldn’t have dreamt of having children before marriage. I also agree that many women are far too quick to give up their careers once children are on the scene. I shudder at how vulnerable this makes so many of them.

You wouldn't catch me getting married. My son and I are perfectly happy. This is not the 1800's any more.

Nobody has said any of those things, P3ony. An unmarried man can exclude his partner from sharing his assets by changing his will or the beneficiary of his pension if he does. It's much more difficult for a married partner to do that, hence protection. And I notice we've now moved on to the tedious MN criticism of SAHP as if working outside the home is some badge of honour.

Bluelady
I agree.
It would be a shame to have a thoughtful thread highlighting different ways to be protected vs not turned into a 'bash SAHP' thread.

If he has decent assets Blue. Not all men do. Making girls aspire to marriage as their financial security is crap.

I'm not bashing sahp but saying if both parents got a year paternity/maternity you've only got a couple of years after to worry about. Years as a sahp with no means of supporting yourself is a luxury and risky. If you want to do that then crack on but saying it's taking financial responsibility by forcing somebody into supporting that isn't actually right. A means of earning a salary and paying into a pension is taking financial security. Any man can lose his job,have no house or pension to split. A few years maintenance isn't going to get you far. Plenty of women aren't going to be marrying rich husbands with half an assets folder to divvy up.

It's hardly the same as relying on benefits. 'Benefits' are paid for by the taxpayer. If i divorced my husband no taxpayer is contributing to our assets being split.

I think you're confusing the word security with protection, P3ony. I don't think marriage is an aspiration, more an insurance policy.

Unfortunate username there!
I like it.

I was setting up a bit of a straw man I admit. I don't like the opposition for women of career or family - and that's what it is for most of us outside Mumsnet's charmed circle - and believe that women are having to take far too much responsibility for something that requires men as well.

Making girls aspire to marriage as their financial security is crap

Nice strawman you’ve got there. Most of us on this thread prefer to deal with reality as it appears before us.

We don’t have a Scandinavian system at the moment; many of us want it, but it’s not going to happen in the near-term so we’ve got to look after our own interests!

If your career survived and thrived during several maternity leaves and those early years of child care, you are very, very lucky and quite the outlier. I wish it was so easy for the rest of us.

I have not rtft, you seem to assume every woman with DC wants to get married. We are together 13 years and not married, it does not bother us, We never had the spare cash, or the want to save for it.
We will get married next year quietly, purely for legal reasons, but otherwise we are very happy and feel no need or hurry to change things.

What is to stop married couples breaking up anyway, Anyone can become a single parent.

It's most certainly not an insurance policy unless said husband is pretty wealthy.Are you suggesting any man will do,that girls shouldn't even bother looking into said husbands financial affairs?What if they're pretty grim,mediocre or non existent?

We should be encouraging girls to push for better maternity/paternity rights,more support into returning to work,securing their own financial security before children surely. The financial benefits of marriage are surely just an added bonus for some and not all.

We've been together 26 years and have decided to get married for inheritance tax purposes.

I suppose I did it all wrong: had four kids, gave up my career, was a SAHM. I'm really glad Mumsnet wasn't around to tell me not be an idiot because I don't regret any of it.

DP and I have always shared every penny we had, every account has been a joint one, when he set up a business he gave me 50% of the share (the accountant suggested 49% but DP was having none of it).

In the meantime we've seen other people's marriages come and go; we've heard people bitch about their bizarre money sharing arrangements; we've seen couples half kill themselves by both working demanding stressful full time jobs that require so much expensive childcare and other expensive domestic help, they were never any better off than us anyway.

You know perfectly well that I'm saying nothing of the sort, P3ony. You continually misconstrue posts to pursue your anti-marriage agenda. We all know marriage isn't for you, why do you try so hard to refute the perfectly good reasons put forward for marriage by those of us who have chosen to have a legal contract?

I think the biggest financial aspect of being married or not is when a couple decides that one of them should reduce or give up work to look after the children because that person earns the least. I have seen so many threads on here and lots of people encourage them to do so. If they are married and the relationship breaks down at least the law recognises the penalty financially that person has suffered. It isn't perfect but at least it offers some long term protection.

I posted on the other thread about the DP not wanting to get married

My DH was with his ex DP for 10 years and had two kids

He owned the house and other property and a successful business

He did not want to get married and didn’t although his ex DP did and was possibly a bit like the OP hinting and hoping but not being direct
When she was finally direct with him DH told her it wasn’t happening .that he didn’t want to get married and if it meant that they split up then they split up

They split up not long after this conversation

Less than a year later we met . We got married within 3 months of meeting and just celebrated 20 years it did cause a bit of a shit storm with his family .

I asked him about this last night as I’ve not really thought about before and he said when he met me it just felt right and he didn’t want to be with anyone else ever.
When I mentioned that he took a risk with his property and wealth he said it was worth it to be married to me
. He said he knew he didn’t want to marry his ex and never would have married her despite having kids with her .
We don’t have kids together as we decided not to . But we have kids between us all grown up .

But he was happy to risk a considerable amount of wealth even twenty years ago in order to get married to me . Because it was what he wanted to do and I was happy to marry him . I have definatly benefited money wise from being married to my DH can’t deny that 😂
Although I didn’t know how much he had until after we actually got married 😂

So personally I think that most men know exactly what they are doing when it comes to marriage and commitment
Some woman men are quite happy to have kids with but not marry and have no intention of marrying offering a long engagement as such to pacify them

Others they want to marry and when they do they are quite upfront about it and make it clear that it’s what they want .

I’ve seen it happen numerous time long term couple with kids not married split up and often within a year the guy has married someone else. . Often someone totally different in looks and peronality to the ex partner 😂.

I would argue that often people don't get married straight away as a wedding is an expense too far- you can make a baby for free. Even getting married is too expensive for some. People don't have a couple of hundred to spare, certainly if your income is very low, you need the money to eat. Once the baby arrives expenses and time to arrange things becomes alot harder and people delay marriage. They may get to the point then when they wonder if they should bother at all.

You can get married for £94. A baby costs more than that in its first month. That's a completely ludicrous argument.

I don't understand it OP. The only conclusion I have is that a lot of women are either desperate, ignorant or stupid. They seem to think that having kids without any legal protection is harmless when actually it can literally destroy your life and the quality of your children's lives. Perhaps they should include these important life lessons in school to cover all types of unions.

I think this is a really interesting topic and very contemporary actually.

A friend of mine recently split from his long term partner (no kids). He had been paying rent on her London property for ten years. He had proposed some years ago but they hadn't got round to tying the knot. The relationship then failed and he walks away with nothing financially. Aged 40 he is now living in a van/staying with relatives in order to keep his London job. Meanwhile, his ex will enjoy the financial security from the huge increase in equity from her property.

I think people can be astonishingly naive when it comes to love and money. Men and women.

I would argue that often people don't get married straight away as a wedding is an expense too far- you can make a baby for free.

Marriage isn't expensive, fancy weddings are. This goes back to my first post about marriage being viewed as purely romantic gestures rather than financial contracts.

I think it's up to people to make their own choices. Although I think they should be aware of the pros and cons and make a decision based on that.

I've been with DP for 9 years, we have a DD together and I have another DD from a previous marriage. I'm not against getting married and it would be quite nice if we did but it was never really felt that important. If we love each other and we're happy then we still stay together, married or not. I certainly wouldn't have started a family in hope of a proposal. It is just a ring afterall

I am married Bluelady but I am not sure if people do just spend that on a wedding or getting married. I doubt many just turn up in jeans and spend 94 on their whole wedding. I thought that's why the conservative government were looking in to reducing the cost as they want more people to be married.

Whether or not people have a fancy wedding is irrelevant. The basic cost of getting married is less than £100, considerably less than having a baby, hence a ludicrous argument.

We've been together 26 years and have decided to get married for inheritance tax purposes

So you do see the value of marriage?

In your case, it seems that you had a share in the company and likely your name added to joint property. But some women are SAHP and depend on their DP without any security, believing that their loved one will not take advantage of them if the relationship comes to an end. It’s a risk, though.

Too many times, the male partner doesn’t value their partner’s contributions towards childcare and running the household and is content to leave them with scraps.

If you’re married, your husband cannot legally do this to you.