To think that if you are committed enough to decide to have children....

[Oakenbeach]

....you should also be committed enough to each other to get married (assuming that you don’t have any objections to marriage in principle), and that it makes no sense at all for couples to plan to have children (and I stress ‘plan’) before deciding whether to get married.

Statistics reveal that children from married parents are healthier, wealthier, better educated, more intelligent, live longer and do better in life. Currently, marriage is becoming a middle class choice and this might be the true correlation for the above positive aspects of how well children from married parents do.

Whether you like it or not, the facts speak for themselves.

Why is it that people find it necessary to be so rude on these threads? Isn’t everyone’s experience “anecdotal”?

By the way @Lipstick, the word is cohabit. Cohabitate is a word you just made up.

Naw, you don’t get to do by the way when you’re talking mince
HTH

Was married now divorced. Been with DP 18 years with 14 year old DS. Not married and I am not going to give excuses or reason apart from saying it is NO DAMN BUSINESS OF YOURS what I do or do not do with regards to my relationship. And really do not give a thought to anyone else's living/marriage/divorce arrangements. I really just don't get the fascination in other people marriage status

Can we have a link for that Teacher please. How well children do has been linked to maternal education and genes. I’d like to know how my children will be healthier, wealthier, more intelligent, do better at school and live longer after being raised by the same parents. How on earth can a ceremony change all the above when the same two people will be doing the upbringing whatever the scenario.

Look @Lipstick, your pension may not have the same requirements as mine, my husband’s or my dad’s, that doesn’t mean I’m “talking mince” whatever that means, although I can take an educated guess.

HTH.

Blackbird; Teacher doesn’t know the difference between causal and correlation.

"My children's security dependable on whether I am married or not?" To quite a degree legally? Yes!

"Myself and my partner have life insurance" which can be revoked UNILATERALLY AT ANY TIME and you might not even know until after he died

"and also quite a wealthy savings account for them which is added to each month" in who's name? Who is the named administrator of the account? If only 1 admin what happens if they die? If 2 what happens when 1 dies? Entirely possible bank could decide to freeze that account until probate settled

"I also know for a fact 100% if myself and my partner were to split, married or not married he would make sure me and the children have the house until they are of an age to move out" *NO you don't! His 'word' is utterly meaningless legally! I'm guessing from that statement you're not even on the mortgage or tenancy? Which means you have NO more right to stay in the house than a lodger!

Seriously go and look on the relationships, divorce and lone parent boards and you will find HUNDREDS of threads by women who thought this who were then completely screwed over!*

"I would carry on working during that time and be able to afford to keep myself and my children" you're assuming you'd be able to! Could you afford and access enough childcare? Not all children cope well with being in childcare in the immediate aftermath of a split and very few would in the immediate aftermath of a bereavement! What if you're made redundant etc?

"I dont beleive you need to be married for any security." legally you're wrong

"If you trust eachother and love eachother what does it matter about making it legal?" *ALL the points made by myself and others is why!

Seriously HUNDREDS of threads - plus all the posters responding agreeing and having been through same.

Also HUNDREDS of threads "I can't leave my cheating/lazy/spendthrift partner because I can't afford to"

I was with my ex 3 years before we married, married almost 6 years before dd was born (medical issues she was very much planned) and she was almost 3 when we split due to his affair. Which was completely out of character and not only according to me it seriously shocked and disconcerted his family and close friends to the point they queried his mental and physical health.

If I'd not been married to my ex I'd have had very little if any recourse regarding his actions in the WEEK the relationship ended - within days we went from discussing adoption to him emptying the joint current account, taking the car (in both our names) in the dead of night and attempting to empty the joint savings account too. Because we were married and had a legal claim to the marital assets he had to pay back or compensate for this.

NO WAY while we were together did I EVER think he'd do anything like this. Neither did his own parents. Virtually overnight he changed into a completely different person.

"And whichever way you see it prioritising a marriage or wedding...I wouldn't want to do a party on an anniversary? I would like the big party to be on the special day. It's down to preference but to judge people because of the way they do it is ridiculous and actually just plain rude." I'm entitled to my opinion and imo prioritising a wedding over your children's financial security is irresponsible.

IrkedandAnnoyed - in an ideal world - but we don't live in an ideal world. We live in one where women are paid less, bear the vast majority of responsibility for childcare ESPECIALLY if children are/become sick/disabled, where women tend to be the RP's after a split, where there's very limited ability even set aside legally for men to take time off for caring for newborns or sick children, where childcare is expensive and limited both in availability and hours, where women are still discriminated against at work, in healthcare, by financial institutions, by the govt, with respect to housing...

There are more higher earning women on mn than in the general population. The fact is most women in this country earn less, have less and have limited ability to gain more.

We all hope and even work towards changing this, but it's the current reality. And what can never be changed is biology, it will always be women carrying and bearing children.

"But that answer makes folks uncomfortable, mainly the unmarried ones." Exactly I suspect the majority of offended, angry etc responses from unmarrieds is because they're experiencing concern, even worry, at how vulnerable they are when they're made to actually confront the reality of their situation. Understandably so.

I feel it necessary to say the reason behind my being so insistent on the subject isn't because I think less of the unmarried folk it's out of genuine concern that they NEVER end up screwed over disadvantaged and particularly their children disadvantaged due to lack of information/believing mistaken information.

I've seen it happen and it's utterly heartbreaking.

"As for women having kids, giving up their jobs and dedicating themselves to their family without marrying: that is just ridiculous, do women still do that?" Sadly yes I believe there's at least one on this thread and there's numerous examples elsewhere on mn.

LipstickHandbagCoffee - except it's rarely "smug marrieds" giving this advice and pointing out the pitfalls of being unmarried, it's people like me who HAVE been through a split or worse a bereavement or seen others go through that and seen that when they were unmarried they were completely screwed!

I do agree it's shocking the lack of honest conversation and the amount of sleepwalking into ridiculous situations that goes on. I've at least 2 friends who married WITHOUT discussing whether to have kids at all! Both men didn't want kids, one couple stayed together and didn't have kids, the other split up and she married someone who did want kids and is now happily married with 2 DC.

I don't understand people not discussing the important issues:

Cohabit or marriage
Kids or not
If kids how will that be managed (sahp if so who, childcare - which kind, kids sickness, finances, schools...)
Financial management generally
Caring for elderly parents
Own care when elderly
Own care if incapacitated
Organ donation
When one of you dies...

Yet people DON'T discuss these and many other important relationship issues. I don't get it myself.

"My “dad” started beating my mum up when she was pregnant with me...thank god she wasn’t married to him and could get away easily!" I'm really sorry your mum went through that, but being married wouldn't have stopped your mum from leaving and could even have provided her with finances to make it easier plus victims of Dv can still get legal aid for divorce. Hope she and you are doing much better now.

Lozster I agree people should be more sensible about being with someone a decent amount of time before conceiving (though genuinely accidental pregnancies can and do happen - had one myself which ended in mc but I'd been with the father almost 3 years, I'm not convinced all or even the majority of accidental pregnancies genuinely are accidents. Mind you there's a lot of misconceptions about contraception too!) but even that doesn't necessarily protect you from shitty fathers! I was with ex almost 8 years before we had dd.

Alsohuman - times move on. Policies change. Be aware of what concerns you. Don’t assume that others aren’t aware of what concerns them.

@Graphista banks do not and cannot ever freeze joint accounts if one of the account holders dies, it would automatically become a sole account in the other holders name.

There will be other pensions that operate the same policy as ours. Making people aware of the possibility is sensible. Especially if they’re relying on their partner’s say so.

With respect Alsohuman, you are back pedalling here from your initial disbelief (mystification I think was your word) that it is possible to be an unmarried beneficiary. The point is that the people who you think are daft, perhaps aren’t as daft as you think they are. For many, not being married isn’t the highly risky situation that many on here think it inevitably is. They may be well be irresponsible but equally they may not be and understand just fine, and are happy with, the position they are in. No disadvantage there for their children.

Why on earth would revoking life insurance be a common occurance?

We have a few but the house one was mandatory for the mortgage and is paid for out of our joint account. Think I’d notice if the mortgage company contacted us and direct debits differed.

I haven’t called anyone daft. I don’t resort to personal insult. I leave that to others.

GuineaPiglet - banks can and do freeze accounts if the contents are "in dispute" for any reason. This can and does include suspicious activity, doubts about a holder having legal mental capacity, a holder dying and probate not yet completed, contents in dispute due to separation of a non married couple I've known it happen on several occasions and recently too.

They're usually understandably covering their own backsides.

Blackbi2d not necessarily a common occurring but it does happen. The cases I have known of were where the guy was "getting his ducks in a row" before leaving the woman and not informing their partner because they didn't want them to know they were leaving.

I've also known cases where people have simply forgotten to remove their now ex from being named on the policy after the relationship has ended, and this hasn't been discovered until somethings happened to alert them to this. That's another advantage of being married - when divorcing all this is gone through by lawyer and brought to the clients attention.

"If I'd not been married to my ex I'd have had very little if any recourse regarding his actions in the WEEK the relationship ended - within days we went from discussing adoption to him emptying the joint current account, taking the car (in both our names) in the dead of night and attempting to empty the joint savings account too. Because we were married and had a legal claim to the marital assets he had to pay back or compensate for this. "

We have our own accounts and pay a percentage of our salaries into a joint account to cover bills and to have a bit of a buffer for joint expenditure, neither of us would get much from that
Our car is in my name
That's not even having to do anything additional at all to get more protection.

If a couple separated they’d be bonkers to still have a joint account. Re probate, joint accounts aren’t frozen.

I'm glad you have planned on certain areas meandmetoo but as anyone who's been through a relationship ending will tell you there's usually tons of finances/admin you haven't even remembered/doesn't occur to you to be concerned about until you have to.

I sincerely hope all those posting that are unmarried and saying they've made X y z arrangements for your own sake are right and when their relationship ends (all do - one of you will die eventually) everything I smoothly dealt with and you're not prevented from accessing essential assets.

But I've never once seen that be the case in real life, not once.

"If a couple separated they’d be bonkers to still have a joint account" relationships don't tend to end in clear cut ways. It takes time to sort things out especially admin and that's with an amicable breakup - which very few are!

"Re probate, joint accounts aren’t frozen" they can be if there is a dispute over the execution of inheritances.

Well I’ve just done two lots of probate quite smoothly. So smoothly the ££££s solicitors and finsncial companies eager to help wanted seems like daylight robbery.

I am SO glad that I never married my ex. It made getting rid of him so much easier. I will never regret not having married him.

Glad it went smoothly blackbi2d it doesn't always. That's when the money spent on solicitors etc becomes worth spending.

Yes, all sorted. some of it is just common sense though, eg car in my name, separate and joint accounts, joint life insurance (paid for out of my account so I'd know if any changes), joint debt only for things we both need/household stuff.

Essentially make an informed choice,weigh up pro/cons.have full information
If After availing yourself of the information you’re unmarried cohabitant parent that’s ok
If After availing yourself of the information you’re married parent that’s ok

All the other debate about what constitutes family,its intrinsically driven by class,culture,experience,education.

Just make sure you have information and make adequate provisions for finances & life events

Don’t passively hope or rely on a man marrying you.if it’s an important issue,ask. And have that big conversation early on

And no, no man is obliged to marry a woman because they have children, that initself may not be a compelling enough for him. Even if it is for the woman.

I also unfortunately think many women know that their partner is not want to marry Them but hope, Wish that he’ll change his mind. Hope by attrition they can wear him down, force the issue etc.

And of course,plenty women do not want to marry,never have and never will. It’s really not every wee girl dream to get married or have a big day. It’s certainly it mine.

@Graphista you’re wrong, a joint account wouldn’t come into it for probate, anything that is joint, be that a bank account or a house automatically belongs to the other owner once one of them dies.