To think it is important to be legally married

[SweetSally]

I wonder why so many couples are against marriage? Many would say it's a piece of paper...when it's not. Why can't people see the benefits of marriage?

Many would say it's waste of money - is it really? One thing is getting married and another thing is splashing cash on a grand wedding...

I welcome your views (and please let's be nice to each other and accept everyone's opinion)

Please vote - is it important to be legally married?

@MyFavouriteTimeOfYear in your circumstance the main thing to be wary of is travel to countries where cohabitation is illegal. Dubai as an example will generally be relaxed in hotels. On the whole everything is fine while everything is fine but if something goes wrong then the law could be enforced.

On a different thread a poster had the awful experience of her husband dying suddenly on holiday abroad. She said that the experience would have been many times worse if they hadnt been married.

If an unmarried partner were to fall ill then it would only add to the stress to have to try and dig a consular official out of bed in the early hours to try and assist in sorting out NOK problems.

@zsazsajuju I haven't knowingly said that.

To get an ongoing payout you usually have to be a spouse otherwise the pension dies with the person. (Obviously this depends on your policy). I know the TPS pay out a survivors pension to a spouse, civil partner or children. An unmarried childless partner would get nothing.

But only when it bloody well suits them, such as when dishing out/collecting money (bereavement allowance, pensions and various taxes). However when it comes to tax credits, universal credits etc they take into account unmarried partners as "living together as if they were married". Only the government can have it both ways it seems.

That's because they're different scenarios. Universal credit, for example, has nothing to do with long-term commitment. Boris Johnson's girlfriend can't claim universal credit while living at 10 Downing Street, but if she split up with him, she would be allowed to claim it. She wouldn't be forced to go through a "divorce" first. It's a short-term commitment.

If bereavement allowance and automatic pension rights were extended to every couple who live together, things would get messy quickly. Lots of people have secret families - it's not as rare as you might think. You can only be married to one person at a time, but there's no legal limit on the number of live-in lovers you can have. If a man lives with one woman during the week and another during weekends (having told both of them that he's busy at work while he's away), should they both receive bereavement allowance if he dies? Why should he be entitled to more government support than a monogamous man? And should his pension be split between both of them?

@MyFavouriteTimeOfYear

@GnomeDePlume is right. You can get in a lot of trouble in quite a lot of countries in the world if you go there on holiday and something happens to your partner... As the given example, the UAE is one of those very popular holiday destination where things can go very wrong. Especially if you are a woman...

I’m overall a by the book person.eg uni,career progression, work hard, save.
I have very few vices.i don't smoke,I don’t drink I don’t gamble
So I like that simply by having kids out of wedlock and a different surname to my partner and our kids have different Surnames to their parents.(The kids are double barrelled) that these Private and minor acts provoke derision and disdain
Hurrah😂

Married people can change their wills but, as zsazsa should know very well by now considering how often it gets pointed out, it's easier to challenge a will disinheriting you as a spouse.

So the issue isn't whether marriage potentially gives a spouse a better claim than a cohabitants in that situation, because it does. It's whether you want that. Be informed!

For us it was important to be married and make a commitment to each other before having our children, we wanted to be married , move in with each other and then have children. Having the same surname was important and I love being introduced as dh’s wife rather than partner or girlfriend which makes you sound like teenagers.

The majority of people I know who have had children first have never got married as they don’t have the money, it’s not a priority etc.

Each to their own but marriage was very important to us and still is.

Do any of you believe in the values of being brought up in a family where the parents are married?

What values would they be?
I dont see how marriage makes a parent a good parent or not
Like for instance, my parents were married, my father was an abusive alcoholic who gambled away all our money. They the sort of marriage values to aspire too?
We are no less commited to each other or DD cos we aint married.
We know how to share, be good people. Marriage dont make that

The reality is a frightening number of people don’t even know their own blood type Yeah well they wont sedate me which is what i need with a needle phobia, they didnt even take blood when i was pregnant, it was deemed unsafe to try

So now it's come to I will have trouble in UAE countries!

Well I could go in-depth here to prove that wrong, but it's getting beyond now!

I'm starting to think maybe you are envious that I wasn't stupid enough to blow 20 odd grand on a bloody wedding! And yet I'm living the same life as you, happily in one home with my lifelong partner and our children 🤷‍♀️

I will guess the next response..

'Actually I will have you know, we got married for £50!'

20 years, 4 children, not married, children have both our names
House is joint 50/50 as are savings
I’m financially independent, as is he
I 100% do not see any benefits of marriage in my situation , if I was financially dependant or on a less equal footing I may feel differently but each to their own

DH and I are married because we wanted to be each other's next of kin.

It's particularly important for DH as his family are all Jehovah's Witnesses, so would never agree to a blood transfusion for example.

@MyFavouriteTimeOfYear it was an observation! I would say the same thing if you were a married or not same sex couple. You are happy you have everything sewn up. However, just be aware that outside the UK other rules apply.

Personally, I wouldnt travel to Dubai because when on holiday I want to be able to have a drink and be able to give DH a kiss without worrying that I have broken the law and am only being tolerated while I stay in my tourist bubble.

MyFavouriteTimeOfYear also, you did ask for any pitfalls to be pointed out. Only doing what you asked!

@MyFavouriteTimeOfYear

You actually sound rather uneducated. Marriage and wedding are two different things and how much money people choose to spend on this event is none of your business. (I am also against splashing cash on a big ceremony).

Having more money than most people does not protect you from sudden death. If you were in another country with your family you might be surprised to find out that there are many different laws there when it comes to decision making in critical situations and your solicitor can't provide you with any type of paper that says you have the right to decide what happens to your partner in a situation where they can't make the choice for themselves. Countries like that include America, France, Germany, Spain, Greece, Turkey, etc. So we are not talking about far east or third world countries.

It's wonderful that you and your partner have taken some measures to protect your assets. It's great that you have made an informed decision and you have decided to seek professional to sort out some paperwork. That doesn't make you any better than anyone else and yet again for some reason you act superior to all of us.

@GnomeDePlume

You can drink in the UAE and believe me they have a lot of alcohol there. Nevertheless less, as you pointed out showing affection in public is a big "no no" and many people have been in trouble for this.

* my keyboard is going crazy

Nevertheless without the second "less"

@GnomeDePlume

@SweetSally I know it is legal to drink in Dubai but only with caveats. It is perfectly possible for an unmarried couple to visit Dubai with no problem at all.

The problems come when you leave the tourist bubble for some reason and something goes wrong. Accidentally knock something over in a shop and get accused of being drunk, trip over a rock on a tourist trip, knock yourself out and find that your partner cannot give permission for treatment.

I have a chronic health condition which probably makes me more cautious than the average.

@SweetSally I don't act far superior to anybody else, far from it actually! I don't know where I have said that?

One thing I would like to ask though is, the main consensus on here for women to get married is 'financial protection'
For example Paul McCartney and Heather Mills. You are in agreement that she should of been entitled to the amount she was awarded, even only being married such a short amount of time?
Just because they were married?

@GnomeDePlume I was involved in a horrific RTC, with all my injuries I am very very lucky to be here. I see absolutely everything as a hazard. I can spend weeks not leaving the house, as it's so dangerous out there. So I know full well fear and being cautious. But that hasn't been a factor for me to get married or not travel.

Yet Dubai is not what you think. Yes you can drink. Supposedly if you don't cover yourself from head to toe, you will be thrown in some prison or worse. That is wrong. The place is full of disrespectful tourists in crop tops and mini skirts. Yes you may get looks, but I have never seen anybody even removed from a mall etc, never mind kicked out. Yes you might not be able to roll around on the floor with your partner in a public place, but you will not be arrested for a hand hold or a kiss. Its just disrespectful to their beliefs, and I agree with abiding by their beliefs whilst there.
Does it bother me when leaving our resort for the day that I can't kiss my partner non stop. Not at all! I'm too busy with our children.
Not that I would wear a crop top and mini skirt anyway (I would cause many eyes to bleed!) but I wouldn't anyway out of respect.

Don't read everything you believe.

Saying ‘it’s important to get married’ is like saying it’s important to have children or own property. It’s only important if it’s what you want from life.

That being said I do roll my eyes at every ‘People living together or having kids should have the same rights/legal protection’ - No if you want the legal protection then either get the ‘piece of paper’ or fill out the non marriage legal paperwork to protect yourselves. The idea that anyone living together or having children around automatically be subject to the same protections as marriage is archaic!!!! We wanted the ability to have casual, less committed relationships but now we can we don’t like the lack of protection? 🙄

To say it’s ‘just a piece of paper’ some people seem very opposed to getting it, which baffles me. Surely if it’s so insignificant you’d have no issue just popping down the local registry office???

Personally I think you can do whatever you like as long as you don’t complain about consequences of your own choices or make other people feel bad. I have a few early 30’s friends who feel the need to be very vocal about how terrible marriage is and ‘they would never be owned by someone’ but we know them well enough to know they’d jump at the chance if their DP proposed, but he won’t, because he says it’s ‘just a piece of paper’ 🤔

@TheRightHonerable

Brilliant comment. Very well said.

Marriage is clearly not for everyone, but there should be ways for people to demonstrate commitment and create a legal family unit which are fit for purpose.

If Britain is going to be a society with falling marriage rates, there should be some mechanism like the French PAX where you acknowledge that your partner is your NOK but which is inexpensive to obtain and easy to dissolve.

People shouldn't have to get married in order to have their legal standing with their partner made clear.

I'm not married and have DC with my long term partner. We've manually sorted out all the legal/financial protections appropriate to our circumstances. Financially it wouldn't benefit me to get married, and personally I don't like all the historical baggage associated with the term 'wife'.

But if our circumstances meant it would be beneficial to get married (emigrating and needing a spouse visa for example), we'd absolutely do it. It would be for financial/legal reasons though, not romantic ones. If anything DP and I work harder at our relationship knowing that there is no legal tie keeping us together.

If Britain is going to be a society with falling marriage rates, there should be some mechanism like the French PAX where you acknowledge that your partner is your NOK but which is inexpensive to obtain and easy to dissolve

Absolutely! And as said earlier ways to pass on pensions and other benefits too - why have the choice between an archaic institution and nothing?