I hate the idea of marriage for financial reasons

[Polly90x]

Does anyone really not like the concept of marriage based solely on a dislike of the idea that finances would be legally ‘shared’? Obviously I know people have separate bank accounts within a marriage but the idea that this could be split upon divorce scares me. I actually have no money but have started to live frugally to try and save some, and hate the idea that If I got married or even bought a property with someone by pooling our resources, I’d lose control of my finances a bit. I also understand sometimes it’s beneficial i.e where one person has given up work for childcare, but aside from that... anyone else dislike the concept of resources legally being shared? I really think when I’ve saved for a deposit for a house I want it in my own name only

I think u can agree prenuptial with ur partner. No?

I think that’s precisely the point of marriage. What’s mine is yours. If you’re not up for that then don’t bother. You don’t have to get married but if you’re considering it you need to be clear about the legal contract into which you’d be entering and what that means. Marriage isn’t about weddings or rings or changing your name, it’s about joining yourself to another person. The fact that it’s a bugger to get out of is what makes it meaningful.

@Hannah021 - no. Not in this country.

@Polly90x the whole point of marriage is a pooling of resources of all kinds. If that bothers you then you're right, you shouldn't get married.

You can summarise marriage in one word- A partnership
This means its mutually supportive and protective in ALL aspects of life
Simple really, why would you not want that?
There are relationships all around that have one eye on the exit door, often financial, not very caring really

It works both ways so their income becomes yours as well as yours become theirs. I assume you’re possibly not in a relationship at the moment if the thought of sharing finances is so overwhelming? But people don’t generally go into it lightly. You marry someone because you love them and want to share your life with them - and that includes money.

You seem to be assuming that you'd be the larger contributor, and the one with most the lose in the event of a divorce that split your assets 50/50 -- why? Do you have a financially feckless partner who wants to marry you?

This is why I don't like the idea of unmarried couples having more rights. It removes choice.

@Polly90x i guess u and I arent really marriage material
I wouldnt want to split the mortage
its either mine or his ... Everything else 50/50... If he cheats i want to be able to bin him outside or leave him with little hassle...

I think the idea is you should only marry someone that you trust with your life, and therefore bank account too.

The trouble is, there are so many horror stories of spouses sinking their other halves into such debt that they lose the house etc, that it’s tempting to avoid it altogether.
I’ve always earned sufficient that I’ve never needed two pay packets coming in and I’ve carried on working full time since becoming a mum so I’m very lucky.

But I grew up with a lying git of a father and a mum who spent 40 years suffering his gambling, so I guess it has coloured my view & I sympathise.

Not really, I see our future as tied to each other. Certainly we each have achieved everything we’ve achieved because we supported each other all this time. When we got married neither of us had much, but I had more of a proper career. Dh has a business that’s become very successful so now he earns slightly more than me. I’ll eventually have a bigger pension. We have shared commitments. It makes sense that are finances are shared and if we divorced they’d be split between us. That doesn’t mean we do the whole ‘one pot family money thing’. We do have a joint account for bills but have personal current and savings accounts that are our main accounts. I don’t even know what dh has in his accounts and he wouldn’t know what was in mine, but I’m not uncomfortable with thinking it’s all technically ‘ours’.

But that’s probably because dh isn’t a big dickhead. I don’t think I would have felt that way about any old random I’d dated in the past.

Make sure you marry someone richer than you if you're really against sharing money with the person you supposedly love enough to intend on spending the rest of your life with.

If you don't want to share your money with someone then don't get married.

The whole point of marriage is to enter into a legal contract to share your life, money and possessions with your spouse.

I know what you mean, but the trouble is that in every marriage (well, almost every marriage) one partner will have more money/assets than the other. So somebody is having to take a greater ‘risk’ than the other person.
I do think that people need to know that marriage is first and foremost a legal contract, and decide based on this whether to marry or not.

I have had extremely awkward conversations with couples about to get married who think like this. The only advice I can give in those scenarios is don’t get married but they don’t want to hear that.

It’s the most important decision you will ever make. You are throwing your lot in with another person. Legally it’s a massive deal

I won’t marry again for financial reasons. Worked too hard and too long to have someone walk away with half.

I married DH because I’m planning on spending the rest of my life with him, so I hope that it’s irrelevant how resources would be split in the event of a separation because we don’t intend it to come to that.

Of course I’m sure everyone thinks that and the reality of it is a lot of marriages do end in divorce and can be costly for all involved, or sometimes more costly for one partner than the other. But we went into this with our eyes open and prepared to take the risk.

I will say, once we’d lived together a few years, started planning a family, shared the bills and the hoovering and the Netflix account and all that, the idea of it becomes less of an issue. When we first moved in there was the furniture, pans, mugs etc etc that was mine and that which was his, now it’s all just ‘ours’ and that’s what happened over time with money too. I’ve lost my income due to Covid, I could go and look for other work/temporary work but DH and I decided against that as I’m pregnant and asthmatic so we decided it’s safer for me to stay home for now - joint decision, joint consequences for our financial situation but what money is still coming in from his job is joint too. And if that goes to shit as well we’ll jointly have to figure something out I guess. I’m really glad I’ve got someone to be ‘in it together’ with right now.

It’s the social equivalent of a business partnership. If you don’t have the trust in your partner to pull their own weight whether by paid or unpaid work, then don’t get married. In addition, much of the legal aspects that put your money at risk is about making sure both partners are treated fairly in the event of a divorce. It doesn’t just protect you if you give up work, and be a SAHP but if you have a career that suffers due to supporting your partner in their career. Think of military wives who have to move every few years and the impact that has on their jobs and careers. Marriage also protects children if you have any by ensuring that if one partner dies, the other partner will inherit enough to finish raising those children (£270k) and amounts over that get split equally between children.
Marriage isn’t for everyone that is true and most of the above can be replicated by being cohabiting unmarried couple with Wills and such. But to dislike it purely because of financial protections I think is a bit silly. They protect more women than men because we tend to be the ones in lower paid jobs, who tend to take breaks from work to bear children, and so on. All the statistics show that women have an earnings gap even childless women over their lifetime compared to men. That’s why many misogynist men’s rights splinter groups advise men to never marry because they don’t want to have a divorce end in what is fair to both parties, they prefer to have the woman be a live in girlfriend paying half the bills but earning less money and therefore having less than the man to keep when a split occurs.

So don’t get married. You can be in a committed partnership and buy a home together protecting your assets

I think it's really important if there are children involved, precisely to make finances shared. Other than that, tbh, I'm not even sure if living together in any sort of financially joined way is desirable.

OTOH I can't see how it's possible to live as a "couple" if your finances are vastly different. Either you have to live to the means of the "poor" partner or one will always be beholden to the other.

I suppose it depends what kind of relationship you want? Are you long term "dating" or seeing yourselves as a unit?

DH and I have no money of our own, never have in 30 years. That's worked for us because I manage the money and he doesn't care. The higher earner has varied over the years and we just see everything as ours.

If, god forbid, I was starting again, with no prospect of children and financial stability of my own, I wouldn't be keen to tie myself financially to anyone, but if you're going to live together, in any capacity, that's unavoidable.

YANBU. I wanted to get married (for non financial reasons) but it's still taken me almost four years to fully accept we're in this together as a team, we do trust each other and therefore it's so much easier not spending energy trying to keep things separate and working out who pays what and so on.

Op I get it. I prefer being in control of my own destiny. Lots of people on mn are very in favour of their dh’s money being “family money” but not so keen if it comes to them having to support the rest of the family financially.

I like being financially independent op and there’s a lot to be said for it.

I hate the idea of marriage for financial reasons as well. To me the main point of getting married should ALWAYS be for love first and foremost

I wouldn't want to be married for a massive myriad of reasons, this being one of them.

However, if you want to get married then you have to accept that you become a team, a life partnership and, as such, that involves sharing.

You can't have the benefits without the drawbacks. Life's a compromise all day long.

Ideally you'd find a partner with similar and outlook on finances than you anyway so then doesn't matter you can spend and save together.

Anyway day to day you're still independent people. I still had a savings account from before we got married that was always my 'australia' fund so we went there when the kids were smaller. Likewise if DH wants to save for something for himself that's fine too.

Marriage is a contract. It is a legal and financial agreement. That is and always was the point of it. The romantic side of it came later.

If only this was made really clear to people - especially women.

I did not get married because neither of us wanted that contract. We made other separate legal agreements for specific purposes. Those agreements protected and bound us.

Love was there and stayed for nearly forty years. You can have love and partnerships without marriage.