AIBU to not understand getting marrying years after having kids and living together

[Lcats]

What I really mean here is please help me understand. I just have never been exposed to this in real life. However I keep coming across such threads on mumsnet.

What I don't understand is - surely raising your child(ren) together is the ultimate commitment. So for people who marry say five years after having two children - does it nevertheless signify a new step in the relationship? Or is it merely a delayed celebration of the fact that you are already de facto married?

Among my friends those to whom being married mattered for whatever reason married before having kids, or after falling pregnant or having their first child. I have a few friends to whom being married never seemed to matter so they live together for years without. So I have no one to ask in everyday life.

I somewhat agree that having a child with someone is greater commitment than marrying them. However, you'd be beyond reckless to marry someone you haven't lived with. People do things at their own pace and their own way. The purpose of marriage is supposed to be to provide legal protection, that's very important if you have children.

I think I understand where you are comig from OP - given the nature of the protections marriages affoords, why not do it before children rather than much later?

I think in some cases people put a wedding off simply because they have a dream wedding scenario they can't afford earlier on.

But I also know some people don't quite twig to the legal issues until later. Maybe they decide to make a will, or someone in the relationship has health issues, etc. And it becomes clearer to them that there may be issues if they are not married.

@Lcats

Well yes, but I'm not sure what that has to do with commitment to another person as per your thread? Well because you will have to spend about 20 years rising a child with this person? It is usually quite tricky and incredibly expensive to do so without living together.

Obviously this happens but I doubt it is “common” to have children together but to be unsure whether you will raise them while living together (accidents aside).

What you're saying there is that people who have a child together whilst unmarried are mostly committed to each other, which is true. But having a child with someone isn't innately a commitment to that person in itself. It's just that in many cases the people will also be committed. But there's no requirement for a commitment because you have a child together. It isn't an inherent part of the process. Whereas marriage and CP are by definition commitments to the partner. It's the nature of the contract. And that is the distinction.

Sorry I've not read the thread but just wanted to add my pov.

My brother bil died a couple of years ago. Sister had a nightmarish time of the legal stuff despite being married.

This made myself and dp realise that we had to get married. Why deliberately leave the person you love a mountain of shit to deal with at the time they are least able to cope? So, to make things a little bit easier we plan on getting married, just us and not even the kids. Purely practical reasons, no romance involved. In fact, we also plan on getting our accounts in our joint names-this was the most difficult thing for my sister as she needed the money for funeral costs etc but her husbands accounts were frozen to her as she wasn't named on the account. Really difficult time.

Don't know why we still haven't sorted this, your post op has been a reminder!

YANBU. People’s priorities are all wrong; people having kids before marriage, some never marrying etc. Look at the enormous number of single parent and blended families.

The nuclear family has been eroded and the fact we’ve let it happen is awful. People aren’t careful about their choices these days; they don’t think, and then we wonder why we have so many issues with children these days.

Of course there will be a backlash from this, because it’s so common and nobody wants to admit they made a poor choice and now their child(ren) is/are suffering.

@emilyfrost

YANBU. People’s priorities are all wrong; people having kids before marriage, some never marrying etc. Look at the enormous number of single parent and blended families.

The nuclear family has been eroded and the fact we’ve let it happen is awful. People aren’t careful about their choices these days; they don’t think, and then we wonder why we have so many issues with children these days.

Of course there will be a backlash from this, because it’s so common and nobody wants to admit they made a poor choice and now their child(ren) is/are suffering.

My daughter isn’t suffering because I’m not married, I’m still with her dad! If I wanted to leave Dp being married wouldn’t have made any difference.

Being married gives no financial protection. Can we end this myth now please. As an ex-wife who was the higher earner of the two of us and did not child rearing let me warn you marriage is a route to being fleeced. My ex-husband waltzed off with 55% of joint assets - yet 70% was earned by me. He even got cash to make up for the pension I paid in to before I met him. Marriage might benefit a SAHM but it’s not fit for purpose in the modern age when women work.

A lot of people I know have got married post kids because of the financial cost of a wedding;having kids and raising babies/toddlers have been a barrier especially as most of those I know who have married years later have had one of the couple stay home with the kids/or work vastly reduced hours whilst the kids have been young and there's been no spare cash to even save for a wedding

We got married when my oldest was 5. It did make a difference, felt before like something was missing plus legally he owned the house etc. but it took him that long to commit and I didn't want to force him

Crazy isn’t it? The amount people pay for a wedding just to get fleeced by the contract. It’s a ridiculous situation.

Someone commented on the breakdown of the nuclear family. This would have happened married or not in our case as continuing to live with my ex was not an option for me and the kids. We are now a single parent family but they are not any worse off for that emotionally - except for the money of course, which their father took!

It completely depends on your point of veiw I think. Marriage as a romantic gesture is not important to me - I think it is outdated in this sense. It's not an unbreakable commitment, divorce rates are high and children will always be the biggest joint commitment a couple can make.

When we were younger our relationship was quite even - both reasonable earners, joint owners of the house, complete mirror wills etc..

However situations change and a good job offer for (now)dh meant a big move and me leaving my job. As dh was the sole earner when we first moved and the now large disparity in our earnings plus different country different inheritance laws, medical and legal issues meant that getting married was the simplest way to deal with it all in 1 go.

That said I wish there was another way, laws need to be updated to recognise and adapt to modern families and customs.

Getting married created as many problems as it fixed and more than 5 years on there is a lot of bad feeling in my extended family (v. Small wedding just parents and siblings registry office and dinner) and even though I have never announced it, don't wear a ring and haven't changed my name I still get post to 'mrs dhname'.

I do think you are unreasonable though to not be able to see that people marry for many different reasons and that for most of us our lives are not static and unchanging and our situations and needs can change.

My ex-husband waltzed off with 55% of joint assets - yet 70% was earned by me. He even got cash to make up for the pension I paid in to before I met him

No one seems to mind when this happens to men in divorce...

Inheritance tax.

Though a civil partnership now does the job too.

Meaning, I know a number of couples who did not think marriage was important. Who chose to live together and have children together and who were fully committed regardless of whether they were married. But then as they got older and wealthier realised the significant tax benefits of getting married. They varied in the degree to which they then chose to mark it with a large public celebration. They were lovely celebrations of their relationship and family, regardless of the tax factor!

@cratty I mind! It shouldn’t happen to anyone, either way round. BUT the old “bargain” of marriage was that the woman raised the kids as her share of the work and the man went out and earned and that was accepted as an equal contribution. Now we have some equality - women are not actually banned from working as in the past - so the woman may earn and raise the kids while the man earns less and loafs around....yet he takes out more than his contribution on divorce. That in particular seems unfair. Particularly as anyone left to support the children alone needs money to do that and should get compensation. CMS money doesn’t cut it. A man can leave the marriage with a lump sum then quit his job but the CMS only looks at earnings. And many, many men (usually it is the men) refuse to pay their share.

Also, if anyone thinks children cost them no money post-18 they are living on a different planet.

I was born with my dads surname, my mum changed it to her maiden name through the courts when they split (I was about 18mth) and then remarried about 4/5 years later, I kept my mums maiden name and grew up in a house where no one shared my name - I felt I didn't belong anywhere.
I married about a year after my DS1 was born and we all have the same name, I never wanted the big white wedding (but had it a toned down version as DH didn't like the idea of a registry office and jeans ), I just wanted to feel like a family that I didn't have growing up.

Oh wow. Same name. So your identity was erased. I hope you don’t have assets you will lose too through marriage. Big price to pay for a name.

My kids don’t have the same surname as me. I am divorced and so of course they have their dad’s surname even though they would prefer not to. This whole system dates from the times when women and children were chattels. Best thing would be for no women to change their names on marriage and all kids to have their mother’s surname. Mothers mostly tend to stick around, fathers less so.

@catspyjamas123 that's why the Spanish speaking system is great. All babies get both surnames (and at least in my birth country) taking a married name is not legally allowed.

@catspyjamas123

Being married gives no financial protection. Can we end this myth now please. As an ex-wife who was the higher earner of the two of us and did not child rearing let me warn you marriage is a route to being fleeced. My ex-husband waltzed off with 55% of joint assets - yet 70% was earned by me. He even got cash to make up for the pension I paid in to before I met him. Marriage might benefit a SAHM but it’s not fit for purpose in the modern age when women work.

It's not a myth. Being married absolutely can provide financial protection. It did to your XH by the sound of things! What we need to do is to not make assumptions, and to be aware of the full implications of marriage and CP.

What protection did my XH need as a man who deserted his family? Marriage is for losers - and the loser was me and my children who I, of course, continue to house, feed, clothe and support emotionally.

@CrappleUmble one person’s protection is another person’s exploitation. Is that a fair system? The system sucks and the lawyers who feed off it are vultures.

[quote catspyjamas123]@CrappleUmble one person’s protection is another person’s exploitation. Is that a fair system? The system sucks and the lawyers who feed off it are vultures.[/quote]
What you're arguing here is that the system isn't fair, rather than that it doesn't provide anyone with any protection. Those are two separate issues. I'd certainly agree that there should be more education and awareness.

The number of people who either don't realise that marriage/CP is unlike anything else and cannot be replicated outside those institutions, or who don't realise that it involves giving up rights and protections as well as acquiring them is worrying.

Have been with my OH for over 12 years and not married .

I don’t want to be . Doesn’t suit me financially to marry as I would be worse off if I were to marry - as I am the higher earner and have more assets (the house is mine etc) so if we were to marry and then well if we were to get divorced I would loose out . Or say I died first then he married someone else and then he died and so my children are left without inheritance.

This way - by us not being married it is ensured that my children are the ones that will receive the inheritance they are entitled to after my death .

I know that’s a morbid way to think about it but after all marriage was basically a way for women to become more financially secure and it wouldn’t work that way for me .

I don't think it's morbid at all to think about what you want to happen to your assets after you die! There are few certainties in life, but one of the only ones is that nobody gets out of here alive.

@CrappleUmble let’s not pretend marriage exists in a vacuum as just a contract. It is lots of things - a romantic gesture, social respectability for a sexual relationship (until the last couple of decades sex outside marriage was still supposedly shameful), an institution generations of us were raised within, a “fairy tale” taught to us since birth where we live happily ever after with the same stories about it read over and over and also a legal contract.

Many of us, probably most, grow up thinking it is something to aspire to, a life goal - go to uni, get a job, get married, buy a house, have kids. It is extremely easy to get married and remain married for many years before it becomes clear how much financial damage you are doing yourself just by being married. That’s usually the point at which the lawyers start saying you really should have realised. Where is the warning or advice before signing? “Shares can go down as well as up, marriage can fleece you as well as protect you.” Does anyone get an information leaflet? That would be a start. I honestly got more info with a flu jab than a marriage contract.