“Don’t get married if you’re a financially independent woman”.

[Lucidas]

Is this the advice we should be giving to young women? I have a female friend who is convinced of this - going through a divorce at the moment and she is aggrieved at having to lose a big chunk of her earnings - held down a full time job as a mother, still covered the majority of child rearing, is the higher earner and with a layabout husband.

Women are often told to get married for ‘protection’ but surely it’s no protection to get married to a lower earner, someone with fewer assets, or one of the many cocklodger specimens we come across on MN.

The response could be to say that she simply married the wrong person, but it’s not always apparent how people will change down the line.

The higher earner nearly always comes off worse in a divorce. Would you tell a man not to marry a women as she was a low earner? I doubt it. If you're uncomfortable splitting your assets then don't get married.

The U.K. courts will give effect to a prenup which is fair and reasonable.

Just to add this is the advice I've always given to my teen DDs-so no YANBU just pragmatic.

I wish the 'what about men' brigade would stop acting as if there is no social context to this situation. Yes, the rules are different for women, because we live in a patriarchal society were the system is rigged against us. Men benefit hugely from the way society is run, they are more likely to have better jobs, more access to promotions, do less childcare and housework, etc. They do not need to protect themselves from women because women are not the ones constantly harming and degrading their opposite sex. It is so tiring hearing people cry 'what if the situation was reversed?!' and pretending that women and men are on an equal footing in this society. We are not.

If you are a woman and you are a high-earner who does not want kids I would suggest not getting married. But if you plan on having children with a man who earns more than you then 100% you should get married because we all know damn well who's career is gonna go down the toilet and who's gonna be doing the vast majority of the child-rearing.

@Trickyboy. I read your story a totally different way. A woman who had no hope of living an affluent lifestyle by her own means had a few good years of luxury at someone else’s expense. Why should she have walked away with half of the money he had accrued? She chose to get pregnant young and give up her career. The ex is an absolute moron for marrying the Latvian but he will no doubt regret that decision in time.

Surely the advice should be, don't get married, most of my friends and relatives ended up divorced, hardly anybody seems to be happily married, expecting a different result is just ignoring most of the evidence.

Men's been doing that for the whole time - it's fair if one partner is doing most of the childcare.
Also marriage protects BOTH including the financially better-off woman if she loses her job or falls seriously ill.

*Men have been

I "married" up. But I had my own career and pension.

He destroyed me and our finances. Deliberately. I came out of it asset wealthy (huge house etc), good pension but no savings etc.

I aim to pass it all on to my kids asap -as I see my single female friend who has built up property assets and paying tax all her life -now in a nursing home and they are taking the lot -the government to pay for her nursing. Whereas the woman in the next room -also single, gets it all paid for by the tax payer -same care. So I will get rid of all my assets -but that is a seperate issue.

For me, I will never remarry so its a moot point.

Should I meet a man -I will make it clear -no finances combined. I will be happy to rent out my house and rent his -and move in together but keep my home. Likewise my will leaves everything to my children. Likewise I am happy to move into his -but I won't be contributing other than bills -absolutely nothing to mortgage or house or even paint on the walls.

@IJustWantSomeBees

I wish the 'what about men' brigade would stop acting as if there is no social context to this situation. Yes, the rules are different for women, because we live in a patriarchal society were the system is rigged against us. Men benefit hugely from the way society is run, they are more likely to have better jobs, more access to promotions, do less childcare and housework, etc. They do not need to protect themselves from women because women are not the ones constantly harming and degrading their opposite sex. It is so tiring hearing people cry 'what if the situation was reversed?!' and pretending that women and men are on an equal footing in this society. We are not.

If you are a woman and you are a high-earner who does not want kids I would suggest not getting married. But if you plan on having children with a man who earns more than you then 100% you should get married because we all know damn well who's career is gonna go down the toilet and who's gonna be doing the vast majority of the child-rearing.

I agree with this. My career and pension suffered through marriage -his improved.

The system is rigged.

@Wickerbaskets i mean i ( and my 2 exes) have seen a solicitor and paid over £3k.

Upshot is , that all funds accrued through our hard work and marriages, pass to both sons. Should any party remarry , all existing funds and assets are secured and ring fenced from any future marriage by me, my Ex H 1 and Ex H 2. We need to build new financial futures outside of this. Think of this a pre nup.

Any children born from this date will not be entitled to benefit from shared assets as of this date.

Why would i and my exes work and pay for some and line the pockets of others outside of this date? Why would we support children not born of these marriages and financial period? Why would we remarry and not protect our sons in favour of others and future DC's?

If you were to meet one of my exes's good luck to you. But, you will not get your hands on any of my £900k because i have earned it, i have ring fenced it and it is going to my sons!

We have legal trusts in place with guardians . I have dotted every I and crossed every t. I have protected my sons money should i die. No second wife will ever benefit from me. Only my sons.

Yep, this is why I've never been bothered about getting married. No kids. If me and long term DP split up I don't want to lose my house. I've mentioned to him several times he should buy a place himself so he's not stuck if we ever did split. And he's never contributed towards the mortgage or house costs as I've been perfectly able to manage them myself so he has no claim.

Getting married would make no sense whatsoever right now. Maybe if we were in our 70s or 80s and so were unlikely to divorce anymore, but those divorce rates are still too high for my liking in your 40's and 50's.

@IJustWantSomeBees I’m normally with you re the ‘what about men’ brigade but in this situation it’s a relevant comment - because of the various patriarchal miseries you mentioned, women tend to be lower earners than men and therefore tend to be the parties who financially benefit from marriage. Therefore, saying ‘don’t get married if you’re the higher earner’ is advice which would tend to benefit men to the detriment of women far more than it would benefit women. So I think it’s reasonable in this instance to ask people to consider this advice reversed, because generally women would be far worse off if we shifted even more towards the idea that high earners should protect their assets from their partners.

No, I wouldn’t give my DD this advice. I would advise her to put herself in a strong financial position, but then do what her good judgement tells her to do. It’s my job to help her learn that judgement.

@WindblowingSW

I "married" up. But I had my own career and pension.

He destroyed me and our finances. Deliberately. I came out of it asset wealthy (huge house etc), good pension but no savings etc.

I aim to pass it all on to my kids asap -as I see my single female friend who has built up property assets and paying tax all her life -now in a nursing home and they are taking the lot -the government to pay for her nursing. Whereas the woman in the next room -also single, gets it all paid for by the tax payer -same care. So I will get rid of all my assets -but that is a seperate issue.

For me, I will never remarry so its a moot point.

Should I meet a man -I will make it clear -no finances combined. I will be happy to rent out my house and rent his -and move in together but keep my home. Likewise my will leaves everything to my children. Likewise I am happy to move into his -but I won't be contributing other than bills -absolutely nothing to mortgage or house or even paint on the walls.

Just a word of warning there, pils gave us money and when fil needed care it was judged as deprivation of assets for exactly that reason, there is no 7 year rule of gifts if the giver is still alive. We had to pay £6200 per month for his care or lose our home.

@CHiPS1971 ahh, sorry - I misunderstood your post. I thought you meant that when your assets eventually pass to your sons, you were expecting them to be ring-fenced from any partners your sons might have.

I totally understand why you’ve protected what you currently own from any future partners / kids who may come on the scene if you and your current partner split.

IJustWantSomeBees

"I wish the 'what about men' brigade would stop acting as if there is no social context to this situation. Yes, the rules are different for women, because we live in a patriarchal society were the system is rigged against us. Men benefit hugely from the way society is run, they are more likely to have better jobs, more access to promotions, do less childcare and housework, etc. They do not need to protect themselves from women because women are not the ones constantly harming and degrading their opposite sex. It is so tiring hearing people cry 'what if the situation was reversed?!' and pretending that women and men are on an equal footing in this society. We are not."

Beautifully put.

Its impossible to compare a financially independent woman with a financially independent man. For one thing financially independent women are still so painfully rare.

I would happen also to give the same advice to a man who was not the breadwinner. But parroting "what about the menz" as if this was a vacuum when men and women are at parity are being wilfully ignorant.

But it has to be said that men in general are overwhelmingly less interested in marriage than women. It's not generally men who work themselves up into a frenzy choosing bridesmaids dresses and table settings and falling out with their mates about who is going to be best man.

You're talking about a wedding, not marriage. Yes women traditionally are more obsessed with that, however post-wedding depression is a thing because they hadn't given much thought to life after the wedding.

It's men who do most of the proposing, presumably because they want to get married.

Things are changing but it is still the norm for the man who proposes to have a higher income, and it's still insinuated - and backed up by all the wedding guff like the virginal white dress and being handed over by a male relative - that he will be looking after her. Actually that's probably a reason why male proposal is still the norm. If a shop assistant proposed to her stockbroker boyfriend the whole world would call her a gold-digger, including him.

Generally speaking, marriage is only a good idea if one partner reasonably needs financial protection because they are giving something up - career advancement, savings ability, etc. to the benefit of the other party.

Situations like - having children where you take time off to look after them while your partner works; moving to follow a partner's career at the expense of your own; or supporting a partner through graduate school or the like.

Otherwise it's better to just make sure you balance your finances appropriately, keep the money separate and make sure imbalanced incomes are accounted for in expenditure and savings as part of the wider cooperation required around living standards in order to be together.

In most situations your daughter, since she was having children, would have been sensible to marry when that was on the cards and then divorce quickly when she realised he wasn't prepared to balance responsibility.

As more women start earning more than their partners, this is going to become a much more common scenario and it would be good for women to be much more aware of marriage as a financial contract rather than seeing it as goal that proves they are loved (which is how I think marriage is generally sold to women by society - the financial impacts of marriage have always been communicated to men, but much more so now divorce is equally available to women).

BoomBoomsCousin

"As more women start earning more than their partners, this is going to become a much more common scenario and it would be good for women to be much more aware of marriage as a financial contract rather than seeing it as goal that proves they are loved (which is how I think marriage is generally sold to women by society - the financial impacts of marriage have always been communicated to men, but much more so now divorce is equally available to women)."

This is the absolute heart of the matter.

We need to get away from the idea that marriage = love.
And towards the idea that marriage = financial security which can support love.

And women in particular need to repeat that to themselves like a mantra.

BlueBrian, it's all about individual experience though, isn't it? Most of the people I know seem to be happily married. I certainly am myself and so are my parents (and so were my grandparents and my ILs). In my late 50s and been together since I was 19, so probably not very likely to change.

Have never known my husband not to pull his weight when it came to chores and child-rearing; the only times I did more than him was when I was working fewer hours. He's not the kind of man who would put his feet up when somebody else is working around him. (If anything the other way round- I am MNetting now and he is in the kitchen cooking our supper).

@Trickyboy - I don’t think the moral of your story is that woman as a whole should marry before children. Rather if you are the financially poorer partner, marriage benefits you.

If I had married my ex I would have had to give away hundreds of thousands of pounds. Thank goodness I didn’t and I have the money I made to support my children.

@Wickerbaskets no sorry, you have not miss understood.

I have also ring fenced
my son's inheritance. The money that my son's inherit will always be their money and not shared with their wives. This is ring fenced , family money.

If they marry and divorce it is not my intention that my son's are homeless.

Any money that my sons bring into a marriage is always their money . Any money their wives bring is their wives money. Any money they accrue following marriage is joint money to be shared if divorce. Wife can leave with her full initial investment and division of married proceeds.

Neither of my sons wives will benefit from our family money. She will have her own career and money and shared assets after marriage that they have acquired themselves as a couple. The money that myself and my exe's leave is for the benefit of our sons and is ring fenced. Should my sons divorce ( i hope that does not happen) our family money will not be part of that settlement . The money we leave is for the sole benefit of our biological sons and residuals in trust for their children's private education.

@CHiPS1971 would you mind giving details on how you've done this? Would it still stand if you were to remarry?

@thepeopleversuswork And towards the idea that marriage = financial security which can support love.

That's a great way to put it.