Men who refuse to marry the mothers of their children

[SparrowNest]

You see that so often on here. I don’t mean couples where both parties are happy to marry, but ones where the man refuses despite their partner desperately wanting it, or else strings them along indefinitely.

Is there any reason at all, other than that he doesn’t want to have any duty to provide her with financial security for if they break up? So not only is he already thinking about potentially leaving, he’s happy to fuck over the person he ostensibly currently loves if they do break up.

My AIBU is that I don’t understand why women tolerate it. I suppose the ones being strung along have just been lied to, but having children is actually the bigger commitment in many ways. You’re joined for life. It seems so nasty to be prepared to do that, but not offer your partner the security and commitment they want.

@EightWheelGirl

The recent advice on here was don't get married if you have significantly more assets than your husband. Surely this is just the reverse?

Oh girl, girl, you girl you. If we actually lived in a world where men, on the whole, did their fair share of childcare and domestic work even when their partner works full time, and there was no pay gap, and no natural consequences of children that affect girls more, you might have a point. On the whole, though, we don't. And I know you want that not to make a difference, being such a girl, but it does.

Of course, as a girl, you'll also be well aware of the implications of having children upon a girl.

channels the Beatles Ah, gi-i-irl... 🎶

@Bluesarestillblue

The whole common law wife thing just irritates me. Some of my friends are highly educated and in responsible, Professional jobs and still believe it’s a thing.

But, I do think having kids with someone is more “tying” than getting married. You can get divorced without kids and the person is out of your life after a few years or whatever. But if you have kids, you’re likely to be tied
To them through your
Kids

Having a child with someone doesn't innately involve any commitment to that person at all. It's a commitment to the child, or it's meant to be. In practice we live in a society where even that is pretty optional for men.

Marriage, otoh, is a legal contract with another party, one that potentially gives them a pretty big claim on any assets you may have, that prevents you from engaging in it with anyone else while it's still valid, and which you can't opt out of without a legal process sometimes requiring the permission of the other party.

I did have a friend whose DP wouldn't marry her. They'd had a baby together through IVF so were clearly committed to each other. I really didn't understand it. She didn't want a big wedding or anything (even though they could have afforded it if they had wanted to). Eventually 2 more DC later they got married.

@UndertheCedartree

I did have a friend whose DP wouldn't marry her. They'd had a baby together through IVF so were clearly committed to each other. I really didn't understand it. She didn't want a big wedding or anything (even though they could have afforded it if they had wanted to). Eventually 2 more DC later they got married.

No, they were committed to having a child. And legally, he had no commitment to her until they married. Only to the children, and in practice he could have dodged that easily.

It is not a commitment to another person to have a child. And if these people really believed that children are the greater commitment, why would they not be prepared to make the lesser commitment too?

(Disclaimer for the times marriage isn't a good idea, blah blah.)

I thought forced marriage went out last century. For anyone.

Parents should support their children but I don't think anyone
should marry against their will.

@2bazookas

I thought forced marriage went out last century. For anyone.

Parents should support their children but I don't think anyone
should marry against their will.

It's not forced marriage to end a relationship because your partner won't give the commitment you're looking for.

@EightWheelGirl

The recent advice on here was don't get married if you have significantly more assets than your husband. Surely this is just the reverse?

No no no. This is such a misguided line of argument.

You're not comparing apples with apples. Childbearing and childrearing are often fatally damaging to women's financial wellbeing, which is exactly why you have marriage. Partly because of the physical demands of having young children but mainly because after children women default to the domestic labour and childcare, leaving men free to focus on making money. Even when women continue to work outside the home they tend to do the vast majority of domestic labour in the majority of cases.

There is no equivalent situation for men. Men's careers aren't affected by having children. In the vanishingly rare cases when men become FT carers its almost always precipitated by a career crisis or because they never earned much in the first place (through choice or otherwise). Find me a man who has given up a well-paid career he loves to take care of kids and I'll find you a flying pig.

In the rare situations when women do have assets of their own (against all odds) why on earth would they consider sharing those assets with an able bodied male who is perfectly capable of generating his own wealth unless its to support mutual children?

It's one thing for those assets to go into a family pot and to be shared equally between the members of the family, if there are children. But the idea that a bloke - who is highly unlikely to be doing an equal share of the domestic load -- should be entitled to take half of your hard-earned assets in a divorce just because you married him is not what marriage is for.

Marriage is to protect the financially weaker partner in the partnership (usually the woman). It's not meant to be yet another lever for men to pull to get money while they fail to contribute to the domestic load.

When men start doing half of the domestic work and childcare I would consider this a fair line of argument. But we are generations away from this goal.

What continues to surprise me is the number of children from unmarried couples who still have the father's surname "because he's traditional" yes, when he wants to be

@LadyMonicaBaddingham

Yes this a la carte traditionalism. Basically it means cherry picking those parts of the relationship contract that suit the bloke (having kids with your name on, having a domestic helpmeet and sex on tap). Without any of the responsibilities.

My granny had a saying .. (not very pc I know but she would be 112 now if was still alive so her words are not contemporary but nonetheless the sentiment remains the same. ..

Why would a man buy the cow when he is already getting the calf and milk for free ?

Personally, I think a lot of women do not value themselves sufficiently.

Those with good self esteem have an expectation of being treated in a certain way. So - if the expectation is marriage, they would not settle for less. Would certainly not bring children into the relationship without this requirement being met. (Contrary to MN lore it is actually fairly rare to have accidental pregnancy these days - if you are using contraception as it should be used. )

However low self esteem makes women more vulnerable. Much more likely to accept what's offered. Rather than make demands about their needs. Therefore for whom marriage is a 'want' they will often have children first - mistakenly belief that their partner will marry them . This obviously does happen but it's rare.

My advice . If marriage is important to you. Do not have kids first. If he doesn't want marriage and you do.. move on a finds someone who has the same values.

It IS taught. Ffs. Yhe issue is that other adults frwqurnlt spout nonesnese to their chidlren and their children believenit.
X

Thanks for the kiss. I am translating this post as follows:

It IS taught. Ffs. The issue is that other adults frequently spout nonsense to their chidlren and their children believe it.
X

Make your mind up. You seem to be suggesting that you teach both PHSE and RE. Is the fallacy of ‘common law’ spouses debunked in schools, in PHSE lessons, or not?

First, you say that it is taught in school, in response to @thepeopleversuswork.

Then you complain that we can’t expect schools to teach life skills.

Then you say, “Why would common law marriage be on [the PHSE curriculum] when it isnt a thing? Do you honestly think schools have the time to teach about things that aren't a thing???”

Since common law marriage is emphatically not a thing, and most of the recent posters understand that very clearly, is it on the curriculum or not? Because it isn’t a thing, and you claim that schools are too busy to explain that common law marriage is a fallacy.

Then you say, “it is taught FFS”. Yes, it is everybody else’s fault for not understanding your clear and lucid argument, so you must swear at us.

Please don’t feel obliged to hijack the thread to complain about the hard lot of PHSE teachers. Start a new thread for that.

I'm not married. Doesn't really bother me tbh.

If we broke up 1000% DP would never leave me with nothing. Everything he'd do 50/50. I don't need it in writing nor do I feel that I am owed it.

[quote thepeopleversuswork]@LadyMonicaBaddingham

Yes this a la carte traditionalism. Basically it means cherry picking those parts of the relationship contract that suit the bloke (having kids with your name on, having a domestic helpmeet and sex on tap). Without any of the responsibilities.[/quote]
I think this is the sort of partner OP is talking about. Ones who want it both ways.

@PinkButtercups

I'm not married. Doesn't really bother me tbh.

If we broke up 1000% DP would never leave me with nothing. Everything he'd do 50/50. I don't need it in writing nor do I feel that I am owed it.

If he's so happy to see you right, why isn't it in writing?

@VikingOnTheFridge

The MN variant is 'having a baby with someone is a bigger commitment than marriage'. It's really not...

I dunno. Children are a bit more permanent than a spouse. Can't be reversed like a marriage.

Children being permanent doesn't mean they involve making any commitment whatsoever to the other parent. They don't, that's a fact. We'd be doing better than we are if parenthood even meant an automatic commitment to the child.

The people disagreeing with me on this point are demonstrating the issue...

I’m other way. I had the husband and kids, he cheated and then I left him and brought my kids up alone. Do you think this is why I got married to end up in divorce and as a single parent. Hardly settled and committed was that marriage! Marriage these days aren’t like they used to be for life. People have boundaries and expectations and like me not everyone will put up with BS. A ring on your finger does not mean happiness ..

Nobody is saying marriages are for life.

The recent advice on here was don't get married if you have significantly more assets than your husband. Surely this is just the reverse?

Oh girl, girl, you girl you. If we actually lived in a world where men, on the whole, did their fair share of childcare and domestic work even when their partner works full time, and there was no pay gap, and no natural consequences of children that affect girls more, you might have a point. On the whole, though, we don't. And I know you want that not to make a difference, being such a girl, but it does.

Of course, as a girl, you'll also be well aware of the implications of having children upon a girl.

What's housework got to do with men not wanting to risk their assets in the face of fairly challenging odds that the marriage will last?

I'm sceptical of common rhetoric around the pay gap tbh considering that it only kicks in around the age of motherhood, with women in both the UK/US having outearned men until the age of 35-40 for over 10 years now. The Economist even commissioned a study which found that childless women 'continued to be promoted more aggressively than their male counterparts'. The economist Kate Andrews mentions this in her debate about the pay gap with feminist Kate Smurthwaite which can be found on YT.

I don't buy all this victimhood nonsense tbh. Men and women have their own unique challenges but working part time once the kids are at school or grown up is a privilege not an oppression and the threads I've read on here support this - read the thread 'you're lucky if you don't have to work' and witness all the posters opining about how lucky they were to marry a high earner who loves his job and had allowed her to give up working and enjoy life. The suicide rate amongst middle aged men wouldn't be so high if they were living the dream surely. Working 45 years without more than a couple of weeks off consecutively doesn't sound very appealing to me at all.

Men as a group definitely hold the power by large, but the average man is pretty much just a workhorse supporting his family via a mundane job whilst his wife supports the family via mundane domestic shit.

I dunno. Children are a bit more permanent than a spouse. Can't be reversed like a marriage.

Almost 50% of non-resident parents in the UK (95% of them men) pay no child maintenance at all or are in significant arrears. Data from Gingerbread indicates that around 40% of non-resident parents (still almost entirely men) never or rarely see their children.

Even if we accept that some of those men are the former partners of all those “crazy exs” we hear about who deny access and won’t give details for payment, that’s a hell of a lot of parents (fathers) who don’t seem to be treating their children as a permanent commitment, isn’t it?

And sure, marriage doesn’t prevent men being deadbeat dads, but it does often mean that a woman at least walks away on divorce with enough assets to be able to get by and raise those children when their father has no interest in them.

@ComtesseDeSpair

I dunno. Children are a bit more permanent than a spouse. Can't be reversed like a marriage.

Almost 50% of non-resident parents in the UK (95% of them men) pay no child maintenance at all or are in significant arrears. Data from Gingerbread indicates that around 40% of non-resident parents (still almost entirely men) never or rarely see their children.

Even if we accept that some of those men are the former partners of all those “crazy exs” we hear about who deny access and won’t give details for payment, that’s a hell of a lot of parents (fathers) who don’t seem to be treating their children as a permanent commitment, isn’t it?

And sure, marriage doesn’t prevent men being deadbeat dads, but it does often mean that a woman at least walks away on divorce with enough assets to be able to get by and raise those children when their father has no interest in them.

I'm saying children are more of a commitment for women than marriage is.

Well yes, of course they are, because it’s mainly women who stick around to raise them. Which is why it’s in a woman’s interest to do her best to ensure that she has the means to do so: either through marrying their father so he has legal and financial obligations to her; or if she doesn’t marry him, making sure she never puts herself in a vulnerable position by giving up her career, not insisting on being on the house deeds, and becoming financially dependent.

That’s what this thread is about.

@EightWheelGirl

The recent advice on here was don't get married if you have significantly more assets than your husband. Surely this is just the reverse?

Oh girl, girl, you girl you. If we actually lived in a world where men, on the whole, did their fair share of childcare and domestic work even when their partner works full time, and there was no pay gap, and no natural consequences of children that affect girls more, you might have a point. On the whole, though, we don't. And I know you want that not to make a difference, being such a girl, but it does.

Of course, as a girl, you'll also be well aware of the implications of having children upon a girl.

What's housework got to do with men not wanting to risk their assets in the face of fairly challenging odds that the marriage will last?

I'm sceptical of common rhetoric around the pay gap tbh considering that it only kicks in around the age of motherhood, with women in both the UK/US having outearned men until the age of 35-40 for over 10 years now. The Economist even commissioned a study which found that childless women 'continued to be promoted more aggressively than their male counterparts'. The economist Kate Andrews mentions this in her debate about the pay gap with feminist Kate Smurthwaite which can be found on YT.

I don't buy all this victimhood nonsense tbh. Men and women have their own unique challenges but working part time once the kids are at school or grown up is a privilege not an oppression and the threads I've read on here support this - read the thread 'you're lucky if you don't have to work' and witness all the posters opining about how lucky they were to marry a high earner who loves his job and had allowed her to give up working and enjoy life. The suicide rate amongst middle aged men wouldn't be so high if they were living the dream surely. Working 45 years without more than a couple of weeks off consecutively doesn't sound very appealing to me at all.

Men as a group definitely hold the power by large, but the average man is pretty much just a workhorse supporting his family via a mundane job whilst his wife supports the family via mundane domestic shit.

I don't even know where to start with this, and I'm tired, and we all know who you are and what your agenda is, so I'll keep it brief.

It takes more than money to run a household, especially with kids. It's usually the woman doing the "invisible work" that leaves the way clear for the man to prioritise earning. Which means that that if the relationship fails, he's likely to be able to support himself better, and if the woman is protected, she gets a fair share of the assets she cleared the way for him to earn. I am, of course, working on the assumption that he was happy to have her raising his kids and cleaning his house while they were together. If he fought to reduce his work responsibilities so he could do this, you may have a point, but that's rare on a class level.

As for you not grasping the significance of the pay gap kicking in around the age of motherhood...Girl, indeed. At least you're not calling us "females" this time, I guess.

For God's sake change the username, you're not fooling anyone. You can insult women's work and life experiences, but do you have to insult our intelligence too?

@EightWheelGirl

Men and women have their own unique challenges but working part time once the kids are at school or grown up is a privilege not an oppression and the threads I've read on here support this

That's a subjective point of view and I am not even going to going there on the point that this is largely socially conditioned. But your view that working part time is a privilege isn't relevant.

The fact that many women downgrade their capacity to earn money during the time they are caring for children leaves them financially vulnerable. This is usually compounded by the fact they do the lion's share of domestic and child-related labour -- whether they work or not. That's what housework has to do with it.

The compound of these things is that men's earning power and assets generally significantly outstrip those of women over time while women typically work equally or harder than men (whether domestically or outside the home or in combination). If a partnership then breaks down and the woman doesn't have her own assets or the protection of marriage, she's up shit creek.

It's nothing to do with "victimhood" -- its just very obvious that there is not a level playing field and pretending that all women are secretly dying to give up work doesn't change that.

I'm saying children are more of a commitment for women than marriage

Ok, that's not really the point though. Children involve no inherent commitment at all to the other parent. It's a discussion about commitment in a partnership. It's because children are almost always such a big commitment for a woman that this matters.