How would you feel if your child as beneficiary of his pension instead of you?

[insuretothecore]

stay at home mum for nearly a decade now while having children, earning potential has decreased, no pension contributions in this time while DH is putting money into a private pension on top of what is required. Not a lot, but obviously it builds over a lifetime.
He has put our children down to receive the money if he dies.
I have stayed at home and been mother and wife, my qualifications are now obsolete its been that long since I've been in the game, and it looks like DH thinks I should be left with nothing if he dies.
I have never felt so worthless. we aren't married either.

Yabu - children should be beneficiary
Yanbu - partner should be beneficiary

@lonelydad2021

There is a lot of help for childcare 30 hours free, 85% of childcare, tax free childcare, etc. Even if you work and get even mondy wise, you will be building your career and pension.

Didn't see this! Much better than 30 years ago!!

I pushed out TWO babies, I still had a job before pregnancy, during and after pregnancy. Do you not live in a country that has maternity leave?!

And your earlier post when you said why would people wait years before having another baby and then have to leave work again, people wait years BECAUSE they don't want to be in your financial situation where paying for 2 young children to attend full time childcare costs more than their wage. They wait so they can afford another set of childcare costs when the first child is in school.

I have sympathy for your situation and your DP should have put you down as beneficiary for his pension, but you don't exactly sound like you're willing to put the things in place to protect yourself. In fact, you sound like you're just making excuses.

When a man in such a situation says he doesn’t want to get married it makes me very suspicious. The main benefit to not being married for him is to protect his assets in the event of a split. He is prioritising protecting his assets over protecting his family. I know you say he’s nkw agreed to get married but don’t let him drag his feet on this.

Also you say you can’t get a job now because of costs of childcare, etc. Remember the childcare doesnt just fall on you to pay, he should pay at least half. I get if things are tight maybe it’s not very affordable but please look again once the kids start school. Before school and after school childcare will cost less than full time.

I’m old enough for my kids to be grown now and have seen enough mums at my stage of life be really shatter by separation and even divorce when they’ve not been working for twenty years. It’s very hard to get a job at that point.

When my Dd was little we lost money on paying out childcare. So yes we were worse off every month with me working. But I still did it because I knew it was temporary and I needed to build my career and ultimate earning potential up. Taking time out wouldn’t have helped with that. Now Dd is 20yo and I earn nearly as much as dh.

Many women work and pay for childcare out of the family pot. It’s not just about earning money to pay for stuff but keeping a career going, paying into a pension and being financially independent. There’s no way I’d have considered giving my career up, then have to start again when they started school. So many women are in this position, unmarried and oblivious to the fact their partner could walk away and they’d be entitled to nothing.

If you live in Scotland, then you might have some rights post-separation as a cohabitee

But I agree with PP that you are in a precarious financial position

There's a huge shortage of carers across the UK, so you might be able to pick up work quite easily, even if only evenings / weekends

Threads like this frighten me. There's a time and place for marriage v cohabitation, and I'm not saying that one is always better than the other, but I see so many threads on here where people have little understanding of the consequences of their decisions

It’s funny OP says she doesn’t know anyone who works who has children pre school age but I have the opposite - I don’t know anyone who gave up their job completely. There’s a lot of funded hours too now age 3, my friends DD goes 3 full days that she doesn’t pay for as she gets 30yrs free.

@Darbs76

It’s funny OP says she doesn’t know anyone who works who has children pre school age but I have the opposite - I don’t know anyone who gave up their job completely. There’s a lot of funded hours too now age 3, my friends DD goes 3 full days that she doesn’t pay for as she gets 30yrs free.

Same here, I don't know any families with one SAHP while the other works. Most families I know are a mix of both parents working full time or one full time and one part time.

My DD gets her 30 hours free childcare in a school nursery so is at nursery 9 till 3:30 every weekday with no extra costs to pay. There are plenty of options out there for assistence with childcare that can be mixed with evening/weekend/home working.

*04:54BootsScootsAndToots

MichelleScarn

In fact why are you thinking about your partner dying? He's not yet 30, no health Issue?

You win the silliest comment of the thread🏆*

Oh gosh I am honoured! 🥰🤩

But still what if the mortgage isn't paid and he's gone?

Firstly, surely you have life insurance that will pay off the mortgage if he died? I thought it was a condition of getting a mortgage, but maybe not. If you don’t have it, get it now.

Secondly, not all jobs are 9-5 Monday- Friday, I worked evenings and weekend when DD was young.

TBH If hes only in his 30s, then hopefully he will be around for a while yet! I think its the very least of your worries ATM! God forbid if you broke up in the future ,then you would not have a claim on his estate at all! Maybe talk about getting married when you can .Also maybe look for a PT job either now or when DC start school? Nurseries /play groups /TA posts are all family friendly .I worked as a Nursery School Teacher ,Term times only .This worked out well .Also have a PP from my earlier Career in a bank . It would be wise to look at your future now TBH.Its unlikely that you will be happy being a SAHM for ever surely!

OP I'm considerably older than you; almost pension age, but was in a similar position 40 years ago. Living together, but fell pregnant and didn't want to get married. OH had good job, wanted me to be a SAHM (much more common then), which I was quite happy to do, but after a while I suggested getting married. He was fine with that, but if I hadn't mentioned it, I think he would've carried on living together. We married and had another child. Still married 40 years later, but I look back and shudder to think how vulnerable I was if something happened to him before we married.
DH was SE and worked 7 days a week in the early days. He couldn't have done that without me being at home looking after the DC's. We moved house many times over the years, trading up to bigger houses. I worked my butt off turning a dump into a home, that was my working contribution. However my pension has suffered; something I hadn't really thought about when younger, but I'm redressing now.

It may be difficult for you atm, if children are still young, but once in school you can do private cleaning, which pays well, register with HMRC as self employed and you can pay Class 2 NIC's if your profit is over £6500 per year.

Oh and speak to DP about getting married. A small registry office wedding won't be expensive.

@noirchatsdeux

Makes me sad that a woman of nearly 30 has the same views as my mother...who is 80...

She was a stay at home mother, she felt my father 'owed' her financial support for her whole life because she'd had children. Backfired massively on her when he left her for OW when I was 21 (he'd waited until my younger brother turned 18 so he wouldn't have to pay child support).

They were married, but had only owned the house for 3 years so hardly any equity. No pensions, savings, insurance...nothing. House had to be sold and the equity was split. My mother ended up with a lump sum of £10K, after a 23 year marriage.

She now lives in the Australian equivalent of a tiny housing association flat on a state pension.

If you aren't going to get married you need to get a job asap.

To be fair, this is a situation where neither party was going to get much financial reward out of the marriage.

OP - you are right, there are very many mums who don't go back to work until the youngest is at school, and who even then don't work full time. It just doesn't make economic sense or practical sense when childcare costs outweigh net income and when in reality it's really helpful to have someone available to look after DCs before/after school, in holidays, and when they're ill.

Your DP may have changed his beneficiaries but could easily change them back.
I hope the house is in both your names. Just being on the mortgage isn't necessarily enough.
And yes - it's much safer to be married. Just do the registry office bit now and have the party later.

If you're unmarried you're not likely to receive a spouse pension when he dies. Lot of pension schemes only pay spouses pension to married spouses. The return of his contributions can go to whoever he decides but a spouses pension usually must go the married spouse.

Well, I suppose it might be because he thinks you might have the opportunity of a new relationship if he were to die- maybe he wanted to ensure his pension went to his children just in case a new relationship meant blended family/more children for you (I don’t know if the latter is possible as you don’t mention your age).

@Aposterhasnoname

But still what if the mortgage isn't paid and he's gone?

Firstly, surely you have life insurance that will pay off the mortgage if he died? I thought it was a condition of getting a mortgage, but maybe not. If you don’t have it, get it now.

Secondly, not all jobs are 9-5 Monday- Friday, I worked evenings and weekend when DD was young.

Not a condition of a mortgage but recommended

Agree regarding working around the children, weekends etc.

@MichelleScarn

In fact why are you thinking about your partner dying? He's not yet 30, no health Issue?

Well, no KNOWN health issues. The fittest person I've ever known died at 44 walking in his own grounds on a Sunday morning.

However, even without any health issues, presumably he's not immune to e.g. road accidents or any of the other things that can kill folk?

You need to make sure that your partner takes out life insurance to cover at least your mortgage in the event of his death, and that you are the beneficiary. It won’t cost much at all each month at his age.
You also need to makes sure he nominated you for any death in service payments. These will give you financial security if you aren’t married.

Insuretothecore. I think you are happy with your current situation as a SAHM ATM .This is fine in theory .However you seem to have no life plan set out .Women fought long and hard for our freedoms ,so we would not end up doing all the washing ,caring ,grunt work ,while our spouses climbed the ladder, and became financially secure at our cost.If you were unlucky he would go off with a younger model and you would be left high and dry! This happened to DMs friend in fact .She had to start again at 50! We are trying to help you so you are not in such a place ! Marriage was for protection of women and children originally .You say you were studying before DC arrived ,could you return to that at all? A cleaning job is fine ,but you are selling yourself short by limiting yourself. If you can get a better paid job why not? You have probably lost confidence in yourself ,which happens a lot with being home with DC.

Honey, you have to get your ducks in a row. And the first duck is marriage. You can talk around it all you want, and I know you will because it is the most difficult of all the ducks, but either he will marry you or you are his unpaid breeder/baby-sitter. Stop wasting your own time, my dear. Or at least put some value on it. THIS YEAR.

@2022success

I know it sounds grabby but surely it goes Spouse, then children. not children.

But you aren't his spouse! To be brutally honest, you are "just the mother" of his children, and legally he doesn't owe you a bean

Did you really not understand how precarious your situation is?

This, with bells on !.

@PrincessNutella

Honey, you have to get your ducks in a row. And the first duck is marriage. You can talk around it all you want, and I know you will because it is the most difficult of all the ducks, but either he will marry you or you are his unpaid breeder/baby-sitter. Stop wasting your own time, my dear. Or at least put some value on it. THIS YEAR.

.............. or what ?

is he much older than you ? you can take out life insurance on anybody you like. that would be a lump sum eventually for you

It is the way it has always been done the man works and the women work when the childbearing and rearing is over.

That works only when there is some way of ensuring a minimum of financial support if it all goes tits up. Marriage is that legal way (not without problems but it is legally binding)

It should be taught in schools. Marriage benefits the financially weaker party, and the financially stronger party sometimes sees it as someone making a grab for their assets/income. That is how it can look. People contemplating becoming a SAHP should know things like claiming cb keeps your NI going etc.
Having children and not being married, looks to me from the countless posts here, as very precarious and not something I'd want for me or my children.

So, OP, armed with some good advice from this thread - what's your next move?

more for church and I want to do it in front of god)

God is everywhere, so you don’t need to be in a church and if you are actually a regular adherent the fees are often waived, we had to pay the standard fee to give notice at the register office but our minister just asked for a contribution as we worship at that church. He would charge a full fee to those who just wanted their wedding in the building of course.