Get married !! If you are the poorer half

[Lindasllama]

Have read so many different threads on here this evening and still women are putting themselves in such a precarious position..

if your earning power will diminish once pregnant.. if you are /will be reliant on your 'D' P for financial stability when child arrives . Why haven't you both signed that legal contract called marriage ?

I honestly believe this stuff should be taught in schools to empower women to make their own well informed choice before they screw their later lives looking after kids - ending up far poorer than their children's fathers .

If you are the higher earner. Own your own home , have independent income .. then this question does not apply. Only interested in the thoughts of those who will be screwed if DP fucks off and will leave you screwed .

What if you have a child with special needs or you have health problems? Life isn't always that simple and a couple should be a team.

Surely this only applies if you have assets in the first place? Half of nothing is nothing.

Most people don’t have several properties, investments and 6 figure salaries. Your average joe will just continue renting/mortgage payments and claim working benefits if low income/part time to make up the shortfall of losing partners income.
Your average divorced woman on the street is usually the same as your average single woman in the street. You don’t get spousal support in the UK.
Every resident parent is entitled to make a child maintanence claim regardless of previous marital status.

If your partner is very wealthy then sure there are life changing financial benefits to marrying, but a minimum wage retail worker isn’t suddenly going to be better off for marrying a higher earning partner who’s a bus driver.

The key is to not rely on a man regardless. I also think English laws on this are crap. In Australia non-married partners have way more rights.

Brilliant advice.

We should be teaching our children that education and one's own career means freedom and choices. Teach them about love and healthy relationships, but also what abuse and coercive control looks like.

If you like you may attract and marry a similarly intelligent partner with similar values for a partnership of love, growth and mutual respect.

Support each other through e.g. maternity leave, redundancy, ill health, opportunities, sharing out housework based on who enjoys doing what.

Agree with the other posters about teaching girls the importance of being self-reliant. It is crazy to bet your future financial security on a man’s benevolence.

Thankfully I never married nor became financially connected to my ex (you can be married but not financially connected, it is joint bank/credit accounts).

It was easier to leave and I don't think he would have signed divorce papers. He was financially irresponsible and didn't have any net worth when we split.

So I don't think it's all black and white but for some women marriage is absolutely the best route before children. Why should you put your career on hold and take the financial hit to have a child with someone who doesn't value those sacrifices?

Yes it's a choice that many choose to make.

Are you advocating getting married for financial security? Getting married doesn't achieve this

It does if you’re the lowest earner/asset owner.

My mother taught me the same thing. Always make sure I can rely on myself.

My DP and I are not married, but I would never rely on him for any kind of financial security regardless. I will make sure I am always independently financially stable.

you can be married but not financially connected, it is joint bank/credit accounts

Not true. In a divorce all assets are regarded as joint assets. For example I have an inherited share portfolio held in my sole name, it would have to go into the pot if we divorced. Thankfully that doesn’t look likely.

I’d be quite ashamed of myself if l only achieved financial security through marriage.

@trollopolis @phishy right so your advise to him (poorer half) is to get married.

But for me (richer half) what is in it for me?

What's the incentive for the better off half to get married? Because for the poorer half to get married, the richer half also wants to get married. It's 2 way.

I chose to take work that was incredibly personally rewarding but not financially rewarding. I thought it was important to be around for my Dc after school hours and be able to take them to after school activities, see their school plays, host play dates etc etc. I talked about it with their dad many times throughout their childhood and he was happy for us to do it that way. Some of the time when our dc were under 18 we were not married. We now our. This was my choice, I was lucky to be able to make that choice. I chose a husband who was happy with that. I know the risks and always have done. But I wanted to do it the way I have done. I didn't want to live my life because I might get divorced/separated in the future.

The sort of thing that you can't say on Mumsnet. But I have plenty of friends and relations who feel the same. And plenty who don't. 🤷🏻‍♀️

You can be financially independent but still worse off. How many women reduce their hours to make childcare work? They then don't make the same pension contributions and could be entitled to a share of their DHs pension when divorcing. Same with savings. If the DH paid for his fair share of the childcare that his DW is providing for free then he would be significantly out of pocket.

Amen to that.

There's nothing like assuming a starting position of dependence on a man's assets/earnings, to keep women down.

FFS

I agree op. If you have kids with someone you're not married to, don't give up your career and get him to do 50/50 housework and childcare. Unfortunately that rarely happens and women do the lion's share of childcare and housework so of course it is tempting and indeed necessary sometimes to go part time or become a sahm.

But there is also biology. The primal need to look after your own babies and children. Even now that we are split and we share care, I'm the one who puts herself out. Who makes sure the kids are safe and well looked after. Because money and a career doesn't get in the way of loving and looking after your children when you're a mother.

I wanted to get the one that raised my kids and I'm glad it was me.

Tbh I don't really know what I would advise my daughters.

Totally agree.

Marriage is a reasonable insurance policy for a woman who is already the financially weaker partner and tactically to be recommended in this case. But it's no substitute for being financially independent and standing on your own two feet in the first place.

What worries me a bit about posts like this is that you're encouraging women to continue to see marriage as an end in itself and a panacea for all financial problems.

When in fact, yes it does give you a degree of protection. But marriage won't compensate for years of lost earnings when you give up work. It won't protect you from an acrimonious split and even in the best case scenario, where you get 50% of all earnings in a divorce, its going to take years and be messy and unpleasant to get there.

Marriage should never be a woman's primary financial goal.

If you are the higher earner. Own your own home , have independent income .. then this question does not apply. Only interested in the thoughts of those who will be screwed if DP fucks off and will leave you screwed

it does apply.

a) why wouldn’t you also teach your daughters that if they are the higher earners, independently wealthy etc that marriage doesn’t benefit

b) if dh fucks off you will still be screwed as he will fuck off with half your house, half your pensions and savings, and possibly even may claim maintenance.

Great point 👏

OP's proposition is far too simplistic.

I don't disagree that being married can confer necessary security for some.

However, this idea that being married offers a cast-iron security in the case of relationship breakdown is nonsense. I'm 9 years on from managing to get my abusive ex to leave & I am still not divorced & it has been financial hell. (Partly complicated by being in Ireland and at the time of separation, you had to be married 4 years before getting divorced. It's been reduced since).

As a PP said, what is vitally important is that women in particular prioritise their financial & employment security, in particular their ability to eg return to full time financially sustainable employment if their marriage ends (his many times on MN do we read of a women who either became a SAHM early in the marriage or chose a low paid flexible job to fit in with kids - doing either is not wrong but please ensure you keep your options open, in terms of training or re-skilling).

I have always worked in a professional role. I earned approx the same as my exH. However he was financially abusive, and burnt through every penny we earned + all savings, as he became increasingly profligate, I bailed him out at my own cost, no life for me, putting my own needs last as he spent & lived recklessly. What I needed was a huge dose of reality & a lot more self-esteem to realise he was an abusive shit much earlier & not stand for it.

Ageing happens. Not everyone has the time to find someone to marry first before having children. And accidental pregnancies happen. You can't force a man to marry you. Sometimes women will take what they can get, and hope for the best, if it means they can have a family.

This is a common theme on MN and I don’t really get it. My two divorced friends were totally screwed over by their ex husbands and would have been far better off if they weren’t married. Surely financial independence is what people should aim for. I am the much lower earner but could support myself and DH would have to /want to pay a lot towards the children because they are his children, nothing to do with marital status. My advice wouldn’t be to get married but would be to go back to work after maternity leave.

If all the things people insist “they should teach in schools” were taught in schools, children would be attending 12 hours a day and learning no traditional subjects at all.

Right but if that happens you go it alone. At least that way what’s your is yours.

Shackling yourself to someone who can’t be arsed to marry you and “hoping for the best because you want a family” is a pretty desperate way to plan a life.

This is exactly the mindset which gets women into so much trouble and we would eliminate a lot of this is we taught them to aspire for some financial independence rather than desperately scratching around for a man to cling to.