How many more women are going to find themselves in this situation ?

[sofrustratedbylackofknowledge]

Thread borne by the sheer amount of posts this week alone, of women who have moved in with wealthier men . Men who own houses solely in their name.. and women who have children with them without a contract of marriage or civil partnership..

The relationship breaks down and the woman is either not working or massively economically disadvantaged compared with their partners .

Made even worst by the courts bias towards shared care rendering CM almost negligible...

Why are women putting themselves in this situation. ?

Marriage has a lot of patriarchal connotations which are 'no go' for some women... but now we have civil partnerships why would you not go for this option .. ? Or is it the man refusing to commit ?

Also really concerned about the massive number of contraception failures . So many women taking the pill finding themselves pregnant and deciding to continue the pregnancy with no legal protection ..is the pill /implant failing ?

I think we need to stop relying on schools to teach every detail of being an adult. They simply don’t have the time and resources.

But also, telling a 15 year old something is unlikely to impact their decision when they are 25 and in love. So many simply think ‘yeah but it won’t happen to me’.

I think it’s a very small number of cases where people genuinely think they have rights over assets without a legal agreement. Most have just ignored it and then act surprised when it’s all gone tits up. No one can lie to us like we can lie to ourselves.

I would love to see a society where having a child is really acknowledged for the life changing event it is and where women are used to researching their own legal position before making life changing decisions.

I really hate the ‘every child is a blessing and as long as you have love everything else will fall into place’ it’s simply not true.

I’m sick and tired of ‘Schools need to teach this’
Schools teach all sorts of things that are forgotten a few years after leaving, if not sooner. It’s not an effective way of communicating lifeskills which you are supposed to then hang on to for a decade until you need them.
What about parenting your children? Or compulsory classes for adults on financial management and cookery and contraception and the hundred other things for which the glib answer is always ‘teach it in school’
Which doesn’t work.
I also find the number of ‘contraception failures’ mind boggling.

Hmm maybe in the words of Mrs Merton "what attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels", but I guess that doesn't come into it?

Years ago, women who got pregnant to wealthy men who owned their own homes were called gold diggers. They used to get accused of trapping men into marriage. Imagine saying that now.

If you are unmarried or even married. Make sure you keep in touch with the labour market. If I got divorced or OH died. I'd be completely fine OH would have 50/50 and I would work. Many women trust men too much many have mid life crisis and completely change.

So with my friend who separated from her partner (well he walked out), there was NO incentive to get him to negotiate childcare on the split as they weren’t negotiating a divorce. He messed her and their DC around for years pretending to want access, then not, then hiding money for child support. That’s all before they came to one agreement with the courts. If they’d been going through a divorce as part of it he would have had to talk about it, negotiate and agree something otherwise she could have withheld the divorce somewhat.

Know lots of people getting pre-nups now, so you can pre-bake the divorce as much as possible INCLUDING childcare and child support. You can also get standalone childcare agreements to agree now what you’d do on a split.

Could be marriage, civil partnership or another legally binding agreement. But it gives more certainty than no legally recognised status. Have you got a will at least?!

Selection bias.

If you believe MN you’d think that every single married couple had family money in joint bank accounts when in reality it’s around 20%

I absolutely agree with you that the UK should do more to teach finance in schools, including how to safeguard your own income and assets.

I find it astonishing that trigonometry and learning about various sky fairies is more important but there we go

You could only enforce an asset split due due becoming parents if both were required to sign something to say that yes they did indeed conceive the baby (in the case of an opposite sex couple).

There is nothing at all to stop a couple with no children splitting and one saying that you were never together. A "relationship", an exclusive one, is actually pretty abstract as a concept.

An abortion is not killing a baby ffs...

If a woman is against abortion you’d think she’d be extra careful about contraception until she was in a secure position to bring up a child. If she’s against abortion and contraception on religious grounds you’d think she’d get married before having sex.

A divorce would’ve been a whole lot messier. She was the one wanting the assets/child support from him. Go to the divorce boards and it’s women chasing down the men.

The child support agreement lasts a maximum of 12 months and then you’re into CSA if the other party reneges

I’ve never heard of a enforceable childcare agreement in the UK. If this is new perhaps one of the family solicitors on the site can confirm

I know a couple who live in a house worth around 3 million. They have 3 kids. She doesn't work and doesn't want to. He works. They are not married.

What if they split?

She's utterly fucked

I know a few couples in similar situations, always the women in vulnerable situations

Oh messier but she’d have some
leverage… she wasn’t wanting to mess him around, just literally get his final answer on child access and get some child support, get some of her property back from him (can’t tell you the specifics but he is VILE and messed her around completely, intensely, for years… just abusive when all had been great for years). Instead of the admittedly awful divorce process, there was no process and he’s been able to mess her around for so long, and the DC is pretty aware of it. Awful!!

Don't know how to reply without including the whole message on the app so apologies.

My dp wouldn't leave as such, we wouldn't need to negotiate child maintenence because we respect each other. If one decided they wanted out it wouldn't be an ordeal, it would simply be one of us moving out and taking over 50% of duties and payments with regards to ds.

It's hard to explain, we both have wills and life insurance and luckily are both comfortable financially but it would never be about the childcare onus falling on me because I'm a woman.

We run a business together also and have a joint account plus our own current and savings account.

We love each other fiercely which I have seen in very few married couples I know.

We also had a big party about 5 years ago which all our close friends and family were invited to, it cost a fortune and I'm guessing was much like a wedding.

I swear down all my married friends are miserable af and always, ALWAYS wary for some reason.

No this is really dangerous & could cause more harm then good because governments / legislation change & laws evolve. We can teach someone something at 15 but by the time it’s applicable to them 10 - 20+ years down the line, that information could no longer be accurate. People could be left with a false sense of security or miss out on ways to protect themselves.

Knowledge is definitely power so it’s more important to teach them about independence, critical thinking, research skills etc.

The man has higher income, keeps the family home, gets a new girlfriend or a nanny or moves in grandma to do childcare.
The woman takes her personal possessions and has to find a start-up job and a rental situation that she can afford. Often with no room for the kids so they don't visit overnight, and not in the same school catchment area so transport is a problem. Gradually the children spend less time with mom because their friends and rooms and afterschool activities are with dad.
When the kids hit teenage years they start to refuse to stay with mom, and then the percentage of custody change means mom pays child support to dad -- mom pays the price for being a SAHM with less pension, less property, less time with kids and more child support.

What a PP said. Marriage is a legal contract. Romance is a new concept and all women should follow their head, not their heart.

We've been screwed over way too long with this shit

This! I find it weird that people are shocked at how stupid the vast majority of people are.

Many of the poster on this thread say it all:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4681684-lets-play-a-game-age-salary-sector

Having a discussion? Getting other views? Having a chat?

great that you have a will!! Most don’t 🙄In your business make sure you’re named as shareholder AND director in the company registers and filings (or equivalent positions, if a different entity type). Talk about teaching to suck eggs :) wish I had a business!

For anyone married… make sure you have a will too, your DP could inherit if you die and spend on a new partner rather than help your kids. Think of the eventualities and talk to a solicitor.

Pleasebeafleabite
... is this a MN first ? We concur. !

So many take these threads as a
Knock against 'unmarried mothers' as though the poster has some moral stance . I really don't

My stance is against men that exploit women because the law is on their side . !!

If MEN had to pay the childcare from their salaries..

If men were REQUIRED to reduce their hours (and subsequent pension contributions) to care for their children..

Perhaps they would be less willing to make children ? Perhaps they would be more careful with their fertility.. ? They don't care at the moment because the emotional and financial cost is all on the woman if it all goes tits up ..

And PERHAPS there would be a bit more scientific research into the male contraceptive !!

Can you imagine it ?
If you have a child with a woman and your assets are up for grabs .. and yet there is a male contraception a kin to the pill .... I bet your bottom dollar the 99% effective rate - that appears to be about 60% on MN ... would plummet .

👏 THIS

He sounds grim. I’m sorry for your friend. Surely better though to have had legally enforceable arrangements in place that would kick in rather than the position on divorce which is ultimately down to the courts if the parties can’t agree.

For example, a declaration of trust can set out exactly what happens to the house when the couple split. How it is valued, how you can buy out the other party and under what timescales.

Again, all about education as you have to know about the protections that you can put in place and that it’s reasonable to ask for them