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 ?

*Onefootinthegroove · Today 21:29
It's not just financially.

My cousin was with her DP for 17 years & 3 DC when he had a bleed on the brain. He was obviously seriously ill and she was astonished to realise that she wasn't legally his next of kin, his sister was as his parents had already died.*

next of kin is not a legal entity in the UK so neither your cousin OR his sister had a right to make decisions. In non-emergency situations you can name whoever you like a ‘next of kin’. In emergency situations Medics normally take a pragmatic view on who needs to know what. Most decisions would be medically driven anyway and medics can talk to more than one person. It’s a fallacy that inflates the benefits of marriage to state otherwise.

Honestly I agree. Out of 4 sisters I'm the only one married with children who were planned. Contraception used incorrectly or not at all with men they knew would never marry them or be good fathers.

It's a biological urge to reproduce for a lot of women. How many do you see heartbroken because they cannot get pregnant even after spending 1000s. Yes in an ideal world but I don't think the vast majority of humans are ever going to stop wanting to reproduce.

I agree that is is a biological imperative written deep into every living being.
Its why mummy turtle buries hundreds of eggs knowing that most of her babies will get eaten before the make it to 24 hours old. Its why mummy antelope has her baby knowing that chances are it will get gobbled up by a cheetah.

Logic can't stop hormones.

@ZeldaWillTellYourFortune

Oh here we go again! Didn't think it would be long before this drivel was trotted out. 'Single women are much happier than married women' is a myth created by single women to make other single women feel better. It's absolute horseshit and a ludicrous and laughable generalisation that all single women are happier than married women.

I know about 9 or 10 single women (over 25) and they're nearly all pretty miserable half the time. Always broke, struggling financially, no-one to help when they're sick, and always feel a bit left out at big social events where most people are in couples. And at LEAST half of them are ALWAYS going on dates, desperate to find a man!

Great for you if you're happy as a pig in shite as a 'singleton' but you're kidding yourself if you believe every single woman is much happier than every married woman. Many single women are only tolerating it until the right man comes along ... Why on earth do you think there are so many millions of women on dating apps?!

At the end of the day, no-one really wants to spend the rest of their life alone. Bit different if they have BEEN married, and have been widowed, or divorced after 30-odd years or something. But to have NEVER been married? No. Most women don't want that life. No matter how much you try to convince yourself otherwise. As I say, the 'single women are happier than married women' bullshit was created by single women to make themselves feel better. I mean if you have to say something like this to try to convince yourself............... well.............

I have two disabled children. My third is also lovely and needs help as has dyslexia.

It’s been extremely challenging to keep my career but I’ve done it. I was under immense pressure to stop. I ignored him and worked at a small loss which I hid from him. Absolutely ridiculous but now my youngest is 6 and Xenia was totally correct with her advice. You need to have your own career and your income needs to be sufficient to support your children with zero monies from the other parent.

I now make more than the top income tax bracket in the UK and this enables me to provide for my 3 children. He pays nothing and division of assets was not equal with the children getting 30% of his business, I got two properties which is less than 20% of the combined net worth. I have a full time nanny, two cars (one for nanny), 3 sets of school fees, a cleaner/housekeeper 3x a week, my children get the therapy they need and attend extra curricular activities including tutoring and sports (Iron(wo)man training). It’s massively liberating to not have to go to court and fight him for what our children deserve given our family wealth. I’ll face that later when the children are older. He is really focused on building his business. I’ll let him do that and he can give me half in 10 years.

Think long and hard about who benefits from mummy staying home. It’s rarely mummy or the child who benefits. Two disabled children later, I bought good childcare to take my children to activities after school (much of it therapy) and worked my ass off. I’m so so so happy I followed this path.

@ZeldaWillTellYourFortune

Producing another human should be undertaken only in the most optimal circumstances, after careful thought and preparation. It's absurd to consider that a big ask in 2022.

Are you actually serious right now?! 😂 ....... do tell us all........ what optimal circumstances should a woman have a baby???????? Go on. Enlighten us all!!!

That doesn't make you a better person, the sad fact is there isn't an unlimited supply of wealthy good men. Wealthy good men have a lot of choice in the dating relationship scene. They can wait for a long time if they want , women can't do that. At least your sisters have DC who are presumably loved. MN talks like the are scores of wealthy eligible men out there.

I was lucky and met my DH at a young age others aren't.

@millymollymoomoo
I think there’s a bit of truth in this. Clearly some SAHMs have sacrificed a career but actually if you have a decent career yourself it’s not so common to give it up entirely to be a SAHM. I’m a solicitor- most female solicitors come back after having children because it pays enough to be worthwhile. They are more likely to work part time or give up on partnership etc. but they still have a career to fall back on if need be. And most women who have a career to be sacrificed can understand the risk in doing so. I went part time and worked for a more family friendly firm after children - I was well aware that this damaged my earning potential but the time with my children was important. I could have hired a nanny and pursued partnership if I’d wanted to.

If you have a job which pays £25k and you give it up because childcare is expensive / you’d like to spend time with children while they’re young/ you didn’t like the job much anyway and your husband earns 3 x what you do, I don’t really see it as being inherently unfair if you aren’t entitled to 50% of your partner’s assets if you split, particularly where you have never agreed that between yourselves. The SAHM has been enabled to pursue a lifestyle she may well have wanted while the couple were together and she may never have had her ex’s earning potential anyway.

I think it would be good for everyone to understand that marriage is a financial contract and all that entails so that they can make informed decisions (and Uk divorce law is very favourable to the lower earner relative to other jurisdictions) but I don’t see that the legal implications of marriage should be forced on people who haven’t opted into that.

Your username…is a lie?!? You’re most definitely a superwoman!!

For me, didn’t know any better. Wasn’t taught any better. Didn’t see any better around me.

a biological imperative written deep into every living being

It isn't in EVERY living being - certainly wasn't in me! There are also many people who are sexually attracted to members of the same sex - people who they cannot reproduce with.

I've read about plenty of situations where a female non-human primate has given birth and just walked away from the baby.

I think socialisation has a lot to do with it.

Why on earth do you think there are so many millions of women on dating apps?!
isn't it quite a lot more men than women though?☝

We have a lot of biological urges that we suppress. And frankly there is a lot of psychosocial conditioning that fuels these urges. Maybe if we opened girls' eyes earlier to other options, and the big wide world out there, more of them would respect themselves too much to be impregnanted by losers or men who don't respect them.

I think it does make her a better person, by far.

Saying "Oh well I can't seem to meet anyone decent so I'll have offspring by some shit loser anyway" is just immoral and reprehensible. Find something productive to do with one's life, rather than create another dire and dysfunctional situation to perpetuate society's ills.

Yes but in cases like that, an unmarried partner can go to court & bring a claim for extra financial provision under Schedule 1 of the Children Act 1989 so there are already protections in place even when unmarried.

I believe this is the case for a lot of women because why would a woman NOT want to get married?

What a sexist comment. Plenty of women don't want to and it isn't always in their financial interests to do so either. Getting married was the most disastrous financial decision I ever made.

Hahaa well, perhaps it would discourage people from having children with multiple partners.

It's not a good idea though because adults should get to choose whether they enter into such a life-changing contract, not have it presumed in law. The solution is better financial education so that people make more informed choices.

How long would you have to live with someone before you're legally entitled to their money and assets? Where do you draw the line? A presumption of an implicit marriage contract would be a cocklodgers' and scammers' charter.

@Backstreetsbackalrightdadada

love your username. I’m no superwoman. Something changed in me when my eldest was born and I knew I had to provide for her. I had a heart attack when she was delivered and I was in for a week after. It didn’t help that I was 3000 miles from family and my godmother drove down when things went south. I was an absolute mess but there was my husband telling me he was so tired at 2am in the morning after I’d been through a 22 hour labor, a heart attack and still had to figure out how to feed this beautiful baby girl. The nurse was scathing. I had the start of post partum depression and the same nurse made sure the psychiatrist came immediately for an evaluation. I’m forever thankful for that 30mins he spent with me.

I knew my marriage wasn’t going to last and took the necessary steps to get qualified as an accountant and went to work for big 4 in the most heavily regulated and tough industry groups. I then took on consulting projects as auditors were cheaper so used during the summer. It was so tough and for a short while I went part time so I could do an intense summer of therapy with my son (2nd child). It was a disaster for my career.

I had joined big 4 firm when I was 7 months pregnant with my son. I interviewed at 5 months pregnant. His big sister was 13/14 months old at that point. On my first day, I had to fly to the onboarding center for 2 days. My exhusband left the house at 4am and I didn’t have childcare. I had to call them and lie that my car to the airport hadn’t picked me up and I missed my flight. Luckily the partner who hired me was a woman who was divorced with 3 children and saw what was going on. She let me start from the local office. But yeah, I was married to a selfish prick. Of course he was successful and it was a problem that I had successes of my own. I just kept it from him because I knew he would sabotage.

90% of dating apps are men.

...the division of assets on separation to include any couples who have a joint child . (that will be an interesting legal conundrum for a married man who fathers a child whilst having an affair ... I haven't thought that through yet in my utopian fantasy of fairness to children of unmarried couples ..)

A very good point and another reason it's completely unworkable.

Say a woman is married and has children and her husband cheats and the affair partner becomes pregnant. Effectively your rule (because in a marriage all assets are joint) means that the married woman has not only been humiliated and betrayed but is now required to give up a share of her assets to the scumbag who fucked her husband?

That would somewhat undermine your assertion that marriage provides people with protection!

I agree completely. We'd be far better off campaigning for universal cheap childcare provision like most European countries have, enforcing closure of the gender pay gap, and encouraging women to be financially independent and maintain a career, and demand that a man does 50% of child rearing.

The vast VAST majority of women are not, never have been, and never WILL be on 5 times their husband's salary as you allegedly are. And as for buying a house on your own as you claim you have done........ Bully for you!!!!! MOST women could never buy a house in a million years on their own. What an utterly ridiculous post. Most ludicrous on this thread!

Rather than having a go at that poster, perhaps you should question why you find it so astonishing that a woman could be the far higher earner. Do you react like this to posts where women say they are a SAHM or earn peanuts part time and their husband is a high earner? I doubt it. It's not totally incomprehensible that some women make sensible choices and study/ work to secure lucrative careers and financial independence, which offers more protection than a marriage would. This is what we should be emphasising to young women.

Absolutely agree with this. This is one of the main things that needs to change in the UK. Even the US manages to enforce decentish child maintenance properly. The very idea that it's ok for someone to pay a few hundred pounds per month towards raising a child is absolutely disgusting, and that many get away with paying far less or nothing is a stain on our society.

I hope you get your 30%. Would love to know which country it is if you are happy to PM to share! I take a keen interest in these kinds of international differences as it adds more weight to the argument to get things changed here.

As someone trying to continue a career as a lone parent with two disabled DC, this is so inspiring to read. Thank you for sharing this. You are amazing.