Controversial marriage question

[wedding12341]

Thinking about another thread on here where someone has moved in and had children with their fiancé who has now changed his mind about getting married. Someone on the thread said it is just a small minority of women that are disadvantaged by marriage.

Eg - the woman brings more assets / money to the marriage than the man.

Based on the above

If you were one of these women in the minority (or your friend / daughter was) - Would you advise them not to get married?

When we married we merged assets. We don't care who earns more, it's all ours. I understand this might be trickier in second marriages where there are children or other commitments that make finances more complicated but, for our first marriage, we don't care where the money comes from and who it comes from. There's no 'my finances' and 'your finances' just 'our fiances. So, on that basis, it's irrelevant to me when advising someone if they should get married or not because of financial discrepancy.

Marriage is a legal arrangement first and foremost. It brings with it obligations and benefits to both parties. Financial and otherwise. People seem to forget that and make it all about love and romance. Like any other legal arrangement it should not be entered into lightly. That said, it makes a lot of sense to do if you plan to share a life together - especailly if children are involved. Pros and cons.

If you earn well as a woman and have assets I wouldn't get married. I didn't and it saved me 1000s in divorce fees when we split.

I also made the cardinal sin of not being married and having children. I am entirely financially independent so I would have been worse off.

Well, I got royally screwed when my first marriage ended. I was by far the higher earner and I would absolutely advise every woman (and man) to be extremely careful if there is a discrepancy in assets or income. Delay marriage until you're 100% sure and older.

I made more money that my exDH because I worked harder. He enjoyed a very lavish lifestyle while together and he didn't deserve a penny from me but that's not how divorce works.

I wouldn't advise anyone, man or woman, to not get married to keep assets safe.

I would advise someone to not create a life with someone (like having kids, buying a house) without getting married first or being completely confident their partner is not going to turn around and change their mind. I would advise them not to jump headfirst into something and be rational and risk adverse, not just get married super young / quickly, or do everything else before getting married. As always though it's easier to think about that sort of advice when I'm not in that situation 😂

I would NEVER get married. If I met The One he has to live in his own house and have his own financial system the same as me. You can be in a loving, committed relationship without living in the same house conventionally and having the legal aspects of your life intertwined.

If asked then yes, I’d either advise them to avoid marriage, or to at least put things in place to secure their assets as best as possible beforehand.

My husband and I were/are evenly financially matched, and even then we considered a prenup.

Few people marry anticipating that it will fail, yet half do. Similarly, no one gets in a car and expects to crash it, but they’ll still put on the seatbelt.

It's not just the asset split, they need to take also into account other things. For example if they want to move abroad, it's way easier to get a visa/permit for spouse than unmarried partner. Inheritance - yes you can make a will, but where I currently live, I would be exempt from inheritance tax as a spouse, but pay a whopping 60% as a girlfriend, no way to get out of that with a will or other agreement.

However, if something happened to DH then I, as a high earning woman who does not plan to have any more kids, would not get married again.

Are people not partners in life anymore?

We were young and skint so marriage didn't favour one of us over the other. Now it protects me as dh is higher earner

This is what DH and I do but when we got married we were earning the same salary, we then went through various transitional periods where our income didn't match (I was a SAHM for a time) and now our incomes are aligned again.

What I would advise anyone to do is to be careful who they have children with, once you have children you're tied together for the rest of your/their lives because even once they're adults there will be family events where you need to see each other and act civilly.

You might not always be the higher earner. You might end up in coma or something.

‘anymore’

Historically, marriage had little to do with love and romance. The earliest recorded prenup is over 2000 years old, and they were commonplace until the 20th century.

They can protect both parties, and if one party doesn’t feel like they are adequately provided for in the event of a divorce then they don’t have to sign it, and they don’t have to marry.

It’s not necessarily about what you’re earning during the marriage, but what you’re bringing into it - family trusts, properties, businesses etc.

My husband and I have played leapfrog the past decade in salaries. I happened to have more when we married.

When I burned out and spent seven months off work, he earned a bit less. When I took up a new PT job to fit around studying, he earned double. As a result of my new qualifications, I'm not so far behind him any more.

He's interviewing for a job paying 40% more. If he gets it, we're both mindful of the fact that it's worth more to my career to gain another qualification before coming off Mat leave than it is to plough on in the same role. Our aim is for me to take the first step to lucrative part time self employment, and for him to follow suit in a few years.

We're a career team. We've always discussed job roles and financial plans. I don't think it matters who earns more if you can communicate and agree goals. If you can't do that, you shouldn't marry regardless of income.

I was the higher earner and technically I have disadvantaged by marriage but we wanted children and DH was going to be the SAHP for a while so it was only fair. We’re still together and DC1 is nearly 20 so it worked out OK.

Yes I would. And I’d advise them to give my children her surname.

• any children

Are people not partners in life anymore?

People were 'partners for life' because you could not get a divorce and/or as a woman, you could not support yourself without a man. Luckily this is no longer the case and you do not need to stay in a marriage that does not work for you any more.

I would advise them not to marry.

My ex had a few grand in savings when we married, I had a house with a reasonable amount of equity. No children involved.

When we divorced (2013), the court awarded him 47.5% of joint assets, which was £97.5k. I was earning about £20k at the time. Luckily, I was with my new partner by then, he had some money from his split with his ex, and a small inheritance from my late mother came through in the nick of time. We were still £20k short, so we took out several credit cards and got cash advances for 3 weeks until our remortgage was finalised.

There were two consoling factors: the house was valued at £60k more than it was when valued for the divorce, and my ex used a very expensive solicitor and was, apparently, a nightmare client, who overcomplicated everything. His legal bill was almost £30k. He'd turned down my offer of £70k, so ended up with slightly less than he would have done had he accepted it at the outset.

It still stung though, especially as he'd hidden some money and I couldn't prove it.

We have both always worked and we do similar jobs with similar high earnings. We married for love, and share our lives, and despite both being well and truly capable of supporting ourselves it would make a big difference to both of us if we were to halve our household income by divorcing.

I don't think marriage is either to be avoided or the answer. I cringe reading threads about women treated like shit by their partners in every way and the advice is to get married.....nope. There is no security in being married to an arsehole.

I'm the higher earner between me and owner of said dressing gown in my username.

I will never marry him and we don't share money.

I didn't get married for this reason. Used to pray he didn't propose, luckily for me he didn't and is now an ex!

Yeah, I don't think we have to go that far back. I'm just noticing the huge change in approach and attitude from posters vs. the general approach when I got married over 30 years ago.

And I have made as much provision for that scenario as I can.

If he dumps me if I end up in a coma, he dumps me. What's to say that wouldn't happen if you were married?