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?

I shouldn't have got married. I had higher value assets and higher earnings than exh when we met and have done the bulk of the paid and unpaid work though the marriage plus bearing and caring for 2 children plus a reasonable inheritance when dm died. Currently in the midst of the divorce, if I leave with 50% I will be worse off by at least £100,000 and that doesn't take into account loss of earnings from having children. Bitter? Absobloodylutely.

Not controversial at all. If I had a daughter I would advise her to think very carefully before legally shackling herself to someone, especially if she stood to lose out in the event of divorce. Marriage was always sold as the right, "moral" thing to do (as opposed to living in sin) but it ended up costing me money when it went wrong in a way that I couldn't have planned for or predicted.

Indeed. But it’s interesting that although the moral justification for marriage has largely now been shown to be ridiculous, a lot of people still cling to the idea that it’s automatically the right thing to do in any LTR which involves children.

You get tons of posts on here when parrot the idea that you should refuse to have children outside of wedlock.

Of course in many circumstances this is absolutely correct: specifically when a woman isn’t working, marriage is essential. But it’s by no means a silver bullet in any scenario. There increasingly are a lot of situations where marriage is the worst thing a woman can do.

I wish we could all have a more pragmatic and grown up conversation about marriage: stop seeing it as an ultimate life goal and start seeing it more as a useful tool to be applied in the right circumstances.

Tbf, the posts that say you shouldn't have children out of wedlock are mainly saying so because it seems to be so easy for men to disappear into the ether when they're not married. I don't think a lot of the advice is based on a traditional mindset iyswim. More a protective one.

@Chickenkeev

Tbf, the posts that say you shouldn't have children out of wedlock are mainly saying so because it seems to be so easy for men to disappear into the ether when they're not married. I don't think a lot of the advice is based on a traditional mindset iyswim. More a protective one.

Sometimes, yes; there are those awful threads where someone tips up and says "he's been promising to propose to me for 15 years, I've got three kids and haven't worked for a decade" etc etc, in which its very clear cut that the OP should have insisted on marriage or walked out a long time ago.

But then an awful lot of "why aren't you married" posts. Or people saying "if he was really committed to you he'd have married you by now". It's still very much painted as a "prize" which every women has to aspire to, regardless of what her individual circumstances are. Partly, I think, because it's seen as a bellwether of a man's commitment and assumption is that the woman always wants it. But also because the default assumption is that the man will be or go on to be the breadwinner. When this is by no means always true these days.

The posts about if the man was really committed he'd have married you by now are generally made in posts where the woman wants marriage and has been fobbed off. It's not a default assumption in that situation, it's a comment on the reality of the situation. That's not a good example.

I totally get you, everything you're saying but people are sometimes genuinely (rightly or wrongly) coming at it from a point of legal protection. Rather than lock him in or whatever. Women are screwed either way, marry for security and be judged, or don't marry for whatever reason and still be judged. There's no escape is there!

My oldest friend is one of those women who would be disadvantaged.

She owns (with small mortgage) the home they live in. She is only child and will inherit a fair amount assuming her currently healthy parents don’t require care homes.

Her partner doesn’t contribute much, all cash in hand, gives her money toowards bills. Has a child from a prev relationship they have one child together.

He is still on the mortgage with his ex and pays for his child well - even continued paying when child lived with them 100% during covid ie for well over a year.

I’ve told her if they get married and she goes before him, all het hard work and her grandparents and parents inheritance will go as a min minimum to her partners other child. There is massive favouritism with the older child in his family so I wouldn’t put it past him giving this child more than half if I’m honest.

My ex husband and I were 20 years in. He was my best friend. I would have staked my life that he wouldn't cheat, but he did. You sound incredibly naive.

I have asserts of around £600k. My boyfriend has maybe a tenth of that. We will get married but my assets will be protected beforehand.

I don't actually understand where marriage fits in this time/age and it is astounds me that we don't have more teachings on it in school or something, along the lines of sex ed. Maybe it's just me, but everything about marriage in movies and society is about romantic love, fidelity, infidelity perhaps, the ideal being the romantic life partner... But in reality, none of that really matters, it's actually all about a legal contract and the obligations that come with it. If I knew what I knew now, I'd never have gotten married in a million years. I mean, I understood the commitment I was making on a moral level, for better or worse, in sickness etc... But I truly didn't understand that when I decided that after 20 years of standing by my wife and supporting her in every way, that when I eventually decided I couldn't do it any more and tried to work out an amicable separation that I'd be thrown out of the house, stopped from seeing my children, and held hostage to support her in perpetuity and be stripped of our wealth fighting shitty legal battles with the overall losers being our children.

Nope. Never again.

Any future partner, they can have their things, their house, their everything... I'll have mine, and we can have date nights :) lol.

I'm in the bitter phase, I admit. But independence and boundaries are so important, and understanding the legal obligations that marriage entails should be better taught to all.

I earned several times more than my ex husband and my income (we’re both retired) is twice my current husband’s. I love him, so it doesn’t matter.

You're 100% right, it should be taught in schools. It'd be way more useful than lots of what is taught. And so many people don't get the life lessons from their own parents. There are relationship courses/ sex ed, but nothing to do with marriage and the legal connotations.

Being on Mumsnet has actually confirmed to me I’m better of being childfree and unmarried. I had decided this a few years ago even though I’m in a relationship and sometimes while I’ve thought what if - I’ve realised being independent as much as possible is my actual security in life.

Having brought several hundred thousand pounds into our marriage and being the more hardworking one (both at work and at home), going through divorce now, I would say to ANYONE who has assets and ambition to be extremely careful. You will very likely end up with LESS than your partner from the shared assets if your marriage breaks down. Nobody gets married thinking it might not last, the reality is a large proportion of marriages do break down.

I wholeheartedly agree, you should be made to take a short course on the reality of what you are signing up to and the likely scenarios of what might happen if/when you get divorced. I was told that as a mum, it was important to get married as it would somehow ‘protect’ me and I believed this. It’s the complete opposite if you are the one who brings assets to a relationship and happens to be more ambitious or hard working than your partner.

I can here to shout that it’s an ‘out’ thing not a ‘me/you’ thing once you are married
there are other benefits too like inheriting the other’s assets so that if one of you dies, any children aren’t forced out of their home (or even the surviving partner of Jo kids) following bereavement
you can put all of these things into place but you have to know them all & then pay for a solicitor to do it

obviously if it’s not first marriage for either party, particularly if there are pre-existing children then it’s messy…

if I were in the position where I had a lot to lose (and still wanted to marry someone) then I’d get a pre-nup so that during relationship things are shared but that if they broke trust then I’m not as financially vulnerable

You might want half his pension if he dies before you.

Pre-nips are not legally binding though, and ‘needs’ trumps pre-nups.

You can have mirror wills to protect both of you in case the other person dies.