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 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 totally agree with this. The lens through which we see marriage is shockingly outdated and the emphasis on love and romance instils a wilful ignorance which is damaging to men and women.

I find it absolutely astonishing how few people understand that if you are married the working assumption is that your spouse will be entitled to half your assets. It beggars belief that people aren’t told about this when embarking on marriage. People spend months of their lives and tens of thousands of pounds on weddings, right down to fretting about napkins and bridesmaids shoes and other completely irrelevant details but fail to do the most basic self education around the legal and financial aspects of marriage.

It’s absolutely Medieval.

I wouldn’t marry.
I benefited from the 50/50 U.K. asset split rules on divorce and I’ve seen how awful the process is. We both worked full time for decades but my exH earned 3x my salary. I still got half our assets.
I don’t think he’s ever got over it.
Where I think U.K. law is fair is that I was able to get a house relatively close to his (he kept it) so our children had proper bedrooms at both places.
So I guess I’m saying don’t marry but if they/you have kids and then split up don’t be a xxxx in ensuring the ex can have the kids say 50/50 in a home they are used to.

Well said. Being on MN has been a revelation to me as I have never in my whole life come across so many women who are totally focussed on their career and the amount of money they have. Thankfully I move in more normal circles, where people choose a partner based on love and respect rather than their earning potential.

I saw a friend with significant assets, several let properties and a well paid job, get married and divorced within two years to a guy who had been sacked from his job and came in to the marriage with very little compared to her. They had a baby in that time.

He took everything through the courts and wanted more than half of everything! Still hasn't been settled and they've been fighting it out longer than the marriage lasted.

Tbh, in a very mismatched case I wouldn't recommend marriage without a pre-nup after seeing this.

@Threenow

Thankfully I move in more normal circles, where people choose a partner based on love and respect rather than their earning potential.

Well that's all tickety-boo until the marriage fails (as just under half of them currently do).

Giving away half the money I've spent the last 30 years working my arse off for to a bloke because he's married to me, thus depriving my kid of their inheritance and despite the fact that he hasn't contributed materially to my household wealth, is a chance I'm not prepared to take. I narrowly avoided having to give half my house away to my ex, despite the fact I looked after his kid single handedly and worked FT. Which is why I would never marry my OH even though I "love and respect" him. Love and respect for a partner is all good and well but it will never trump my responsibilities to my child. That's a fairly specific example (because we don't share a child) but the same principle applies even with shared children.

If that makes me mercenary, so be it. Better mercenary than shafted.

Marriage was designed as a mechanism to protect women from unscrupulous men running off and leaving them penniless while they were at home giving birth to, nursing and caring for multiple children. It's evolved since then, for sure, but it is not and was never meant to be a way for a bloke (who doesn't have to give birth and is very unlikely to be looking after kids) to grab half of his wife's assets just because he is married.

Why should a bloke (who doesn't bear the same burden as a woman with respect to childrearing and childcare) benefit from what is essentially supposed to be a insurance policy for the child-rearing sex?

DH and I bought similar assets to our relationship. If I had more than him I wouldn’t have married him. My career progression took the hit when I had dc with him, his carried on. I didn’t go part time or stop but the year I took out for mat leave materially affected my career. His was fine.

i would tell my DC to ensure they’re never financially dependent on anyone, and if they have DC to ensure they’re married and all assets are under joint names, otherwise don’t have dc and ensure you have assets and the ability to comfortably financially support yourself.

love doesn’t put a roof over your head.

In the minority

i would advise against marriage

had one divorce as marriage was just long enough for 50/50 - so that pay off was painful, he made a great return

Haven’t married in current marriage-like relationship, and kids are involved this time. I’ve sorted my will though.

It's all well and good to not get married to protect your assets from divorce but if you don't you need to do your financial planning in case of death.

Well yes but that’s a small price to pay to avoid giving half of your assets away.

I wouldn't get married but then again I'd never live with anyone again neither. Sounds really odd, but I protect myself financially for my kids future

Man or women or W W, M M I would only advise marriage if there is a plan to have children. Then you need to protect the spouse whose career is likely to take a hit. For both individuals, if possible, I'd advise ring-fencing the assets they each had before marriage.

It’s not an either/or proposition where in order to have one you have to forego others. You can have love, respect and financial compatibility.

Yes

If their fiancé is a bum or has rocky relationship with spending / history, is likely to be impulsive etc then I'd advise to consider a prenup or something or not to get married. But I'd give the same advice to a guy getting married to and earning more than a girl. How weird to make it about gender lmao. In this way we can claim men have been disadvantaged by marriage this whole time? Yeah sure in some way. But it's been going on for a while now. You either believe in the institution or you don't, either is fine, but this is a strange faux feminist take

I live in a place where pre-nups are legally binding. I'd advise ANYONE (male or female) who has the higher assets and/or income to get an air-tight pre-nup.

I'm been with my partner for 25 years and we have a child, now grown up.

I own the house we live in, it's now worth £1M.

I didn't get married because my DP (younger than me) brought no assets to the relationship and at the time earned less than me. Now earns a lot more as I can't work for health reasons.

Not getting married was definitely the right thing to do for me.

Our relationship has outlasted most of my friends' marriages.

I feel the same way. Particularly as (in Australia) ‘grey divorce’ is leaving a disproportionate number of women homeless. I was lucky we ended up with a house each first time. Next time I might not be so fortunate.

Sign I saw outside a bar while on holiday.
“ Ladies step inside and meet your future ex-husband. “

It’s never wise to make long term plans where men are concerned.
As I know to my cost.

The point I was making was that we seem to learn very little about the legal contract that is marriage, and what it totally entails. For me this is not so much about protecting my assets, but about understanding the legal consequences of what has to happen if both/one of you decide to break that contract and divorce and especially so of it is not amicable or you simply don't have similar understanding/expectations around that process. Everything being "ours" is fine when you're a team, and it doesn't matter if one earns more / less if you're aligned on goals, lifestyle and have that mutual respect and love... but what happens when that falls apart? As sadly many do.

How many people understand that the conduct within the marriage doesn't usually have any bearing on the financial dissolution and split of assets? So you could have a partner that refuses to work, decides to do their own thing, break every moral vow they made, and you might still be faced with having to spend £100k on solicitors to not then pay them spousal maintenance, try and keep at least 50% of the assets and most importantly, stay in your children's lives.

Nope. No marriage for me ever again.

The most important takeaway is that divorce can be expensive. In our case, I have considerable assets and a high salary, while my partner has fewer assets but earns significantly more. Despite this, we both still want to get married again in the future. We're not dwelling on worst-case scenarios, and the idea of a lifelong commitment is still attractive to us despite our past divorces.

Erm so if the man earns more then you marry, but if the woman earns more then you don’t… love it lol 🤣🤣

I was the higher earner but now I’m not. I was desperately unhappy and have made a career change. We share everything, including money. We are compatible, we’re on the same page, neither one of us has a crazy expensive hobby, neither of us smoke. Husband isn’t interested in the home really, so I’m free to decorate as I wish.

He’s not that bothered about money come to think of it.

Is this question about marriage or children though?
I am married, with children and have always worked full time (except two fairly short mat leaves)
I have friends who are in long term relationships with children but never married...and many of them don't work or have only recently returned to part time work
I have friends who are married with no children.

I am financially disadvantaged by having children but my husbands income off-sets that.

Also, not sure on the legal financial side of separation but are we talking strictly about a legal marriage or any long term relationship?

Marriage was invented by various patriarchal societies and religions and in most cases involved the paying of a dowry by the brides family to the groom, or conversely the groom "buying" the bride and paying a bride price to her family.
There was (ideally) some protection of the wife during marriage and in some cases a requirement to support her even if the husband took another wife but in many cases historically in most societies anywhere "assets" or "status" were involved (so not poorer families who lived hand to mouth) it was a carefully negotiated arrangement in which typically the husband DID accumulate and absord the assets and the brides family hopefully benefitted from his status and no-longer having to support her.

@Missingmyusername

Erm so if the man earns more then you marry, but if the woman earns more then you don’t… love it lol 🤣🤣

Thats over-simplifying a bit but basically yes.

Because as I have explained upthread the point of marriage is to protect the financially weaker partner in the marriage from being left or exploited. This partner is almost always the woman. And the fact that the woman is usually weaker is because she gets pregnant, gives birth, then can take several years off to care for her children.

No man will ever give birth and very few take years off to care for children. So women’s ability to work and support themselves is hugely damaged by childbearing. While a man is able to amass more money (usually).

Marriage is basically compensation and insurance against this happening. This scenario almost never applies to men because it is never men who jeopardise their finances to look after children so why should they get to benefit from a mechanism which was set up to protect women from this?

@Mumof2teens79

Thats all true. Men generally benefit from marriage in a variety of ways. The only situation in which women benefit is when they are not able to generate their own money.