To think there’s nothing for me to gain from marriage?

[RudyKazoo]

I fully understand why marriage/civil partnerships are important to many people, and they bring commitment/stability to some relationships, but it’s not something DP and I have ever wanted.

We’ve been together 5+ years and don’t (and probably won’t) have children. We split all living costs 50/50, own a house in joint names, have wills in place and nominated our pensions to each other.

I often see comments on how marriage protects women, but given we’ve got the above wrapped up, are there any other legal/financial protections I’m missing (excluding inheritance tax benefits)?

This is interesting, you have a long standing commitment. Why not get married as laws change marriage is one of the few things that stay protected.

Just curious

@MaryWhitehouseisCOOL good question! It’s just not something either of us are fussed about doing (I suppose I also don't want to feel like I’m devaluing marriage for other people). It’s an administrative thing that we may end up doing eventually (and could easily be done now) but it’s not a priority for either of us.

I wouldn’t think that you were devaluing marriage for other people. Everyone takes their own benefits and joys from different aspects of something, and if marriage purely brought you inheritance reassurance and financial stability, that’s just as valid as marrying for romance (and you’ve gone in to it informed with your eyes open about the legal implications!).

Exactly.

When I was young I had the rather surly attitude that it’s no one else’s business.

And yet I was passionately involved in community campaigns; I believed that humans need each other and that society is real and essential, and we are all inextricably in this together. I could even see that living with married parents could be safer for children, in this imperfect world, as long as the law protected them from violent parents.

By the time my future DH and I knew we wanted to share our lives, I was delighted to make our commitment public. We wanted to let all our friends and relatives know and to celebrate with a big party. We knew we couldn’t have children, but we embraced those of our combined families.

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/family/living-together-marriage-and-civil-partnership/living-together-and-marriage-legal-differences/

I think that as long as you don’t start sacrificing your career to support his, lose your financial independence or have children there is no need to marry unless you want to/feel like it.

But if you slowly start doing any of those 3 things, you may as well marry to protect yourself and do so before the romanticism is gone, as if it goes, he would start noticing that with a higher salary or having a mortgage in his sole name it majes it a bad investment (for him) to tie the knot.