To see a lot of couples in this situation

[Whatyoutryingtodo]

I see quite a few couples I know irl who've been together several years, engaged, own a house and have children, but no wedding plans made.
They've often been engaged for several years too but don't have any plans to get married, and say stuff like they'll 'get round to it at some point'.

Just curious as to why this happens quite a lot, not judging as I myself am unmarried and childless due to no interested suitors!

I think people will say that the man has everything he needs so why bother marrying her... Sometimes I wonder why people consider marriage more of a commitment than children? At least with marriage you can divorce, even if it's expensive and stressful, children you're tied for life.

@grayhairdontcare I’m with you on what you say. It’s very outdated to think you’re only taken seriously as a couple if you’re married. It’s just a contract that you can either choose to have or not choose to have.

The worrying thing on this thread is that it seems to be a load of women furiously advocating marriage as a way to take their partners assets if the relationship fails 😬

All the posts of “oh and I wouldn’t have been stable financially but because we were married I was able to take half the assets and his pension! So now I’m doing great!” actually make me queasy. Wow. Talk about independent women 🫣

It’s no wonder men don’t want to marry is it?

Not RTFT and this isn't related to the OP's question, but on the general subject of marriage/rights/potential of splitting up.

Nobody, when they get married, thinks they're going to split up. You wouldn't get married if you did. But in the real world, people do.

When my ex-DH and I split it was amicable, and we both proclaimed how we'd keep it that way and be fair to the other with money and selling the house etc. Of course emotions and life got in the way, he met someone else, and very quickly turned into a different person who was quite horrible to me. Had we not been married and him have been legally obliged to give me what I was entitled to, he'd have seen me with nothing.

"It’s no wonder men don’t want to marry is it?"

I think this is the whole entire point.
Men are encouraged by society to earn money. They are told online that women are out to trap them and take their money. Women then end up especially once they are pregnant with a man who does not want to be committed to one woman and his children. If he arranges it so

• he never marries her
• he keeps all of the financial assets in his sole name
• he keeps getting her pregnant
• if they split up he avoids child maintenance and he ensures he enforces all his rights through the courts to see his own children.

Then she is bound to him unless she is prepared to take the oftentimes big drop in income / material comfort (and that is only in terms of housing and food on the table as she does not actually own anything) to live in state provided housing. It is exactly that very big financial drop in income and living standards which need to be spelled out in mathematical examples to girls aged 16 and below.

Then SkySecret · Today 12:59 the man can always keep his house/income/pension in his sole name and hopefully no woman with half a brain cell will procreate with him. This is the cynical view, but as 99.9% of the time it is the woman who looks after the kids after the dramatic drop in living standards it is important to explain what that will look like to women before they get pregnant with anyone.

I guess back in the day more married women were SAHM. And this was only in the 80’s.

Probably bit of a minefield/ debate as to whether it is a choice for married women to be SAHM today or whether financial situation decides what women do.

But if you’re an unmarried woman, do you still have the same ‘choice‘ to give up work to look after the children for many years. Or would you feel like you have to keep working so that you have your financial independence?

Would like to hear from some unmarried women who have stopped working. And I don’t mean claiming universal credit either or living off inheritance. I mean the father working to pay for the mother and children without being married to the mother. Sounds like I’m describing his bit on the side.

@millymog11 this thread is showing it’s true that women want to do that… and to be honest I’m amazed people are just brazenly admitting it.

There can easily be wage disparities due to having children, but there’s a difference between that and simply not taking care of you own finances and just expecting to take someone else’s by marrying them. At least make the effort, work for your money, save for your pension, own your own home. If I was a man reading this I honestly don’t think I’d ever marry! Especially not someone with less financially than me.

Women aren't independent though. Men aren't either. We exist interdependently and things do change for men and women once kids are involved.

For one thing we have unconscious bias regarding gender roles.

"But if you’re an unmarried woman, do you still have the same ‘choice‘ to give up work to look after the children for many years. Or would you feel like you have to keep working so that you have your financial independence?"

This question is mad.

The only question(s) a woman should ask about whether or not she should keep working when she has children are still if I separate from the father of my children (whether that is divorce or separation follow co-habitation) am I prepared for the dramatic drop in living standards which will result for me and my children?

If I have kept working throughout the marriage/co-habitation in theory I could mitigate/minimise that drop in standards by working myself (subject to childcare costs).

If I have married someone who earns astronomical amounts of £ and I can prove to a court that it was an express agreement between my husband and myself when we married that I should give up work (either to pamper him or to have our kids) then the UK courts will err on the side (in any financial settlement) of giving you a better standard of living if you have not continued to work because they will argue you agreed to put your career on the backburner so you should have a slice of the assets/spousal support/pension whatever but that is only if the marriage was reasonably long in duration

If you are a co-habiting couple where only because of the man's income you can afford to live in a purchased house rather than council housing in the first place then the only question is, are you as the mother of the children on the deeds of the property (irrespective of who actually pays the mortgage because the mortgage company does not care after their initial checks and agreement to lend where the money comes from each month). In that case the question is (i) do you trust your husband/is he decent enough to put you on the deeds of the house irrespective of you not earning a penny towards the mortgage payments (because having his kids is what he values you doing) or (ii) does your husband insist you contribute to the mortgage if you want to be on the deeds in which case does he pay exactly 50% of the childcare bill so you can go out to work etc.

In other words it boils down to whose name(s) are on the title deeds of the property / who owns the assets. If you are co-habiting whoever owned it at the beginning will end up with it at the end. If you are married then there are are complicated set of Family law rules which could come into play but ultimately it boils down to (i) how much child maintenance does he owe you and (ii) irrespective of the answer to (i) is he going to pay it to you in any event or will he be able to get out of doing that (in which case you and your kids are on state benefits.

Being "allowed" to be a stay at home mum is not a question unless your husband/male partner agrees you should be a sahm and that is not always something in your favour in terms of your future/security.

We were waiting for civil partnerships to be available for opposite sex couples. We had our civil partnership after 16 years and one child.
I hate weddings and don't believe in marriage but we wanted financial security. We had our civil partnership within 8 weeks of deciding to do so. We had 3 friends and we went for a meal afterwards all for a few hundred pounds. Very few people know we did it. It's not important to us it's just the security if one of us died

superscientist that sounds perfect. I’m always curious why more couples don’t register their partnership.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/marriagecohabitationandcivilpartnerships/bulletins/civilpartnershipsinenglandandwales/2021

"superscientistthat sounds perfect. I’m always curious why more couples don’t register their partnership."

(1) Because civil partnerships are not taught in schools so no one understands them
(2) Because when they were first introduced decades ago people though they were only for homosexuals because of the stance the church of england took and that myth has never been busted in the general public knowledge
(3) Because some women think civil partnership does not sound as romantic as a gigantic incredibly expensive take-out-a-mortgage style wedding with all the trimmings in a church for the gram...

https://www.appletreefamilylaw.com/amp/convert-opposite-sex-partnership-to-marriage

Going down a rabbit hole but you can’t convert an opposite sex civil partnership to marriage later. So that rules out the want to get married eventually but can’t afford it/no rush to do it couples.
So realistically only an option for those couples who want legal protection but are sure they never want to marry.
It’s same price as marriage too.

Dp and I have been together since we were 17, 46 now and still not married 😂engaged though. For us, we honestly never got round to it or had it as priority due to expense. We travelled the world for years when young, settled abroad and then at 30/31 ish started planning it, ended up buying a new house around the same time, so waited a bit, then started trying to conceive. Fast forward nine years of infertility and a shed load spent on Ivf treatments, they took priority. Finally had Dd, she’s now 5 and life has been so busy, plus expensive with a child. We will get round to it though 😅none of us is that fussed, the biggest commitment made is Dd. We each own half the house, half the car, both earn money etc.

also, it may not be recognised as "marriage" everywhere in the world - you may be in a super religous contry when one falls ill and you are not recognised as next of kin due to just being civil partners.

my sister had to have a CP, as she is gay and that was all that was available at the time. So to me/her, they have the connotations of lesser. the take up now gay people can marry is small.

Yeah, I think for all the discussion on here about them, heterosexual civil partnership appeals to a pretty niche group of people.

CP does have connotations as lesser for some people, which isn't a great surprise considering the circumstances of it introduction. And while there aren't a lot of legal differences between civil partnership and marriage in the UK, that isn't the case globally.

It's probably telling that as soon as equal marriage was introduced in the UK, same sex couples with the choice of both were more likely to opt for marriage There aren't enough legal differences between the two institutions to create much of a cohort that would choose CP on that basis. People who want state recognition of their unions are choosing between two very similar version of the same thing, so it doesn't surprise me that most of them pick the more tried and tested option.

if i did hear about a couple doing a CP NOW, i would immediately think "and i bet you read the guardian too" :D

however, i doubt all the marriage dodging men detailed in this thread would actually agree to a CP anyway, its still legally sharing assets

Regarding the sharing knowledge at school, maybe its one to raise more at house buying stage - if they are living together at that stage, then anyone living in the house and not on the deeds needs to sign something i think. So thats the stage when legal advice is needed or should be provided - some people understand the risks of not being on the deeds and thus to NOT PAY MONEY TOWARDS THE MORTGAGE/PROPERTY.

not sure how to protect women who move in later. Property law isn't exactly a sexy subject to teach people and no ideal time to teach it. I felt very sorry for the law students who studied land law and equity (ie rights in a house when tennants in common) at 18.19 - it made much more sense to me as a mature student who had bought a place.

The sad thing which is never mentioned and will never ever be mentioned by any men ever even those who are not on the incel websites, is that being pregnant and having a child is actually enormously "costly" to a woman (physically in terms of her body, financially in terms of what she can physically do earning wise immediately after birth, and on a lifetime basis in terms of being the primary caregiver for that child (which will be the case even with men who step up and play a hands-on role).

Never, not even once does a man acknowledge this.
I literally have never ever seen it acknowledged by someone who is male whatever their circumstances.

And not even by the men who do not go round saying the divorce system is so unfair men are being fleeced of everything they own etc - the men who never complain about the divorce system will also never acknowledge how much it costs women to have kids.

I think the reason for this is because so many women especially younger women are completely desperate to have children under any circumstances. Men know this so why should they acknowledge what it involves for women let alone appreciate it?

Does this sound like hyperbole to you? If yes do you know a man who has actually said "Yeah, being pregnant, having a child and doing the role of a mother to that child is costly to women"?

But I suppose the answer is in your post @millymog11 . Because women are often so much more desperate for children than men.
So men would naturally think that the cost is also just the women's choice.

For myself and my friends in this position (although I did marry as I always wanted to), marriage is delayed as the cost of buying a house and having a family is so expensive, there is nothing else left in the pot to pay for even a meagre wedding. So we say “we will do it one day”, and just hope one day we can. They all want to marry but it’s a dream nowadays.

My wedding was a second hand charity shop dress (£50), friend played and sung, friend took photos, we drove ourselves and I have to say it’s simplicity was its winning formula. Even then it cost me nearly £2k which is way too much for most.

I've been with my partner 15 years,engaged for 13 and 2 kids,a house, dog,cat,fish,hamster. We haven't married purely because we haven't ever had spare cash to do it. It's not a massively important thing for us at the minute. If we had money spare to save then we would do it in a heartbeat but I'd rather enjoy life and have days out ,holidays etc with the kids than scrimp to save for what is essentially a piece of paper and name change really

I will never get married again because I stand to have to share half of all my assets (most of which I earned by myself) if I did so. I would put my DD’s inheritance in massive jeopardy so it would be a very stupid thing to do.

Marriage is only a good idea when you don’t work or earn far less than your spouse. Which is exactly why most men don’t want to do it. As women start to earn at or closer to parity with men they won’t want to either.

This for me too. no way I'm willing to lose the home I worked hard to buy on my own which is now fully bought and paid for.

GiveMyHeadPeaceffs. Your DP can still claim on your house.

This is us. The reason we aren't married yet is because we're skint. It would be nice but with having DD, and not even being able to save for a house deposit, and a hundred other things, it's right at the bottom of the list of things to pay for.

I got married before we had a baby (had been together 8 years already and bought a house together). I knew that I would have to go on mat leave and take a pay cut (which would affect me for years). Mums usually draw the short straw with income etc so I wanted that assurance of shared assets and a commitment from him etc.

at 1st never mentioned marriage as wasn't bothered plus recession in 2008 really hit us badly trying to get carreers back on track and house finished. then when got engaged and had date booked father in law died and that hit us badly. took us a long time to get over it and we ended up pushing date out. then covid hit so pushed wedding out. could have for married but wasn't the day I wanted so need up being 5 years engaged. got the day I wanted and am happy so glad I waited but that's life.