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.

If you are in England they have to offer the statutory ceremony. It might not be well advertised but it will be available if you call - it’s no frills, no guests just you and 2 witnesses.
Liverpool and Manchester all have options several hundred pounds too.

My biological clock was ticking so I didn’t want to waste time waiting for DP to propose, just wanted to crack on with having kids. If worst comes to worse and we split, I will still be glad I didn’t miss the boat and I did manage to have kids before it was too late

https://www.birmingham.gov.uk/info/20212/marriages_and_civil_partnerships/735/book_a_marriage_or_civil_partnership_ceremony_at_birmingham_register_office/2

Alphabet It’s Tuesday in Birmingham but decent explanation of what you get.

People who have kids and don’t marry either don’t understand inheritance tax or don’t care that their other half may have to sell the family home in order to pay it if they died.

getting POA costs a fortune. Cheaper to get married.

Why can't you propose to him?

I find it odd that someone who won't commit to his offspring's mother is considered a viable sperm donor. But to each her own.

@GrannyRose15 It costs £82 to make and register a POA, I helped my Dad do it. The forms aren’t complicated to complete, you don’t need to use a solicitor.

I think the majority of people are being warped into the notion that everything needs to be “perfect,” or “looking for the next thing to sort,” before deciding to marry. It’s quite sad, really. People are being brainwashed to some extent, that marriage is disadvantageous.

Why would a man want to bother taking on the responsibility of a wife, if he is receiving everything already. The emotional comfort, sex, no financial or legal obligations. If everything has already been done and dusted in a relationship, there isn’t much to look forward to in a marriage, other than the wedding. If a man is holding off marriage for so long, while getting all the benefits he can, surely, he would just become complacent and not commit further. Personally, I think a lot of things should be held off, certainly having children as one thing, until after marriage. This will make the family and relationship feel more secure, and of course, the obvious legal commitment.

Moreover, excusing it by stating that it maximises their chances of monetary loss, is as though people are viewing marriage with the idea that, “maybe we will split in the future.” Surely, you’d make sure you only marry when you know you’ve found someone you wish to spend the rest of your life with, and hope to achieve that.

Although, it seems realistic to keep these negative thoughts in mind, the whole “they will get half my money,” is quite miserable. If you love someone (which I would assume people feel for their potential spouse), surely, you’d feel the desire to share your money. Even throughout the marriage, you’ll be sharing money with your spouse, supporting one another while you or they, possibly increase earnings. In the sad event of a divorce, it’s only fair to split, given you’d both have spent so many years benefitting from each other in multiple ways. I get this approach would be different for those who have children from previous marriages, though.

Finally, I think some, just some, not all of those men who are happy to get engaged, but let it drag for ages, simply don’t want to fully commit, are afraid of more responsibility towards a family, and want the option of walking away more easily, if the situation ever arises.

I’ve been engaged for 12 years and still very happy. Personally I see lots of sexless boring trapped marriages.

But Each to their own.

I also see a lot of men get lazy once married. They seem to stop trying. And moan about their wives (like they’re a catch 🙄)

We intend to get married. Maybe in our 50’s

I think if we still want to marry after 25 years together then that’s a good thing. ❤️

Personally I see lots of sexless boring trapped marriages.

I don't think anybody here has claimed that you have better sex when married, that's not what marriage license does.

Personally I’m the much higher earner and have a much better pension. In my line of work I have seen people in my position lose too much.
Fair enough if someone has to pay their ex spouse money earned during a relationship while the ex spouse was sacrificing their career/earnings to look after children, but that’s not the case for me. Not very romantic, but there we go.

No - if your spouse dies without a will you get up to £270k of his estate, the rest is divided between his descendants. This is why you must jointly own your family home as a spouse as this is the only way the property automatically becomes yours upon his death. If you own it together and are not married he has to leave it to you in a will, and because you are not married, you’ll have to pay inheritance tax on the property (and his children can contest it in court, seen that happen). Joint marital home, if co-owned, (ie both names are on the deeds) is exempt from IHT and children from prior relationships have no claim.

I think people should be far better informed about the consequences of not being married and the option of civil partnerships for all be much better publicised. If people then make an informed decision and put their own protections in place good for them. The problem comes when people blindly don't get married, get into trouble and then say ' Oh I have nothing. The law should be changed to protect us!' Law changes to protect people who can't be bothered to look things up themselves take away the rights of people to actively make an informed decision to not marry. It would open them up to for example a live in partner claiming rights on death or separation that would be detrimental to children from a previous marriage and that the other party never wanted or intended. I for one would never remarry for this reason. And I'm not loaded, but own a house and stand to inherit again nora fortune but enough to enable my children to have a deposit for a house which I would itherwise never be able to afford to give them. That is for my children alone. If the law changes to protect live in partners then you are basically saying the only way to protect assets is to never live with someone again.

Slightly different for us in that we are 51 and 56 and have 4 kids between us aging from 16-26 all at home. I'm divorced (he since passed away), he's widowed. He owns I rent. Together 11 years. After our mother's and my ex all died within 6 months of each other we realised the clichè of life passing by very quickly is true. We got engaged a year after their deaths after 10 years together, and 2 months ago he said he wants to get married. Never even bothered us before, but now we feel we would like to enjoy what life we have left as husband and wife together. So we are doing that next year.

I think once you have children things like getting married seem a bit trivial. Like you say you've already taken the biggest commitment by having children!

I think maybe the thousands of men who walk out on their children without a second thought didn't get that memo! Also having children is a commitment to the children not to each other. That's why unmarried couples don't have any legal responsibility to their partner. Just to provide for their child.

I would never become a SAHP or become financially dependent though (as far as I could possibly help it). If that situation did occur then yes marriage would be important. I think that's why nowadays lots of woman don't see the point of getting married - they aren't financially dependent on men so would actually be worse of if married in the event of separation

Oh yeh I don't mean commitment to each other as such. But you are more tied for life with kids. Yes some will still totally walk away but most will have something to do with their ex for the rest of their lives, whereas couples without children can truly go their separate ways!

Also I just mean that once kids come along perspective changes, I think a big draw to getting married nowadays is the 'big day', dress, flowers, party etc, after kids that all just seems a bit trivial? So they just don't bother. Woman don't need to be married anymore, it's not like in the past where they become financially dependent on their husband and needed to be married for security

I'm sorry @VolvoFan you are not the worst offender but I think this sort of nonsense about weddings has a lot to answer for and is a large part of the reason why people don't understand marriage and make such poor, life-crippingly poor, decisions about it.

The miasma of Disneyfication around your "special day" and all that is so entrenched that most people get completely hypnotised and can't see past the white dresses and the table plans and all the rest of it. This is not what's important about marriage.

Marriage is a financial contract, like an insurance policy, no more no less. Like an insurance policy it's financially life-saving if you need it but a dangerous white elephant if you don't.

If you don't work or plan to stop work it's absolutely essential. If you work and particularly if you earn more than your partner it's nearly always a disaster. I know women who have been properly shafted by not being married. For my part if I got married to my partner my daughter could stand to lose everything.

But as PPs have pointed out most people know astonishingly little about the legal rights and responsibilities that marriages bestows. As the long litany of horror stories on here shows. This should absolutely be taught in schools and it should in my view by mandatory education as part of any marriage preparation.

The more people witter on about white dresses and cakes and everlasting love the less they understand this. So please for the love of God can we all understand, and teach our daughters, that marriage is not about love or white dresses or rings or napkins or best man's speeches or engagement or anything else. Its about money and how not to get shafted by your domestic arrangements.

@Ilikepinacoladass

Woman don't need to be married anymore, it's not like in the past where they become financially dependent on their husband and needed to be married for security

Well, qualification is needed. Some women really do need to be married. SAHMs need to be married as a matter of priority. For most working women and women with assets it's a bad idea. The problem is most women don't understand whether marriage is a good thing or a bad thing for them and don't understand where they sit on this spectrum of financial need.

That's where the lack of education is a problem and all the obsession with weddings and "special days".

Agree. All this Bridezilla stuff is horrifically harmful to women. It allows people to think that a wedding is the happy ever instead of the start of a marriage, which is a legal contract, nothing more. Being a SAHM is risky at the best of times, but being wholly dependent on an adult who has no responsibility for you when you have children to support is asking for trouble.

People know they can do the cheapest wedding ceremony.

But they probably want something a bit nicer. And to invite sone guests, parents and sone others. And then host them to sone food as they have travelled. Probably buy a nice outfit so they look good as they share the news / photos for memories.
If they are not doing it strictly to tie up legal paperwork, then you probably want a nice day and that costs sone money (say 2-3k) so it gets put off.

No one really wants to attend a vow renewal so you get one chance to have your day. So you want to get that right, for you, and not rush that decision (again assuming no sudden reason to marry asap)

So long term engaged, probably want a nice wedding and don't want to do the £100 version.

(And I mean a small nice wedding, not 70 at a country house).

Having a child is a legal and financial commitment to the child. Unfortunately lots of women think it’s a commitment to them and act to their detriment eg unmarried sahm with no income, living in his house etc.
I definitely view marriage as an insurance policy.
When I married I had no need to - I worked ft, earned same as him, same profession with good prospects.
5 years later I was in a totally different position - pregnancy had triggered a serious health condition and I had a child with a disability. I ended up working pt for years. Women are the ones who suffer birth injuries and usually end up carers if a child is born with a disability.
We didn’t split but if we had that ‘piece of paper’ would have ensured house split and pension split factored this in. Without a marriage contract there’s no mechanism for that.

Yep. And when you read this thread you realise how astonishingly financially and legally illiterate so many women are.

Historically marriage was by far the best and simplest way to protect yourself. This is no longer automatically the case but still people frame it in the most outdated way.

The amount of women sleepwalking into financial self harm through a poor understanding of marriage is genuinely frightening.

I'm astonished that more people don't realise that having a child with someone is no commitment to that other person beyond co-parenting. You both commit to the child, it says nothing about one another. Similarly, a mortgage. That's a commitment you both make to the bank, not one another, beyond being liable for each other's payments. Marriage is the only commitment you actually make to each other that directly ties into your relationship as partners. Just look at how many people have children with a donor, or with a platonic friend (quite common in LGBT circles), or buy property with family.

It's very sad that people have been culturally conditioned to assume marriage equals a wedding and that the wedding has to be expensive and large. You can get married for a couple hundred quid. You don't have to wear anything specific. You don't have to have anyone there barring a couple witnesses. It's signing a legal contract, the 'romance' and party side is secondary.