Partner changed their mind on cohabitation agreement

[NeatBiscuit]

My partner and I have been living together for 1.5 years. Prior to moving in together, we agreed to have a cohabitation agreement drafted by a lawyer because of our disparity in assets. While the agreement has been drafted, it has not been signed yet and it is therefore not legally binding.

I have politely and periodically reminded my partner about the agreement throughout the course of living with her. I told her that I would not "take the next step" with her in our relationship until we officialize the agreement. This is in terms of buying a home, getting married, having children, etc.

On Valentine's Day, we tried to be intimate together. The intimacy stopped when I wanted to use a condom. I wanted to use one because she is off birth control due to IVF/egg retrieval. Although the risk of pregancy is low due to ovulation cycles, it is still a possibility. Since then, she has reflected on that moment and has been thoroughly upset at me. She was upset that my decision for wanting to use a condom was driven by the unsigned agreement.

She told me that I put finances ahead of everything else. She also said that she has been working on reading the agreement and contacting her lawyer about it. While she has been doing that, I don't know where she stands with the terms in the agreement because we have yet to discuss it together.

Last night and while she was upset, she told me that she won't be signing it anymore. She said that she initially wanted to sign one as a "gift" to me but now thinks I don't trust her.

I feel mislead and betrayed. I wouldn't have moved in with her if she told me that from the start. Also, I've been extremely patient with her all this time. I was never pushy about the subject. I only brought it up when it came to the big, life altering decisions.

You don't sound compatible. Time to throw this one back

Yeah no way I would sign that. It gives her no protection whatsoever.

If you spend your entire life focused on money, you're going to live a very sad and lonely life.

It's just MONEY FFS!! Materialistic crap. No amount of money can come close to having a close relationship with a person and a baby.

So if you want to spend your nights cuddled up to wads of cash, then you're going the right way about it.

If you want to actually focus on people and not money, they stop all this pre-nup contract stuff.

Is wanting protection being too invested in money? I’m pregnant, I earn more than DP and always will whilst in this role. When I am on maternity leave my pension will take a hit, realistically my hours will be reduced after so that I can accommodate childcare, as a result I will potentially be overlooked for promotion at work (have you heard of the gender pay gap, it doesn’t just cover hourly rate). OP seems to have created a document that just covers protecting him, her wanting protection doesn’t mean she wants to pack in work and become a kept woman, to me it suggests she has her head screwed on.

Absolutely this. Not a chance in hell I'd sign that!

I'd split as it would seem to me she wasn't acting in good faith. She hasn't signed the agreement as she previously said she would and is objecting to you wearing a condom (this is a Big Deal). This seems like she is really pushing your boundaries.

You really shouldn't have moved in together without the agreement signed by both parties

Ermmm…if she’s planning to have children with you I wouldn’t sign that either. You never know what will happen, what if you have children with severe disabilities which means she can’t work/ends up permanently unwell herself after birth(always a risk) cause I can guarantee you wouldn’t be giving up work to look after a disabled child etc, it would be her career that would suffer and then you could just divorce her and leave her with nothing.

Hardly like she’s just with you for your money since she earns a similar wage herself, if you don't want to share assets you shouldn’t be getting married.

She doesn’t just take a financial hit while having the baby, it is lifelong. Statistics show this again and again.

I wish I could talk to your girlfriend because I would tell her to get out of this relationship asap. You don’t respect her. If you did, you would not be trying to get her to sign something that didn’t protect her in the event of a pregnancy.

I must admit that I find you highly suspicious of her. If my DH had asked me to sign a prenup I would have walked out on him. But then again we had been together for 10 years with two small dc when we got married. I appreciate that your situation is different and personally I don't see why you want to marry if you don't have children. For me it was about having the same family name but there is also more security for the person being at home raising the children if you're married. But you're not there yet so why not just enjoy each other ?

I understand that you might want to protect your assets if she leaves you but your agreement goes way beyond that and I understand her not being happy about it, especially if you are planning to have children.

I wouldn’t be signing that; don’t blame her at all.

This! I wasn't married yet but my dh is not a dick and supported me being a sahm to an autistic child. It's always the women who give everything up for their children because we just tend to put them first. My DH was happy with this because he wouldn't/couldn't have done it and to me it came naturally and I couldn't have left my baby when I know he needed me.

This is such a weird post. It looks more like a business arrangement than a romantic relationship to me. Why are you thinking about prenups prior to engagement?

Unless you’re a millionaire and she used to be your sugar baby or something, I really can’t see the need for this amount of formality- unless you don’t actually plan to spend your life with her.

I'm afraid I wouldn't sign that. I'm not the most romantic person in the world and am probably very sensible when it comes to money, but God that is clinical and cold. It feels like you don't trust her even before you have walked down the aisle. I would have been insulted if my husband had asked me to sign that before I got married and I definitely wouldn't have hung around to put the wedding ring on my finger.

Are you set to inherit a large amount of money? How old are you both?

You're a cold fish OP

You sound very clinical in your approach to your relationship OP which of course its your right to be.

However I'd have been quite upset if when I met my partner he'd felt the need to 'protect' himself from me.

He happened to be more financially secure than me, largely because he was a few years older so basically a bit further along the career ladder than me. But ultimately we both worked full time and we were building a life together so he shared what he had with me. I have to admit I would have felt quite demeaned if he had wanted the sort of legal contracts you have asked for as ultimately the implication would have been i was a gold digger.

Your posts do make me wonder whether fundamentally there is a part of you questions whether your partner is with you for your money otherwise I don't think you would feel this strongly.

If your marriage is for life it matters not how much each party brought in at the start.

Nah. I agree with @ph3 - I wouldn't bother with you, as this involves potentially creating a family.

That being said, she hasn't been honest with you and is now hoping you'll forget your carefully laid terms; so I'd drop her.

This relationship has disaster written all over it.

That is not remotely a loving caring relationship. It sounds like a bussiness transaction. I hope she finds someone worthy to treat her as an equal partner.

I would not sign this either.
I am a single parent and have been self-sufficient for my whole adult life. So it’s not about the money for me. But this contract does not indicate any kind of partnership. You cannot adjust the contract for every change in your life. A contract cannot account for the gendered differences in the impact of having children. I just would not go into this.
She’s not signed in 1.5 years; she would be wise not to and to find someone who wants a partnership. Otherwise what is the point of ‘for better or for worse’? Just don’t do it.

I’m hope she runs a mile
from you. You’re not a team player.

Completely agree. The way he talks about the woman is not what I would expect from someone who is in love. She deserves better than someone wrapped up in the formalities of a relationship.

Unless there’s some drip feed coming, of course, and she’s a gambling addict or something- but even then, he would still come off as cold and harsh towards his (unlikely) future wife.

Jesus, she's dodging a bullet. Do you know how professionally and financially vulnerable women are when bearing your children? If she stays with you and has those kids, thats yet another woman who ends up losing because her life partner cant share his stuff.

For most of human history, marriage has been a business/economic arrangement, not a romantic one.

Look at all the tales of woe on here, daily, caused by people failing to think and plan prudently about the economic implications of their lifestyle and relationship choices. And ending up trapped, resentful and miserable, wasting their lives.

I salute the OP.

You get back what you put in. If I were the g/f I would not want to spend my life keeping a spreadsheet of every single purchase we make to ensure that every transaction is accounted for! I wouldn’t want the OP to get shafted for 20c after 30 years!

I have managed to be happily married for 25 years without a single argument about money. Everything is thrown in the pot and spent as a team. Means no arguments as no power imbalance. If you don’t start as a team you certainly won’t end as one!

Maybe one question to ask yourself is what you think all that money is for, if not for supporting your family? What do you think is more important than your future children’s well-being? Because if you are planning to marry, and it sounds like also planning actively for children in the future, then your proposed agreement essentially says that you only want to use those savings for your kids as long as your partner behaves herself. Which is quite a nasty power play, isn’t it?

Assets from before the marriage would typically be considered not shared in a divorce unless they’ve become matrimonial assets in the meantime eg by buying a family home. But if you’ve bought a family home, that is for your family. Splitting up doesn’t get rid of that family or their needs, so why the fuck should your responsibility to them disappear? Are you really truly saying that you want a worse life for your children as punishment for your partner if you split? Because that could very well be the outcome of all this, and in her shoes that is what I would be seeing.

On top of that, the financial obligations of marriage are meant to support the woman, who takes huge physical risk by going through pregnancy and labour, and whichever parent does more childcare and so takes a hit at work. Both those things have very long term effects, and the effects are not known in advance. The point of joining your assets and having those financial obligations is to share the costs and risks that biology has placed so disproportionately on women.

Finally, even without children, relationships often mean making decisions that are good for the unit even if they’re not best for both individuals. You share the decisions, so you share the risks and the benefits. As I already said, at least in the UK, whatever you have from before marriage (or at least before cohabitation) would tend to stay separate and whatever comes in during the marriage is assumed to belong equally to both. This recognises the nature of joint decision making and planning. Add in kids and it becomes even more obvious that decisions have to be made for the family, and both costs and gains of those decisions should be shared.

I don’t think it’s crazy to consider what happens if you split but I do think your proposed agreement is too much. I’d suggest you both keep some amount of savings separate, and accept that what you put into family life is for the family, for good.

Marriage is at its core a business arrangement. This man just doesn’t recognize that he isn’t holding up his end of that arrangement. She brings the ability to earn and the ability to create human life to the marriage. All he brings is money, but he wants to keep that for himself.