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.

I think you need to walk.

I am sensing that you have no interest in marriage (now or ever) and are possibly wealthy so being cautious. It’s unromantic, but this site is full of people who rushed headlong into relationship without considering their finances and have found themselves - especially the women - at a disadvantage. There is no reason why you can’t both have a happy, life long relationship without marriage but give her certainty/security and reassure her that you will protect her if she is impacted by you having children together. That should have been at the forefront of any discussion about money, and she ought to have been present at the meeting with your lawyer prior to drafting it, so that it’s contents were not a surprise.

But if you cannot discuss this and reach an agreement on how to do this first step, then you have no hope of managing decisions about children.

If you’ve been in therapy at this early stage in a relationship, it doesn’t sound great. I would think really carefully whether you want to be with her - if you’ve had extreme lows so early on, it just doesn’t seem right. It should all be a total honeymoon at this stage.

I think you’re being sensible op & I would be the same. I would also be happy to sign if my DH put in 10x the amount too. It’s fair. Relationships can & do break down.

This is such a young relationship. Stick to your guns.

Given you’ve already broken up 3 times in the last 18 months you’re absolutely right to want to protect your assets and your fertility. A relationship shouldn’t be this hard this early in. The terms become very unfavorable to her if you marry and have children. She’s much more likely to take a hit to her career and therefore earning potential, and therefore I can see why she wouldn’t want it. That said, you appear to be incompatible and I would look towards ending the relationship.

We have also been in therapy for the majority of the year. She even broke up with me three times while living together.

Good grief! This is not a stable, happy, peaceful or mutually enhancing relationship.

I simply want a stable, loving and peaceful relationship

That's normal. It's not what you're getting here, is it?

You're with a partner who:

• Is stalling on formalising your partnership
• Is trying to force pregnancy
• Breaks up with you every few months
• Is unclear on what she wants
• Tries to emotionally blackmail you.

Get out.

I'm sure she has brilliant qualities, and presumably you have some happy times as you're both still there. But, frankly, she sounds like a disaster area. You won't believe how much nicer life can be when you're with someone who's upfront about who she is and whose values align with yours.

Your whole relationship sounds full of suspicion and mistrust. It's a waste of time going forward. Cut your losses and call it a day. Don't bring a child into this.

What was your mother like, @NeatBiscuit? Does she blow hot & cold, break her commitments and enact emotional punishments? I'm wondering why you've stuck this out for a year and a half.

No it doesn't.

Edited to say I can see you are in Canada, clearly the law is different to England and Wales.

I'm with you @NeatBiscuit well done for using a condom when you want the agreement signed first. This site is full of people going 'he could have used birth control if he didn't want a kid' then here they are whinging cos you are being proactive :)

If you're both thinking of marriage, kids etc with each other down the line, then I don't think the agreement or the pre-nup is fair, because it's the woman's earning power and career that often gets thoroughly curtailed, in order to raise the man's kids. Then, on top of that financial punishment, she has to sign away rights and protections that marriage would have given her.

If protecting your assets from the woman you want to bear and raise your kids is so important to you, then a partner with a big financial disparity is not the right one. Find someone who has the same wealth - or more - than you, but not lots less.

Pre-nups for anyone but the super-rich are usually appropriate when it's a second marriage and there are children from the first marriage whom the parent wants to inherit. They're not an appropriate thing to foist on someone who's probably going to be the default parent. After all, no one's forcing you to be with someone much less wealthy than you. Don't make her sign away her rights and then expect her to devote her life to raising your kids instead of to her own career. Since she earns much less than you, obviously it would be her who'd take the career and financial hit from kids.

I would ask yourself some deep questions, too. Why do you need this agreement so much? Do you not trust her? Do you feel, subconsciously, that marriage is not for life? Or that marriage to HER would not be for life? Do you enjoy the control in a relationship that comes from being with someone who has a lot less than you? If not, and ringfencing your money is so important to you, why aren't you with your financial equal?

I'm not saying that any of the above describe you. I just think that those questions would provide some useful introspection.

Canadian law does recognise 'common law' relationships - although the rules vary by province and are subject to change without warning.

Depending on the laws of OP's province, they may already be considered a common law partnership and their rights may already be determined to some extent.

Apparently (according to Google!) having children automatically formalises the relationship so, if she gets pregnant, OP's girlfriend could be entitled to half of whatever he has.

Yeah that is not a fair agreement - a fair agreement would include the clause that she would never wash any of your clothes, do any of your dishes, cook for you, do any more than 50% of all childcare and you would split the cost of a surrogate to carry your child.

Do you know that it takes up to 3 years for your hormones to return to normal after pregnancy, your body changes forever, it alters your brain - in some cases forever. I never knew any of this stuff before I got pregnant - it is crazy how much you are affected! It is a huge personal sacrifice for women to carry a child - they risk their lives, they damage their careers (stats back this) and in the vast majority of cases they are the ones who end up missing work because little Timmy is sick, doing the night feeds and night wakings, scrubbing shit stains out of baby clothes, driving little Timmy to the playground and so on. I am a feminist, all my male friends are feminists and swore they would not be like their fathers and it would be 50:50 yet when I ask their partners now they all say the same - they do some stuff but it is never equal! The stereotype of the woman managing the household and her husband is a stereotype for a reason - it is very very common - the men who do 50:50 or the lions share are rare diamonds!

Personally I agree with you about everything pre marriage and kids and if you were remaining childless I would agree with it (albeit with a housework clause as it is also a rare man who does 50:50). However, once you have kids it is a game changer - you are partners and should pool all future income and pensions.

You say you are protecting yourself from your partner leaving you but the much more common thing is that the man gets sulky that his wife is looking after dear little Timmy and isn’t attending his needs as much and decides he has no choice but to leave her for a 20 year old and become an Every Other Weekend Dad - throwing her peanuts towards Timmy’s care while darting off to exotic locations with his new child bride. There is no way in hell I would sign an agreement like yours and be left holding the baby with no proper support in place.

She needs to ask you to leave.

There’s no way on earth I would be signing a contract like that, and I especially wouldn’t marry and have children with such a self-centred and narrow minded man.

I think you are totally clueless about what marriage actually is……do you honestly believe it’s so black and white?

As a previous poster said, what if you have a disabled child that needs 24/7 care? Where does that leave the wife who will no doubt be the one expected to give up her job to look after the child?

Me and my husband have been married for 11 years and have two children, and we used to have similar incomes. Sadly I had a huge deterioration in my health about two years ago and Iam no longer able to work which means we are solely dependent on his income. What would you do if you wife came to be in a similar situation?

Life can throw many curve balls and you are ridiculously naive if you think life is just going to carry on in the way it currently is your lovely equal salaries and nobody being at any kind of advantage over the other. Life really doesn’t work like that when children come along or illness strikes.

When I read the section about inheritances being kept for the individual person I was Gob smacked! Over the next 15 years it’s likely I am going to receive 3 very healthy inheritances whereas my husband has no family, and according to you I should just squirrel this money away to myself and enjoy all my thousands upon thousands whilst my husband watches on? I mean….what the hell? How can you even think that is normal behaviour? All the money I will inherit will always be just as much his as it is mine.

Marriage is about committing to each other and being willing to share everything you have with each other, knowing that you are a secure unit and knowing that you always have that support.

Putting all this aside, the fact there has been so much drama over the last 1.5 years says to me that this is not a relationship worth keeping anyway. It all just sounds so cold hearted and toxic and certainly not something either of you should want long-term.

I don’t know what your relationship is based on but it certainly isn’t love.

Hear hear!

I understand your desire to have that signed. On the face of it, it sounds very sensible.
2 things...

1. why move in with it being signed?
2. it provides no protection for her during pregnancy, maternity leave, or child rearing.

She would be mad to sign that as it is.
I understand the principle but it needs re-drafting.

@Dror @W0tnow

its standard advice from fertility doctors while going through IVF to use barrier protection. There is a risk of spontaneous ovulation of multiple ovum and heightens the risk of a multiple pregnancy.

I think you want to have your cake and eat it. You want that woman trapped and unable to divorce you. You have actually said you want an agreement that makes it hard for her to leave you.

"Yes it would be a deal breaker and she is aware of that. We have talked about marriage and I don't want there to be an incentive for her to divorce me."

Where's the incentive in that agreement that stops YOU just randomly fucking off when you feel like it, probably with the 19 year old next Miss It Puts It's Name On The Dotted Line.

There's a disturbingly abusive male undertone to your messages that doesn't sit well with me. You very obviously don't trust her. You want a committed wife without any risk whatsoever.

A women beholden to your falsely benevolent whims, A.K.A happy with crumbs from your table whenever you deem to flick them in her direction.

You're also viewing a life partner like an employee negotiating an employment contract with her employer.

Carry on like you do, die alone lying on a big pile of your dollar bills. Let your bank manager comfort you and have the nurse who you've negotiated a bottom dollar salary with who secretly hates you at your bedside.

She needs to get the hell away from you.

OP do I understand correctly that in Canada the law treats you as if you are married anyway after a certain period of cohabitation? If that is the case then I would be getting un-cohabitted as soon as possible and starting again with an agreement in place, if it's important to you.
But really, if she's broken up with you three times, and is also back-tracking on something that is important to you that she previously agreed to do, is she actually the right personality for you to be trying to build that steady easygoing relationship that you seem to be looking for?

This doesn't sound like a relationship on which to build a secure and happy future, and definitely not one to bring children into.

It is disrespectful of your partner not to have signed or refused the cohabitation agreement expeditiously; that should have happened before moving in together. You should have read her reluctance and delay as refusal, and moved on. That you didn't do so has opened the door for emotional and psychological game-playing, as you are experiencing. Her dishonesty and manipulation would be a dealbreaker for me; and is now a matter of urgency, if she is trying to engineer an 'accidentially on purpose' pregnancy scenario, which will ensnare you very effectively.

You don't sound at all compatible. Her behaviour is totally at odds with the careful, thoughtful, mutually respectful approach expressed in your posts and relationship contract.

Why are you still entangled with her?

Stop wasting your life and move on OP, you're clearly not suited if you've both been in therapy, and she's already walked out on you not just once but three times. Quit while you're ahead, move out, and find someone who wants the same things that you do.

Relationships shouldn’t be so difficult at this stage. Instinctively from what I have read so far, I don’t think she’s the one for you. Sorry if that is difficult to hear, just being honest.

Well the fact that OP is being responsible with birth control while his GF is upset that he didn't bareback despite her going through egg retrieval which could cause a multiple pregnancy, I'd say one of them is definitely an asshole here, and its not OP!

I don’t blame you for wanting to protect yourself. It sounds like she has decided she won’t sign this agreement. You have to decide if you’ll leave if she doesn’t. Personally I would leave if my partner agreed to something like this and then just won’t do it.

I would not be with someone I couldn't have regular civil conversations about important stuff. She has put this off for a very long time. She sounds way too high drama. I don't know how much is do to her being manipulative vs troubled and immature, but what difference does it make? She's not a good partner and sounds like she'd be an unstable parent.

If you have been living together 1.5 years and having such trouble for one year then it sounds as if you aren't really a match but trying to force one? Only wanting to be intimate if a partner doesn't use contraception isn't good. How old are you both? Are you both hanging a lot on this as you feel you don't have time to or want to start again? Financially, do you recognise that it's difficult to split the hit 50/50? You can split parental leave etc but she's still going to be the one carrying a child, childbirth and all that goes with both. Maybe it won't have any impact on her current and future income and pensions but maybe it will. How are household tasks dealt with do you split the planning and doing? Do you outsource as much as possible and if so who arranges and plans it and who pays for it? Same with future children. I imagine you plan on splitting costs of having kids 50:50 but who will do all the planning and arrangements as the children grow for childcare, sickness, all the things in a child's life?