To not see the practical point of getting married?

[Queenofswords88]

My partner and I are in our thirties. We’ve been together many years and own a house together. We’re also hoping to have a baby together (currently going through fertility issues / treatment).

We’ve talked about marriage plenty of times and he’s always made it clear that he would marry me in a heartbeat if it’s something I wanted to do, but it’s not something he cares about enough to push for. I’m not convinced marriage is for me, for various reasons including expense/stress of a wedding and a feeling that the institution is outdated/anti-feminist.

My partner works full time in a good job. I earn significantly more than him even though I work part time in a flexible role which would accommodate having a child. I have more in savings, pension and investments and more equity in the house we share.

I hear a lot of blanket advice, especially on Mumsnet, about it being essential to get married before having a child. In my circumstances, I can’t think of a single practical reason why that’s the case. AIBU?

It's correlation, not causation. If you have a solid, long-lasting, happy relationship and that continues to work out after children, you will stay together whether you're married or not. The stats you're talking about include people who have babies after sex on the first date...

Marriage isn't a magic pill. I know someone who's on his third marriage in the 20 years I've been with my partner.

OP, can I ask what job you do, that you earn so much, and yet cannot understand the financial contract of marriage?

What about marriage do you think is not for you? It’s literally just the legal recognition of your relationship. It makes you legally family. This means that you are each others next of kin of one of you are incapacitated. It means you have legal entitlement to half of your marital assets and financial support if you take a career hit from being a mother or even from just from prioritising his career over yours (if that happens, which is not uncommon). It gives you each other's’ pensions and it means all of his assets pass to you (and vis versa) on death automatically, without a lot of painful paperwork.

Have you got good life insurance? Think about what would make life most comfortable for the remaining parent if one of you dies. We made sure there would be enough money for a nanny/ excellent childcare if one of us died as well as to pay off mortgage etc.

You need wills and powers of attorney too.

You’re correct that if you are the better off partner, marriage may not be in your best financial interests from one perspective. But .., what if you are physically or mentally injured in childbearing and unable or unwilling to work. Your risks of ill health and incapacity are being substantially increased through being the child bearing parent. Lesbian parents think about this carefully and often arrange matters to ensure no financial disadvantage to the woman going through pregnancy and childbirth.

Also worth checking you’re on the same page about contributions to expenses and savings if your earnings go down due to maternity leave or illness and ensure your pension contributions are maintained at same level as his.

I said the same thing. No magic. And some people marry without sufficient thought too.

There is a lot of ignorance though.

I worked with a woman once - a highly educated person - who'd not married her boyfriend either before or after kids. She was shocked at the legal and financial repercussions when he left her.

I think if a couple get legal documents drawn up covering all the legal protections of marriage then they are essentially married as that is what marriage is. Marriage covers all the legal protections in one umbrella document. Mirroring those legal protections with other legally binding documents is just marrying whilst saying you don't believe in marriage and removing the romance and intention of commitment. As for it being anti feminist, I think that's a matter of perception. Many perceive marriage to be in the interests of women.

This is literally not true in the UK... fathers named on birth certificates have parental responsibility for any children same as the mother.

Why not have a civil partnership then? Why all the faff and lawyers?

This sounds like an awful situation for you, but wouldn't it be exactly the same if you were married?

I've never been questioned when flying with my child. Does it happen a lot?

Marriage is a terrible idea for the higher earner. Don’t risk your financial future by falling for the popular narrative.

It is true - how can a dead mum go with him to registry office to name him?

Until he is registered as dad an unmarried dad has no rights.
Married mum dies in childbirth - her husband, the dad can register baby. He has parental responsibility from birth eg can consent to medical treatment if baby needs it.
Unmarried mum dies in childbirth he needs to apply to court for parental responsibility. Obviously will be granted if he is dad but will take time and money. He doesn’t have parental responsibility to consent to treatment for baby until it’s sorted. May also delay pay out by life insurance or death in service eg if mum has policy that pays out to dependents but bloke can’t send off birth certificate to get money as he’s sorting bureaucracy to get a birth certificate.

We lived together for 10 years before we got married and had been together 6 years before that. We were thinking about having children. Neither of us wanted a "wedding" so we didn't have one. Just a quick register office job with both sets of parents who had been give a week's notice.

It's clear that being married is not essential and you can get round most of the issues apart from tax. We are now both over 65 and would be looking at IHT if we weren't married. We still have LPAs and wills.

I genuinely (and don’t mean offence) think you’re making a bigger deal than it needs to be.
You can get married without any fanfare or significant cost. You don’t need to change your name or even publicise that you’ve done it incorrectly. the wearing of a wedding ring. But for all the reasons already listed I think it’s a good idea.

I think you are sensible to give such a big life decision deep thought.

I havent been through all the comments but just a couple of reasons I felt were important. Automatic parental responsibility - if anything was to happen to me before the birth of our child was registered, my DH would have automatic PR for that child. I also wanted us to all have the same surname. This can be a real pain if you visit another country. I know people that have had to change their surname by deed poll to get into another country. Inheritance tax benefits, pensions (survivor benefits), all of my estate would pass to him (I don’t have a will).

Two women I know.

One her partner of 35 years died. As she was not 'next of kin' the sister wouldn't let her have any say in treatment at the hospital. The sister arranged the funeral and didn't invite her. The sister turned up at the house and took all his personal effects as hed died without a will.They had always got on previously, no bad feeling.

The other her partner died, again no will, abroad on holiday. She arranged everything, paid for the funeral, obviously grieving terribly. Her partner had always verbally said he wanted her to live in the house they had shared for 25 years until she died. His son chucked her out immediately. No compassion or understanding. He wanted her out and he wanted his money. Again, no previous bad feeling, she had been a loving step mother.

Both women have suffered so much and had they been married things would have been very different.

I got married last month after 30 years together. It was a tiny registry office affair but in the end we both had a fab day, got dressed up and had huge amounts of fun despite the whe thing being for taxpurposes!

I think I would have rights over his pension in death, a divorce claim on his assets. I have neither. I think a divorce case could also be heard in his absence. As it stands I can’t raise a civil case as I don’t know his address.

Another side of this is when a woman is the higher earner and owns the property.

Could have cost me a fortune if I had not have had a reasonable ex-H and the fact that he wasn’t very savvy with money.

The house was mine and I also have a half decent pension. He could have had a claim on the house and requested a settlement from me and he could have also claimed part of my pension. I had savings too, but he has no idea about that.

He lived from one pay day to the next and had no pension or savings.

I knew that he was due a pretty large inheritance when his Dad passed away, so I just said ‘leave my house and my pension alone and I won’t come after any of your inheritance’. He was happy to agree, despite not realising that once we were divorced I couldn’t really go after any of his inheritance, especially if his Dad died years later.

I’l lucky that it was fairly amicable and Al these years later, we get on pretty well.

I would never get married again - mainly to protect myself/house/mortgage/savings etc.

So only two people who earn exactly the same should get married?

How bizarre. Lives have ups and downs money and career wise. Not all contributions are financial.

It’s coming back to marriage or civil partnership is often a useful when shit hits fan.
Lots of people are rubbish at sorting life admin and paperwork.
Unmarried - has he definitely nominated you as recipient for pension/death in service when he changed job? When he changed jobs again? Married usually automatically goes to spouse.
Wills - how many don’t have them. Those that make them forget to update them eg bloke makes will when buys his house as a single man leaving it all to brother. 5 years later meets gf has a baby never updated will - brother inherits.

These threads come up all the time and I never understand what the OP wants from them.

If you genuinely have no idea what the practical advantages of marriage are to anyone, and want to understand why people bother when it’s such a big expensive anti-feminist patriarchal faff, you could always Google it.

If your own circumstances are complex, and you want to know whether there are practical advantages of marriage to you, specifically, then maybe consult a lawyer / financial advisor.

If you are 100% certain you don’t want marriage or civil partnership, and you’ve got it all worked out with wills and trusts and NOK agreements etc, great! Sounds like you have it all covered!

So how can we help you?

(Perhaps you’d just like to tell us a bit more about how insulated you are against the things other women foolishly allow to happen to them?)

I think you will change your mind when your child has a different surname to you. A wedding does not have to cost much at all

We got round to getting married because one of us will die first and I believe it will be easier for the surviving person if we were married.

We weren't in any hurry about it, already had our children, owned property together... but it was something we had always known we should sort out. Then DH had a serious health issue, thankful now resolved. His life wasn't in much danger but it was a wake up call to bloody well get on with it.

We went to the registry office, just us. No name changing, no rings, nothing like that. Nobody else even knows we are officially married.

There's no need for that to happen if OP wants a child to have her surname, regardless of whether they are married or not. It's absolutely irrelevant.

Or just get married in a register office with a couple of witnesses - pretty much the same process as for a civil partnership I think.