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marriage is for me, for various reasons including expense/stress of a wedding and a feeling that the institution is outdated/anti-feminist.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?

In a medical sense NOK is whoever you decide, not based on relationship in the UK. Also your NOK does not make any medical decisions for you if you are incapacitated, that would be for your doctor's to decide. If you want anyone to be able to make medical decisions, then get Power of Attorney for health and welfare.

I think if you've set up your wills and Power of Attorney then tax is probably the only benefit, but as the higher earner you would probably be worse off in a divorce.
From a purely practical point of view there are probably small risks either way.

I'm with you OP, I dont see any benefits. I lost everything in a divorce, marriage provided zero benefit or protection. I now have a child from previous marriage and want her to inherit my stuff, not new partner, which happens automatically if i stay unmarried but would require wills if i got married. I figure it's up to me to provide protection against loss of earnings via insurances etc, not rely on a partner who could also suffer loss of earnings.

Your life and financial security can change in a heartbeat!

Tbh, marriage left me wide open to the whims and spite of a man; remaining walled off rather than legally joined to him would have given him far less power to fuck me up as completely as he did.

I will give you a single reason. And a good one.

Assuming the fertility treatment works and I very much hope you have a healthy baby, but just to give you a reason. If your baby is ill, before you have registered the birth ie you are both still in hospital only you will have parental responsibility.

You are planning a child together?
Real life reasons to be married first.
-Example 1- Mother became extremely ill during birth to point of needing to be in intensive care at the highest level for months, survival was at times not looking likely. Without marriage the father of the baby would not actually have parental responsibility that means that women's parents would make all decisions regarding the also very sick baby. Children's services would have to be involved and actually the father can't name the baby.
Luckily in this scenario they were married.
Example 2- Child is born with disabilities that require around the clock care. multiple hospital appointments and child will never be independent. Who will stop work to care for that child? The person who has to give up a career will lose out on pension, income, social interaction etc etc. It's usually the mother who ends up having to stop work and often the relationship breaks down. Marriage offers some protection.

Please do consider worst case scenarios they do happen. You can go from a healthy happy situation to death. illness and disability within the space of a day and yes it really does happen.

Marriage is no longer the same as it was previously and the divorce rate is rather high. It’s a very sensible option to weigh up if it’s the right thing to do financially.

If you’re the financially weaker partner, going to be a SAHP or basically lose a lot of your income working PT in a low paid role, marriage offers some financial security.

However your circumstances are different as you’re not starting on a level playing field. Instead of early 20’s with similar assets, you are a bit older and you are the higher earner even when PT. Not just that but your other savings and pension as well as higher house equity. You will need legal advice on the impact of marriage for the declaration of trust and whether the marriage could negatively impact its reasoning in the first place

It's maintenance, which is ongoing, half your pension and any future assets if they are substantial. A deed of trust is not in any way comparable.

If one of you were to become seriously ill, get involved in an accident and were unable to give consent to share medical information, the hospital would tell you nothing. Neither would banks, you would be locked out from access to all that vital information.

The divorce rate has been falling for more than 20 years. Yes fewer people are marrying but also a smaller proportion are getting divorced.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/divorce/bulletins/divorcesinenglandandwales/2023

The divorce rate has been falling for more than 20 years. Yes fewer people are marrying but also a smaller proportion are getting divorced.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/divorce/bulletins/divorcesinenglandandwales/2023

This is the thing everyone forgets when they urge women to get married. Marriage is designed to protect a full time carer/home-maker. It's essential if you're a SAHM. If you are the breadwinner in the relationship getting married is an actively bad idea.

We had a very small wedding… 2 sets of parents, brother and our 2 children in registry office and a meal afterwards.
I, like you, had no desire for a white dress and a big party and my partner didn’t either. We were financially similar and had wills etc.
What changed? The value of our house went up and inheritance tax became an issue and my job didn’t progress in the way I hoped with our second child was born and there became a disparity and I felt financially a bit vulnerable. So we got married (no romantic proposal just a very honest chat) Still married 20 years later. Financially again more similar !
The only downside was my eldest felt a bit aggrieved when someone at school pointed out he was technically a bastard for being born out of wedlock and that seemed to be a big deal when he was 15.
It was really simple to get married, I just phoned and booked the registry office for a day during the week, plenty of availability for the small room.
Now I’m older, and we’ve had ups and down in our relationship, illness, redundancies, bereavements I’ve been happy with the sense of security marriage gave me … maybe I would have felt the same if we were unmarried but I guess I will never know.

To be fair it was a lot more than due to practicalities it was also because of equality.

Lots of people are saying there are tax advantages to being married but I can’t find much about that online unless one of you earns a tiny amount - under £12,570? https://www.gov.uk/marriage-allowance

Are there any other tax advantages?

I was thinking main breadwinner for the first 0 years of our relationship. Then got chronically I'll and things switched.

Our lives have also changed since we got married. We are now in our sixties and have sadly seen a lot of illness and death affect people we know. We are living in a different country to our relations and had to draw up wills which took that into account for our kids. Life doesn't work out the way it's supposed to for a lot of people.

Next of kin being "whoever you want it to be" is simply not true. I knew a man who had kids and ended that relationship and started a new one, and then he died. His current partner was not your next of kin and was entirely disregarded by police and coroners. His children were next of kin in order of age and when he died as they are not of age yet believe it or not their mother, who he detested was his next of kin. The police only signed out keys to his council flat to her, not his own mother or his partner at time of death.
She went in and rummaged through everything looking for anything her kids would like but left the place in a burgled looking state when she finally passed on the keys to his girlfriend. Of course she never paid for the funeral though. His mum had no rights but had to pay the funeral costs.
The ex was point of contact of the police and coroners and left mother and girlfriend behind with updates.
Police said that if he had married and divorced his ex then there's no way the ex would have been next of kin considering the situation it may have been possible to go to kids and then his mother seeing as though the kids were underage. Girlfriend again was never going to be next of kin in these circumstances.

Capital Gains. Income from Property.

Inheritance tax surely?

@Movinghouseatlast whilst you’re alive does that only impact investment properties or shares, so not a huge impact on the average person?

@Needlenardlenoo I see, thanks. So it is all about planning for your death, if you want your partner to receive the house without a tax bill.

It really depends on your circumstances. I agree you can replicate the protections of marriage for the lower earning partner or the one who puts career aside (who is not always a woman !) outside marriage.

For us it was, yes. But then we are older so it's got to be considered.
With no official tie it would make the surviving partner's life much harder at a time when they are also dealing with the loss of their life-partner. It's not just about not paying tax, more about simplifying things at a difficult time.

The Tom Ford film 'A Single Man' shows movingly the possible outcomes of a relationship that's long term but not "official". In that case, as it's set in the 50s and a same-sex couple, there was no other option.

I had more money and earned more than DH early into the marriage. a few years in, and 2 DC with SN later, I had to give up career, work now in a low paid part time role whilst DH now earn about 3x as much as me. You just don't know what is around the corner....