AIBU to be very shocked only 3% of unmarried parents stay together until child is 16!

[littlemoominmamma]

3% is nothing!!! It is soooo sad. 1 out of every 3 couples have seperated before the child is 5yrs old

I am now glad that the tories are going to give married couples help.

I agree that the past was not necessarily better. People stayed in violent/unhappy marriages because they had no choice, got married only because they were pregant, and lied to cover up illegitimacy, were shunned by their communities, had back street abortions and gave babies that were loved and wanted up for adoption. But they had no choice. These days women have so much more choice, before child birth ever happens. It doesn't matter whether you are a still legally a child, single, married, rich, poor, whatever, the stigma of unmarried sex has been removed, you are educated about sex and birth control, given free BC, counselled, supported, helped if unplanned pregnancy does happen, and given choices about how to proceed. With all that we should have a miniscule rate of unplanned pregnancies, both those that go to term, and a much lower abortion rate. But sadly No.

Abuse changes everything. It is not really, not at all, a distinguishing feature between married and non-married couples. It happens in both types of household. It can't be used as an argument against marriage and in favour of cohabitation, unless you have figures indicating that there is less abuse in cohabiting households.

Or unless you mean that people should not get married because they may be abused and it would be more difficult to leave. That is very far-reaching and one would hope that most marriages, and most cohabitations, at least start without the intention or suspicion of abuse.

Times have moved on and a cohesive aspiration towards stability does not need to include a tolerance of abuse, because it happened in the past. An abusive relationship is of course unstable. Being a married relationship does not change that.

As someone else said, an unplanned PG isn't a disaster. What might be a disaster is coercing a couple with an unplanned PG into marrying when they do not wish to. Again, I speak particularly from my own situation - my DS was unplanned and a big surprise - FWIW I thought I was probably infertile so was less careful with contraception just the once and now have DS.
I do not live with his father, we do not have any kind of couple-relationship. What we do have is an excellent co-parent, family relationship. If we were pressured to move in together, this would all go horribly wrong in short order. So I get very sick and tired of idiots insisting that our family is wrong or unstable or inferior to other families just because heteromonogamous marriage is not something we do or have any wish to do.

It's a pretty good starting point SGB. The potential for potential hurt, awkwardness and petty feuding is pretty much removed from situations like yours. I envy you the excellent co-parenting you and your child's father can offer your son, and I also envy you the pretty certain knowledge that what you have won't change. Well, not because of some women who was texting him and signing off with an X or whatever [yawn]!!

Maggie: I imagine that if DS dad got seriously involved with someone, the dynamics would change a bit, but I do have a certain fundamental trust and respect for him that no matter how besotted he might be with a girlfriend, he would still have the same amount of time for his DS (when I say dynamics would change I mean that right now we do a fair bit of 'family' stuff eg I went along to his parents' wedding anniversary bash whereas I might not do such things if he had an acknowledged partner.)
It possibly helps as well that DS dad and I are both in our 40s and TBH both fairly set in our single-person ways (though he has had a couple of GFs in DS' lifetime, one I and DS met, one we didn't and there were no problems).

The problem is state funding for single parents.

Redbindippers - so do you not have a problem with the state funding a married couple of able-bodied parents who are not working, just because they are married?

solidGoldBrass - I forgot to mention them, perhaps the problem is really state funding and manipulation of any relationship.

I don't quite get what you mean - should the state not fund the poor at all? Should it concentrate on bailing out the banks instead, for instance?

redbindippers, that's a ridiculous comment. It's not a problem. It's the sign of a civilised society. THe problem with a civilised society is that not every individual in it is civilised.

DP and i have been co-habiting for twenty five years...

We have three DCs.

The youngest is 16.The oldest is 23 soon.

I don't know where they get their statistics from cos no one's ever asked us if we're married or not.
We don't have benefits or anything so how do they know.

One thing i do know is that out of all DDs friends from school and now at work,very few have parents who are still together and that includes the married ones.

Maybe that's not counting the parents who later go on to get married, because a lot of my friends had children and then got married. Well a fair few anyway.

I am the only one in my own circle of acquaintance who had a child with a man I wasn't married to and then yes, split up.... but the two were sort of linked. He wouldn't get married because he was selfish and protecting himself, which was partly why I left him in the end, because he was selfish and saw his own perspective. It wasn't the NOT being married that caused the break up. But the reason I left him was all tied up with why he wouldn't get married either.

somebody else is welcome to marry him. if they want him.

[lucky escape face] and my children are fine.

Old thread ladies!

wow brompton bugle, i really admire you for taking out a schedule one case against your x. I lived with my x for 8 years and left with two kids and the clothes on our backs. He was a selfish, devious man. He co-coerced me into giving up my job and i'd no choice because he refused point blank to help with the childcare. Good luck to you and your son. We haven't seen a penny in maintenance either.....

Some coupes claim to live apart but are actually together, it's fairly common and it means they get more tax credits/benefits.

Which is wrong on the governments part because ultimately it costs more. I'd question the accuracy of those figures tbh

really old thread, bumped by someone spamminggiving their/a company a really bad name!

or even, trying to get hits on their blog!

Ah,i wondered how it came up with so many posts so quickly..

ZOMBIE THREAD

Here, have my very first .

I would personally like to get married, but there is nothing wrong with not being married. The tories just favor married couples - doing anything to give them extra benefits and make sure couples stay in their marriage. They complain that society has too many broken marriages, but they are stupid enough to do things that will probably create them!

Sometimes 'help' isn't enough. Every individual situation is different, and sometimes the individuals or those surrounding them are happier/better off if the couple separate.

It's bad enough that relationships where the couple aren't married are not recognised in the eyes of immigration and many governments.