Can someone explain why I'm naive not to get married?

[bohoec]

I've read on mn a few times that remaining unmarried with a child is naive.

I'm not married, live with DP and we have 1 child. We have no intention of getting married (I don't want this to be hijacked as a thread about marriage, really. We're both happy with the commitment we've made by having a child together).

We have a joint bank account plus our own accounts, joint mortgage - he pays slightly more than me towards the mortgage as he earns more. We own our house jointly. All bills, food, DCs clothes etc paid for from joint account.

He is in the forces, I am his next of kin in his will. I don't have a will (now on that I KNOW I'm being stupid - I will get it sorted).

I'm p/t, he's f/t. Our salaries are about equal, but mine is pro rata so I take home less. I have a pension with work, as does he, and we're each named in each other's pension plans.

We have no issues about money. I have access to his online accounts and vice versa and there's no tension around what we spend our own money on once bills, food and DCs needs are met (it's not that great, we each end up with about 10p after all that ).

So, do we need to be married to protect myself / DC? Or should we get some kind of agreement written up?

We have a good relationship, so I've no reason to think I'll need "protecting" financially, but I'm worried I'm missing something. Am I?

Any advice greatly appreciated.

Everything is ok with your arrangement unless you split up. If you are not married then you can never get divorced. There's no real rules for co habiting partners who split up.

Especially if either of you get married quickly after splitting with each other.

The arrangements mean something to you both because you are both interested in the relationship. What have you got to grab him by the short and curlies if he or you want out of things.

It would just be so easy for my husband to tell his works payroll what his new banking arrangements are......

Not that he would, well, in the present circumstances i.e. we are happy.

Me and dp are not married, broadly speaking for ideological, though not very strongly-held reasons. On the practical side of things, because of the way our finances work out we would probably both be equally advantaged / disadvantaged if we split up. But if there were ever a very good practical / financial reason for getting married - eg if we should ever fall in the inheritance tax bracket (unlikely! but who knows) - I've always thought we probably would.

My experience of forces families though is that in that particular situation I think there probably is a practical argument for getting married, since I think there is a chance you would be treated differently and disadvantaged in the event of anything happening to your dp. For me in your situation that would probably override my ideological objections.

Is he likely to be posted to an overseas base where he can take dependants? That was our trigger for getting married. The military will not pay your expenses or sponsor you to live on a foreign base or support you in any way if you aren't married. Unmarried partners are at the mercy of the CO.

As long as everything is sorted in civvy street, inheritance tax aside, there is not much difference. Add the Forces in and the arguments for getting married in terms of mobility and support are huge. The Forces look after their own, but you're only their own if you've got the paper to prove it.

"I've already discussed this with DP and we'd both be happy to pop to the registry office for a no fuss marriage but I just wanted some advice on why that would be better than the arrangements we have in place now."

Then I would do this!

Bear in mind that the nil rate band for inheritance tax is currently £325k so you'd only pay tax on anything over that regardless of who you left it to.

You might want to consider a cohabitation agreement. Plenty of law firms can advise you on this.

You could also choose to own your property as tenants in common with each of you owning a distinct share. Simple land registry form to do this.