My boyfriend is still legally married and we are expecting our baby soon

[J18937]

Hello,

Just looking for some advice as could not find an answer on google and I cannot discuss this with family or friends as they do not know my boyfriend is married. I have been with my boyfriend 2 years, as the title says he is legally married to his ex wife still. She is also in a long term relationship and both are on good terms it was an amicable separation. But both my boyfriend and her are really laid back and neither initiated the divorce for a while. My boyfriend has now started the proceedings to get a divorce and the ex wife has agreed as she wants to marry her new partner but the solicitor said it can take up to 26 weeks for the divorce to be finalised.

Our baby will be here by then and what I am concerned about is that when we go to register the birth and put our details down he will have to put he is married and I will have to put I am single? And anyone who sets eyes on the certificate (including our child when older) will not understand the situation and think that our child was like a secret affair baby. Or can my partner lie and say he is not married? If my child tries to do ancestry.com or something when older will he discover records showing that his father was married to another woman when he was born.

I know it sounds a bit silly and I’m thinking so far in to the future but I was really hoping the divorce would be done and dusted within 2-4 weeks because everyone agreed and nothing was being debated. And now I’m just panicked I did not ever imagine that I’d be having a baby with a man married to someone else. I have myself to blame but it’s adding additional stress when I’m pregnant :(. We are all only in our early 20s so I had no clue how complicated a divorce was.

The birth cert only indicates if the mother is married.

do you put you put marital status on a birth certificate? I didn’t think you did.

I'm sure on my children's birth certificates it just lists our names and occupations.

however

1. you don't have to put him on the birth certificate
2. if you two ever get married then technically you are supposed to re-register the birth as a child of the marriage and a new birth certificate would be issued at that point anyway,

Hi OP... I had the same situation.. my DP was still technically married when our son was born.

they want to known if the parents are married to each other... but if one is married to someone else then it doesn't affect the cert
Marital status doesn't go on the birth cert... just parents name and occupation and place of birth

Please don't give your baby your boyfriend's surname. Don't have a different last name to your baby.

Marital status of the parents is not indicated on a birth certificate. You can stop stressing about this.

It lists the parents names, dates and places of birth, and occupations. There is a space for the mother's maiden name.

My advice btw is to be honest with your child about your life stories before their birth. My dad was married to someone else when I was born, in those days you had to wait some time to have a no fault divorce (not having to accuse each other of affairs etc) so they were waiting out their time. I assume I didn’t always know this but I can’t remember being told this as any sort of dramatic news, it’s just an ordinary part of dad’s life story that he was married before, & quirky that they were still married when I was born.

It will definitely take more than 2-4 weeks so they should get a move on. From what I understand from a friend who is currently going through it, it can be done reasonably easily online now.

If there are no kids or property to consider I wouldn't have thought it would take that long.

I also seem to only remember them asking if I was married (mother) when I registered the kids birth.

There's not much you can do to change the timings, I think you may be overthinking a bit but if it upsets you they really need to get a move on in getting the divorce sorted.

It's really not a big deal. It's not the 1920s anymore

Your partner should ensure he gets a financial settlement though. Don’t leave out the money side if there was any to discuss of course!!