Obviously I've name changed for this. DP and I (both women) have been together for about a decade, but for various reasons we don't yet live together: we each have children from our previous relationships who we have wanted to keep things as stable for as possible, we have each been divorced (prior to meeting each other) and have been anxious to maintain financial autonomy as we rebuilt our lives, etc. We live in the same city, but for a long time, we have both really valued having our own homes, our own finances, etc. However, as the children are getting older (now 15, 15, 13, 12), we're reassessing. From a romantic perspective, it would obviously be lovely to live together, and to be married! The kids love each other to pieces and we really want to be a family, rather than two families whose parents are in a relationship, if that makes sense.
Concerns are that due to several reasons including disability, she works part time, and earns (what I consider to be) very little - little enough that she only just pays tax and student loan payments. Her job is a solid one though, and her employer pays generously into her pension. She currently receives universal credit on top of her earnings, although the amount will change soon as there's an element of it that's dependent on the age of your children - she'll still get some, but not as much as she currently does. Her two children will be entitled to the maximum student loans.
I am a sole trader, work full time from home, and earn what I consider to be decent money, but not loads. After tax and pension payments, my annual income is about twice hers (not including her UC payments). Obviously I pay into my own pension, and don't have an employer to make contributions. I didn't pay into one for some time when my children were very little, and I am somewhat frantically playing catch up. My children will be entitled to less student loan than hers, with the expectation that I will contribute more for them.
Because I pay so much more into my pension, without an employer contribution, and because she is topped up by UC, we actually have about the same amount of money hit our accounts each month.
If we get married and move in together, she will lose all her UC because they would obviously include my income in their calculations. In addition, her children would lose access to the full student loans, and as a household we would have four children who would need a substantial top up during uni years - which will be the same years, as they're all very close in age! Some of our expenses would be less than they are now - though not that much less, because we currently each have a very small three bedroom house, and to live together would mean we'd need a five bedroom house, at least while the children are all living at home. So our housing costs would probably be similar, our council tax and bills would be about the same (as although only one bill, it would be a much bigger house), etc. We'd still need two cars. So essentially she would lose thousands of pounds of yearly income - but our expenses would be pretty much the same, and neither of us are swimming in excess cash each month!
I definitely couldn't contribute as much more to the family pot as she would be losing. In an ideal world, she'd work full time and top up her own income that way, but it's really very difficult for her to do so.
I feel quite hopeless about it, like we started this way of doing our relationship for good and sensible reasons, and it's been right for us - but now we feel really tied in to it. Until all four children have left home and university, and don't need bedrooms with us or financial support, it feels like maybe we're just stuck living apart, and not being able to get married.
Am I missing anything that would make it doable? I could stop paying so much into retirement but I am really nervous about doing so. We could wait until the older two are at uni before we move in, but then we worry about them feeling they don't have a home to come back to. Am I catastrophising about expenses? I don't want her to feel under pressure to magic up more money each month, and equally, I can't find it myself and already work full time, very hard. What to do!?