Baby before marriage - parents NOT happy

[Oli16]

Me and my boyfriend are expecting our first baby and the way my parents have reacted makes me feel like I’m having a teen pregnancy (I’m 33, been with partner for 5 years who they love)

since telling them at Christmas they have been really weird about it, they say their excited but I’ve had multiple conversations with my mother who keeps asking me how “committed” my partner is and “why hasn’t he proposed to you yet” - I’m finding out their quite traditional and even though I say we have plans to get engaged / married quite soon, it’s left a very bitter feeling between us.

Its pretty common to have a baby before marriage but she says she “feels” for me which made me feel horrendous and upset.

has anyone else experienced people being dicks about having a baby before marriage?

so disappointed and I think they seem miffed too

The OP seems to indicate that she is expecting/waiting for a proposal and she has discussed it with her boyfriend. So it's fair to assume that she does anticipate marrying him.

Marriage didn't Protect me at all. My ex fucked off to Germany to avoid CMS and never had a pension. It was entirely up to me to bring up DS.
I've always had a career and my Own home so we didn't need him or his money.

Exactly. Marriage serves no purpose then except to put you at risk of losing anlot of money if it breaks down. There are other ways to protect against IHT as well so that your children are protected. Everyone here seems to be coming from an angle that they will definitely be reliant on their DH for money. This is only the case if you let it be that.

A parent in receipt of child benefit ( and every family got child benefit) and not working used to be given National Insurance credits to protect pension, so long as she/he had child under 16. Child benefit continued to 19 if child was in full time education but NI credits stopped. I was very lucky because although we missed out on a final few yrs of CB, our DCs were over 16 so I didn't lose pension credits. Now that CB is means tested I wonder if that means SAHMs or SAHDs lose these valuable credits. If so, it's disgraceful.

Congratulations! And they'll get used to it. Are you the first one to have a baby outside of marriage in the family. Maybe it's just a shock to them. I was the first one in mine and I think they all found it weird at first but they got used to it. I'm married now but thankfully to the father of my first child 🤣 Which was also a little bit shocking to them

I don't think that is correct. Next Of Kin isn't a legal term and DD can give her partner's name rather than a relative's. It's really about being the main contact. Back in the day, a hospital would have wanted the name of a spouse or blood relative, if any.

Congratulations! Sorry your parents are making it feel weird! I have two sets of friends who were together for 10+ years before they had kids. 5+ years later both still happily together and no plans in the future to marry. Marriage doesn’t guarantee love or a secure relationship.

I read a different MN post recently where someone said you should use Mum’s surname for DC as then can all easily change when (/if) you decide to marry. I think I’d do that in your situation as it would be important to me to have the same surname as my DC and I’d like to be the one in control of that decision, rather than waiting for DP to be ready for marriage

Ok I stand corrected, but this was what I'd been led to believe.

Why, exactly, is it embarrassing? Specifically that word - embarrassing?

It's not my place to speak for others, @PointsSouth, but personally I'd be uncomfortable that he apparently thought I was good enough to have his child but not to be offered the protection marriage brings

Each to their own as ever, but as said "having plans to propose" simply wouldn't be enough for me after 5 long years

Obviously it would change thinngs if OP didn't want to marry or if the pregnancy was more her choice than his, but the first doesn't seem to be the case and hopefully the second isn't either

I was 37 and had four kids before I got married.

No embarrassment here...

Name one.

OP, I don't understand why they (or anyone else) is making a fuss. Or, indeed, why you care.

You are a mature home-owning adult expecting a baby with a long term partner. Why would you care what anyone else thinks? Their views are literally irrelevant.

And it certainly isn't embarrassing. Where did anyone get that from? 🙄

Views may be irrelevant but facts aren't

When I see these charity people, I always say I'm already signed up and they leave you alone then 😂. They always ask when you're busy, bloody annoying.

Please let this be a joke! It’s 2025 not the 1950s 🤣🤣🤣

Fair enough. 'Uncomfortable'.

But 'embarrassed'?

Thing is, embarrassment requires a perception of how you're perceived by others. To be embarrassed you have to think that other people think something. Because you would.

So @devastatedagain, as she says, would think something embarrassing about herself if she were (and I quote) '33, in a long term relationship and pregnant with no marriage proposal'.

I'd like to know what that thought would be.

this.

by all means get married if you want to give up your financial independence and rely on your dh.

generally marriage is less “protection” than staying in work and remaining financially independent.

most women are shafted on divorce if they’re a sahm with no earning power and kids to take care of.

better off staying in work and unmarried. Then when he leaves you you keep everything you worked for and can still earn.

Now that CB is means tested I wonder if that means SAHMs or SAHDs lose these valuable credits. If so, it's disgraceful

The SAHP in this case should still claim the CB, and then the working parent does a self assessment to have it paid back. Faffy, but ensures the SAHP still get their NI credits.

Sorry to add to the chorus, but I agree with everyone who says she is right to be concerned. It's shocking to me that we have to keep having this debate. The statistics don't lie.

And yes, everyone do advocate for whatever change to marriage law you want. Just know those half-formed theories of what ought to be will not protect you *at all when a variety of incredibly common life events (sickness, SEN, divorce, career preferences...) end up hitting you, as they almost inevitably do.

I would just feel a bit off that I was ok to have a baby with but not good enough to have the commitment and protection of marriage. We got married 5 years into our relationship, got engaged after 3.5. If I had still been sitting there after 5 years with no ring, I'd have been questioning things!

Someone I know stood up in a public place and announced that she had been with her partner for 19 years. Now I, and probably at least half the room, could only think, "why hasn't he put a ring on it?!" Woman also early 30s. No babies... yet!

No it isn't on the wrong thread. What part is confusing you?

Better still, married and continue to work.

There is a way round it. I have three DC and have never lost out on income compared to their father, other than when I was on mat leave, for which I saved.

I honestly think many women (including OP’s mother) are using the wrong measure of a desirable partner.

IMHO, a desirable partner is someone who expects:

• you to be financially independent rather than live off their money,
• to share childcare for their own children and
• to share household chores.

IMHO, an undesirable partner is someone who expects you:

• to give up your financial independence and live off their money
• to look after their children for them,
• to do the household chores.

It seems most of the arguments in favour of marriage are to protect yourself from an undesirable partner.

Not if you’re the higher earner, with better pensions and assets.

Possibly. There are other aspects though like NOK.

Sadly I think there not enough women are higher earners than their husbands/partners.