can I please shout. Do NOT HAVE CHILDREN WITHOUT GETTING MARRIED FIRST ..

[Patchworkpatty]

Feel so sad to have just read another really sad thread about a lovely woman who is trying to escape a horrendously awful relationship, 3 small children, he earns big bucks, she is SAHM and has NO funds to get out and get a new home. If she was married she could have gone to a lawyer, explained situation and have had a guarantee of a lump sum to restart her life, she may even have got an interim payment to help her. I feel strongly that women do not know the value (legally amongst many other reasons) of marriage. So many women these days agree to having children and accept the ' not ready for marriage ' or 'it's just a piece of paper' lie as acceptable. Imo if you are ready for children, have decided you are both parent material and want babies, then what reasons can there be not to ? unless your OH doesn't feel the same. (with the exception of course of very high earning women who don't take more than a few weeks maternity leave and don't care about state pensions and being next of kin).

frank there is no such concept as 'next of kin', it has no legal definition in the uk.

Re a comment made earlier by CultureSucksdownWords:-

"But tbh if my DP died I wouldn't give a stuff that his parents or siblings would need to register it".

Hmmm. You may well think differently however, if that did happen to you without any say on your part.

This subject to my mind should be discussed in schools. It never fails to sadden me how many women, in particular unmarried women, are truly left up the financial creek without a paddle when their man dies unexpectedly. Some end up relying on the good will of the deceased's parents. Such people cannot choose a headstone nor open Letters of Administration. This is all important stuff and wills simply do not cover such eventualities.

Not all couples be they married or cohabitants make wills or even update them regularly. It is estimated between half and two-thirds of the adult population of this country do not have a will. It is thought that those most in need of a will – such as cohabitees – are more likely not to have one. The report also pointed to an ignorance of the law in relation to death, and particularly what happens to the estate of a deceased person who dies without a will (“intestate”) whether married or unmarried. Many couples simply don’t know what will happen if one of them dies intestate, or with a will that makes insufficient provision for all of that person’s dependents. Such dependents can include include a former wife, a cohabitee and children.

Women also are having to deal with their own emotional grief on top of real financial hardship. As an unmarried woman as well, such women are not entitled to receive any widows allowance (currently around £110 a week) from the government as this is only paid to married women.

Very few people are aware that their automatic entitlement is nothing at all if they are unmarried and their partner dies intestate. Even married partners are left in difficulty because of the archaic nature of intestacy law.

If you do not have a will currently, I would urge you to make one asap.

Having children is a bigger commitment than having children regardless of th different nature of the relationships, because if a marriage with no children breaks up, once the divorce is final you need never see the other person again if you don't want to.

Once children are involved, it's likely that you'll have to remain in contact because of the shared responsibility, whether you were married or not. I see plenty of posts on here from mothers who would gladly never speak to their ex again, but are obliged to for the sake of their children.

I agree, OP. See it here all the time, women who jack in work to be SAHM and are unmarried. BAD move.

That should say "having children is a bigger commitment than getting married" of course!

Not in the eyes of the law, mrsfrumble and that is the only thing that counts when it comes to the divvying up of assets.

Attila, don't be so patronising. I know how I feel about these things, and I know my partner's family (you do not). And as it turns out the death registering is a red herring, as the gov.uk website clearly states that various people can register deaths.

You can shout all you like but don't expect people to listen!!

I'm a single (never married) mum. Lots of my friends are also single parents. Those of us who weren't married had, on the whole, an easier and less stressful separation than those who were married.

Oh yes, I understand that BatteryPoweredHen!

I do struggle to understand why some people resist marriage on the grounds of commitment, yet happily go ahead and have children. (although I do realise that there are lots of other reasons to not want to marry, before I get my arse flamed....)

I am not being patronising; I just hope that his parents and you continue to see eye to eye in the event of your man dying unexpectedly. Have seen some examples on here of women being entirely dependent upon the goodwill of the deceased's parents and financial hardship can be a real possibility.

I think maybe there should be more information about the legal consequences of marriage or cohabiting and maybe more modest weddings should come into fashion for those whose interests are best served by marriage.

Ah, sorry mrsf I think I misinterpreted your post...

sleeponeday, you say The reality is that the law needs to be altered to reflect modern social norms, so forming a family and remaining within it for a certain qualifying period endows certain protections and rights.

I would say what needs to change is people believing they can't get married until they've saved up or borrowed ludicrously large sums of money for a large, expensive wedding. Getting married can be done very cheaply indeed - you just need to pay for a licence. Lots of people nowadays have children together, buy a house together (if they can afford to) and eventually, ten or twenty years after they first move in together, they have a wedding. Wrong way round.

My sister was married. It didn't benefit her (or him) AT ALL when she split with her ex. In fact it made a fairly straightforward split far more expensive and stressful than it would have been if they hadn't been married. They had no assets other than the house which was in negative equity and would have cost them £££ to sell it. She gets child maintenance from her ex, which he would have paid anyway, and she has paid out more in solicitors fees to pay for the divorce than she has received from the marriage.

The unmarried mothers I know who are sahms are all low earners, but for them marriage isn't an issue because their partners are low earners too and there are no assets to be shared. I know other unmarried mothers who are financially independent, so again, marriage doesn't provide them with a massive amount of protection. It seems to me that the people who need to get married before children are the couples with a large disparity in incomes.

I found you to be patronising Attila, clearly you didn't intend to be.

The registering of a partner's death can be done by the unmarried partner as the gov.uk website says, so your remarks are not relevant anyway.

I also believe the law should stay as it is. Men can become fathers accidentally, and indeed through subterfuge, is it right that every time a man has sex he takes a gamble with half his net worth?

But that's two extreme options. It doesn't need to be equal rights for cohabitants, and nor does it need to be that the mere fact of a shared child should qualify a couple as having reciprocal obligations. It should, IMO, be a qualifying time of cohabitation, with the time longer for those without children, and it should be less financially protected than marriage. But it should not be the case that a long term relationship with children has no legal status at all, if a split leaves one party in dire financial straits.

I know a married woman with 3 children, terribly unhappy, but claims she can't leave because they wouldn't have the same standard of living and type of house after a divorce. He has a good salary and the house is probably worth around £700k with plenty of equity. So it seems that the 'security' of alimony doesn't provide some women with the confidence to start a new life either.

There is a marked difference between choosing to remain in an unsatisfactory relationship because the lifestyle makes it worth it to you, and being potentially forced to remain in an abusive one because the alternative is homelessness. It also assumes that the decision to end the relationship is always on the poorer party. It isn't. An unmarried woman can be forced out of the family home, with no claim on it or savings, if she has not paid towards it - even if lower wages paid for food, or other family expenses. That can be so after decades, where she has performed all the labour of maintaining it and caring for the children. A married woman is assumed to own an equal share.

That's even without the issue of who is the legally entitled party if one side is ill, or dies. Let alone where there's no will - which happens painfully frequently. And sure, that's careless. Not sorting things with a solicitor may be, too. But people are careless, and should the penalties for that really be so desperately high, and payable just when their lives are, by definition, already in pretty awful places? When bereaved, or facing relationship breakdown?

I agree, Gasp. Sooo many threads on here with 'We can't afford a wedding. . . ' You don't need one. You don't even need rings.

That's a naive way of looking at things. Plenty of women are also married to men who have zero assets to hand over a lump sum. They still leave and eventually through hard work and determination carve out a new life for them self. There are benefits in place to support people in these situations, education to build a career for oneself.

Fact of the matter is if you really want out, you can do it. I did it, slowly but surely I am getting more independent and things are looking up.

Completely agree OP.

...it should not be the case that a long term relationship with children has no legal status at all, if a split leaves one party in dire financial straits.

why should it have legal status? People should have the choice; it is not up to the state to decide thst once you have had a child with someone and lived with them for n years you must then share your assets with them.

People can already choose this set up if it's what they want, by marrying their partner.

Battery - there is actually a very real definition for N.O.K - I work day in day out within a legal framework pertaining to healthcare - and N.O.K within certain acts of law is certainly very real .
In certain acts the displacement of a N.O.K can only be done through a court of law so please make sure you have all the facts before making such statements.

Because research has found that a large marjority of people - in the 70th centile, type large - think there is such a thing as common law marriage. And they learn to the contrary at especially awful times.

Also because vulnerable people are protected in law. That's part of what the law is for. And while nobody should be signed up for the comprehensive financial and legal enmeshment of marriage without choosing to be, there should also be a middle way in which people who have also freely chosen to enmesh their lives in a family set-up don't benefit upon breakdown at the other's expense. There should be some protection there.

There does seem to be a rather bootstrap, I'mallrightjack narrative going on here. What is so deeply objectionable about accepting that not all relationships are healthy, not all relationships are logical, and that people may not always make the most logical choices, without that being their lookout and tough titties? Why shouldn't the law intervene to help? Apart from anything else, we yet again come up against the fact that children of longterm cohabitational relationships lose out, and they had no choices at all.

I'm not saying someone who gets pregnant should have rights on that basis. I'm not saying a couple sharing a flat for a couple of years should. I'm saying a couple who have been together a decade or more, and raised a family together, should not be treated in law exactly as two strangers would be. And that being a controversial position does rather surprise me, really.

In the UK, Only under the mental health act, and that is seldom relevant in matters of intestacy.

I have the facts, thanks. You might need to brush up yourself...this is a useful starting point...

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_of_kin

It's not controversial, but the solution used to be to get married. If a man and a woman wanted to live together, there was huge social pressure to get married first, and certainly to be married before having children. Yes, it wasn't (and isn't) a perfect institution, but it saved a lot of problems for many people when one spouse left or died.

The advice my mum gave me is the same I give my dds - Always be financially independent - have your own career and your own money.