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).

Canyouforgiveher, agree with every word of this:

I'm always surprised at how people dismiss marriage. Do you ever wonder why gay people lobbied so long and hard for the right to marry? It isn't because they wanted a big wedding. it is because they were tired and sad and worn out by being excluded from the bedsides of dying partners, given no say in end of life decisions, excluded from benefits their partner could have gotten (insurance/health) if they were married, tired of being liable to inheritance tax, tired of going to lawyers to make complex costly arrangements that anyone else could arrange in one day by buying a marriage license and heading down to the registry office.

The OP could have phrased it better but I think a lot of people are living in a la la land where being a partner is the same as being a spouse because that is the way it ought to be. It isn't.

TheVolatile but you are still not the next of kin and I'm not sure it includes pension etc regardless of living together for 3 years.

As well as pensions there's the tax issues in the UK. Pertinent for many given the house prices here.

Well, it is men who decide how society is run, and what laws are put in place. Feminists have tried to make things better for women for over a hundred years now, with some small successes.

Ideally, women would not marry, because that institution is based on a history of slavery in the UK, and still is an institution of slavery in many parts of the world. So it would be normal for women to shy away from marriage because of all that it represents.

But that's where we get back to men running the show. If women could just "get away" with not getting married, they would. So laws have been put in place to make it that those women who do get married are "looked after" a bit better by the law, because they complied from the beginning.

So the OP is right, unfortunately. Marry him first.

I'm surprised by how many times I've heard friends say that marriage is just a bit of paper. I think there is a real lack of understanding about the legal and financial rights that marriage can give you. I

You must realise that your argument is that women must marry men in order to protect themselves when the marriage breaks down, right?

Precisely. That is what the law upholds.

Another one here who learnt this lesson the hard way.

We did eventually marry after 12 years together, 6 of which I was a SAHP. Three months into our marriage, his OW called me to tell me he'd been having an affair for the previous year. I consulted a solicitor who told me that the previous 12 years cohabitation stood for nothing in the eyes of the law and as such my marriage would be deemed a short one and I would be entitled to very little if anything.

Of course the house was in his name because being out of paid employment, I couldn't go on the mortgage. What was particularly galling was the fact that I had to walk away from my childhood home, we he had bought it from my parents at £30,000 below market value but again this meant nothing.

In the end I shouldn't have bothered marrying him at all because the wedding and divorce has cost me more than I am entitled to in divorce. Or, even better, we should have married before we had children.

Still, I'm just happy to be moving on with my life and I've let go of the unfairness for the most part.

surley if your committed enough to bring children in the world, your committed enough to get married

I think some people genuinely don't believe in marriage and if you are not religious then it does not have the same meaning- for lots of people.
Things have changed hugely in 30 years. I can still remember the stigma around couples who had a child 'out of wedlock' and it was very rare to live together rather than be married. In fact my mum was ashamed of telling her friends that DH and I were living together for 3 months before our wedding date. I think people who are under 40 now have no conception of how society frowned on illegitimacy and to a lesser extent divorce.

The law upholds marriage when it comes down to a division of assets. If you have children to protect - financially- it makes sense to marry or have a pre-nup agreement or some kind of financial security in place if you are the low earner in a couple- and that is often the woman. It is no guarantee of course that the ex will pay up but the law is on your side for a fair settlement.

Mystery 'Of course the house was in his name because being out of paid employment, I couldn't go on the mortgage.'

That's not true actually. You could be a joint owner regardless of whether you worked. I gave up my job when I married due to relocation ( but did work p/t later on) and was named as a joint owner from the moment we were married and have been ever since.

kickass all UK parents have the right to one months unpaid parental leave to care for a sick child m.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=1637 so actually they would have a job to go back to.

The idea that people (women, no ones saying men) should get married in case they have a severely disabled child who requires constant care is ridiculous. For one, that is rare. Secondly why assume it's only the mums responsibility? The heavy physical demands of providing care for an older disabled DC would actually indicate the, usually stronger, man should be the care provider.

Also marriage doesn't affect carers allowance or dla so it's really not going to have a financial benefit either.

Also some of the statements people are making here about divorce law/family law apply only in England & Wales. Scots divorce & family law (especially probate) is very different.

I married after our first child was born, because I (albeit belatedly) looked in to all the legal and financial issues around being unmarried and got an almighty fright! I think more of us need to thrash all these things out and properly understand the legal implications of cohabiting and having children outside of marriage before we do it. I say that with the benefit of hindsight!

We married in a registry office, just our mums as witnesses. It was a lovely day but we didnt do it for moral, religious or romantic reasons. The marriage only took place after I sat my DH down and talked him through it all, the complete lack of protection afforded to me (and our child) if we split etc. We married because it was the simplest, fairest and most effective way to protect each person in our family unit.

I've been defacto for 16 years. Under Australian law we are treated the same as married if we break up.

Maybe campaign for a change in law instead of forcing people into an outdated "religious" institution that they don't believe in?

So pink frocks, don't you think it is unjust to have a law that leaves women, essentially, vulnerable and allows men to skip out on their children?

Maybe that's what we should discuss instead of blaming women for inequitable laws put there by men?

I'm wondering why you have arrived at that question Aussie- I was stating what exists- not the laws I made.

And I am not totally sure that there aren't women - politicians, lawyers etc- who didn't have some input into the current law- are you?

I think marriage is what you make of it, I don't see it as a 'religious institution' at all, and personally I think that only applies to people who are specifically religious.

For me it's a legal and financial contract. I wouldn't go into business with someone without a contract, nor marriage. It's particularly important for SAHMs and women who go part time after children.

I agree that it's a legal and financial contract. If you don't want to enter that kind of contract with somebody then don't. But it's your choice.

There is also masses of evidence that couples who marry and have children are less likely to divorce so for society as a whole it is better to preserve the family unit through marriage. I know this is not a popular thing to say but the stats prove the point.

The difficulty with those statistics, pinfrock, is that the stats for unmarried couples also takes into consideration couples who have only been together a few months before falling pregnant. I don't know if anyone has looked into the figures for the splitting up of couples in long-term (i.e. 5+ years together before having DC) relationships against those of married couples. I reckon the figures would be quite different.

My mother & grandmother at 17 and pregnant got married to avoid shame. They got NOTHING from the subsequent divorce to the penniless husband (within 5 yrs) except a small reduction in public shame and right to put his surname on birth certificates. I'm not seeing that it was a great move, otherwise.

Crap!

Don't have kids with someone who will not be around to help raise them i.e. time + effort + money.

If you think getting married with guarantee that then you have shit for brains.

Marriage does give a little more protection and helps ease the legal process a bit but, frankly, the OP is about money + trust + responsibility.

I have to say, marriage appears to be going the way of christening - its just a big, expensive chavvy party that does not really do what it was originally meant to i.e making a public show and binding two people together.

Statement: not married, two kids, still together.

Of course the house was in his name because being out of paid employment, I couldn't go on the mortgage

I haven't worked for years but not only is my name on the mortgage of our current home and every other home we have owned/mortgaged, but I am also on BTL mortgages together with my DP. I have never married DP but my name is down to receive his life insurance if anything should happen, I get private health care through his employer and I will also receive his pension if anything happens to him. We have been together 35 years.

As for the mortgage company not putting you on the mortgage you do realise your name should be known to them as "someone over the age of 18 living at the property". If you are not then I think your dp could be in breach a term of the mortgage

The title of this thread really fucking annoys me.
I am not married and have no intention to be.
If we split up I would get diddly squat from DP.
He would also get nothing of the savings I have in my name (and have had since before I met him). I am more than capable of supporting my child alone if he decided to disappear.
How about suggesting that women educate themselves about their rights and their entitlements when having children, and encourage them to try to be financially independent and able to stand on their own two feet instead of implying the only security a woman will ever have is if she is lucky enough to have a man marry her. Ffs.

I'm not sure then, it could have been STBXH's lies or the circumstances (house was mostly paid for outright with inheritance he received whilst we were dating and he had very bad credit) but I vaguely remember that I couldn't go on the deeds and had to sign something from the bank saying I would lay no claim on the property in future. Of course he promised to put me on the deeds once it had all gone through but that turned out to be another one of his many many lies. Either way, I am not, and never was on the title to the house and as it was an asset pre-marriage and we were only married for a year (technically 3 months) then I wasn't able to make a claim against the property and was advised by my solicitor to move into rented. If we had married at the beginning, our marriage would have been 12 years and a different kettle of fish entirely.