if you are going to be a SAHM or rely on partners income.. please please get married before agreeing to children.

[Marilynsbigsister]

I don't think I have ever seen a week like it on MN for women getting shafted by partners and father of their children. At least 4 or 5 threads on here at the moment from women left without homes and losing their way of life because their 'partners' have decided they want out. In the latest thread, the lady in question has been living together for 30yrs and will leave with only cm for two of their four children..(the others are over 18) . He has created a successful business while she has bought up a family. This is not recognised by the courts as they are not married.. Please please DO NOT have children with a man who doesn't respect you enough to marry, especially if you intend to stay home to raise baby or will only earn a part time wage and property is owned by partner... until the law is changed (not before time)

Yes if the guy is a lodger or only makes a very small amount, I don't think it matters too much to get married.

I'm both the high earner and property owner and I'm having a baby with dp and won't marry him but my situation is slightly different in that I already have a son from a previous liaison who I have raised alone and never received a penny for. I need to protect my son's interests too, particularly if I died. Plus, I couldn't envisage dp having more than 50% contact of the baby if we split. If anything I would want to be the resident parent. Dp does work full time so he wouldn't be left high and dry.

This whole argument misses out the most important point: you can't force someone to marry you!

Dp told me he wanted to get married and have dcs. Then after dc1 was born he said he was anti-marriage!

What are mothers with marriage refusing dp's supposed to do? Break up a family just over that?

It's a horrible trap to get stuck in.

The solution isn't really marriage, its financial independence for mothers.

lightbulb I suppose the point the OP is making is that it makes sense to get married before having the children if you intend to give up work and be financially dependent on your OH (not get married after the children are already here).

Prior to 2002 it made even more sense to get married before having children because prior to that the man didn't have automatic parental rights if he wasn't married even if he was named on the child's birth certificate.

You can't, but you can decide not to have any/more DC with them without marriage, and stay in work full time. Although even then, if you're the one getting pregnant and needing to take at least some of the ML, statistically it will have an impact on your earning power and credibility at work. So financial independence isn't the whole answer either, because on average the woman will be the one lumbered with at least some financial disadvantage.

Fundamentally, it's a good idea to ensure you're married, not engaged but married, before having DC if it's important to you. There'll always be contraceptive mishaps etc, and unless you choose to abstain before marriage which most people don't, there's a risk of this. So it's not a foolproof plan, but it's something that should work for the great majority of women.

iminshock, you say:

^Far too simplistic. I out earned my kids' dad by a mile. I owned my house .
I should have married him...er....why ? So he could claim half when we split ? ( which we did ) . It's rarely in the interest of a higher earner to marry. Applies to men and women equally...If " in case we split I will be financially better off" is your reason, the reverse is EXACTLY why your partner might NOT want to marry you.^

Why is this so hard for some people to understand?

I don't think this is hard to understand, but this is where respect comes in. Here's a made-up name with gender-neutral names.

Sam and Chris have been together for a few months and are now moving in together. Sam has a very highly paid job and has bought a flat. The deeds are in Sam's sole name. Sam has good pension provision, some savings, excellent prospects. Chris is not long out of drama school and trying to get acting jobs, but making ends meet as necessary by doing bar work, temping in offices and retail and so on. Chris's income is low and unpredictable and Chris has no savings and no pension provision.

Fast forward three years. Sam and Chris now have a 1yo child, Joey. Sam is now earning a much higher salary and working insanely long hours. Chris's acting ambitions have fizzled out. Chris is at home full-time with Joey and running the house, cooking all meals, paying bills, doing all sorts of personal/household admin for both partners and Joey. The alternative was to pay for childcare which would often have amounted to more than Chris's earnings for the week. The arrangement seems to suit everyone.

Fast forward another three years. Sam and Chris have split up. Sam is now with Alex. Chris is still doing most of the childcare for Joey because Sam and Alex work very long hours. Chris needs to get back to employment but it's going to be tricky after this long break and with such a patchy record from earlier years.

If Sam and Chris had got married somewhere along the way, Chris would be a lot better off after divorce than if they were simply co-habiting partners. Obviously Sam would be much worse off financially, but this is where respect and human decency come into it. Why would any decent person want their former partner in life and perforce their child/ren to face a sudden huge drop in income and living standards? Why wouldn't you want to be fair to them?

Answer: obviously, not everybody is decent and of course not all SAHPs have behaved well and done a good job. But most of them don't deserve a kicking, surely?

Just to clarify: the reason I mentioned parental rights is that a parent is not able to consent to medical treatment for their child if they have no parental rights. There is also potential problems if the mother dies and the father does not have parental rights.

I do think the law regarding financial splitting of assets should be changed to reflect children born into unmarried families and to ensure that they are adequately provided for (if the family has any assets), but at the moment the law doesn't do that so marriage prior to conception is the preferred option for me and I think the sensible option for many.

I agree with dixie. Sometimes mn is like a parallel universe where everybody has lots of money, property, great pensions, investments and so on.

DP has naff all so I don't see how I would benefit from marriage in case of a split. This blanket advice for ALL sahm to get married first is a load of bull.

Solidgoldbrass you hit the nail on the head.....well in my case anyway. I am wife no 2, soon to be making way for no 3.

I Left my emotionally abusive ex partner- we have two kids together. I'm now a single working mother. I'm the higher earner- I'm so glad I was NOT married.

marriage meant nothing in my situation, I gave up work after dc2 and went on to have another, I left after12 years of marriage and 3 dcs. In my case, my ex had an arrangement with his family over 'our' home that no-one thought to advise me about, had they done so I would have walked after dc 1 while I still had a job and only 1 dc. I left with next to nothing, he still lives in what was our home and pays minimal cm. but that's an extreme case - he isn't a very nice person!

It's heartbreaking when you read some of the stories on MN about people royally screwed over because they didn't protect themselves, by marriage or other means like getting their name on the deeds of the house.

Even if you/your partner have no assets you should at least get clued up. Get your name on the lease, don't let your partner take out joint loans/joint credit cards, don't rely on them for your personal financial welfare. Don't move to the country if you can't drive or don't have access to a car. Basically just don't get swept up by love and romance and broodiness that you take such risks with your financial future.

Just to put the boot on the other foot - my friend is married and a very high earner. His wife has never worked, dcs mostly been in boarding school since very young. He pays for everything, absolutely everything, and provides financially for the whole family. If they divorce, she gets half of everything he has worked for and owns. Fair?

"Far too simplistic.
I out earned my kids' dad by a mile. I owned my house .
I should have married him...er....why ? So he could claim half when we split ? ( which we did ) . It's rarely in the interest of a higher earner to marry. Applies to men and women equally"

Did he stay at home to look after DCs? Did he put his career on hold so you could out earn him?

Twist this round to

"Far too simplistic.
I out earned my kids' MUM by a mile. I owned my house .
I should have married HER ...er....why ? So SHE could claim half when we split ? ( which we did ) . It's rarely in the interest of a higher earner to marry. Applies to men and women equally"

Its hardly ever in the interest of the high earner, because its the LOW/NON earner that needs the help, not the bloody high earner

Dementedma, why hasnt she worked, maybe they decided between them that he would prefer her at home?

Do you know why ?

I agree with a PP who said that it probably doesn't apply to those who don't have much in the way of assets/savings etc.

If you were renting and scraping by as a SAHP to a low earning partner then what early would you be entitled to half of if you split?

If you were in a relationship with a mega rich banker and a SAHP to his 5 children then obviously you would be foolish to not ensure some financial security through marriage.

I'm sure most of us sit somewhere in the middle though, with a mortgage and some assets/savings etc.

I am married and have a mortgage and some savings. If I was still full time at work DH and I would earn roughly the same. The house is in both names, ditto savings. The car is in his name but he did buy it before we were married. I'm not sure what else we have that is up for grabs if we split?

If I was full time at work would it matter if we were married or not?

I don't think it's about the marriage so much as knowing what being unmarried means and making decisions on that basis.

Yes, she just never needed to or wanted to. The dcs are away most of the year, they have housekeepers etc so she didn't really have to do anything. Just seems odd to me that she would be entitled to half of everything...but good luck to her I suppose.

demented but she is probably stillprotecting the kids by being married.

Say the DH turfed her and the kids out? Where would they live in the school holidays? Or should she be satisfied that he could afford to hire a workforce to look after them on her behalf?

It is really important that everyone looks at security and fairness once in a situation where on person provides the money and one the 'in kind' contribution in running a family and household.
Everyone needs to fully understand the law around house ownership, pensions, savings, assets, maintenance etc. And to look at it coolly and thoroughly and make the best decision for them.

I think this is one strong reason for civil partnership. A contract that would protect both parties but be easier to dissolve and could be superseded by a marriage later if wished.

Yes, couples could have a civil wedding but as things stand, men are encouraged to think of marriage as something to be avoided, to remain young and carefree as long as possible. "A wedding" is an easy thing to put off "until we've saved up", "until the children are old enough to enjoy it" etc. A civil partnership would be much harder to argue against without showing your true colours and could become an easy option when buying a house, giving up/reducing work after a baby etc - anything that could create disparity at a later stage.

I dunno, civil partnerships aren't really any easier to dissolve than a marriage. There are only a few legal differences between the two. It would help people who object to marriage for political reasons or whatever, but they're quite a small group compared to people who don't get married because they wrongly believe they're covered without it. I can't see how CP would help them, and since it involves similar financial rights and obligations to marriage, we'd still have the issue of wealthier partners avoiding it for that reason. Mostly male of course.

Why would someone want a civil partnership and not a marriage? they're basically the same thing

"A civil partnership is, in effect, a legal marriage between two people of the same sex. Although there are differences between a marriage and a civil partnership, a couple who form a civil partnership have the same legal rights as a married couple.

from findlaw on the web
What’s the difference?

There is, essentially, very little difference legally between a marriage and a civil partnership except that the former is intended only for heterosexual couples and the latter for homosexual couples.

The difference exists principally due to protests from religious groups about recognising same-sex couples and heterosexual couples in the same way. In fact, religious institutions are not legally permitted to perform civil partnerships."

from
www.gaystarnews.com/article/seven-ways-civil-partnership-isnt-same-marriage250113/#gs.X9elACw

Financial rights
Civil partners do not have the same pension rights as married couples. If one civil partner dies, the pension share that the surviving partner receives is often lower and lasts for less time than with married couples.
The reason for this is the pension a surviving partner is entitled to is measured differently depending on whether they have been civil partnered or married.
For civil partners, public sector schemes are dated back to 1988. For private sector schemes, it need only be backdated to the Civil Partnership Act 2004.
But for married couples, a surviving partner is entitled to a pension based on the number of years their spouse paid into the pension fund.

Adultery and vows
Unlike marriages, consummation is not a legal requirement of civil partnerships. Neither is adultery recognized as grounds for dissolution. These differences won’t be addressed by the new equal marriage legislation as the government does not intend to re-write these areas of law.

What a fantastic scenario gasp0de . I think that explains exactly what I was trying unsuccessfully to say about 'respect' and also answers the rather sad and disheartening posts from some high earning women who were 'pleased' they didn't have to share their hard earned lifestyle with their poorer ex partners.
This was not meant as a gender specific post, it was written in response to reading 4 or 5 really sad threads this week alone, by (in this case) women who had dedicated years - the last post I read was 30 yrs ! - as a partner. Bought up 4 kids, looked after a household enabling him to build a business only to be left with nothing.
I think the very straightforward answer to the poster who says 'what about partners who refuse to marry. ? Do not have children first if you want the security that comes with marriage. If partner is reluctant even once it has been explained how different the legal position is for cohabitee vs spouse, then it is back to the respect issue again. Why would either party want the parent of their child to be at such a disadvantage ?
The last point I want to address is the issue of taking steps to 'legalise' living together relationships. Whilst this is of course better than not doing anything. It is a very long way away from the legalities marriage confers and an awful lot more expensive to have agreements drawn up that can be rescinded without the other party knowing than the cost of a marriage.
As well as the issues that have been discussed on here already, there are some rights that spouses have that it is not possible to obtain in any other way. The main one being the state pension. If you marry your partner, and s/he has the higher paying job and you are a sahm/f or work part time, your pension will be substantially less than your high earning spouse. If s/he were to die before pension age, you would be entitled to a widow/ers payment and once retired, would inherit his/her state pension. If you do not marry, you are not regarded as a widow/er and will be entitled to nothing.
I find this particularly harsh. To lose a long term partner is awful enough, the loss of a large part of income that s/he has paid for would just compound the upset, but to me the greatest hurt would be the way the 'state' doesn't recognise you at all, not even next of kin for inheritance purposes should they die without a will. All this can be avoided for £148 (the cost of a weekday civil ceremony) .

Hope my pp didnt come across as snarky re civil partnership v marriage, its a serious question

Why would you want one over the other if they are pretty much the same, whats making you feel different?

Also - marriage means you pay less inheritance tax (as far as i remember) so more financial protection