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)

[Joysmum]

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?

You would be entitled to stay until the tenancy was over, may people have tenancies in the highest earners name only.

You'd also get dibs on the deposit afterwards.

[ChippyOikInAWowGuna]

I don't know why people who are happy not married to a great guy come on to these threads.

Time and time again I see it. TO the tune of carly simon's you'rs so vain, you probably think this thread is about you........ but it's not

Very often it is precisely the man who refuses to get married who also refuses to have a joint account, or who stealthily and gradually sets the finances up so that you have to put the groceries etc on a credit card in your name and then you're dependent on his mercy to clear it each month.

The social welware needs to recognise this corner that so many women end up backed in to. I wasn't completely stupid. I realised the corner I'd been backed in to but I also realised that if I could get back to work, my salary alone wouldn't fund one household plus expenses, bills and childcare. I just didn't earn enough and I was afraid of the fall out of leaving him. I asked the council to put me on a list but they asked me where I lived and the answer was in a house worth a million pounds and I paid no 'rent'. But I literally had nowhere to go and no money when I got there, so I stayed, in the situation that I knew was no good for me, for years, cos I felt it was a corner I couldn't get out of with two dependants. I only got out of it when I accepted that total financial ruin and a credit card debt was the price I'd pay for starting again, under relative's roof until I could make the transition to a welfare recipient.

[Joysmum]

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?

Yep

The point in my marriage is that we both value each other as equals and don't accept the monetary valuation being place on us by employers as being representative of what we bring to each other.

My DH didn't mean less to me when I out earned him by 6 times, nor do I mean less to him him it's the other way around.

Those with monetary disparities have the option to value each other in that way and can choose to divorce when it becomes clears their partners isn't going to be 'worth as much' as they are.

Threads like this one never fail to highlight that so many people don't value each other as equals in the partnership.

[ChippyOikInAWowGuna]

ps, so what I meant to say is, if you're with a man who is fair with finances and both of you have an equal amount to lose if you split then these threads aren't about you.

[ChippyOikInAWowGuna]

I hate that attitude........ quoted by joysmum. If that particular wife hadn't been married to that man raising four children she'd have been out in the world earning and feathering her own nest. Sorry to keep using this analogy.

But men want it both ways. They want to have no childcare costs (nannys, childminders, all-day creches) but then following a split they often deeply resent the portion of their pension that the court orders them to give to their wife. I was dating a man who deeply resented that and it turned me right off him. I told him that it wasn't his wife who was 'costing' him 45% of his pension, it was the three children who they'd brought in to the world, three children! and for those three, not one childcare expense had he funded when they were young. Pay now or pay later but it costs to bring children in to the world and raise them. It costs in childcare expenses, or it costs a woman her opportunity to earn, to save, to progress. And luckily the courts recognise that even if divorcing middle aged men won't

[spaceyboo]

I kind of agree with the OP but having said that there are plenty of married SAH mums and dads who get messed around after a divorce. Being a SAH parent itself carries risks because the UK government doesn't view it as a valid occupation.

[slightlyinsane]

I think people still see marriage as a joining together because of love and don't see the legal reasons behind it. It was seen as the ultimate commitment to each other that makes people uneasy to jump in and do it.
Earlier on in the thread someone said they hate the saying that marriage is just a piece of paper, I'm sorry but I completely agree that it is a piece of paper, a bloody important one, but still just a piece of paper that legally binds us, not out of love but protection for the kids.
I'm glad we buggered off and quietly did it as now yrs later after circumstances have changed im a sahp. I didnt plan to be, I wanted to stay financially independent but things change.
To all you people who claim that they will always be financially independent think about the what ifs you never know what's round the corner, what would you do if your circumstances dramatically changed???

[ChippyOikInAWowGuna]

yes, I went from earning £40k a year to earning nothing and having two dependants and no income and no rights. That happened in under three years. And I am not a stupid person. It happened drip drip drip drip. I saw what was happening. Low self-esteem not lack of intelligence or awareness was my problem.

The irony is, for him more than for me I think, because I am the one who has no regrets..... I think he understands now that the biggest fear he could identify was relinquishing any of his assets. Yet, in the end, he ended up alone in his big house begging us to come back, crying when he tripped over the toys, crying when he opened the tumble drier and found children's things in it.............. asking me to get married but it was a dollar short and a day too late. I don't really know what his regrets are tbh but I knnow my conscience is clear. I don't know if he can say the same really.

[Lweji]

I've just noticed this thread but I had the exact same feelings about the thread as you, OP.

There is no best way of doing things. In a way I ended up losing by marrying, but definitely never become a sahp if you are not married. Don't give up your financial independence.

[BasinHaircut]

Ah ok joysmum never thought of that.

Weigh that deposit up against
The cost of a divorce though?

The tenancy point is interesting though, in terms of how that might play out in a RL situation. The named tenant would have to sling his kids out too!

[FellOffMyUnicorn]

The named tenant would have to sling his kids out too!

some people wouldnt worry about that, but equally - they could throw out the other parent and keep the kids and the house!

[Lweji]

Even people who are not married and are sahp and are happy now should heed the warning.
We see so many threads where people thought all was fine and then we're dropped from great height.

[patrolsnow]

I was very firm about getting married before moving in with my DH and it was definitely the right thing for my situation - I gave up a secure tenancy to live in his house (his name only on mortgage as I have bad credit) and I also have a DD from a former relationship and lost all my tax credits and child benefit when we moved in. So it would have been very insecure for me if we weren't married.

At the moment I don't work due to disability, and I'd also mention that even those who aren't planning to rely on their DP's income need to be aware that accidents/illness can happen to anyone and cause them to have to leave their job and so have to end up relying on their DP. And of course, a previous poster mentioned becoming a carer to a disabled child. There's very little state provision to give an independent income for people who are married or cohabiting (although I do get ESA currently but not everyone does), as the DWP view you as one unit and means test everything as a couple.

[BasinHaircut]

And fell, sadly we all know you are right re slinging the kids out too.

Something like that should simply be unbelievable but we've all read the threads.

It's a shame that in
Some cases such levels of protection are needed for such basic things such as being able to remain where the roof currently sits over your head for a short amount of time.

I had genuinely never thought about it as far along as that.

[StrawberryTeaLeaf]

Out of interest..what is the opinion on single sahm? Or single mums who work every God given hour they can? Stop bleating

'Bleating Inneedof? Nice.

[Lweji]

People were talking earlier about how it doesn't make sense for a high earner to get married. But things can also change during the course of the relationship. The low earning partner could start earning more, the higher earner could have health problems, be sacked, and so on.
The main problem with marriage is the process of divorce, but then people could draw up contracts to protect the parent with the greatest losses and the children, even if they don't get married.

[MrsCampbellBlack]

I agree with OP.

And to the PP whose partner decided after they had a dc that he was suddenly anti-marriage - I would be looking to retain/become financially independent in case things go wrong.

Everyone thinks when they're madly in love that their partners would behave honourably if they ever split but we all know this just isn't the case.

[ChippyOikInAWowGuna]

Stop bleating is very dismissive inneedof. A person can be in the phase where they're running something that makes them uncomfortable past a bunch of strangers everyday to help them marshall their thoughts, get perspective and face up to the truth. To call that bleating is awful behaviour.

[Lweji]

Yup, that sort of expressions lose the argument for you.

[donajimena]

I see so many situations where usually the woman relinquishes her job after having children stating that the cost of childcare wipes out all or most of her earnings.
Why do a lot ofwomen view paying for childcare as their sole responsibility? Its all one pot (or it should be as far as childcare is concerned)

[Shinyhappypeople9]

Financial independence is the key to any relationship for me.

[Lweji]

It's somewhat similar to married sahp whose OH's have their own businesses and somehow all the earnings disappear into those businesses.

[mintoil]

I agree OP and am astounded by how many intelligent women still seem to think that if they live with a man for 10/20/30 years and raise their children, they have some kind of "common law" status akin to being married.

If a couple have agreed that one partner will be a SAHP and that person has no independent means, then it makes sense for them to be married. Of course it doesn't give 100% protection, but it's a damn sight better than hoping DP will "do the right thing" if they decide to turf you out for a younger/shinier model 20 years down the line, and you are left homeless and unemployable. That applies whether you are male or female of course.

[TheTigerIsOut]

I totally agree with you, the most stupid decision in my life was to become a sahm, and I was married! I am divorced and barely able to support DS and myself, but I know that my friend whose partner died or the one who cannot leave her partner because everything is on his name, or the one whose partner can't work as he is ill, would pretty much agree with you too.

Of course it's everybody's choice to relinquish financial independance to be supported by the men/women they love, but sometimes life just takes over and having a few years gap in your CV while you were a SAHM is going to make getting a good job, or a job at all, significantly more difficult.

It is not a get matried or not issue, it is about not loosing the ability to support yourself financially just in case things do not go as planned.

[Newbrummie]

We were married it's made no fucking difference tbh