Informal marriage celebration

[pinkliquorice]

Me and my partner have been together almost 7 years, have two children together, live together etc.
We pretty much already assume we are a married couple and he has proposed but through talking about it for lots of reasons we are not sure an official wedding is right for us.
We’ve done a bit of research on informal marriages/common law marriages/ Sui iuris marriage but we don’t really understand it.
Can we still have a ‘wedding’ and celebrate and confirm our love for each other without the official wedding ceremony.
Anyone done this or would consider it?
Are there any pros and cons or this as opposed to just actually getting married?

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

"Whilst we are not married my DD would be considered my next of kin and given the main say".

Have you had this officially confirmed legally?. As I have stated already next of kin has no legal meaning and people could well seek the views of others like your partner also.

I am glad to read that both your partner and your DD do get along with each other.

[OlennasWimple]

Divorce - if uncontested - can be very straight forward though.

You might find in an emergency situation that your partner is treated as your next of kin rather than your daughter

You might find that if you did split up your views (or his views) on dividing your assets have changed

[pinkliquorice]

@AttilaTheMeerkat

Like I said she would be the main point of call but I am completely fine currently whilst I am with my partner for his opinions and say to work.
If we split tomorrow he would not be able to override my daughters decision as he would just be an Ex boyfriend.

[GnomeDePlume]

Divorce isn't the messy bit. The messy bit is untangling enmeshed finances and responsibility for children.

The thing with marriage is that you aren't married until you are married and the marriage ends when you divorce or one of you dies. No grey areas, no trying to identify the point where you started or parted. You can only be legally married to one person at a time but it is perfectly possible for people to cohabit with more than one person as one relationship overlaps with another.

[pinkliquorice]

@OlennasWimple

As he is my partner, in an emergency situation I would be competed happy for him to be taken as my next of kin. This is unlikely as in most situation in would be my Dd, and if we were to split tomorrow he would not be considered my next of kin.

But why risk divorce (even if it is straightforward), if we don’t even want to get married and defiantly don’t want to go through a divorce?

Our views are not going to change, but hypothetically if they did that would be a lot more complicated if we were married and needed to divorce to split as we would automatically be given rights over each other’s property which we do not want.

[GnomeDePlume]

You seem to be working on the assumption that if you split that you would both be reasonable and considerate because that is what you are at the moment. Unfortunately at the point of separation reasonableness and consideration tend to be less evident. This is when the legality of divorce is useful.

[Katescurios]

We eloped, went to Vegas and had a non religious service with staff from the chapel as witnesses then had a low key party when we got home.

If we couldn't get to Vegas then we would have had a registry office service then a party for family and friends.

Look at what a registry service can offer you, it doesn't have to be religious with all of the honor and obey stuff. It is an officiated service, you can use all of your own vows and the end result is that you are married but in your own way.

[GreenTulips]

I think the real issue is the the older DD

If married the estate passes to DH
If unmarried it passes to DC

Therefor not being married protects the daughter and other children
However this will incur a lot of tax which if married would be payable

[iBiscuit]

Unfortunately at the point of separation reasonableness and consideration tend to be less evident.

^this, several dozen times.

I've seen too many of my peers (and indeed me) get shafted when splitting with their partners.

[OlennasWimple]

Unfortunately at the point of separation reasonableness and consideration tend to be less evident.

Yy to this. I know so many people who were going to be amicable when they separated, and many managed it at first. But then... I guess there is usually a very good reason for the separation and it is nigh impossible to put that completely to one side

[kittensinmydinner1]

I won't go through the whole sorry saga again but if you search my user name you will be able to read the sorry tale of my best friend, her 25 yr UN-marriage to a hedge fund manager. The £750k house and holiday homes. 4 kids and his assertion that he didn't 'believe' in marriage

. ‘Just a piece of paper’ ,
‘patriarchal social construct,’
why would you want that ‘?
‘We don’t need that do we sweetheart? Our love is far stronger than any of that stuff’ blah blah blah...

she even trotted this stuff out to me, to make her feel better. After all, who wants to admit that they have been stupid enough to give a man the commitment of family whilst he commits precisely nothing. .?

But hey - it was ok, they had life insurance in each other’s names. Wills in each other’s names.. until he changed the life insurance and the wills became invalid.
Because by that time he had shacked up with the 25 yr old Latvian he met on 'business' . Two of 4 kids were at Uni and no longer came into the csa calculation. 6 months later the 3rd was 18.
Best fr was left with no claim on the house save his generosity to 'allow' her to stay until youngest was 18. (2 yrs). and then out on her ear.
Her time is up in March. 54 yrs old. Hasn't worked outside the home for 23 yrs. Was a housewife super star making partners life easy and comfortable. Saw him go from office boy to partner.
He married the gf after 12 weeks as there was no inconvenient divorce to go through.
'and it was important to her'
Yes OP - you sound incredibly naive. There is NOTHING that equates to marriage in terms of legal protection. Your only concern is the kids ? Well if he got run over by a bus tomorrow and has been working and you have kids under 20 in FTE you get £3500 and 18 payments of £350. If you are married.

If your not - you get nothing.
If you divorce you or he can ask for a Pension Sharing Order to cover you lack of pension that most parents suffer whilst bringing up kids. Only you can’t get that - you’re not married.

There is no 'legal agreement ' that confers the same rights as marriage.*
Wills of a cohabitee can be changed at anytime without the others knowledge.

If you still decide marriage is not for you then at least you are making your decision fully informed. Please don't subjugate your wishes for someone else's . *

Whilst you may be the higher earner at the moment, to maintain that situation, you need to keep working full time and take the minimum amount of maternity leave. You may be happy to do this. No one knows until they actually have children. Until then it's all theory.
My friend in the story above was the higher earner when they met. She CHOSE to be a SAHM because that was what she thought was best for her and her family. The point is, without marriage you don't get that choice without making yourself extremely vulnerable.
She always wanted marriage, he 'didn't believe in it' .
Turns out he just didn't believe in it with her. *
*
I would be really interested to know from all the 'happily unmarrieds ' who post on these threads - how many would change their minds if their DPs suddenly found it really important.

We will never know. Many people convince themselves it's what they want too - simply because they know it is never going to be an option.



My grandmothers rather crass saying still rings true whilst the law is as it is... why would you pay for milk when the cow came for free..The huge majority of women who ‘don’t believe in marriage’ are the ones who know it isn’t an option. Youve had the kids , so to him, there is no need. Now - maybe I’m old fashioned but not providing the love of your life with every possible legal, statutory and financial protection , does not scream undying love. It screams negligence.

Btw.
You don’t need to wear white.
You don’t need to be given away.
You can pitch up in your ‘day clothes’
Take two friends or ask to strangers to be witnesses
You can write your own promises.
A registry office is BY LAW SECULAR, you aren’t even allowed slightly religious music so no ‘God’.
Pay your £215
And get more rights and protection than £100’s spent on cohabitation agreements.
There is simply no logic in not getting married if you have kids together.
The only reason is he (or the one with the greater assets who does less childcare) doesn’t want to share.

[BitOutOfPractice]

I can't really understand why you want to live as if you're married, to act as if you're married, to be viewed and treated by others as if you are married, and to have some of the legal protections that marriage gives you, but not be married.

But have a party anyway, I'd come!

[isitcosimcool]

I went to a gorgeous humanist wedding once. The couple had written the entire ceremony with the celebrant so it was completely personal. It wasn't legal in the slightest as the couple had done the legal bit at the registry office the day before. I can't see why you couldn't do this without bothering with the official legal part. I think you can do a non religious version of a Christening too.

[GnomeDePlume]

kittensinmydinner1 you have expressed with a very practical example what I have been trying to explain.

Marriage isnt about the party. It is about proving to any necessary organisations, at a very stressful time (either death or separation), that a relationship existed.

You only need the briefest of searches on the Relationships board to see that all the promises made when the couple are happy are worthless when a breakdown in the relationship occurs.

Death or incapacitating illness can occur quite suddenly. Grief and worry can make family members act quite out of character. An unmarried partner can find themselves suddenly sidelined by relatives who in a crisis believe their claim on the right to make decisions is greater than the partner's.

[JustCurious11]

I agree about the promises partners make to each other about how reasonable and lovely they would be during the loved up happy years should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Yes the divorce rate is high, but so is the long term partner split rate high, only they have no legal protection like a married couple do.

If I am remembering rightly, your dp would also have to apply for parental responsibility for your dc too because he wouldn’t have automatic parental responsibility in the case of a split because you weren’t married at the time of their births. Great you might say, that’s no problem, I will give him that said in the state of mind of loving your dp at the moment. If you split however because he went off with a 20 year old model you might have a different state of mind.

It all sounds too naive tbh. People who want the status of a married couple and want to faff about putting various selective legal rights in place but won’t just bite the bullet and put all the legal rights in place by just getting married just seem bizarre.

If you don’t want to get married, don’t . If you want to prove your love and commitment to each other then just have a party.

It’s kind of like naming ceremonies instead of a christening because they want to show off the dc and have a party but don’t want to get the child christened. Just have a party to celebrate ffs.

[JustCurious11]

Saying that actually, my grandad was with his long term partner for nearly 30 years, never married. They were in their 80s and when she died my granddad was kicked out of the house by her son ( because it was her son’s inheritance) and there was fuck all anyone could do about it.

Never underestimate a relative who comes out of the woodwork to gain their inheritance once one of the unmarried couple dies, even if there is a will.

[OnionShite]

DP may well have parental responsibility. If he was on the birth certificates for kids born in the last decade or so he does, with no need to apply for any court orders. The majority of unmarried dads these days are on the birth certificate and do have PR, so it's a realistic possibility. Parental responsibility is one of the legal aspects of marriage you actually can achieve outside it.

It all sounds too naive tbh. People who want the status of a married couple and want to faff about putting various selective legal rights in place but won’t just bite the bullet and put all the legal rights in place by just getting married just seem bizarre.

It's fine and not naïve when it's genuinely informed...

I said upthread I think there's a reasonable chance OP is on a wind up, particularly looking at some of her other threads elsewhere. But on the off chance it's not, someone who admits they don't understand common law marriage as a concept and thinks marriage isn't a legal term does fit your 'bizarre' description quite well.

[JustCurious11]

Sorry, yes that is what I meant, her dp would have parental responsibility now if he is on the birth certificate but as they are unmarried I think he would have to apply for that right in the event of a split. Unless I am wrong?

[OnionShite]

No, in England and Wales the unmarried father listed on the birth certificate has PR. There are only limited circumstances in which a person can be deprived of PR, and the end of a relationship that was never legally formalised isn't one of them.

I expect you're probably thinking of unmarried relationships when the father's not on the birth certificate. Or you may be thinking of the old law, it changed in about 2003 and I'm not too familiar with the older provisions.

[Mattresstestermax]

Why not just have a massive party your next round number anniversary? That’s about love and recognising you as a couple but not about anything legal?

It seems to tick all your boxes?