Rights of unmarried women when separating from a partner

[Ilovemymum1]

I find it both alarming and disturbing that women in England have very few rights when they separate from a partner. I’m not talking about divorce or a civil partnership - just couples who live together either of the opposite sex or the same sex. In my case, I spent 20 years with my partner under the same roof but the ‘roof’ was in his name as were the cars. I kept the home and as he’d already retired, we spent all our time together. We didn’t have children as I had an underlying health issue. He thankfully had children from a previous relationship (marriage). He broke up with me whilst I was away via an email. There’s no-one else in the relationship. I thought we’d always be together but there were many days when I thought of leaving him as his bullying was terribly upsetting. Why didn’t I? I was weak and scared as I didn’t have money set aside as the money he gave me was for housekeeping and if I needed anything extra, I had to ask. Yes I know - what a darn fool I’ve been. Anyway, to cut a long story short I spoke to a lovely lawyer who said that the law in England desperately needed changing and apologised for being unable to do anything for me. I’m in my 50’s with a chronic health condition and a head filled with cotton. He doesn’t have to provide me with anything even though he always promised me that he would look after me no matter what. He wa obsessed with money and sadly no heartstrings that I can pull on.

Here’s a link to the Rights of Women that the lawyer gave me. It’s a guide for people who are living together. For some silly reason, I always thought I was somehow ‘protected’....that if he left me then the law would be on my side. Sadly it’s not. I thought of approaching the Daily Mail to see if they would like to start a campaign to have the law changed so that people in the future aren’t caught out. If nothing else, it would get the word out there that people, like myself, have no rights and it might just help people make better decisions.

Thanks for listening. Have a good Wednesday.

Here’s the link:-
rightsofwomen.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/PDF-guide-to-living-together-and-the-law.pdf

I really hope they don't change the law. I can just imagine an elderly person taking in a lodger for 5/10 years to help pay the bills and the lodger claiming hey were a couple after death. And loads of other dodgy situations.

What is needed is for the people claiming marriage is just a piece of paper to STFU!

You’re assuming everyone is equally intelligent, confident, assertive and well-supported. They aren’t. There are many people out there without our advantages

It's common sense, not rocket science.
I don't believe that knowing you have no legal entitlement to financial support if you're not married makes you intelligent. It's really basic stuff.

A lot of people 'don't believe in marriage' and make out it's only a piece of paper and they don't need a piece of paper to declare their love.

All well and good ...but this is what can happen in a split.

I would suggest anyone else in the OPs position currently with their partner (who is not financially independent) thinks about what their future could be.

But the problem would just work the other way round with 'de facto' marriage - vulnerable people would have no idea that by letting someone move in with them they were effectively agreeing to share their assets. I think it is a terrible idea.

It's common sense, not rocket science.

I don't think that is true at all--in loads of countries you can get similar rights to married people if you have been in a pseudo marriage relationship, and Scotland had something similar until about.... 15 years ago? I don't agree with such arrangements, but the fact that they exist and are common in other countries may delude people into a vague idea that they apply here as well.

We need a social media campaign, not dry information on citizen's advice pages.

A lot of people 'don't believe in marriage' and make out it's only a piece of paper and they don't need a piece of paper to declare their love.

Yes, that mentality has a lot to answer for: marriage never was about love. I got married to have children, as did every single one of the cohabiting couples (in our case ten years, in other cases more like twenty) I knew.

The reasons we didn't marry (this was the 70s/80s) were pretty shit: we were middle class, university-educated people for whom cohabitation was like socialism or punk, a way to get a rise out of your hidebound family. Most arguments for not getting married are either very good ones where the last thing they want or need is de facto marriage, or fairly rubbish épater les bourgeois arguments about the symbolism and history. There isn't much of a middle ground: the first set don't want to get married and shouldn't get married by the state behind their backs (for example, couples with assets and children from previous relationships) and the second set should just have a word with themselves and sort it out.

As is being pointed out so eloquently above, when the state intervenes to protect one group, it often does so at the expense of another. In this case, the balance is entirely clear: protecting some vulnerable women from indolent men who won't marry means harming other women if they fall prey to cocklodgers. The best solution is education that marriage is precisely a contract, nothing to do with "showing love" or "having a party", and that having a child and a mortgage with someone you aren't married to is a bad idea unless you know what you are doing. If you don't know what you are doing, get married.

Oh, and the "there's no such thing as common law spouse?" Yes, that's absolutely true. But my memory of cohabiting in the 1980s was that "partner" hadn't started to be used, and "common law spouse" was actually used on official documents. I might be wrong, but if I remember correctly, then for people having children now, it's like their parents, if asked, would have some dim memory of it being a thing.

@Ilovemymum1

What are your views now you've had more posts? Interested in your response to these points

It would be a shocking thing for the state to impose a contract on couples where they have not sought or consented to it. The state signing away rights to someone’s property?

Demanding / enforcing a parent to support their child is one thing, but not imposing by default a marriage contract on adults.

vulnerable people would have no idea that by letting someone move in with them they were effectively agreeing to share their assets. I think it is a terrible idea.

Exactly this. It would make it easy for gold diggers to move in with vulnerable but wealthy retirees, tolerate the relationship for the arbitrary timescale and then end the relationship and bugger off with half of the other person’s cash having not brought anything the table in the relationship.

A lot of this I didn’t know until I divorced. Also so many people are misinformed or have outdated knowledge and I see it on here all the time eg you can keep the house till the children are 18 etc that it is easy to be confused and everyone’s circumstances are different.

I am also one of those who did not benefit financially from marriage as I was the higher earner and exh was out of work and the children stayed with me after divorce. I would be much better off now if we had not married.

If the law were changed all that would happen is that high wage earners and people (of either sex) would not move in with their partner. In such a case I can see prenups being pushed for in law too. Where there are substantial assets prior to getting together or a substantial difference in earnings, there has to be some protection in place to stop people being fleeced.

Prenups are currently taken in to consideration in England and Wales. There was a famous case of that heiress a couple of years back which got a lot of men upset, as the judge let her prenup stand when many for the benefit of the man didn't. Incidentally the ex-husband was not left penniless or without significant assets, unlike what many men's prenups try to do.

I think with campaigns especially public information ones people delibrately switch off as it is not something that affects them so more campaigning won't help. I've come across a campaign about the lack of co-habitation rights about every 3 years for the last 20 mainly because I'm interested in how advertising and marketing works.

In my case I always knew about the lack of rights from being 15 due to one of my brothers' saying he was going to cohabit and both my parents, who were separated, getting mad at him saying he would be using his girlfriend. Funny thing is with my siblings from my mum, it is the woman in the relationship who is the higher earner. So the women are the ones who would lose out on divorce.

I have two kids by two men, it wouldn't have benefited me financially or otherwise to have married/marry either. I live with the second because we want to but I don't want to marry. I don't want the trappings of marriage forced on me because we live together. I haven't made that choice. Keep the law as it is. Changing it would reduce women's freedom to choose.

Saved me a fortune not being married in maintenance etc, but she did manage to get the house off me through children act being the RP and tie my equity. I can chuck her out when the kids reach 18 in a few years time. My advice to any man never ever marry unless the partner is breadwinner or wealthy.

From another thread.. the heartbreak of being in a longterm relationship but not married.

He left no will because he had no assets. He didn't earn very much and had no pensions to leave on or anything so didn't see it as important (except a state pension , which as a non-widow she's not entitled to. ) He just had the contents of his bank accounts. It won't be a problem. It will all go to me and my siblings instead and we'll just give it back to my mother. The issue is that she's been made to feel like she was completely insignificant. Their entire relationship reduced to nothing, no agencies would speak to her or involve her. I wouldn't want anyone else to be made to feel that way if the worst happened.

My best friend had a similar feeling when she was left by her 'd' p, after 25 yrs and 4 kids. Because he didn't have to go through the inconvenience of a divorce- she had no time to grieve the end of her relationship. A divorce takes at least a year (and as there was a lot of money involved it would have taken longer - but it was all in his name so no issue) so 'd'p left and remarried within six weeks. Expunging the existence of my friends 25 yr relationship with it. It literally counted for nothing.

Six weeks after he left, she found her self living in a property owned by her husband and his new 26 yr old wife. A home that she thought was hers for the last 20 yrs. 'He, you see - didn't believe in marriage ' - with my friend.

I am not exactly sure how this confusion arose.

I think its because if a man "sired" children he had financial responsibility to them if co-habiting (even if not). This still stands. However he has NO financial responsibility towards the women bringing up their children.

The OP has gone one step further, somehow, in her assumption, but I don't think most people would assume you live with a boyfriend, make no financial contribution and are then entitled to £ somehow. In the old days, perhaps, gentleman's agreement maybe, but even that rarely lasted.

Keneft agree - the use of spouse and partner probably confused things and gave legaly credibility where none existed. In the eyes of the law its just a "shack up".