Getting married to get legal and financial protection.

[PerspicaciaTick]

If you are not married to your partner and feel you may be financially or legally vulnerable in the event of the relationship ending or your partner dying, please don't be put off getting married just because of the cost.
A statutory ceremony in England costs £46, plus £11 for a marriage certificate and £70 (£35 each) to give notice. £127 in total. Every registration district in England has to offer a ceremony at this cost by law.
It may not be in a great location, or on a weekend, but it is designed to ensure that marriage is accessible to everyone.

What you mean is you want an expensive wedding that will take too long to save for.

And that's exactly how women (or rather mainly women) end up in the ops position. Baby comes along, earning goes down so savings are harder. It gets put off put off.

Because a lot of people worrying about the wedding day and what sort they want rather than the reason why.

Good and timely post OP, good for people to know. One has only to read these threads time and time again to see how many women and their children are in dire straits because they only realise far too late they have no rights and no protection if they split up with their 'D'P and they aren't married or on the mortgage.

It's so sad and so unnecessary, and it ruins lives. 🙁

I don’t have a single friend my age, 31, who married before children.

I've noticed that this seems to be culturally different in the US. I don't know a single couple here who had kids before marriage.

@stacktherocks no problem. Sometimes things are easier to see as an outsider.

Hopefully none of those things will happen but the protection marriage can offer us worth considering.

I think all too often we have children and then are just too busy to think about marriage. Then the cracks start to show at which point at least one partner doesn't want to marry anymore!

I'm financially secure now so I'm lucky but a few years ago I'd have struggled had we split! And I had 2 young kids. My attitude to work also changed once I had them. I could never have predicted my life now!

My friend had to make the horrible decision regarding her husband who was on life support. Money in his accounts she wouldn't have had access to etc had they not been married. Luckily they were - "lucky" is the wrong word but it definitely made a terrible time slightly simpler.

I don't understand what you are saying here, tbh. You could get married but you would rather not because you want a big party and can't afford it?

That’s cool, you don’t have to understand my own life choices and decisions! Only I have to :)

And if he won't marry you to give you that legal and financial protection, what happens then?

This is me.

2 children later and still waiting for this protection after falling pregnant by surprise with DC1.

I don't intend to loathe myself for getting accidentally pregnant either contrary to popular MN belief. I'm delighted I had DC1 when I did. She's wonderful.

But we don't have protection and her father doesn't want to marry to provide it.

@Ouchypants understandable how you got there. If he died tomorrow what would happen to you and the kids?

The difference that I see between marriage and setting up wills etc is that marriage is a legally enforceable contract.

Anyone can change their will, or any other provision, without letting their partner know. Can't get out of a marriage quite so easily.

But we don't have protection and her father doesn't want to marry to provide it.

Did you discuss marriage before hand? Did he make it clear he never wanted to marry?

Did you have more kids? And are you sahm?

I totally understand getting accidentally pregnant. It's a very difficult situation. Bit there are things you can do to improve your position. Especially when you kids get to school age.

@Ouchypants, it sounds like you resent him for not giving you the protection of marriage because you consider that it is responsibility to bring security to your life. Clearly we don't know what your situation is, whether you are working, and whether your choice of work/no work was purely your decision or one that was 100% joint and what was your situation before you got pregnant.

As a poster said previously though, you made the decision to have kids before securing marriage and/or securing your finances through employment so you put yourself at risk. The problem with marriage in these circumstances is that it is very much one directional. One has a lot to gain from it whilst the other mainly has something to lose. That's why it's easier to start with marriage when neither has much to give/lose financially and everything is then build together through joint hard work and sacrifices, however these are divided.

@swingofthings I fell accidentally pregnant with DC1 as stated in my first post. No decisions made. Please READ what it bloody says.

@frenchmontana we planned to marry as soon as the hard first year with DC1 was over with. However, I was struck with pretty severe PND (I think through shock of becoming a Mother etc) and I pretty much lost the plot during that first year. My partner never wanted to marry me after that. We've had a planned second child, because I realised that no matter the circumstances, I would have regretted not having another child, but never would have regretted having her. I have 2 beautiful children, despite not having the most secure set-up but I'm not going to force him to marry me either.

I dont think you should force him to marry you and I understand that you first pregnancy was an accident.

But you chose to stay and have another. Knowing this man doesnt love you enough to give you security. And not only that, that he used your PND to justify it.

Is it his house? Do you have any legal security? You can be secure without marriage.

If he doesnt want to give you that, then you shoildnt be with him. If you love someone, you want them to be protected.

@frenchmontana he believes I am well protected.
Mortgage is jointly owned.
I am named as the beneficiary on his pension
Joint life insurance
We have spoken about it after reading threads similar to this on MN and he says we have covered all bases so should be ok.

But are you happy that all bases are covered?

I am confused because your first post says But we don't have protection and her father doesn't want to marry to provide it.

But now saying you are.

Marriage isn't the only way to do. Its general the easiest, can be cheapest and covers most things.

Mwahaha! It's a winning proposition for the higher earner, isn't it?!

"Sweetheart, I really need to make sure that I get my hands on your money if we split up. Let's have a dirt cheap wedding, and retire to our chambers to read your bank statements" 😂

Marriage is a mug's game if you're even remotely successful. Having been taken to the cleaners once by someone who just didn't really fancy working, preferred to live off me, and then used that as a reason to take the lion's share of assets when it all fell apart due to her violence and abuse, I have one thing to say.

Never. Again.

@Ouchypants but all those things are easily changeable. That's not protection.

He can cancel life insurance, change beneficiary to someone else, walk away and decide not to pay his half of the mortgage.

Have you sacrificed salary, work, promotion etc to care for the children?

I am not married but we have been together 11 years & lived together for 8 with a joint mortgage.

We don't want to get married but will probably have to at some point simply because of ease if something happens to one of us eg in the event of an accident you have no say in hospital treatment for your partner if un-married unless you have power of attorney (expensive), if the terrible happens & one of us dies the other would not automatically get access to bank accounts etc - we learnt all of these things from our solicitor when we did our wills. Not to mention having to pay inheritance tax in the event of one of us dying.

If anyone has any solutions to these points, please let me know

I think in that situation ouchypants, you just have to make sure you feather your own nest and ensure your ability to earn doesn't take second place to his. Most of us don't advocate no sex before marriage so I can see that unplanned pregnancy is going to happen in this situation sometimes. That said, I would not have had a second in your shoes. But it's a personal decision really.

In terms of wedding type, I had a big one for cultural reasons but there's not a chance in hell I'd have chosen a big one in the future over a registry office now if I were up the duff.

"Sweetheart, I really need to make sure that I get my hands on your money if we split up. Let's have a dirt cheap wedding, and retire to our chambers to read your bank statements"

What's the opposite of that?

'Hey darling, I would like kids and really believe the kids should have a parent at home. So you dont mind giving up your career and earning ability for that. And if I decide to leave you, you get nothing and your career will be impossible to get back. You dont mind struggling do you for the rest of your life, do you?. Let's retire and look at my bank statements....but remember when I get bored of you, you will have fuck all'

I am sorry your ex was abusive. But if you are the higher earner and want your partner to stay home. You are dick if you wont let them have security and independence. The risk should be assumed by one partner only.

As an aside. The issue, as pp says, is that most of the legal stuff can be undone. And you wont know until it's too late.

You cant divorce someone without them knowing

The next of kin thing isn't really true cabbagehippy, not these days. I suspect you probably got told this a few years back? That's not to say there aren't lots of good reasons to get married, neither DH nor I would have settled down and had a family without it, but that's not one of them.

That’s cool, you don’t have to understand my own life choices and decisions! Only I have to

You are right. But too many of these women, find out too late that their decision fucked them over and want the law changed so that it wont be your decision at all.

What if, despite taking maternity leave you are financially, career and asset wise better off than your partner, should you still do it knowing you might end up worse off?

Roxyxoxo it depends. I am in the situation. Higher wage and more assets than dp. No I would just marry him and share everything, he is an adult who has his own career and earnings.

However, if he became ill and couldnt work. I may change my mind.

If we had a baby and he was giving up his career to look after the baby.....I would make sure he was protected.

If we both continued to work full time and have a baby, we would need to work that out. Since he isnt sacrificing anything in terms or careers or earnings, I wouldn't feel I had to sacrifice anything either