Pregnant and unmarried, not sure whether it's an issue

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Have been with DP for 10 years, living together for 8. We are expecting our first DC - planned.
I am feeling a little anxious about not being married, for no specific reason (we are doing great and he is perfect) than that it seems sensible financially, for the benefit of the child, for legal protection etc if anything were to go tits up.
I presume I could get this in other ways such as having wills made, life insurance etc. We jointly own a house but one half would not auto go to the other. We can get that changed.

Are there any other big important reasons to just get on and do it? Or is it fine to be casual?

Thing is the idea of a wedding to me is horrific, I do not want a public display. He doesn't, either.
However, he feels very awkward about explaining that to family, worrying they will be put out.
We have gone through the motions of trying to plan something, many hours of discussion about type of venue, keeping it simple, who to invite. It all ends up being stressful and we stop discussing it.
Then, I got pregnant. I am jot being a pregnant bride, I feel shit enough in this pregnancy as it is without putting my massive body on display.
So we vaguely said we will do something when the child is a bit older. That hasn't been defined, it could be years until we have the energy to sort something. He won't actually do any of the organising. I wouldn't mind organising.. but i resent having to for something i don't want to do anyway! I would rather go to a reg office and have a little elopement holiday. May family would not care, and i am certain his would not either (100% sure i am right on this). I think he has some difficulty with this, so I am very patient with him and I understand. However, i don't want to end up in a pickle because he couldn't face up to dealing with the problem.
I'd love to hear MNs thoughts on this. I keep hearing that MN is usually adamant that people are stupid not to get married. I'd like to understand clear reasons for this that couldn't be resolved through other legal means.
And i have suggested we do it secretly so we are legally protected but don't have to tell anyone but he doesnt like the idea of the lie to his family.

Get married in registry office.
No stress.
Then have a family party later if you wish .maybe combine with baby naming when baby is born.

Re pensions & death in service - are you both nominated on each others...?? It wont necessarily come to either of you if not.

Weddings are tough. I'd love to elope but my fiancé's family would be hurt; even if I'm sure they'd forgive us. He doesn't want a massive thing but does want something he can invite people to, so he can celebrate with the people who mean a lot to him. I have no family so worry that it'll look really imbalanced...

We're having a small but standard wedding next year, as a compromise, but it is a weird thing and I have a constant urge to elope with him and do it somewhere fun and very us.... so we're a bit like you, but no baby!

You can either use all the leverage you've got to force him into signing the paper before you give birth, or compromise and maybe reserve a venue for soon so you can compromise a bit. It depends if it'll bother you if it happens after your baby, I suppose, and if you've forced him into it a bit. And how he'd respond to that!

I hope you find something you're both happy with

I got married without telling anyone in advance, only afterwards, and I never regretted doing it that way. A friend and her husband got married secretly (similar circumstances to you OP) and never told anyone at all, although it came out by accident about 20 years later. No one cared! Just do it, if you want the legal protection, there's no need to make a song and dance about it if you don't want to!

Hi OP, I'm in a similar situation to you. With DP 7 years, bought a house together, trying for a baby, not married. The thoughts of an expensive wedding day where we are the centre of attention etc brings us both out in hives. Also, we both find weddings bland, boring and expensive things with lots of standing around and crap food so we really have no interest in having one and are focused on being happy and starting a little family. We started gently suggesting to his family a while back that we might just elope to get married, so that they could get used to the idea. His mam isn't best pleased but she'll have to accept it. My family know what I'm like and that I hate fuss and everyone looking at me in a white dress is my idea of hell so they aren't bothered about us not having a wedding day. We are planning to get married in Las Vegas next year, just the two of us and we will have a small party when we come back to mark the occasion

We got married in a registry office with just two witnesses. I was 11weeks pregnant.
It was perfect. Everyone just had to deal with it because we didn't tell them until we'd actually done it!

Why not make a list of all of your options I.e elope, civil partnership, registry office and not tell people, small wedding, big wedding etc and write beside them a list of pros and cons of each and how much each will cost etc and make a decision from there? Sorry if this sounds patronizing, I did this and found it helpful

Thank you everyone, a lot of good ideas here. And the financial and career advice has given me a needed kick up the butt.

I think I will go into strategy mode and do a little options appraisal with the pros, cons and coats and use it as a way to step through it with him.

I will also raise the issue of life insurance and critical Illness cover. I also want him to get income protection insurance, possibly me as well though not sure how that works on mat leave yet.

Love mumsnetters, thanks for the kind but stern advice

More is very welcome!

@Bimbo69 haha! Great minds

Is he getting any treatment for his anxiety?
It took me years to persuade my DH to get counselling, he is finally doing it and it's helping to "unblock" some things that were holding us back (because I wanted to progress and he didn't/couldn't/wouldn't).

He can't afford to bury his head in the sand any more, he really needs to at least try to work on his issues. The two of you are going to be parents and that will bring lots of new pressures.

@PotteringAlong I am going to look into life insurance again, but the calculator suggested I have enough cover. How much is enough? Pay off the mortgage? Plus a bit to get on your feet, say 6 months living costs?

We’ve gone for paying off the mortgage and then enough for surviving parent to work part time for 10 years. So for us that’s £250k life insurance plus approx £100k death in service payment. We’ve got 3 kids.

OP if you wanna be married to the father of your child that’s reason enough you don’t have to find the perfect cast iron legal reason to get married for your feelings to be valid, obviously you can’t force him but a man who wants to marry you will marry you. if he knows you want to marry and that it’s important to you’, and won’t marry you, that means he doesn’t want to be married to you.

My partner and I are 18 weeks pregnant and birth want to be married before the baby arrives. We agreed last summer that we didn’t want to delay conceiving to get married but that we would like to marry during a pregnancy. He proposed at 16 weeks and we are planning a simple registry office ceremony with immediate family only in two months time. Then a party to celebrate with friends. He knew it was important to me that we be legally married before my salary and pension contribution reduced during maternity leave and working part time and we both wanted to share the same name as a family.

Not sure what to suggest as you can strong arm him into marrying and it’s a bit late now you’ve got pregnant without being married or having solid plans to marry. I know I would take a dim view of a man being happy to have a child with me but refusing to commit legally and it would affect my feelings I think.

We were together 15+ yrs before first baby and were one of those couples that thought marriage didn't really matter. It does make a big difference once baby is here. For financial security it's just much easier to be married. Get it done or get your own financial advisor to tell you how best to save and what life ins/will you need.

You only need to be on MN a week and you will see its littered with posts from women who gave up their careers to raise their partners child (unmarried) only to split and be left with nothing and no potential earnings/pension. One woman and her kids even got kicked out of the house she had paid a good chunk into for 15+ yrs as he didn't put her on the mortgage. Not saying your OH is like that but anything can happen and your child's security needs to be solid as a rock.

Here's something you can do:

Clone yourself and write a scenario for each of you - one married, one not. Think of good times and bad.

If your child is 18 and you have gone part-time for years, even if you go back to full-time, then what would be the situation if you separated?

If you were married - equal rights to savings, his share of the house, his mortgage. Same for him.

If you weren't married - sell up and split up - no more financial involvement.

Please don't think that doesn't happen - it's a thread on here every single week.

Gretna Green OP!

What about a christening for the baby where the registrar/celebrant marries you too? Make the latter a surprise for all your guests?

Baby could be the best man /chief bridesmaid haha

It sounds like this is confusion over whether you want a wedding or you want a marriage. The wedding is not a big deal, and even when you have a nice big one with family and all the fancy canapes, it's just a day (my wedding was great, but it wasn't all that more exciting than lots of other days - really not worth getting worked up about). But if you want a secure life together and the symbolic commitment that marriage brings, then prioritise being married, not the getting married. I think if one or both of you can't do that, then you probably don't want to be married as much as you think you do.

OP my lovely friend and his DP bought a house together as Tenants In Common, then they had a baby, they planned to get married, then his father died so they put it off. One day he felt poorly, two days later he was dead! He was only in his late 30’s, apparently fit and healthy.

His half of the house and his inheritance from his father are now held in trust for the child. His DP did get his employer’s death in service benefits but no widow’s pension from his (very generous) pension scheme nor any governmental assistance for widows. She had to go straight back to work full time.

She will possibly have to sell her house when her child is 21. The child will then have access to a large amount of money at a very early age.

This absolutely wasn’t what he would have wanted.

10 mins in a Register Office and this would all have been so much easier.

I suggest that you draw up a spreadsheet showing what would happen if either of you fell under a bus, married vs not married.

Also look into “Whole of Life Insurance “, we each have a policy, when one of us pegs it, the other benefits and can decide either to continue to pay in , or cash out. Eg ours means that survivor gets £60k and can cash in for £9k (which is slightly more than the contributions) so we’ve both been covered at half price. Or can continue for family.

GET MARRIED!

Did he procrastinate so long about creating a family ? I assume not

Therefore, why wait ?
Get married asap

If you want a wedding or celebration, do this in the future

I haven’t RTFT so not sure if this has already been mentioned. You are not each other’s “next of kin” until you are married. This means if you go in to hospital to have your baby or some emergency happens, he has no say in what happens. They would call your next of kin eg your parents and they would get to say eg turn off life support. This may sound like something other people worry about but it happened to me during pregnancy. My placenta abrupted and I nearly died. As I’m married my husband was involved and consulted. Does he want your parents potentially having the decision making ability over you and his unborn child? If not, registry office and get it done.

I'd get life insurance on top, as per pp. You need enough for the survivor to be able not to work full-time while dc are small and just not have to worry about money in the aftermath.

Personally, next holiday you plan, include marriage. Saves the family must attend crap and gets the job done. (Only time I actually think destination weddings are a good idea is if you're doing it without family/friends.) To save environmental conscience, long weekend in Cornwall (the Scillies) [other destinations are available], registry office, pretty beach photos, proper job.

Thank you, thank you. These disaster scenarios are exactly what I need to knock our heads together.

I realise I've been mainly complaining about HIS lack of willingness to decide, but I am equally complacent. Neither of us wants 'a marriage". It literally doesn't mean anything to me. Call us naive stubborn bleeding heart liberals. The child thing has just brought home how important the relationship now is beyond the two of us. So we need to sort it out. It's just a shame that 'marriage' holds so much strange baggage for us. I want it to just be a piece of legal paper, but it isn't. I hope I can bring him round to how stupid this is when I point out the severe risk we are at.
And yes, we both took over 2 years to research the pros and cons of having a child. We are classic over thinkers! This is really how the marriage discussion came up in the first place but complacency or laziness to deal with it won the day.

rightteous some interesting info re next of kin at this link www.citizensadvice.org.uk/family/living-together-marriage-and-civil-partnership/living-together-and-marriage-legal-differences/

Basically it’s a small extra layer of protection for situations where there are competing opinions from different relatives on what to do with an incapacitated patient, but in practice most hospitals do take partners’ views into account and doctors will never do something against a patient’s best interests no matter what the family want. I’ve experienced it first hand, in general conversation you hear people saying things like ‘I was given the decision whether to remove life support or not’ but it’s a bit exaggerated or down to medics not explaining properly: when my mum was being kept alive by machines and unconscious unlikely to recover doctors took me, her other son, and her unmarried noncohabiting partner into a side room to explain that it wasn’t looking good and what our thoughts were on letting her continue to be aided, with only the slightest chance of improvement, or removing life support. I thought it was time to let her go but the other two thought waiting longer would give her a chance. The doctors explained that from a clinical position there was no real benefit to prolonging things and that if my brother/her partner wanted they would keep her going another half day or so but then it would be time as she was suffering for no real chance of survival. They agreed to let her go, but if they’d said absolutely not, she has to remain on life support (my brother was eldest so technically next of kin) the doctors were clear they wouldn’t leave her like that for much longer and although it’s best for emotional reasons for family to have a say in the decision making process they’d do what’s best for their patient. So people’s views are taken into account, including partners. There’s no one medical next of kin who can authorise a treatment with no benefit to the patient and against everyone else’s wishes. My partner is a doctor and deals with this situation day in day out btw.