Why get married?

[eenymeenyminyme]

I got married 20 years ago because I wanted to have a secure family to bring children into and I knew it would make my elderly parents happy to see me 'settled'. I also naively thought it would guarantee fidelity...

ExH obviously didn't think the same and I got divorced 4 years ago. I'm in a happy relationship with DP now but we have no intention of getting married as we can't see the point.

It's made me think though - why did / would you get married second (or subsequent) time round? I'm not criticising anyone who does, just interested to know why and what difference it made, if any?

Where I am, common law marriage does apply if you've cohabited for a certain length of time.

I never wanted to get married again, until my DC started to really bond with dp and I realised that should dp die, I'd have to do a second layer of paperwork to prove our cohabitation in order to get pension rights, etc. I dont want to deal with that if I'm grieving and the DC are too.

Death is relatively far off (in theory) but having had these thoughts and considered it carefully, we recently opened tentative talks on marrying. Not even sure we will go public with the marriage itself but we will probably get the paperwork done.

Life is hard and I dont want to make it harder if something terrible happens.

My caveat on that is, never marry someone who you think would be anything but hugely magnanimous in a divorce...

We just did it because we wanted to have a nice day and booze-up with friends. It was a lovely day, but I don't think it's changed the way I feel about DH. I don't think it's made me any more secure; my parents both had multiple affairs and were married so I've never had any particular respect for the institution.

My sister's partner died a few years ago, really suddenly and very young. She was left high and dry. He didn't have a lot of property but there was life insurance, pension, his car etc. It all went to his teenage kids. Not disputing that they should have got something, probably even the majority but she couldn't afford the rent and had no say in how things were dealt with. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have wanted that. She also couldn't claim any kind of widows pension/bereavement benefit to help tide her over. But he hadn't sorted out his will. It was really hard and not what she needed at a difficult time. She had to leave the house. Made everything much harder.
If you have a will spelling out your wishes then you would be ok.

You don't need to be married to nominate someone to receive your pension
That depends on the pension scheme rules. For a lot of the old annuities and final salary pensions the 50% spousal pension goes to a spouse, not to a cohabitee. If unmarried it dies with them. For some discretionary pensions, even with a nomination, a partner needs to show financial dependence. A spouse doesn't. Make sure all nominations are up to date. If an ex wife is still nominated it could still go to her if cohabiting with someone else. If remarried it goes to the new wife.

You don't need to be married to be someone's next of kin.
Umm yes you do. You can write wills to cover it but if someone dies intestate it goes to actual family not a cohabitee. Children, parents, siblings. The police sometimes name someone as next of kin in that they'll work with them but it's not actually legal. Kin means family. You're not actually related unless you're blood relatives or married.

Also, if you're married for 20 years and raise his kids then split up you can claim half his pension. If you cohabit as above. No claim.

The thing is, this is the right thing. You should b able to choose if you want finances to be linked. It shouldn't be assumed. If DH died and I met someone afterwards I would still want my DC to inherit. I wouldn't want to muddy the waters so I could cohabit but not marry. I'd hate it is this chocolate ce was taken away from me. If I want joint finances I can marry. If not, I won't.

Chocolate???. Choice!

Though I would hate it if chocolate was taken away too 😉

I have a 30 year old final salary pension that simply required me to fill in a form naming DP as a beneficiary.

I have certainly named DP as my next of kin every single time I’ve been asked, on medical forms, financial stuff, things to do with the kids. Never been a problem that we are not married.

Tinklylittlelaugh that's good. For some of ours that wouldn't work.

DP and I have the same amount of pension so claiming off each other in the event of a split is not an issue. Despite me having time off to raise our kids, we prioritised topping up my pension to his level. We are named as each other’s beneficiaries too.

You don’t need a marriage certificate, you just need a partner who treats you fairly. And from what I’ve seen a marriage certificate is certainly no guarantee of that.

Funnily enough I was doing training on pensions and divorce today. Highest rates of divorce are in the over 60s. People who have been together over 30 years.

If DH and I split I'd be entitled to half of his pension and half of everything else. And possibly even half of his inheritance if I wanted to challenge it. We've topped up his pension rather than mine because it's more cost-effective to do so. He's a top rate tax payer and I'm basic. I gave up my career because one of us needed to be around for the DC and I wanted to be. It meant that DH could work late and go to conferences abroad without worrying.

If we weren't married I'd get half the house (joint names) and half of joint savings which wouldn't be a lot. He could change his will, leave everything to the DC (or OW) and that's that.

@TinklyLittleLaugh You've clearly bagged a gem and you've kept everything very much equal between you but this (on MN certainly) doesn't seem to be the norm. I despair when I read about women on here who have DC with, quite frankly, financially abusive twats who won't marry. They (the twats) can then waltz off with gay abandon and pay a pittance in child maintenance. Keep their pensions and savings to spend on OW while the mother of their DC scrapes by.

White. Officially DP remains unbagged though. Though as I said upthread, we have decided we really should get married for inheritance tax purposes.

Bit scared of being one of those couples who happily live together for years, get married, and it all goes pear shaped.

Tinkly . Good friends married recently (after 25 years) when they realised how much their house has gone up in value. Small registry office do and lunch and jobs a good'un. Has made absolutely no difference in any other way. Still uses her maiden name and calls her (now DH) her partner!!

Not really seeing the point in second or third marriages, especially if you already have children & assets

I am divorced with a DS and I won't ever get married again. I want everything that I own to go solely to DS, I don't want any bloke having a share in it.

Mine was really romantic.
We'd been together a long time and had 3 dc I was a sahm, we weren't getting on and I thought if we split up I will be in the shit so I said we will get married or I'm leaving, (he had never seen the point of marriage ) so we got married.
However we are actually really happy he's my best friend and is a great dh so it's not like I married a total arsehole.

You don't need to be married to nominate someone to receive your pension

You can nominate until the cows come home. There is no legal obligation on the pension provider/scheme trustees to accept your nomination.

I’m married a second time so is my DH. I was so hurt by my first marriage like you young (21) wanted a secure family home EXH couldn’t keep it in his pants and was very controlling both financially and emotionally.

My second marriage is mainly security and to stop his Ex claiming anything she possibly could if anything happened to him. Don’t get me wrong we do love each other but we did it mainly for security reasons.

I'd love to marry my current partner. We are both divorced with adult children. No children between us. Living together. I still believe in marriage and would love to be seen as his wife (rather than his girlfriend) if that makes sense. Also similar to what someone said above about being in the same situation as our exes. But what stops me is that I have brought more to the table than he has. I own a bigger percentage of the house and feel this percentage should go to my children.

Its fascinating to here all these different opinions. I divorced four years ago after a 20 year marriage, 3 kids, amicable settlement and am enjoying being totally in control of my own finances, making my own decisions and sticking by them with no recourse to anyone else.
Have been dating boyfriend for 2.5 years but we have no intentions of marrying. We are 50, I can't have any more children, he has never wanted them, we don't live together as I am still providing a home for my 3 just adult children until they get their own places/families, he provided very generously for his ex (as in paid her mortgage for 7 years post divorce for a house with land so she could finish a Phd and still keep her animals - she never worked FT) and now that's finished, is enjoying buying a house and furnishing it how he wants to!
Maybe when my kids have left home (in about 20 years time!) we will get somewhere together but for now, living separately is working well.

My situation is very similar to yours Blobby - if we ever did live together maybe it would be sensible to get married, but I love the whole living apart thing at the moment, it suits both of us just fine!

Interesting thread. DP and I both have two marriages behind us. Both have adult or teenage kids. Will be moving in together next year. We have similar financial assets and salaries and will do all the will stuff to ensure each other is protected but our kids get their inheritance.

I go through phases of wanting to get married and am trying to work out why. He's not bothered about marriage and never has been.

I can relate to the PP who mentioned acceptance by his family and friends. Our situation is a bit unbalanced in that he's fully engaged in my family and always has been. I am less so.

There are reasons for this like geography, I live near my family, my children are younger, he wasn't as long out of his most recent marriage, his XW was/is quite involved with his family and friends (she's not the mother of his child) and is hostile to me, my XH isn't hostile etc.

I think it's the 'legitimisation' of our relationship I'm after but then on the other hand I quite like being 'different'. My current thinking is it's maybe something I'd like in the future. But he'd need to want it too of course!