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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

unmarried stay @home mum separation advice please

277 replies

fridaysforfuturemum · 29/10/2020 22:31

My partner asked for a separation in January.
We are joint owners of our home and have been living in a toxic atmosphere since then. We have two teenagers at High school. We're not married and I know I have no legal rights on anything but half the house. It was a joint agreement that I leave my job to be a stay@home mum. My partner now says it was my decision and legally he does not have to give me equal share of the savings etc..
I have no money as we just had a joint account. I really want to stay in my home with my kids. (they will stay with me one week, then him the next...)
The solicitors I spoke to were not interested in helping me because they said I was a cohabitee and had no rights. Appeal to his better nature was their top tip!
Can anyone suggest what kind of professional would be able to help me put a financial settlement proposal together that is fair and equal,takes into account what I have contributed to our family over the last 16 years and splits everything 50/50?
I'm saying to him it's about doing the right thing and what's morally right rather than what I'm legally entitled to. I asked him to treat me as if we have been married. We have been together 26 years :(
I've been a trusting fool like so many other women before me...

OP posts:
VodselForDinner · 01/11/2020 12:10

And I know you asked MNHQ to delete my earlier post and that’s fine, you’re free to do so. I did not say anything about abortion, I merely pointed out that you chose to have babies with this man. That is a fact, garnered from what you posted here.

I stand by what I said. You’ve chosen to have at least two children with your boyfriend, at least one after you knew he wouldn’t follow through on his promise of marriage.

Hindsight is always 20/20, but your post that prompted my response made it sound like you had no agency here and your situation was something that you had no control over whatsoever. You should focus on changing that mindset if you want to get out of this relationship because it very much sounds like you feel you’re a spectator in your life and not an active participant. Ultimately, you chose to stay with your boyfriend knowing he had lied to you, and now you’re lashing out because that choice is coming back to bite you.

I get that you’re angry and upset, and going through a stressful time, but ridiculing those who have given good advice to the OP will do nobody any favours.

VodselForDinner · 01/11/2020 12:11

Sorry, that was @Kornflakey

category12 · 01/11/2020 12:12

@vanillandhoney

It's a case of basically saying to women - ahh, you should have been smarter than that, believe a man, would ya?

And what's wrong with that? Women are just as capable as men of making decisions about their love lives and future. Suggesting otherwise is really infantilising and basically suggests that women need to have their hand held as they can't be trusted otherwise.

If you're socialised to be passive and sold the romantic bollockry your whole life, you're expecting quite a lot to have to step outside those social norms and their own dreams. You see it so often in threads where women are waiting for a proposal and the idea of being the driver in that decision seems anathema to them.
category12 · 01/11/2020 12:14

I have to add I'm generally one of the people telling them they need to stop being passive Grin

PawPrincess · 01/11/2020 12:14

You're not just cohabitees your technically partners under civil law x

Lazypuppy · 01/11/2020 12:15

This is why i say to all my friends do not become a SAHP without getting married! Once you are married, your contribution to the house is valued by a judge if you then got divorced. You would have fair right to money, pension etc.

Frdd · 01/11/2020 12:22

@PawPrincess

You're not just cohabitees your technically partners under civil law x
This is not true. There is no such status in English law.
S00LA · 01/11/2020 12:22

If you were considered as married unless you signed a legal document to opt out ( ridiculous concept ) then men would simply make their partners sign such a document.

Same as @Kornflakes partner ( and hundreds of men like him ) who made her continue the pregnancy AND then conceive another baby AND then continue living with him.

If a man can persuade a woman to do all that AND do his share of the house work and all the wifework for 7 years then he sure as hell can her her to sign a piece of paper saying she has no rights.

VodselForDinner · 01/11/2020 12:28

@PawPrincess

You're not just cohabitees your technically partners under civil law x
And what law would that be?
DrMorbius · 01/11/2020 12:30

@Kornflake
Good luck OP
Feel free to PM me for support

LOL, don't stand by your phone Kornflake.

S00LA · 01/11/2020 12:31

Also would this “ right to be considered as married “ be just for heterosexual couples with children ? What about child free couples and those in gay or lesbian relationships?

What about home owners who have a long term tenant ? What if they move out and lodge a legal claim saying they were in fact partners? How would you prove they were not ?

They would have the same address for bank statements etc , perhaps for benefits claims or work, they may well have socialised together. Lots of proof they were a couple .

It would mean that a woman with kids who owned her own home couldn’t even cohabit with a man . Right now she can’t marry but she can cohabit.

Lots of ex husbands would be delighted that their ex now could never have a live in relationship again.

madcatladyforever · 01/11/2020 12:37

I'm sorry for you OP but as your solicitor said you have no rights unless it's in joint names.
How many times do I have to see this in real life and not just mumsnet. Sooooo many of my friends have thrown away their future by not getting married, not working, not having joint names on anything.
My top tips are:
Never trust a man, I've never met one I can trust
Get married if you are planning on having children and being a SAHM for a few years
Get a career and your own money
If you have your own money, home, career and pension like I do never get married unless you want to loose it all and finally
Always think with your head and never your heart, the heart is a liar and cannot be trusted.
You are going to have to go and get a full time job and life will be tough from now on, very tough.
I've had friends who have lost everything because they loved someone and didn't think they would ever split up.

madcatladyforever · 01/11/2020 12:41

You're not just cohabitees your technically partners under civil law x

Tell my friend this, shes been living with her partner for 20 years, he's just died, she got nothing. The next of kin got the house, pension and all his stuff. They went to court over it and the next of kin won. My friend who has cancer was basically put out on the street and is now living on benefits, beautiful home gone, future gone.
Wake up, go and check the actual law of the land and don't be so horrifically ignorant about legal matters.

VodselForDinner · 01/11/2020 12:52

@madcatladyforever

You're not just cohabitees your technically partners under civil law x

Tell my friend this, shes been living with her partner for 20 years, he's just died, she got nothing. The next of kin got the house, pension and all his stuff. They went to court over it and the next of kin won. My friend who has cancer was basically put out on the street and is now living on benefits, beautiful home gone, future gone.
Wake up, go and check the actual law of the land and don't be so horrifically ignorant about legal matters.

Condolences to your friend, that sounds awful and very stressful for her.

The same happened to my friend. She was with her partner for over 30 years and everything went to his next of kin... his first wife who he’d been married to for 2 years never actually divorced.

Friend’s mum knew this but thought that the longevity of her relationship would trump a marriage.

Expensive lesson.

VodselForDinner · 01/11/2020 12:53

^Same thing happened to my friend’s mum.

Dery · 01/11/2020 12:58

@madcatladyforever has it bang on. This situation should be taught in schools - at least schools in countries where partners have no automatic legal protection unless they are married or in a civil partnership.

Talia78 · 01/11/2020 13:05

So disappointing reading this thread. Imagine coming on Mumsnet, for what must have been a very difficult thing to talk about- asking for some advice. To be subjected to such horrible posts, and probably been made to feel a lot worse.

If you don’t have anything constructive or practical to say then why bother posting.
*
^^ agreed (pretend my bold is for the bit above and not this bit - I have somehow screwed it up)*

Ohalrightthen · 01/11/2020 13:40

@Talia78

So disappointing reading this thread. Imagine coming on Mumsnet, for what must have been a very difficult thing to talk about- asking for some advice. To be subjected to such horrible posts, and probably been made to feel a lot worse.

If you don’t have anything constructive or practical to say then why bother posting.
*
^^ agreed (pretend my bold is for the bit above and not this bit - I have somehow screwed it up)*

OP had already asked a legal expert, who told her where she stood. Not sure what she thought we'd know that her solicitor didn't!
category12 · 01/11/2020 14:25

OP had already asked a legal expert, who told her where she stood. Not sure what she thought we'd know that her solicitor didn't!

Possibly a bit of sympathy in the absence of a miracle answer. Rather than a fair amount of rather harsh "what you should have dones" when she already knows that and admits she was foolish. It's like people coming on threads to tell a woman who's about to drop or already has children with an asshole that she shouldn't have got pregnant. Might be true, but it's not constructive.

midsomermurderess · 01/11/2020 17:38

'Technically partners at civil law'. I wonder if the poster is thinking about common law marriage. Certainly in the part of the U.K. I live in there is no longer any such thing. In the past on the rare occasions it came up, it was very hard to establish anyway, and no good if you actually knew you were not married.

Dery · 01/11/2020 17:45

Yes - there’s no such thing as common law marriage under English law.

Froglette16 · 01/11/2020 18:14

Please check your PMs. You’re in a tough place but after 26 years you deserve a bit of a handhold. X

GrumpyHoonMain · 01/11/2020 18:16

Legally everything in joint names is 50% yours. Have you spoken to a proper solicitor? I don’t think you have otherwise you’d know your rights. You can take him to court for the money

midsomermurderess · 01/11/2020 18:22

Grumpy, there is no question about splitting assets owned jointly. The OP seems more to be thinking of financial support or a settlement to which she is not entitled, not being married.

Ohalrightthen · 01/11/2020 18:50

@GrumpyHoonMain

Legally everything in joint names is 50% yours. Have you spoken to a proper solicitor? I don’t think you have otherwise you’d know your rights. You can take him to court for the money
She's spoken to a solicitor who told her she gets half the house and nothing else. Because that's the truth. OP wants more than that though, because she doesn't work.