What’s the deal with not being married?

[Cloud1220]

Myself and DP of 10 years are not married. We have two DC. Mortgage/house in joint names 50/50.

Every thread I see on here (when things get rocky) where someone isn’t married has comments like ‘why didn’t you think about marrying him before you had children?’, ‘this is why you should have been married’ etc.

So, wise people in my phone, what do I need to know?!

I believe I am also correct in thinking that unmarried partners still cannot open Letters of Administration to their deceased's partners estate. Nor can they choose a headstone or claim widows bereavement allowance. Some can and do find themselves in deep financial hardship as well as grieving for their partner when the other dies.

The problem with your setup OP is that you have taken a career hit to care for the children. If you split up, will it be possible for you to go back to full time immediately on a salary that hasn't suffered from you being part time for several years? If the answer is no, you need to either get married or return to work full time and split all childcare costs between you.

OP I was in a similar boat to you - local gvt pension, lower income earner when we had DC and took a step back - though in my case I stopped work altogether. We have subsequently got married so circumstances have changed, but I’m now at an age where I do look at what’s in my pension pot and do think about how I would manage if anything were to happen and I were to need to do so alone.
I think it’s just a matter of thinking through the various what-ifs. How would I afford a property of my own even if we split the value of the house? How would I maintain a liveable lifestyle into old age? I know so many women my mother’s age (mid 70s) who were left in penury by errant husbands/dead husbands without proper pension provisions/dead husbands with private pensions that failed etc. God, this is gloomy thinking! But good on you for thinking it through and getting things sorted.

I don't understand why you cover the bulk of the childcare costs and pay for the children's expenses when you have taken an earnings hit to drop to part time. Presumably you do the wrap around childcare and a large portion of the housework and assorted family duties?

@OP - the situation you describe is one that would warrant getting married - you have taken a financial and career hit for the family. You need that extra protection. If you’re in England and Wales, that is. There are different rules in different jurisdictions. As someone upthread said, marriage is essentially a financial contract which protects the position of the financially weaker party in the event of a split. If you are concerned, it is definitely worth taking some proper advice. Actually getting married can be done very cheaply indeed - you don’t need a lavish wedding.

You need to stop thinking that it’s you paying for childcare & children’s expenses. Pay your money that goes on nursery into joint account & then all bills (house etc too) taken from there. So many women end up leaving their jobs because childcare is considered to be their expense only. Even if you pay exactly the same amounts as you do now it’s really important for that not to be something you alone pay because you haven’t given up work entirely... neither has he!

& yes, in your circumstances I’d get married

There is information on citizens advice & www.gov.uk websites about the legal differences between single & married

You are legally currently both single

Basically if you're married you have a legal status. If you're not you don't.

Every relationship ends either through a break up or death. If you're married your rights relating to that are clear. If you're not they can get muddy. Birth families can and do challenge wills. This can happen even when all parties got on during life.

Let's not forget visa issues. Should either one of you get a job abroad you might need to be married to go with them. It's not an issue for everyone but is for some.

I think the important thing is to get some independent legal advice on your situation and go from there.

I really think they need to teach this in schools. Marriage isn't better than cohabitation and it doesn't magically make a relationship work. It doesn't stop your partner becoming a dick but it does protect you if they do.

If you split with a partner that has named you as a nominated person on their pension, left you everything in their will or holds your house with you as joint tenants they can alter each of these straight away so none of it goes to you. They wouldn’t need your permission to leave their assets to someone else. If you are married they can’t do this. If you can’t reach a financial agreement ending a marriage the court will decide.

Wills can also be important inside marriage. From the gov website on intestacy:

“The husband, wife or civil partner keeps all the assets (including property), up to £270,000, and all the personal possessions, whatever their value.

The remainder of the estate will be shared as follows:

the husband, wife or civil partner gets an absolute interest in half of the remainder
the other half is then divided equally between the surviving children
If a son or daughter (or other child where the deceased had a parental role) has already died, their children will inherit in their place.”

I’m not sure if life insurance falls outside the estate (I think it might do) but our life insurance alone is £200k

OP - if your husband is self employed ( or owns a company that you have no share in) it will be very VERY easy for him to pay no child support for your children if you split up.

So I hope your income from your part time job is enough to keep a roof over your kids heads , all bills etc and pay for childcare.

I know you think “ he won’t do that “. No one ever does. Even the women who have kids with a man who doesn’t pay CMS for his other kids. They somehow think their kids will be different .

I see not being married as a lack of commitment, I think it shows underlying issues. A couple have children together but they don't want to get married, very strange

In terms of earnings, he is main wage earner and self employed. The business is doing very well. I went part time 3 years ago when we started a family so my income is now less than half of his. We have a joint account and have done since day 1. I pay for the childcare from my part time wage (so, most of my wage gone) and pay for the kids clothes/birthdays/Xmas etc. He pays for everything else for the house.

You have answered your own question - because women often lose money, earning potential and independence when they raise children with a man they are not married to. The situation you are in now is not equal and if your DP were to leave you you would be in a precarious position. Please take care of yourself, some very good advice here i.e. pensions, splitting childcare costs, etc.

I genuinely believe that having been with someone for 10 years, having 2 children and a house means practically married, you just haven't signed that piece of paper

I understand this is your genuinely held personal belief. But it has no basis in law and won’t get a penny for you and your children.

Your personal beliefs are not legally binding on anyone else. Your ex doesn’t have to pay you a penny of his savings / pension / house because of how you felt in your heart. The only that matters is a legal contract ie that much despised and ridiculed ‘piece of paper’.

@Burnthurst187 I disagree. If everyone being married would be that committed, the divorce rates were lower.

I do think it is just a piece of paper in many ways even though I am married lol. However, having a close relative with kids go through losing her partner of 20 yrs. She lost out on about £10K bereavement payment from the government as they weren't married. The banks etc wldnt deal with her they wanted his parents to come in rather than her as in their eyes she wasn't his next of kin 🤷🏻‍♀️ Luckily insurance policy paid their joint mortgage. She cldnt believe the stuff that came up because they weren't married. They were engaged but had been for a long time as having young kids got in the way and they cldnt afford the wedding they wanted. They decided that it didn't really matter it was a bit of paper but she now wishes they had just got married.

Quite a few unmarried friends of theirs have now got married after seeing what the difference really was when something like that happens.

Not next of kin. No entitlement to any pension unless a money purchase scheme and willed to you. In divorce more rights, although if you are the higher earner that could bite you.

You need to weigh up the pros and cons

The trouble is, thatyou can sort all this stuff but then if he has an affair/wants out, then he just changes it all and there is nothing you can do.

So for example. Your pension pot is much smaller than his, because you worked part time/took maternity leaves/chose jobs that fit around childcare etc. Not a problem, you are his pension beneficiary. Oh no, hang on, he's had an affair and left. You're taken off the pension plan the next day. You're married? Then he can do fuck all about it, pension is counted in divorce settlements precisely in order to protect the lower earner in this kind of scenario.

Basically, being married provides a legal document that says 'Hey, these people have invested and lived as a TEAM. Their assets should not be considered as two separate efforts, because the likelihood is that one of them (usually the woman!) will have made decisions that negatively impacted on their own assets, as they were working with the notion of common assets'. Should that higher earner/asset holder decide they want out, that arrangement is legally upheld. It goes for everything - joint accounts, pensions, house are the main things. Then inheritance, next of kin, widowed parents allowance - if he died while you are not married/civil partnered, the law just looks at you blankly and says 'What does this have to do with your finances? This person was legally not part of your Team. How does the death affect you?'

NOTHING you can do legally will give you the same protection and advantages as marriage. You could spend £££ on legal arrangements and it still wouldn't be the same.

Get married.

In terms of earnings, he is main wage earner and self employed. The business is doing very well. I went part time 3 years ago when we started a family so my income is now less than half of his. We have a joint account and have done since day 1. I pay for the childcare from my part time wage (so, most of my wage gone) and pay for the kids clothes/birthdays/Xmas etc. He pays for everything else for the house.

If he wanted out, you'd be completely stuffed and he'd be laughing.

While it is correct that a marriage license is just a piece of paper filed at the registry office, it is what that piece of paper represents, and what the signatories agree to, that is significant. It’s a commitment to one another that is not easily or quickly dissolved, a willingness to sign your name with the intention that the only thing that will divide is “death do us part.”

Would you treat documents like deeds to a house, money, insurance documents etc with the same apparant level of disdain?. No you would not but the above are pieces of paper too.

If you have a joint account, why arent all bills, including childcare costs, food etc coming out of it? That is one big thing you need to change.
The other is his savings account, because at the moment, he's likely saving lots and will have much more disposable income if you are paying out nearly all your wage. If you did split in future, he could take all the savings if in his name.
I also don't see how being self employed seems to you a reason for not having a pension, he should still have one. The risk also there if you split that it's easier to hide your actual earnings when self-employed and the only money you could legally get is CMS, based on those earnings.

Please can someone explain how next of kin works? What situations is it used for?
PP said in a medical situation you could be next of kin even if unmarried, how does that work?

www.citizensadvice.org.uk/family/living-together-marriage-and-civil-partnership/living-together-and-marriage-legal-differences/

This needs to be drilled into peoples heads, I can’t believe there are still people in existence who think boyfriends and girlfriends magically acquire ‘rights’ and are shocked when they end up homeless/banned from boyfriends funeral, etc. You have to opt in to having legal protections.

If you are part-time and the lower earner, could you afford to pay for the mortgage and all the bills he currently pays for and childcare out of your part-time earnings? Because if you split, that's all you'll have.

He could feasibly up sticks and move on, leaving you to pay the mortgage or default, leaving you will all the bills he was previously paying, and all the childcare responsibilities and costs. There is no legal protection for you or your children for him to share any assets he has to support you or your children in the future. It sounds like you would probably be pretty screwed if that happened, unless you have family wealth somewhere that you could live off of. Assuming he has a limited company, you could only claim maintenance based I believe on his dividend earnings, which can be very small if he's clever, so you would be entitled to little maintenance for the children.

Also, please sort out the costs of childcare. You should be contributing proportionately to all costs, meaning you should pay little of your income to household bills and he should pay a lot. If most of your income is being eaten up by childcare expenses, then he isn't contributing fairly.

Getting married isn't expensive, almost certainly a lot cheaper than all the work you'd need to pay a solicitor to do to draw up all the documents needed to get various protections you'd have automatically if you get married.

People say they can't afford to get married because they're hung up on having a huge expensive wedding. Nobody has to do this. You just need to go to the Register Office with a couple of witnesses, ten minutes later you'd be married.

It's a personal choice whether to marry or not, but like any other choice you need full and accurate information before you come to a decision whether it's the best thing in your circumstances.

Someone was asking about why her PILs would inherit if she and her partner had wills leaving everything to each other. The answer there is I don't think they would. However, most people don't get round to making a will and in those cases it can come as a nasty shock when an unmarried partner doesn't inherit automatically.

Re house/flat: different in different parts of the UK, I believe, but in England and Wales if two or more people own a property jointly there are two ways it can be done:

• joint tenants
• tenants in common

A solicitor should ask which you want and explain the difference.

If I understand correctly, say Ann and Bob buy a flat together, and then Bob dies, this is the difference it makes.

Ann and Bob were joint tenants: Ann automatically inherits the flat as the surviving tenant. This is the usual arrangement for people who are in a relationship at the time they buy, whether married or not.

Ann and Bob were tenants in common: the solicitor will have recorded which share was Ann's and which was Bob's. Say it was 50 50. Half the flat now passes to whoever Bob left it to in his will, or if he didn't leave a will, the intestacy laws say who inherits. If Ann and Bob were married, this probably means Ann, but if it's worth a lot, part of Bob's half share would go to any children Bob had. If they weren't married, Bob's children, parents, siblings could all inherit half the flat. Ann would either have to buy them out or re-mortgage to pay them off or sell up.