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?!

Grittlelayrabbit its in the post above.

[quote Ironingontheceiling]Add next of kin.

Also. If he ever has to be sectioned or anything under the mental health act, there’s a strict hierarchy of who can make decisions. www.rethink.org/advice-and-information/rights-restrictions/mental-health-laws/nearest-relative/[/quote]
Not to mention if he were to ever have an accident/be injured/die/unable to speak for himself, you will have zero say in what happens because you’re not his next of kin.

People tend to think, oh a baby is more of a commitment. It’s not. You need that legal connection for security, both financial and for peace of mind should anything happen to your partner.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g - just to satisfy you, I was in an unmarried relationship for many years and we had 2 dds. On our split I was able to keep most of my assets because we did not marry.

I do not think there is anything at all wrong with that whether I am a man or a woman (I’m a woman). My ex did not make any sacrifices for me or lose any income to look after our dds (although he did his share). If anything I contributed a disproportionate amount to the finances while we were together and he got to live a better life than he otherwise would. He’s not happy about it (although we do remain on good terms) but I’m very pleased I did not get married and I can keep my assets for me and my dds. I am now the resident parent and can afford a better future for my dds because of my choices.

I do think it takes a truly awful person not to pay for their children but I have no problem with not sharing your assets with a partner after the relationship is over.

Hospitals don’t throw out partners or stop them making decisions about the person they live with. This is rubbish. There is no legal definition of next of kin that applies in these situations.

Cloud

re your comment:-

"Some are asking about our views on marriage. I would marry tomorrow (and would have done years ago!), he’s been adamant from day 1 he’s not interested in it (thank you to the ex-wife of the guy he idolised growing up who absolutely hung her husband out to dry; moved the kids to the other side of the country with no warning, ruined his business, broke his heart..!) I suppose I thought at the beginning his views on it might change but he’s been true to his word, will give him that!"

You certainly need a discussion on this subject. Unfortunately he may not change his mind even now on this matter given what he saw as a child. Such attitudes are hard to shift and you have made an error in thinking he would ever change his mind over the years. You however, are not the woman who broke her man's (I presume it is his dad whom he idolised) heart when this man was a child. He also needs to realise though that if either you or he were to die suddenly the surviving parent could well be in financial dire straits and perhaps also being totally dependent on other's goodwill as well as dealing with their own grief. He loves his children too and hopefully would not want to see them potentially suffer hardship because he as their dad did not make adequate provision for that eventuality. Some time with you both sitting in a Solicitors office could be most helpful to you both too.

@LemonTT

Hospitals don’t throw out partners or stop them making decisions about the person they live with. This is rubbish. There is no legal definition of next of kin that applies in these situations.

There is if it relates to a mental health act issue.

@Lavenderfieldsofprovence - Even the mental health act definition you puts the nearest relative as an unmarried partner you’ve lived with for 6 months or more if you have such a person. Please stop scare mongering. Being married does not in itself allow you to make medical decisions for another person.

I have a friend whose wedding I was due to attend. Three days before the groom died of a heart attack. They’d been together twenty years.
Legally she was left out in the cold. His adult children evicted her from ‘his’ house and they wouldn’t let her arrange the funeral or attend. Prior to his death she thought they all had a great relationship. One of his sons had been due to be best man.

@Ironingontheceiling - no there isn’t. In respect of mental health it’s called the “nearest relative” and can include unmarried partners.

This doesn't sound good, OP. He holds all the cards in your relationship and seems to like it that way. Does he not recognise your contribution to the family? I think you need to find out whether he's actually happy with how things are, or he just hasn't thought it through properly. That thing with his childhood idol's nasty ex wife is a ridiculous excuse.

@drinkingwineoutofamug

Reading up thread that my assets will go to my pil if my partner dies?? We have a house together 50/50 We have joint bank accounts We have wills He is named as my next of kin and vice versa. Insurance , pension and all the rest.

So if he pops his clogs before me , the will stating assets etc goes to me and our 3 children isn't worth the paper it's written on???

I'm lost here. We never wanted to get married but named each other on legal work.

You can have a civil partnership - all the legal buts covered but not marriage. It’s what I would have done if available at the time.

OP, please sort out childcare costs with your partner. It is a joint cost, it is not your sole responsibility as the mother. I despair when I read about this situation happening, it is incredibly unfair.

DP had a serious and sudden health scare which resulted in emergency surgery. The doctors conferred with me all the way through and weren't demanding to speak to his mother or brother. Of course if his family had decided to side line me it might have been a different story. Thankfully he is fully recovered but it was a wake up call for us both romantically and legally. As of a month ago my DP became my DH, after 13 years together.

If you partner doesn’t want to marry you on grounds of “ principle “ then you could get a civil partnership.

Or give you shares in half his business.

Or put all the pension money and savings in your name, to balance out the risk.

So many ways of getting around his issues on marriage. If he wants to of course. If he doesn’t then it’s clear that it’s about his greed and not his principles.

@ALLIS0N

Or you could choose not to take a financial and career hit. It’s not compulsory for women not to work for years because they have a child

That true. But some maternity leave is compulsory. And babies and children need looked after 24/7 . You either do it yourself or pay someone else a lot of money to do it . Many fathers do little or nothing.
Many men do little or no housework.

It’s a double or triple burden to expect women to earn the same money while doing all the childcare and housework.

Many women have children assuming their partner will share the work. When he doesn’t , they are already tied.

They stay hoping he will change. They have another child. He doesn’t change.

It’s easy to sneer at other Women if you have not been there. Or if you earn good money and / or have good family support.

There's far more sneering in terms of the much voiced MN opinion that every woman who has kids with man without marrying him is somehow an idiot.

If things go wrong in your relationship, marriage gives you some security that there will be some fairness in asset distribution and child support.

If everything is wonderful and you are blissfully happy together until the day one of you dies, marriage stops the govt taking 40% of your partner's assets (above a threshold) in inheritance tax....

There's far more sneering in terms of the much voiced MN opinion that every woman who has kids with man without marrying him is somehow an idiot

It’s only idiocy if you’re reckless about the ramifications of your choice (which OP is not, as she is looking for more secure foundations now)

There are still too many threads from women who have been shafted at separation, or who find themselves trapped unable to afford to move on

He is main wage earner and self employed. The business is doing very well

Well that's a very obvious red flag right there, because if you split I can almost guarantee the business wouldn't be "doing very well" any more - at least, not according to him

All the advice about marriage benefits is spot on, but your challenge here may be whether he's actually prepared to do it now

Or give you shares in half his business.

If he’s self employed as a sole trader there is no business and therefore no shares. They only exist within limited companies, which the OP hasn’t mentioned.

@ALLIS0N

*Babies and children need looked after 24/7 . You either do it yourself or pay someone else a lot of money to do it . Many fathers do little or nothing.
Many men do little or no housework.

It’s a double or triple burden to expect women to earn the same money while doing all the childcare and housework.

Many women have children assuming their partner will share the work. When he doesn’t , they are already tied.

They stay hoping he will change. They have another child. He doesn’t change.*

This is what happened to me. However much we like to imagine a world where men and women work equally in all parts of family/professional life, for the majority of women who have children they will end up taking on the lion's share of domestic life. Of course not all women choose to have children, of course there are exceptions. But in the majority of cases this is what happens. I can only speak from personal experience but I sacrificed good years of career-building to have my two children, I worked part-time, took 9 months' maternity leave after each birth and remained in a very local, subsidiary part-time role that offered security and stability and also gave me great flexibility to work around school drop-off/pick up.

I did, and still do, all the housework and cooking. My DH is a lovely man but he can stare at a messy house for days, weeks even, and not notice the mess. He's a terrible cook. He works hard at his job, and he is the main earner in our household. So the arrangement works. But it is me who runs the house and looks after the kids 99% of the time, as well as holding down a part-time job (3 days a week.) The thing is, even if I secured a full-time job, with a higher salary, it would change very little I fear in our household & I'd basically end up trying to manage two competing demands - work and home.

I'm married by the way. I need that protection financially, and legally. I would be high and dry if something happened & we weren't married.

Not read the whole thread yet but have to pop out and wanted to post, so apologies if I'm repeating. The main thing for me is that you can draw up wills etc but if you ever split, he could change that will and you would have no legal recourse. If he is self employed and therefore owns his own business, you have no claim on it. When couples split, it's very easy for self employed people to hide income - marriage doesn't guarantee everything but it would give you a claim on his assets. No one thinks their relationship will go wrong, but honestly, you can't trust 100% that he will never leave you. If you've reduced your work hours to care for shared children, it makes sense not to leave yourself financially vulnerable, while he continued to work ft and build an asset that isn't in your name too.
If you don't want to get married, at least get yourself named on the business paperwork as a joint owner.
The other thing is that it's a hell of a lot easier to deal with things in the event if a death, if you are married. I've heard of awful things where parents/siblings have claimed insurance payments or been arsey about funerals, when there was a long term partner.
It's horrible to say but society respects marriage more than partnerships and it could affect how you are treated down the line.

It's unfair of your DP to judge you on what his friends ex wife did (and you should tell him this). It's just an excuse. On another note though, you could always change your surname to match your DC, that would be simple enough.

Life insurance, wills and next of kin are only protection while you're together. Unlike marriage, they don't protect you long term as he can easily change his will, next of kin and life insurance policy. He doesn't even have to tell you. You have no claim on any savings accounts he has in his name or any other assets in his name.

Never trust anyone, male or female, to hold to promises made when a relationship is happy! You might think he'll never turn into that bastard, but it has been shown time and again that people (male and female) flip to bastard with a relationship breakdown. Self employed means it easy to show a reduced income to avoid fair child maintenance. He could refuse to either leave you and dc in the house or refuse to pay his half of the mortgage. He could fight through the courts, costing you both a fortune, to get the house sold.

You've put things in place to make sure you're not financial vulnerable while the relationship is okay, but none of those things are protection if it goes tits up.

Hospitals don’t throw out partners or stop them making decisions about the person they live with. This is rubbish. There is no legal definition of next of kin that applies in these situations.
But the if the family of the ill or deceased prevent the partner or in the sad case I knew of, do not even notify the partner of what has happened, they are left without a leg to stand on.

Have people never heard of wills? If someone dies intestate, their children are the beneficiary/ies of their estate. If the children are minors, it is held in trust until they come of age. Obviously if there are no children, then the parents will be the beneficiaries, but only if there is no will.

It seems that some women feel the need to justify being married by spouting all the spurious legal reasons (for which there is a legal procedure for each that does not involve being married), possibly because they feel like they've let the side down (or betrayed their own feminist principles) by being a 'kept woman'. No-one cares! Do what's best for you and your family and make sure you have legal matters tied up if case of whatever might happen, whether you're married or not!