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Original poster

I want to get married, DP doesn’t. What happens now?

198 replies

AngstyMcAngsty · 09/11/2021 04:59

I’ve been with DP for a few years and things are great between us, except for the massive elephant in the room. He is so hesitant about getting married. We live separately and both have kids from previous relationships. He’s divorced and I’ve not been married before. I believe he loves me and he knows I love him, but this is now causing an issue between us. It’s got to the point where I’m seriously having to think about ending things because it’s upsetting me. I don’t want to though because he’s almost perfect in every other way. Oh wise mumsnetters, what would you do in this situation?

OP posts:
lentilsforever · 11/11/2021 15:31

@Viddy2021

Ok and why is this totally ok in a first marriage and scandalous in a second?
Not brain science

First - full of hope
Second - you know how it can all turn out and so you’re a damn sight smarter about it all

lentilsforever · 11/11/2021 15:32

When I married - finances did not cross my mind. It was about love and sex, I had no responsibilities.

Now, not a bloody chance I would agree to marrying someone and if I bizarrely did - I would ring fence and nail down as much as I could and if I got a whiff my husband to be had a problem with that - then, well dead in the water

DrSbaitso · 11/11/2021 15:51

@Viddy2021

Ok and why is this totally ok in a first marriage and scandalous in a second?
a) If it didn't work out the first time, you can see why people would be more wary in future

b) Second marriage is more likely to include complications relating to the inheritance of existing children.

Lemor · 11/11/2021 16:29

It is an interesting subject, quite apart from OP's specific quandry.

In the "old days" in many sectors of society it would not be the done for a woman to live with a man out of wedlock. Most people who wanted to co-habit HAD to get married, even in they were middle-aged, to be respectable and seem a real couple. Perhaps some of that idea still hangs around today?

It also occurs to me in British society MARRIAGE is really taken seriously legally! More than children even. You can be married for 10 minutes (literally) and if you die, your estate will automatically go to your spouse and NOT to your children (unless you make that a specific clause in your Will!). This can be an issue if the spouse is not the parent of your children!

But I also understand the OP's wish for commitment, as marriage is still a special financial and social and (often) church commitment. A married man and woman are seen as 'being all in' together. I am not married myself and at my late age I don't feel the need either, but I can see how some people who are very into family life and family commitment and partnership would perhaps want it.

Keepitonthedownlow · 11/11/2021 16:38

If you want the 'big day' why not have a non binding, humanist ceremony?

Viddy2021 · 11/11/2021 21:23

NOT being married doesn't automatically protect anyone either. My father's second partner, who stopped working when she moved in with him at the age of 50 (no children together and hers were grown) took him for 75,000 when she left him (and cheated on him) -- common law spousal support.
I'm divorced with children myself, so I understand the context, but I still find the cynicism depressing and a little too easy.

DameMaureen · 11/11/2021 21:27

@Viddy2021

(Getting a share of each other's assets)
because usually at first marriage you have very little in the way of assets . Later in life you do and you may wish to keep those assets separate for the families - nothing at all wrong with that and can be achieved very easily.
Viddy2021 · 11/11/2021 23:41

Dame Maureen, I agree and with a prenup this is possible is it not? I don't buy that assets keep someone from marrying. It's an excuse.

lentilsforever · 12/11/2021 06:33

Pre nups are NOT legally binding

DrSbaitso · 12/11/2021 06:53

@Viddy2021

Dame Maureen, I agree and with a prenup this is possible is it not? I don't buy that assets keep someone from marrying. It's an excuse.
Marriage is about assets.
astoundedgoat · 12/11/2021 07:15

I’m very pro marriage and the level commitment, but if my own marriage broke down or DH was struck by a meteor, I would not marry again, unless I was able to transfer all my assets to my children to protect them in the event of a divorce. No way on EARTH would I risk what belongs to them.

So unusually for me, I’m on the side of the hesitant DP here, and you should be thinking about protecting your own assets. Statistically, the relationship is more likely to fail than succeed, and you can’t risk losing your assets in a messy divorce - he already knows what that is like.

retiremeoff · 12/11/2021 07:34

@astoundedgoat

I’m very pro marriage and the level commitment, but if my own marriage broke down or DH was struck by a meteor, I would not marry again, unless I was able to transfer all my assets to my children to protect them in the event of a divorce. No way on EARTH would I risk what belongs to them.

So unusually for me, I’m on the side of the hesitant DP here, and you should be thinking about protecting your own assets. Statistically, the relationship is more likely to fail than succeed, and you can’t risk losing your assets in a messy divorce - he already knows what that is like.

It's a great logical way of looking at it, which is so very easy to overlook when romanticising marriage. But I am with you and the majority of other posters in this case.

Most people go into marriage expecting it to last forever and never break down. They then carry their experience of divorce into their future and learn from it. With assists to protect you would have to be mad to marry again.

lentilsforever · 12/11/2021 10:39

I’m guessing @Viddy2021 doesn’t have children and or isn’t divorced!

I’m older, wiser, less naive, more aware that what starts as wonderful can absolutely turn rotten and, most importantly, my children are my world. No one will ever come close.

All very very very different to before I married for the first time!

I will never marry again. Ever. That is not to say I don’t “believe” in marriage. I do. But I have way too much to lose now. I have about £600k equity, a decent pension and two children in private school. Before my first marriage - I had not even a fraction of this.

Dozer · 12/11/2021 14:44

There is no such thing as ‘common law spousal support’. Cohabitees sometimes

It’s not at all ‘scandalous’ to share assets (via marriage) the second time round, but if there are bigger assets (one or both of the couple) and / or existing DC to consider it’s not a ‘given’ that in an otherwise committed, long term, cohabiting relationship people will want to share their assets with their spouse in the event of death or divorce, rather than their DC.

Dozer · 12/11/2021 14:45

Or indeed other beneficiaries. Eg I know someone in a long term relationship who doesn’t want marriage and intends to leave all her worldly goods to her sibling!

Viddy2021 · 13/11/2021 10:04

I need to clarify, I don't live in the UK - I live in a country where prenups are routine and completely binding. A person can ring fence every single asset they own if they choose, children or no children. It is also impossible to disinherit one's children, so common law partners can find themselves in dire straits if the other passes and children from a previous marriage claim their stake in a jointly purchased home immediately. If the couple is married, the surviving partner can stay in the home until they die and then those children inherit.
So anti-marriage sentiment is far less related to financial risk.

lentilsforever · 13/11/2021 10:29

@Viddy2021

I need to clarify, I don't live in the UK - I live in a country where prenups are routine and completely binding. A person can ring fence every single asset they own if they choose, children or no children. It is also impossible to disinherit one's children, so common law partners can find themselves in dire straits if the other passes and children from a previous marriage claim their stake in a jointly purchased home immediately. If the couple is married, the surviving partner can stay in the home until they die and then those children inherit. So anti-marriage sentiment is far less related to financial risk.
Bizarre you didn’t reference that in your initial posts as clearly very different in the UK
Viddy2021 · 13/11/2021 13:35

I didn't mention it because I honestly thought it was the same in the UK

DrSbaitso · 13/11/2021 14:14

@Viddy2021

I didn't mention it because I honestly thought it was the same in the UK
It's not.

Now you see why we respond as we do to this issue.

lentilsforever · 13/11/2021 16:27

@Viddy2021

Might have been an idea to do a modicum of research then before posting such comments as

* For me, the money issues are a trust issue. I suspect a lot of the negative comments on this thread are coming from ex wives who are thinking of their own children with respect to exs with new partners, rather than people in post-divorce committed relationships themselves. *

lentilsforever · 13/11/2021 16:27

So you’d appreciate why an ex wife may indeed be thinking of her children

DameMaureen · 13/11/2021 19:36

@lentilsforever

Pre nups are NOT legally binding
They are not worsen into the state books but in practice they are .
DameMaureen · 13/11/2021 19:36

WRITTEN not worsen..

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