Pre nup- long term partner

[Newpjamas]

How would you feel if your partner of 18 years & 2 kids said they will marry you as long as they can sort a pre nup?
he is the bigger earner 70k and owns the house where i am on a lower wage 12k

I think the problem you’ll have is your solicitors will take one look at your circumstances and say that chances of a judge upholding the kind of prenup your partner wants is potentially quite low which would probably scare off your partner for life!

ie a judge is not obliged to uphold a prenup which they deem to be manifestly unfair.

Like, yes, it would be wise of him to not give any of assets away, but the cheek of him using OP to raise his kids for him while she decimates her own earnings and future, and giving her no legal protections. Shit boyfriend.

Hmm. I’d actually sign it as it’s not legally binding. Marry him. A pre-nup like that is financially abusive, it would never hold up in court. Then if you do divorce, you’ll be better protected than you are now.

Why do you want to marry your boyfriend now but didn't 18 years ago? What has changed for you?

Why would you pay 50/50 towards bills etc when he owns the house?

Why would you not have the house in your name too?

Dh and I have been together since late teens, he has always earned more than me and our savings and house are in both our names

This is actually not true. There are a lot of misconceptions about pre nups on this thread. First of all by law you MUST both have independent advice about it and any solicitor will probably advise you in this case not to sign it. Even if you were foolish enough to insist to sign it, it likely would not carry in court if it came to divorce because of the INEQUALITY in it and not because they are not legal. Technically they are not "legal" in law as not in the law books but in practice they are.

What do you want to do? Do you anticipate getting divorced if you do marry?

What discussions have you had about marriage over the last 18 years?

You have no rights at the moment so it’s possibly worth going ahead with it anyway. But it doesn’t sound like a great relationship.

If this was a newish relationship with no kids I would wholly agree with him.

But 18 years and 2 children. Honestly OP you've been very foolish.

Why would he want to get married and risk his assets?
Look at the divorce rate its naive to think its not going to happen.

You could say no, but the I'm assuming it's you who wants to be married so then you don't get married.

You could leave him like some geniuses here advise...and considering you're not married that's going to be fun.

The reality is you made decisions that have been ill thought through and now you don't like it. You don't have the upper hand so think wisely

I imagine if he’s serious he’ll contract his own solicitor, who will advise him as what is and isn’t advisable to request so as to best make it watertight. All the pitfalls posters are pointing out here, will also be pointed out by a halfway decent solicitor.

Marriage is a contract, and it’s usually women who are advised to marry in order to protect their interests. Prenups are just another, oftentimes sensible, means of protecting interests. This is generally why it’s better to work out these details before making yourself financially vulnerable by giving up work to raise children.

Whether he’s right or wrong in wanting a prenup is irrelevant at this point. He holds all the cards here. You may have enabled him
to continue his career, but presumably you also actively chose to have children and give up work to care for them? Oftentimes enabling the partners career isn’t a motivating factor for giving up work, that’s just a bonus to the main reason, which is that the woman (and it is usually the woman) wants to be a sahm. As she’s enabled him, he’s enabled her. OP is also responsible here for the decisions she’s made that have landed her in the position she’s in now.

The options now are to remain unmarried, and unprotected, or to instruct a solicitor to negotiate (this will probably be insisted on tbh, so as to ward off a claim that you were ill advised) for your own interests and see how that develops. Unfortunately you are in a much weaker position in regards to this, and that probably isn’t going to change at this point. What you can do, for yourself, is seriously look at what you can do to improve your own financial outlook so you can work at being less vulnerable, whether married or unmarried.

If the DP goes to a solicitor they will advise OP having no access to the house or savings in the event of a divorce would be “unreasonable”, so it would be a negotiation, and they’d also advise the OP had to get her own legal counsel else it’s similarly void.

The DP may never want to get married at all given this - his assets are protected if he doesn’t and he’s presumably only liable for child maintenance in the event of a split.

Entering into a pre-nup conversation in itself is risky if he’s not aware of all the above. Tread carefully OP.

^ this.

it doesn’t sound like he’s spoken to legal counsel yet. If/when he does, and he realises he can’t get exactly what he wants, then he’s likely to take marriage off the table completely.

"it doesn’t sound like he’s spoken to legal counsel yet. If/when he does, and he realises he can’t get exactly what he wants, then he’s likely to take marriage off the table completely."

Yes, this was my first thought too, it's a moot point, because he isn't going to marry you anyway - so don't give him the satisfaction of saying yes it'll just make you look utterly desparate. Tell him you don't want to marry him thanks.

Just out of curiosity @Newpjamas why doesn't he want you to have a share of the house or savings if you split?

I would sign it prenups in this country are very contestable, they do not override the law. You can sign one saying you are not entitled to some of the house/savings however divorce courts will take a different view.
Is this also a delaying tactic by him, he would have been advised by a solicitor that prenups
are not he protection he thinks it is, especially so if you do not take independent legal advice.
I would be much more worried about how your DP, even though you have been together since being teenagers expects, and gets you paying 50% of expenses when you earn so little, sees the family home and savings as his, not yours while you have been an unpaid housekeeper and nanny.

I mean I can’t blame him if he owned the house previous and that’s the wage difference. There’s a divorce rate of near half and statistically speaking it’s more likely that you as the wife will leave him since women initiate something like 80% percent of divorces. Mumsnetters will tell you you have non protection if he ups and leaves, but likewise he will probably have to leave his house and kids and send money from afar if you decide you want him out - which like I said is statistically more likely.

For all the celebration of no fault divorce law this is the problem with it - many people are apprehensive to marry since they feel they will be unprotected in law if their partner decides to press the detonate button on the marriage. It seems scary to agree to a contract which fucks you if someone else behaves badly.

I suppose this attitude of not wanting to marry for self protection is mainly coming from men who may have seen what’s happened to the men around them or their fathers/uncles in the same situation - but it’s also pretty common amongst high earning women.

"I would be much more worried about how your DP, even though you have been together since being teenagers expects, and gets you paying 50% of expenses when you earn so little, sees the family home and savings as his, not yours while you have been an unpaid housekeeper and nanny. "

Absolutely. He's some prize.

Ah another man who is happy to financially fuck over the woman he supposedly loves. God if I had a pound for every thread like this I’d be as rich as some of these bastard men.

@whumpthereitis

This is a good post which cuts to the heart of the matter.

Reality is marriage protects her - but not being married protects him. Often that’s the way between men and women today.

I really think the marriage contract is screwed without conditions attached (ie some form of fault division of assets etc), realistically why would he enter into it since it is obviously a huge risk for him to do so and he doesn’t have to do anything wrong for it to all blow up in his face.

I have a son in a similar position who remains unmarried, thankfully his partner is happy with that and has changed her/the kids names and basically they live as married.

What happens if he dies? Are you and the kids just left broke?

I agree. To a point.

I won’t marry dp. Because I am a high earner and have assets. We don’t share children and my children are older, so don’t require child care and we can both work full time. Dp has a better standard of living as he is with me but I have no interest in continuing that should we split. He has more excess money than before and can put into a pension or assets if he needs to.

the difference being that, I assume, the Dp in this situation has led op to believe what they had they shared. Including any pensions.

if you don’t want to be financially tied to someone, be clear. Don’t let them spend 18 years thinking you do see it all as family money when you don’t.

Problem is, op won’t get anything if she doesn’t marry him.

I don’t agree about no fault divorce. People could ‘press the detonate’ button anyway. No fault divorces haven’t changed that much apart from you don’t now have to accuse anyone of anything or wait 2 or 5 years.

Tell him to get lost - it would never hold up in a UK court anyway - they're not worth the paper they're written on.

i would be tempted however to marry him anyway as it will at least offer you financial protection - unmarried you are very vulnerable financially (which he obviously knows the bastard). Then divorce him after 3 (?) years and take half.

@Regularsizedrudy Yeah, but if they do get married and she decides she wants out or she cheats and that’s the reason - where is his protection? In that case he’s fucked over - out the house, probably seeing his kids less (at least 50% less and probably more) all because of her choice or bad behaviour? How is that fair?

Tbh I don’t blame men for not marrying and doing this today. Obviously they don’t feel protected by it so instead of blaming them maybe we should ask why and what concessions can be made so both can be satisfied with the marriage contract?

Exactly the thing that we see on here over and over - women having children with men in the hope that they do the right thing. @Newpjamas I do feel sorry for you and I would suggest you take some legal advice on this to see what your current situation would mean for you in the event of a split.

@Andromachehadabadday

To be clear I’m not in the uk and wasn’t talking about the recent changes to divorce law there. I meant the idea of fault having no bearing whatsoever in a general sense - it’s pretty scary for a lot of people to enter something like that. Especially if they’re the one who will leave the family home and see the kids less. Actually it’s scary just to think you may see your kids 50% less and they may have a new parent figure who is beyond your control - all against your wishes for them and what you worked for.