Why is it 'better' to get married?

[Rabbitjungle1]

I have been with my partner for 12 years. We're very committed to one another, have a loving and trusting relationship, and are expecting our first baby in the autumn. We've always wanted children together, but never been fussed about getting married and don't plan to. This is a joint decision that we are both happy with. We have mirror wills.

Over the past few months I have seen so many posts on MN advising women not to have children with someone they aren't married to. Why is this? I don't mean this antagonistically or obtusely - I am genuinely curious. I have a good job that's well-paid (my partner earns more, but not by that much - although long-term his earning potential is higher), we have a house with a joint mortgage (50/50 deposit). Both own our own cars, have good pensions, and our respective (separate) savings. Granted, my partner's car is of higher value and he has more savings than me. I plan to take 12 months' mat leave and then return to work full time, neither of us are planning on being a SAHP or going part-time.

I am not naive - despite knowing that we are as committed to one another as we can be without marriage, I know that in the eyes of UK law we are not considered equal with a married couple. Are there practical or child-rearing related reasons that we should get married? Is there anything we should be setting up administratively in advance of the birth, given that we are not married (i.e. in case medical decisions need to be made)? What am I missing?! Thank you for reading.

Because lots of women are too trusting and don't look after their own financial interests or give up careers to look after children allowing the partner to become to breadwinner. If he ups and leaves, some women are left without a secure claim to their family home, his pension or other assets, these are often the same sort of men who duck out of maintenance payments. So they end up single mums who struggle massively whilst their ex partners are able to lord it over them with the career that her sacrifices have allowed him to achieve.

Or something like that.

Unfortunately many of us know of people (or are those people) who had children without being married, took a career break (or gave up working / went part time / stopped doing extra hours / didn't do that management course we could have done because of childcare / returned to work having missed a few years of progression / had to have a more flexible job / as a result of all this have a lesser pension) and then when the relationship broke up, had zero financial protection. The other partner, who had continued their career progression / networking / training / not refused jobs because they weren't flexible enough or involved travel / increased their pension contributions - walked away in a much better financial position.

If they were married, the joint finances are taken in to account, including savings, income and pensions. Any sacrifices that one parent made professionally are recognised.

There are other benefits that someone more up to date than me will no doubt point out. Some of them can be dealt with through other legal means (like your mirror wills - although remember that if things turn sour one party can change their will without the other knowing), but being married solves all those issues in one go.

I'm sure plenty of people will chime in with the financial reasons. Essentially the people who are most vulnerable are the ones who believe in common law marriage/that he will never leave them and get screwed over.
If you have sensibly planned to keep finances separate and retain your independence and are fully aware that you should protect your own interests then you're doing better than most.

However do be aware that things change - you might be planning to split childcare costs now, but what if you change your mind and want to go part time?
Even if full time, as mother you will unfortunately be assumed to be the default parent in many situations. Prioritising your child (as you should!) may impact on your progression at work and you might not choose high-hours, high-stress (and high-paid!) work as much, this is less likely to apply to him (eg a job that requires significant travel)

Rather than a flat out "don't have children without marriage" it should be more like "carefully consider your financial position and whether you would benefit from the legal protections of marriage"

From a non-financial point of view, if you are not married he only has "parental responsibility " if/when named on the birth certificate. In most cases this is irrelevant because you'll register your baby soon, but in an unfortunate situation where baby was born unwell, he wouldn't be able to consent to treatment- particularly relevant if you are also unwell after the birth so can't consent for your child

As people have explained above it's not so much how things are now, or how you expect them to be but more how they might be. It's very, very easy for you to end up being significantly lower earning/pension and it's surprisingly difficult to persuade even decent men (or women) to enter into marriage where it's suddenly very clear that's it's going to financially disadvantage them! It is much easier to do it now, when you are equals than later when one is significantly less well off financially. Another way of saying get it on writing that you actually are a team from the outset.

Will you have a drop in income when you are on Mat leave? if so, where is the shortfall coming from?

Will you go back full time to your job? Will you equally split the childcare bill, equally split the cost of rearing a child?

Who goes part time if your baby develops an SN or is born with one? if so, how will the difference between your incomes be handled?

If you have your own income and nest egg and could go it alone then that's fine. But with separate finances and sharing a child you will both need to ensure that any potential hit to the finances is equal to both parents.

You don't need to get married. There is a much more modern practical version called Civil Partnership which gives you the same legal status without all the fuss.
We did it as we're getting older and figured it would be simpler for each other if something happened to one of us.
It takes about 15 mins in a register office.

We did it soon after it became legal just before lockdown. Been together 30+ years and neither of us has ever wanted to be married.

Why prioritising their child only applies to her? Why do you assume only women have to make sacrifices? What about both parents working together, taking turns and supporting each other? Believe it or not some couples do just that.
And working culture varies between companies. It doesn't all depend on the position.

Essentially, if anything doesn't go as planned or any shit hits the fan, the woman is likelier on a societal level to be picking up more pieces than the man.

There are all kinds of structural reasons for this and no individual woman can assume she's going to be able to opt out of them, even though plenty of individual women do.

I remained working FT after having children. My friend didn’t and missed 14 years of pension payments. She is now getting divorced, he cheated on her and my God if there was ever a couple you would NEVER have thought they would break up it was them. So she at least has a claim on her DH pension, she facilitated all the travel with his job, he never had to take a day off if his kids were sick.

if you are going to stay working FT then crack on but many women don’t and there are inheritance implications.

I think 50% of marriages end in divorce, unsure about long term partnerships with children break up rate, I guess it can’t be measured so easily. Overall my friendship group all late forties to mid fifties have had a mix of living together and being married with children and we are doing quite good with about 70% of couples together still. Mind you one friend is headed for divorce 2, it will be a miracle if they survive their issues.

I read on MN years ago that having a baby was like throwing a hand grenade in to a relationship.

It's closer to 40% in England and Wales but still, a non-negligible chance. Harder to get good data on cohabiting relationships. As I recall, the chances of separation are much higher but then you can be living with someone and not that committed, plus lots of cohabitants who are serious about each other go on to get married. So not a fair comparison really.

I think in your case you don’t need to get married but perhaps contribute proportionally to costs and get a water tight Will which includes power of attorney.

There's not really any such thing as a watertight will, if you're thinking in terms of protection. Anyone who has a will can revoke it and make a new one any time they like, and they wouldn't have to tell the beneficiaries. It's still best for all cohabitants to have them, because the intestacy rules don't offer adequate protection, but 'watertight' is a misnomer.

Some people would view that as a positive rather than a negative, of course. It depends how you feel about your partner's claim to your assets if you die first.

OP I have a long term partner (25 years) with DC, am not married and will never get married. I am a high earner with assets of my own. I won’t be persuaded by any of the reasons often stated on MN but then I am not in a vulnerable position.

It’s when women give up their careers to look after DC and sacrifice themselves for their partners salary / earning potential it gets squirlly as what you contributed in effort you will never get back financially.

My other comment is the children need to be double barrelled or have your surname. All sorts of issues otherwise re. opening them bank accounts, going on holiday without the father etc.

a) money! Not just if you split up or one of you dies, either. There are a handful of advantages e.g. being able to transfer assets free of tax between spouses (*)

b) if you die in childbirth your other half can just take the baby home because he's legally the father. If you're not married ...
www.stowefamilylaw.co.uk/blog/2015/01/05/birth-certificates-death-parent/

(*) Granny leaves you £2000 of Acme shares (thanks, Gran!). Acme turn out to have a very valuable invention and the shares are suddenly worth £20000 and someone buys the company out. oh no, CGT time! But wait! You give £10k of the shares to DH. When the buyout happens you both get £10k (under the current annual CGT limit). Phew. DH then gives you £10k and you both go out for a nice dinner.
That's one but there are a variety of odd advantages like some car hire places not charging extra if the additional driver is the spouse of the first driver.

Someone upthread mentioned civil partnership which DH and I would have done had it been available for heterosexual couples when we married. But you can also get married extremely cheaply which is what we did - we didn’t have a wedding really.

Not sure if it’s been mentioned but no inheritance tax is payable between spouses.

NB - this is the position in England and Wales. Other jurisdictions have different rules and I think many are better at recognising rights acquired through being together long-term rather than actually married. In England, the law on this is being reviewed because the current situation utterly fails to protect the more financially vulnerable party (which typically has been and largely remains the woman).

PS married or not, discuss leaving some stuff in trust for the DC in your will.

Otherwise - say DH dies . You inherit everything under his will. Driven mad by grief, you end up with a Mr G. Digger, and remarry. You forget to make a new will and die tragically - G Digger gets the lot because any existing will is void upon marriage. DC have no money to contest the will (neither easy nor cheap) and are stuffed.

speaking purely financially ……

It’s only ‘better’ for sahp (both genders ) or people who are equally financially balanced

i never married
my split with ex cost me £2k

my friend married
hers cost her £200K+++

That's not really true. You've ignored IHT, for example, and a marriage is more likely to end with death than divorce.

Also, it's not the divorce part of divorce that's usually expensive, it's the fights people have over kids and/or property. If you have either of those, especially kids, the other person can decide to behave expensively in the courts whether you've married them or not.

The shortfall will come from DP. I'll go back to work full time (I work compressed hours already), and all childcare and other related expenses will be split 50/50 until such a time as one of us earns more than the other, at which point we'll contribute proportionately. It hadn't occurred to either of us that we would not just split everything down the middle. Having said that, we have not discussed the situation you mentioned regarding more complex childcare needs, so that's definitely food for thought.

Yes, I'd definitely consider this option. Thank you.

Thanks for this. I'm definitely not planning to reduce my hours. I appreciate things may happen that are out of my control or I may feel differently later, but I love my job and get a lot of fulfilment from it, I can't see that changing.

And yes, completely agree - we'll be double-barrelling, which we're both happy with.

Thanks everyone for your thoughtful responses. There are some really important points, particularly around wills, power of attorney, and setting up trusts, that I need to explore further. Really appreciate you taking the time to reply!

I never intended being the underdog, but my dd1 was born at 30 weeks dangerously small and had complications for the first year of her life. I ended up giving up work for 6 years while my exH set up a business that is now self sufficient. Ironically it would be much easier for me to detach if I weren't married as I'm the more stable earner and have a pension.

It's in your favour as a low earner / sham to be married. As an independent woman....I'd advise to steer clear unless your fiancé is in a far better position than you. Nobody goes in thinking it'll end in tears but half the time it does

Sahm not sham

Is there anything we should be setting up administratively in advance of the birth, given that we are not married (i.e. in case medical decisions need to be made)? What am I missing?! Thank you for reading

I never understand why people will do everything BUT get married, yet want to go to great lengths to have the same status as a married couple.

Administratively? Well..all this is just about bits of paper then, surely. Same as a Marriage Certificate is...