What are the risks of having children without getting married?

[Meadow48]

My fiancé and I have lived together for 3 years, we have been engaged for 2. He has recently informed me that he would want a religious marriage but no legal ceremony. So we will be married in the eyes of god however not the law.
I believe this comes following his uncles divorce, who sadly ended his own life 5 years ago following a messy divorce that left him broke and unable to see his children.
I would not mind this, however I am unaware of the risks in this. We plan on having children soon, and I plan to always work (I am a teacher).
What are the risks of essentially cohabiting with children?

@Meadow48
Your Catholic partner and his Catholic parents want to use the Holy Sacrament of Marriage to exclude you from an inheritance - by asking a priest to conduct the ceremony without registration of the marriage legally. Correct?

Your Catholic partner did not tell you the reason he wanted a religious only (not legally binding) ceremony - deliberately exclude you from an inheritance. (His Catholic parents didn’t tell you about this intention either). Correct?

After thinking about it and reflection about it you asked him about why he wanted a religious only ceremony and it was only then that he disclosed why - to exclude you from a future inheritance. Correct?

Your partner withheld that vital information from you in the first instance. Correct?

You very kindly attributed his wish for a non legal ceremony was because he was sensitive to his uncle’s suicide after divorce. Correct?

Kindly and with absolute care for you OP, the story you had in your head about why he did not want to marry you was a delusion. Observe the man. His actions tell you who he is, not his words, and not your imaginings about who his is.

Do you deserve a partner and family that are full and frank in disclosure?

You deserve the whole package OP not some fake marriage.

I'd suggest talking to a lawyer to ring fence the inheritance and then going ahead with a legal marriage.

I’d suggest thrown ng the whole relationship out.

How can you be engaged with no marriage in the cards?

Before you met him, is marriage and family what you wanted?

If he told you after your first couple of dates, he had no intention of marrying, would you have stuck around?

I think it would be wise to look at his deception in all of this.

Little by little he is expecting you to give up what you want, so in the end, he gets his way 100% and you don't.

If he wants the trappings of a traditional wife and family, then he needs to be a man and step up and get married and not keep playing childish games.

He can't just pick and choose the bits that benefit him and screw you.

Thems the rules.

His parents are being ridiculous over a measly million. Are his parents elderly and on their death bed or something?
If not, they're probably going to live another 30 years and they're worried about you getting your hands on that 30 years from now? Either they're thick or your DP is telling you porkies.

I'm pretty sure Caroline Farrow is on here. Don't know about her husband!
(She's married to an ex-Anglican now-Catholic priest).

start by asking about some details. How does he imagine the two of you would finance your maternity leave? Will he be covering your lost wages and paying into your pension? Does he understand that expenses like maternity clothing are joint expenses? Will he be doing half of all drop of and pickups from nursery and school? Will he be covering half of all sick days and school holidays?

even if you are the higher earner, if you are a woman, having children negatively impacts your earning power.

if for even a second he doesn’t volunteer that he plans to make sure he does his part and mitigates the impacts of pregnancy and child rearing on you, then you should realize that having children with this man while not married will ruin your life.

Truthfully doing it while married won’t be great either. A man who understands the situation he is putting you in wouldn’t be asking you to have children without a legal contract in place first.

I very much doubt a Catholic priest will have anything to do with this as its not a marriage at all in their eyes. My Catholic MIL doesn't really believe I'm married to her son, as we got married in a Registry office (she even said to my mum it was a nice ceremony, almost like a real wedding! ). My 28th wedding anniversary is in a couple of months! So a 'religious' but not legal marriage isn't going to cut the mustard I'm afraid, and you shouldn't accept a shabby compromise like this either.

Op I wouldn't touch that idea with a barge pole for a million reasons. Zero protection for you. And what's the point in spending ££££ on a meaningless wedding?
Other than for Mil to have the excuse to wear a fancy hat. I bet she'd be the Motherzilla of the Groom too. Want all whooha of a big white wedding but none of the legal stuff to back it up.

As always every day is a school day on MN. I didn't know a RC Priest in England couldn't conduct a legal marriage service. They can and do in Scotland.

Curious question, in Scotland you tell the Registrar that you are planning the wedding etc then a couple of days before collect the marriage schedule, which is signed during the service then returned to the registrar a couple of days later.
Is it same in England?

As always every day is a school day on MN. I didn't know a RC Priest in England couldn't conduct a legal marriage service. They can and do in Scotland.

They can, but they've got to be a legal registrar and they often aren't. In that situation, there's a legal registrar at the church too who'll take care of that part.

This whole thing sounds mad anyway, but, regardless, if a man didn't love me enough to commit to a proper marriage, then I wouldn't feel willing to bear his children.😗

We got married in a non-conformist church: the vicar/priest/minister MAY be the registrar but DH used to be the registrar for his previous (also non-conformist) church and he had to check the right words were said and sign it off, while the minister did the actual ceremony.
In England you pop to the town hall, register your intent to get married, and then the church sends in a form (or, in the case of our minister, forgets to do so until much later).
They have notices up of all those non-Anglicans intending to get married in the next period - we got married in an area with a lot of synagogues and the procedure is the same for them so the notices included Jewish, Christian and registry office ceremonies.

To be honest his attitude to money would be a bigger issue to me than refusal to marry. If you have a child together and split or whatever sounds like he could be a pain.

Marriage also protects in some ways for inheritance / death tax reasons & divorce with split of assets

https://www.gov.uk/marriage-allowance

He & his family seem to value money more than the love for you & any future children
This is not a good start for a marriage
Beware

This is worth reposting.

Please read once, then read it twice.

I am the high earner in my marriage (>£150k) and for a few reasons (company / seniority etc) thought I was immune to the motherhood penalty. I was absolutely not and retrospectively the best way I can describe my views were as deeply naive... while I thought marriage was optional/ "nice to have" for me I am now delighted to have the added protection it confers in the long term.

You really should have this conversation and ask the questions @Ponderingwindow suggests... As at least then you can go into it with your eyes open. Add to that:
How does he see you splitting night wakings while you are on mat leave?
How will night wakings work when you go back to work?
While you are on mat leave how does he see splitting household chores?
How will childcare costs be split?
How will you set up finances to buy the children clothes and shoes?