Does he not want to marry Me anymore?

[Girlsjustwannahavetea]

I'll try and keep it short.

Me and my partner have a baby together and have previously talked about marriage.

I am feeling insecure about my financial security since we are not married but share a child. He is currently the highest earner. I have only just started out In my career. I'm probably feeling this way as we now have a baby of 4 months.

Anyway, I've been talking to him about it and he had reasurred me about several aspects of our finances. Which is fair enough. My concern is also that he has an ex wife, so she maybe entitled to some of his finances, I'm not sure.

What is getting to me is, it could have all been solved if he just said 'well we're going to be getting married so it'll be ok'. But he never brought this up, despite discussion about his ex wife etc. So maybe he has changed his mind? I know I could have brought up marriage myself, in a sense, I was steering the conversation that way. But hey ho I didn't.

I hate having conversations like this as I always think it'll come across as me appearing after his money. Which is not the case. But I do worry. Plus I don't want to be one of those marriage pusher women. I've known a few of those.

Anyway I'm not well versed in finances with regards to marriage and divorce.

Anyone got any opinions?

@Girlsjustwannahavetea , your partner has been married and it ended in divorce.

So taking that into account, it highly likely that getting married may not really be high on his list of things fo do.

If I were in your shoes, I would take the advice of PPs: keep working full-time.

Presently you're the financially weaker one, so you need to focus on that, without assuming that your partner will make sure that you are okay if anything happened. Talk and promises mean nothing.

I would forget about promises and make sure that I am financially as strong as I can be, regardless of whether you get married or not.

That is what IMO every woman who has children, marriedor not , should aim to achieve. You never know what the future may bring.

Even if he does give you the verbal promises of marriage, it means nothing concrete. One of my friends had two DCs with her partner, and is engaged. We first met when our little ones started school together. Fast forward to today, and their eldest has graduated from uni and the younger DC is sitting their exams this year. Still no marriage; only the engagement ring. Meanwhile, she has been working PT in a job that’s not high-paying (or not working at all) for the past 20+ years (she had a good career before DC1). Her name is on the deeds, so if they break up she gets half of the house, but none of his pension or savings, and has barely any pension of her own.
You’re on the back foot here, I’m afraid. The advice you’ve been given to work FT is good advice—you need to get as far as you can in your career, and put as much as you can into your pension. Protect your future self. Might this include purchasing yourself a buy-to-let property?
This includes DP splitting the nursery bill with you—don’t let him fob you off that the woman should fund 100% of nursery fees—the child is 50% his. Same for 50/50 drop-offs & collections—you need to be able to progress with your career.
If DP tries to get you to absorb some of his 50% of responsibilities, a breezy, “As an unmarried woman, I owe it to myself and to DC to progress my career as quickly as possible, should the need ever arise for me to be a single mum and buy my own property to house us. If my marital circumstances change, I’d be open to having the conversation about whether or not my career might take a back seat at that time.”
Also: if you’re partners, why aren’t you aware whether DP pays alimony or child maintenance? I would advise doing a household budget ASAP—looking at everyone’s incoming money and outgoing obligations.
Good luck.

He didn't think about it at that particular time. Probably never entered his head. Have a conversation with him and ask him if he still wants to get married? You will then at least know where you stand. Sometimes, men who divorce are reluctant to remarry, in case it ends, and he is stung financially. Others, are happy to remarry.

Because he hates you, he's secretly gay and having an affair with your dad.

HOW WOULD WE KNOW? You're the one in a relationship with him and have just had his baby. If you genuinely can't have that conversation with him, I think you've got more problems than not wanting to be a 'marriage pusher woman'.

I've not read the entire thread but:

He has nothing to gain my marrying you. He can ONLY come out worse off if things don't work out.

He's been married before and it didn't work out, so he is likely worried the same could happen again and its likely he lost out financially in marriage number one.

If you are equal in Pensions, house equity and wages then typically a man will be far more open to marriage. However, where a man is better off financially then there is far more risk.

Personally, as a man who earns a 6 figure salary, has a large pension and is near mortgage free, marriage scares the hell out of me and is not near the top of my priorities list right now.

Not trying to derail here, but why are you afraid, when prenuptial agreements exist for this purpose? Have you been married before?

Prenuptial agreements are not the be all and end all in the UK. It’s better to have one than not if you are in this posters position, but they are not absolute and a judge can decide otherwise upon divorce regardless on what is in the prenup agreement.

A judge can override it.

Yikes!

Same reason you didn’t

And that’s fine, but I really hope you are not expecting anyone to have kids with you.

No, I can't have children unfortunately.

That’s a shitty thing to say. This poster is just voicing what so many of us already know - there’s not really an incentive for a man who already has the benefits of a wife (sex, kids, domestic labour) to choose to marry the woman he lives with, as there is only downsides to the arrangement if they split. No need to be bitchy about it. The old “why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free” adage rings true now as much as ever, and while women give everything up before marriage in the hope the man will love them enough to marry them anyway, most men probably can’t see the point of putting themselves in a financially precarious position.

So you accept that I’m totally right about the disadvantage many women put themselves at having children outside of marriage, but I’m “shitty“ for pointing it out.

And then we wonder why so many woman don’t realise the consequences.

Well the reason is blindingly obvious. He doesn't want to marry you.

Because your child's financial security and your own depend on the legal contract which marriage is.

This is why women are never advised to have babies if they're not married. Well, women who earn substantially less than their partners get this advice, anyway.

You are not wrong in your statement, however it does not apply to all woman IMO.

I will use my last relationship as an example:

My ex earnt £20k a year and had zero ambition to earn any more. Lived with her parents, had no pension and no savings.

For 2 years she pressurised me into marriage and kids, knowing full well ( I assume ) that if things did not work out she would come out the other side an awful lot better off whilst I would be an awful lot poorer. Yes, she would have to put a temporary hold on a career that she never had, and she might have lost £30-40k in earnings, but she would still be much better off financially in the long term regardless if we split or stayed together after we married.

I am not saying i am against marriage, but like everyone else, I want to protect my financial assets that I have worked incredibly hard for.

I am not saying I am against marriage, but like everyone else, I want to protect my financial assets that I have worked incredibly hard for

Presumably your children deserve financial support @Londonguy84?

Oh absolutely, metaphorically speaking as I can't have children.

But if i did, of course I'd support them financially, pay for their holidays and their school tuition and anything else that they needed. They would be my children and I would take full financial responsibility for them.

However, this does not mean I want/would be happy in giving away 50% equity of my house, or my pension, savings or any other investment that I have to my ex wife ( should we split )

My point is, and i would assume its the OP's OH thinking, if you have kids and arent married you still have a moral and legal obligation to financially support your children, but only marriage makes it a condition to support your now Ex wife, so what benefit is there really for a man who has much greater financial wealth than his OH?

You're not getting the point here.

Women tend to be shafted by men when they split up and the woman is left with children to bring up.

Marriage protects the woman and any children, in the event of a divorce. And since women generally end up being single parents, trying to juggle work and childcare, they need this protection.

Far too many men simply abandon their children, and even refuse to pay the paltry sum the CMS stipulates.

I fully understand you point. As a woman you are looking at it from a woman's perspective, and rightly so.

However, you are not getting my point, from a mans POV.

The OP has asked why her OH does not want to marry her : - I am explaining why a man who is financially better off, might not want to get married, although that does not mean he will not fully financially support his children.

Marriage may well protect the woman in case of a divorce, but it almost always shafts the man.

Not true - you can be divorced and not have a financial order in place. These are separate legal processes.

His ex-wife could still have a financial claim on him even years after the main divorce.

Marriage may well protect the woman in case of a divorce, but it almost always shafts the man.

No, it shafts - if that's how you want to see it - the higher earner. That isn't necessarily the man.

Statistically men do better longer term after divorce financially.

Agreed, my mistake, i didn't mean to intentially typecast.