Partner is hesitant about marriage

[Caiti93]

So my partner and I have been together for 7.5 years. We have a 3yo and a 1yo together and have lived together for 5 years. We’ve spoken about getting married before and he’s always said he wants to one day in the future as a celebration of our love, not a promise now that we may end up breaking. I was fine with not getting married, until we had our second child. Both kids have his name because it was just what we did and I didn’t mind as I assumed we’d be married one day.

I’m Australian and was in the UK on an ancestry visa when we met. He’s a British citizen, so are both our boys by descent. We moved to Aus 4 years ago to have kids but it’s not worked out for his career so we are planning to move back to the UK as he is the sole earner while I’m at home with the kids while they’re young. I will get the ancestry visa again as it’s more straightforward than a spousal visa.

However, the other day I realised that whilst on this visa I will have no access to public funds. This was fine whilst I was there before because I could work full time, but now I’m not working it worries me. When I do end up working again it’ll be part time around kids and I’ll have had a chunk out of my career so my earning potential will be lower. I don’t have a degree and am already 3 years out of the workforce.

Anyway, I approached him and said how if we move over and I’m on a visa and anything happens - he dies, we split, gets sick, anything - then I’m kinda screwed. I’m not protected. We love each other and of course I want that to be our reason, but I also need some legal protection. For 5-6 years I’ll be reliant on him with no access to public funds or any family help as all my family is in Aus.

He agreed and said when we get to the UK we can start thinking about it as he does want to marry but not yet and his reasoning is because he doesn’t want to do what people tell him he should be doing and he doesn’t want the fuss of a big day and it’s all stupid bureaucratic bullshit.

So now I’m a bit unsure. If I go ahead with the visa and move I am just hoping that he doesn’t change his mind, or else I’m stuck there. If I tell him I won’t leave the country because I have more protection and support here, then I feel like I’m trapping him here. It’s the most unromantic way I ever wanted this to happen. I want to share my kids name and I want legal and financial protections should anything go wrong while I’m living in a foreign country.

I don’t know what to do. We can elope and do the legal stuff quickly and delay our trip by maybe a month, then do a celebration in the future if we want to. But he feels rushed and like it’s all too much as I (note I, not he) am doing passports and all the other paperwork and packing and visa etc for the move. To me it’s just one extra thing, but he brushed me off when I suggested doing it sooner (I have to renew my passport in 12 months anyway so it makes sense to me to just do everything in Aus now before we move because doing it later will be a faff and more money).

Anyway, sorry for the super long post. I’m a bit lost and I feel I can’t talk to anyone about this. I’m worried I’m being unreasonable and asking too much, but also that I’d be stupid for entering a risky visa situation.

You would be incredibly vulnerable if you moved to the UK without marriage. You have no access to public funds and you’d be with a man who doesn’t want to marry you - and you absolutely know that. If you split up how would you live? All he’d owe you is child maintenance which isn’t enough to even meet the basic needs of the children. How could you access housing? If he wasn’t willing to let the kids move back to Australia you could be stuck here in poverty. There’s not a chance in hell I’d move without a legally binding marriage certificate. Given his stance I’d probably not move without one either.

The fact this lazy toad is making OP do all the admin around the move while he twiddles his thumbs says it all.

Your last sentence says how I’d be feeling!
👍

Also another very important point. If you split up (married or not) you won’t be entitled to take the children home to Aus permanently. The courts could insist they stay in the UK.

Sorry this next bit is vile, but:
Just a thought- Could this be your partners intention? To move to Uk with good intentions, but then split with you when you get the the uk. That way he has everything he wants- he’s home, can earn, near his family, his kids are in the same country.

Don’t leave Australia.

Stay in your relationship or don’t, whatever but don’t leave your home country with your kids unless you are prepared that he will be able to stop them leaving the uk in the event of the breakdown of your relationship.

Imagine you’ve moved, he has an affair and leaves you for the other woman. Even if you are married by this point, you will not be able to return to Australia with the kids without his permission which he is not likely to give. It sounds like you only rent so there will be no assets to split and you have no career to speak of. You will be trapped in a country you have no support network in because of your children.

Stay in Australia.
Prioritise getting yourself back to work and getting some financial independence. You’ve coasted through life to this point, travelling instead of qualifications, SAHM without being married etc.

Take control of your own life, stay in your home country, start working.

Im not even sure that you should marry this man at this point but definitely don’t move in an uncommitted relationship.

As you probably know, in Australia living together for years or having children together (or other criteria) means you are clearly classified as a de facto couple and as such have all the same rights as a married couple in relation to property division and parenting issues upon separation.

If you leave, you also leave that.

I’m not sure if you or your DH know this (it’s common knowledge in Australia, so as you are Australian and have family here who have gone through breakups) I’m assuming you do know. That being the case, by not marrying you, your DH is effectively doing the equivalent of divorcing you in the UK - that is, removing all your rights.

I struggle to understand why someone would want to hurt someone they love like that? I don’t buy the “want it to be romantic” argument. You’ve told him the practical and administrative reasons this needs to happen, and he says no. Why? Why would someone want to put someone they love in such a precarious position? The only reason I can think of is that he cares more for protecting his position, relative to yours. And people who usually want to do that usually already have an inkling that they want or will need the upper hand.

With a bit of self-employed work and course creation as your only sources of income you're already in a vulnerable situation, let alone making it worse. His work sounds like it could flex around childcare to allow you to get back into the workforce at least part-time?

I agree - don't spend time and money on DC's UK passports. He can do that if it's important to him.

It sounds like you've allowed yourself to be led throughout this relationship, just bobbing along behind whatever he wanted to do. It's not surprising that isn't as appetising at 30 and with two small dependents as it was at 23 (not that it sounds very appetising at 23 either!). It's a good job for the sake of your kids that one of you has grown up.

So he doesn’t want to get married (because in his own words, he’s unsure if he’s in this for the long haul) - which is unfortunate given he was happy to have kids and move you across the world and take away all your safety nets. It is a massive risk and places you in very vulnerable situation. You’ll have no money of your own, no ability to work, no family support and a boyfriend who thinks financially protecting you is too much paperwork. Think really hard about this - get legal advice, get relationship counselling, talk to family and friends, be knowledgeable about if you’ll be able to leave the UK to go back to live in Oz if/when things go wrong. He is not invested in protecting you so if you go ahead with this you need to protect yourself in some manner. How will you manage money day to day? Will he contribute to a pension for you? How will housing work? Ask the questions now because he is giving every indication that some day you will need the answers

I wouldn’t be surprised if the reason he wants to move to the uk and not be married is to screw you over

he isn’t stupid ( as you said his side hustle is doing very well) well enough to support a family of 4 in Aus so he’s smart

hes probably well aware of Australian laws that mean if you split in Aus he has to share that with you married or not . And Australia are good at enforcing laws and child support

So you move you to the uk
split up
you have fuck all no access to his money
no pension.
no access to benefits
cant move back and take your kids
he would have you absolutely trapped

How are you with no money / job going to be able to support yourself and 2 kids

you won’t have access to any of the benefits so renting / working childcare will be pretty much impossible unless you have a pretty high paid job

men can be very mercenary when it comes to protecting their money so dont think he isn’t capable of thinking and planing long term to screw you over

To add to my message above, if I was you, I’d stop on the overseas work, enrol in a
part time external/online student for a uni degree here in Australia and do it around the children/childcare. It keeps you in Australia until you are finished, and you are up up-skilling yourself, which is good for you and your family.

There are excellent unis and courses in Australia which can be done online, meaning you could always start here and complete the course online elsewhere.

Cynically, I’d also suggest that family money pay your HELP debt off as you enrol in each subject. After all, the degree will be used to increase your earning capacity for your family. Whereas if you
split, it’s only your debt.

I wish this was taught to girls in schools!!

Thank God you posted on here OP.

I think you already know what you need do, but believe me I know how hard it is.

I was in a situation for years where I was living with my partner, in his house, new baby and unmarried. I lost sleep over it. My partner is a lovely man, but that’s not enough.

We did eventually get married (it took about twenty minutes and was actually very sweet- we went with two friends as witnesses). It was all about the legal stuff by that point, as someone above wrote, by this point it’s not about the romance.

My question is, how does he benefit from NOT getting married at this point? It’s making me very suspicious of his motives.

Agreed.
It was my Dad ironically who told me about marriage ( Mum died when I was a young child)
He remarried- but his second wife ( whom I call mum as well) was married before she had my half brothers!
It protected her financially on Dad’s death.

OP sit down and map out a timeline for yourself to become independent, to get your education, to earn enough money for your children, to be able to afford housing, taxes, health care, social insurance/pension/retirement.

Maybe at 23 you were unaware of these things but now you are older and probably starting to grasp that adults need to make provision for their future. Education. Work. Asset growth (house, pension).

Australia as a state, UK as a state, offer subsidies and support to their own citizens and deny them to outsiders. So, for you, education, healthcare, work/pension and asset growth are more likely in Australia than the UK.

Map out what YOU need for your life and your children’s life and how you can get it for them over the next 5,10,15,20 years. You have several decades to overcome the hole mr “not now babes I want to keep my options open” has dug for you.

Yeah many are giving this advice because men like this are ten a penny, and very predictable. They are reading off the same script and use different versions of the same lines and tactics. You see it again and again on MN.

Not surprised to hear this either unfortunately- when you start to have a voice and hold men accountable you’ll often be called a “nag” or similar if the man is immature and unwilling.

Definitely - glad you’re wising up for your sake and the kids. As you say, you need to love yourself too.

For how many years is this same scenario going to play out on Mumsnet?

Do we need a mass campaign to tell women do t give up your home/ working f/t unless you're married?

I'm not blaming the women.

The men are the exploiters in these situations.

Do we have to teach our sons to respect the mothers if their children??

I think you should take a look at my thread here. I’m 10 years down the line from you, still not married and still putting my partner’s needs above my own (with a move round the globe in the mix too!) I’m finally seeing things for how they are and that he’ll never marry me and that it’s a symptom of so much else that’s wrong with our relationship.

By the way, in Aus you do get some protection as an unmarried couple but not in the UK. I had a real panic when he was travelling in a remote country for work and I couldn’t get hold of him. I realised I wasn’t his next of kin, that the embassy wouldn’t speak to me and that he had no will in place either. Luckily he was fine but it’s a vulnerable place to be in. Let alone financial and other protections if you split.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/relationships/5239159-international-move-tearing-relationship-apart?reply=140866522

It sounds to me that whatever happens marriage wise, you need to stay in Australia. You can take marriage off the table, as you have the same rights that marriage would convey in Australia (didn’t know that before this thread).

From what I have read, marriage isn’t enough to give you the same security if you came to the UK that you have in Australia. So I would view that as needing to stay where you are no matter what. You need to make that head over heart decision for you and your children.

I do agree with others. You need to plan for you and your kids future. You need qualifications if that gives you more future security and then your own career path. You’re plenty young enough to get this sorted. You will lose a bit in terms of the freedoms of being a SAHM but you need security far more.

I would ruthless plan to stay in your relationship for as long as it benefits you to get financially secure and would stop plans to marry. You don’t need to be married for anything other than romantic reasons in Australia so don’t. You clearly have reservations about your relationship. In my experience, people do change around 30 and assert more independence. A 10 year age gap in your thirties onwards isn’t that big a deal but it can be huge when one of you is in your early twenties.

No regrets. The past is done. Eyes wide open today to plan the best future you can with the options you have.

Hell would freeze over before I moved to the uk unmarried

Except Australia is more civilised than the UK - so long as the OP lives there she doesn’t need to be married - she has legal rights very similar to those of a wife. It’s only if she moves to the UK that she loses those rights. Add in the lack of benefits because she’s not British and the fact she won’t be able to take the children back to Australia if her DP dumps her the minute they get off the plane (which he won’t - if that’s what he has planned, he’ll let her do all of the work to settle in a new country first) and in my view, she’d be mad to move.

If it was me, I wouldn’t move even if married but if at least if she is, the courts take things like being ineligible for benefits into account in a divorce and adjust the settlement accordingly.

We have joint finances and savings which we plan to buy a house with.

In whose name are the 'joint' savings, @Caiti93 ?

Irrespective of this........ do NOT move without the protection of marriage. Let him walk, if that is what he chooses to do in preference to marrying you...

But do not make yourself (more) vulnerable!!

OP had a poor childhood experience, apparently, and assumed that marriage was a waste of time. She missed out on getting a good education in what good men do when they are husbands and fathers, snd what strong women demand from their partners. Instead she seems to have learned a strange lesson. Its as though she learned that since marriage was an unpleasant war of all against all, no guarantor of compatibility and constancy, then perhaps “not marriage” must be safer or more loving. But the principle issue in a good marriage is choosing a good person.

Oddly enough I am up late tonight posting at 3:00 am my time becsuse I am wired from celebrating my parents 71st wedding anniversary. They are 92, still living independently, still passionately kissing, still celebrating and supporting each other.

OP a good, ethical, person does not put their convenience over their partner and children’s safety. Such a person as you describe isn’t worthy of your many sacrifices—and two children and SAH childcare are massive sacrifices! You risked your body, health, snd life to bring two people into this world. You risk your financial stability and future acting as nanny-no-rights to a partner who screws you and won’t even give you s contract. What does he risk? What proves his devotion?

If you were taught that marriages fail via your parents and their example and don't believe in marriage, did you consider that cohabiting relationships also go down the pan in the same way? What's the actual difference? Why does a marriage certificate make a difference?

Tell him. I'm seriously reconsidering my current situation on the basis that you are so unconcerned about my legitimate needs.
Don't let him hold the ground of 'I'm being forced to do this'.
Let him do the legwork of the negotiations too, no 'well what do I have to do then'.

Even if you marry him don’t move to the UK with him - way, way too much risk for you.