Partner of 17 plus years won't discuss future/civil partnership/wills despite my asking on and off since start of covid

[HappyNewt]

Partner of 17 years won't discuss future/civil partnership/wills despite my asking on and off since start of covid He's happy to continue bumbling along as we are.

Barely say's anything when i raise it...admittedly I now find it hard to mention without getting upset, but I have tried all sorts of ways to start talking about it.

As things stand house is in his name only (no mortgage), I contribute equally to bills/buy stuff etc. We are not married or in a civil partnership. The house value has more than doubled to over a million since we moved in 16 years ago. His will is over 30 years old. I would be homeless if something happened to him tomorrow, as i would not be able to purchase from his next of kin. No kids.

Does anyone have a non confrontational way to discuss all of this sort of stuff as I am out ideas....

Underneath a tough exterior I am anxious every day... I have explained that to him...
I don't want to leave in order to move forward, but I don't know how to change things or get him to talk... I want to be with him, and be committed. But I dont want to feel anxious every day. I try to just bumble along, but there are things that happen that make that too hard.

At the start of covid I just wanted to talk about making considered choices about the future...because being committed and considering the future with him felt important to me at a time when the world was changing....now it feels like im in a dead end where it has become about being sensible financially. I can go for months without something causing it to come to a head....mostly I keep it to myself, but then I start to shut down so end up having to say why... and I end up saying how I feel and he says little at all.....beyond saying it's stuff he finds it hard to talk about.

Any suggestions as to how to more effectively initiate a conversation?
(Im not looking to hear "he's an arse"... "get out"....)
(I have offered to sign pre nup in case that was his concern)

Thanks

Agreed

This.

You need to stop focusing on him and his assets as your path to long-term security. He has made it clear that your future is no concern of his. Believe him.

You need to laser-focus on yourself and how YOU can safeguard your own future. Get a second job if need be.

What is your age and earning power??

I thought the OP plainly stated “no kids.”

I agree with this. I think it's different if there's shared kids, because there's the huge employment / savings hit that women take with that. But I don't see why OP is entitled to her partner's house that she moved into.

Ah, yeah she did. Well maybe he has nieces /nephews or similar

Ops had 17 years mortgage free in a nice house,.she could have bought an investment property

I mean not as good as if she owned her own place and indexed into the value increase over 17 years.

She could have bought an investment property though as she didn't have to pay rent /mortgage on her home

You explicitly state that you don't want to hear "LTB", which tells me that, deep down, you know that you aren't Miss Right, you are Miss Right Now to this guy, and you know that other people will see it and say so. 17 years and he's not put a ring on it? He's running down your clock reproductively, so if you want kids, you need to scarper now.

When men decide that they've met Miss Right, they don't drag their feet about getting married.

He doesn’t love you. He doesn’t even like you. You need to see a solicitor asap- there’s no future with him.

Pretty much. And if you've not had advice about how best to invest your own savings, make that a priority.

I thought if one cohabits with a partner (unmarried) for over 2 years in their property one had the right to make a claim on that property when the partner died even if not mentioned in their Will. Is that not correct?

It's a lost cause. For your own financial safety, get out.

No tara, that is not correct.

You will not usually have any rights to the property if you don’t own the property or a share in it, unless you can prove you have:

• contributed to the deposit for the house or the mortgage payments, or
• made a financial commitment, like paying for major work on the house, with the understanding that you would own a share of the house

This means if you split up and you are not the owner you have no right to continue living in the property. And unless it’s left to you in their will, you won’t automatically inherit the property if your partner dies.

It seems to me that you have communicated your needs to him and he has communicated back to you that this is not something he wants to do anything about.

So either he believes (as some people may) that you are commom law partners and so would not be left homeless. Which we known is not correct.
Or he does realise that you would get nothing but does not care.

If you've explained already that the first point isn't true, you're then left with the 2nd scenario. Which then means he does not believe you're entitled to anything and he wants to leave to whomever he decided 30 years ago.

So you need to urgently start planning your financial future. How old are you? How old is he? Do you have a pension? Is it enough to live on? Do you have savings? Could you afford to buy a place with those savings? If the answer to these is no, then you need to stop paying into his house and start securing your financial future. And you can tell him clearly why
" Dave, I know you've repeatedly said you dont want to change your will and that's fine, it's your house after all. However I need to start building up some money so that I am not left homeless in the event of your passing ahead of me. So this means I can only afford to contribute £xx to the household to cover bills rather than £yyy. Hope you understand."

This is not even remotely correct. Where did you get this notion?

She could but she didn’t. Not paying a mortgage is not an unalloyed blessing, as you own nothing at the end of it.

Of course, but that should have been obvious to op and she should have made separate investments accordingly

I read it to mean that they had no kids together, not that he didn't have kids?

I think it's true in some countries.

Could you buy a property and rent it? God forbid anything happened to him you have a roof over your head.

Oh yes, possibly

He sees you as his girlfriend/lodger not his life partner OP. Sort yourself out in terms of savings/pension/property and decide if you want to carry on being his lodger.

OP, you really need to get out of the mindset that this is a communication issue. It isn't. He knows exactly what you want, and he is not willing to do that, so of course he shuts any conversation down. He will do that however you approach it.

If you are looking for security, this is not the man to be with.

Sounds to me like knows exactly what they are doing and they have their own self interests front and centre. Which they are entitled to do, but you control your response to that. 5 years at least and you are still are having the same conversations, why have you not left already?! They have clearly told you in as many words how they feel.