To never be a wife

[Whatwouldyoudonow]

I've been with my partner over 20 years since we were young. We got together and had children in our teens, I became a SAHM and he worked hard to support us. He asked me to marry him a few years down the line and I said yes. We had more children and were so busy with life that marrying wasn't a priority for either of us and to be honest I wasn't overly bothered about rushing to get married when I was younger. At that age you feel like you've got all the time in the world. We talked about it a while ago, we're older now and I hoped we would marry in the next few years and he seemed on the same page about it during those conversations. However, he's recently made it clear that he doesn't want to marry me, ever. He says we've been together so long and doesn't see the point now, apparently it's only a piece of paper after all. I don't want a big wedding, a registery office would be fine. I want a marriage, to vow our commitment to eachother, to be eachothers next of kin, to call him my husband and to have his name for however many years we have on this earth. He doesn't seem to care how upset I am about it but he wanted the same only a few years ago, to get married eventually. I'm sure many people will say this is why you don't have children before marrying, if it meant that much why has it taken over 20 years etc but it happened and I can't change any of what we've done in the past. We can only move forward and change the future. I feel hurt, rejected, embarrassed, resentful even and i'm finding it difficult to feel the same about him so it's really been affecting our relationship. I can't get over these feelings no matter how hard I have tried. I don't want to throw away our relationship, it's been very tough at times, but we've made it all these years and I always thought we'd be together forever. My feelings have surprised me as I didn't realise being married meant this much to me until he decided it was off the table. I guess I just don't know what to do or how to make myself accept and be ok with the fact he doesn't want to get married to me. Has anyone been through similar, how did you get over feeling this way?

Of course he will feel this way, it’s not him in the vulnerable situation. He’s laughing if your split

If he feels like this then he can split off half his pension and put it in your name. Any savings going forward split equally in both names. For every £1 put in his pension from now on, he pays the same into yours

But that doesn't mean anything if he gets run over by a bus tomorrow! He's either really stupid or stringing you along.

Hence my first post - saying I’ve learnt this through mumsnet. Not this thread in particular but others.

Yeah so I married fairly young and I never saw the financial benefits of it. That marriage tax break didn’t seem to fit our circumstances so I honestly thought well that’s pointless, what’s the point of being married? I think there is a lot of talk about how marriage isn’t worth the paper it’s written in etc and if you own property together, you’re ok and protected as it would be a 50/50 split.

Op, is he controlling in other ways?
If otherwise things are good, you might want to stop talking about it so it's not in his radar that you aren't ok with the situation. Go back to normal, but quietly start preparing for a career and savings of your own. Your youngest is in primary, so you can take some time to train or think about careers in the next few years, and then your DC will all be at least secondary age and you won't be constrained by school pickups.

OP him wanting to marry you when you were both younger and he was being a shitty partner was because it would have hugely benefitted him. Kept you tied to him and it's hard to end things after a big shiny wedding. Whereas unmarried and him being a shit you could up and leave, telling everyone why and he'd pay you maintenance etc. It's much much easier to walk away. I was so glad I'd not accepted marriage proposals from shitty partners in my 20s for this very reason. They'd proposed as it suited them for me to be tied to them.

Now he's clearly realised he has more to loose later in life if you got married and then divorced. His pension for example. 🤬 You have taken all this time being a full time stay at home mum, supporting him by providing full time free childcare for the kids.

The fact he also doesn't care about what would happen to you if he died shows very clearly how selfish he is. As does the fact that you do ALL the shitwork of cooking, cleaning etc. I don't think he's the good partner you have been telling yourself he is!

Get some advice about the house.
Is your name on the mortgage? Are you liable for mortgage payments? Would you be entitled to some of the house?

Do you have any joint savings??

It may be worth doing some quiet gathering of information on the mortgage and his pensions if you can, just so you have a full legal picture of where you stand in all eventualities.

He's always been who he is now. It's just that before now you weren't questioning things so it didn't show.

Now that you do know, you also know that he isn't going to change. He won't marry you. So you must start to provide for yourself in any way you can.

You've already said you plan to get training/education so you can enter the job market. That is GREAT and should be No 1 priority. But you should also (if you can) look for ways to start saving. Does he pay you an 'allowance'/housekeeping? Save as much as you can from that, deposit it in your own name. These days of 'electronic everything' it's hard to skim off the top, but if you can, do it. He's proven himself to be unreliable and IMHO unethical to keep you in such an 'indentured servitude-ish' position so all's fair.

I'm sorry to say it, but his volte face on marriage would ring alarm bells to me. If he wonders why you want to 'tie up' his assets in marriage, I'd be wondering exactly why he wants a situation where he can walk away with everything.

Ask him how he would feel if roles were reversed and he was at your mercy financially. This happened to my sister. He had all the money, luckily the house was in joint names. He wouldnt marry her, she found out he was cheating but couldnt leave and didnt tell any of us. He was controlling, financially abusive and a hoarder. She left after 30 years and lives with my mum. She is still fighting for her half of the house 3 years on. She had no claim on the many thousands he has squirreled away.

Marriage protected me.

You have choices. He can either marry you and make sure you and the dc are okay if he dies or else you'll just stop all the "wife" perks. But that will make you feel rubbish to say so you'll need another option. But this man is controlling you. Are you going to let him? Are you going to show your kids the right way instead?

Sorry you are in this situation. If he is adamant that he won't marry you, I think the best thing to do is to train for a job and get working ASAP. You are still young and have time to build up a workplace pension. He will have to do 50% of the school drop off etc, so that you can work. It's not all down to you.

My DP hasn't wanted to marry me either. We have both been married before and initially I wasn't too worried as I have always worked so have my own money and pension. However it will give me better protection now I'm older if we do, so we are thinking about it.

Not being married can cause a whole lot of issues financially if either one of you dies. Get some legal advise & then go back to chat to your Husband about it emphasising how it's better for you both to be married to save issues later on. Explain that you always thought you'd get married & how upset you are that he's now changed his mind. Do your kids have his Surname. This could be a factor in your chat. Let him know you've gone all these years not sharing your kids last name & think it's time you all had the same name. Going forward it's up to you how you deal with your feelings & chose what you do if he still refuses to marry you.

I've tried all of that talk to no avail unfortunately, he won't even consider it so i'll be moving on without him. They all have my surname. I'm looking forward to being free from him and living my life on my terms. It won't be easy to start with but i'll do it for my family.

Thanks so much to everyone who has given advice, support and been so kind without judgement. I really have read every single comment and took on board all of your advice. Having this thread has been a real eye opener and great support to me at such a difficult time. I hope I can make my kids proud of me and one day they'll understand why I had to break free.

You have to protect your own interests. It’s dangerous for your long term security to stay as you are - that’s not an option. .

Im sorry its come to this but well done for feeling like you are in control.

I’m in my 40s and can give you a perspective as someone who never thought marriage was important . When we got together my now husband told me it was important for him to get married ( he is divorced and I never got married )
I ended up agreeing not because marriage was super important to me but I knew how important it was to him .
At the end of the day he was the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with and that was enough for me to marry him .
If your partner loved you enough he would marry you . Simply because even if it wasn’t import to you , he wouldn’t risk loosing you

This is 100% my view too, he's a horrible man and I didn't see it before. I can't stand him now, I feel like I hate him now. Sad how things can change

@Whatwouldyoudonow

You've made the right decision and I truly believe your DC will understand when they are mature enough to know that we must value ourselves and do what's right for us.

Good luck and fly high!!

Don’t be hard on yourself. I was in a similar situation although more complex factors and history. I retrained, got full time work and then made plans for an independent future as I’d already had two failed relationships and like you was kicking myself once I woke up from the love fug and realised I’d given up the only secure living arrangements I’d ever had to move in with this man. Hormones can cause some seriously daft decisions. Ultimately we worked it out and had a CP a few years ago. He said on Saturday that he can’t believe he got it so wrong. I’m just glad he got there in the end. I have to say though that your situation does have a lot of red flags and I’d be wary of his reasons for staying. It’s better for him to have you at home looking after his house and kids than not having you there and either paying maintenance or having to do half the care and costs. I’d bet money on him buggering off as soon as the kids are out of full time education.

im glad you’re taking steps to protect yourself. It’s never too late. I didn’t really get going on the work front until I hit my 40’s and have had two very different fulfilling career paths in the last few decades.

So I wish you lots of success.

All the best OP

A Martin Lewis inheritance tax explainer just came up on my ig feed- it’s very relevant as it explains that not being married is eventually going to cost your kids quite a bit in inheritance tax as you share allowances if you’re married. Perhaps it’s worth searching for and showing him?