Partner says he would not marry me because of my son

[Coffeeandtv86]

I just need to get something off my chest really and am interested in other people's views.

Myself and my DP have been together just over a year. We have a really good relationship and see eachother a lot.
We live separately at the moment but he stays with myself and Ds frequently.

Now, from the start he was honest and said he never wanted children. I am ok with this. I have a 9 year old Ds with autism and I haven't even considered anymore children.
We agreed to take things slow at first, I wanted to see how our relationship went before introducing him to Ds so we waited 6 months, just so we knew where we were at with our relationship. Also, this is my first relationship since splitting with Ds' father.

My Ds and Dp get on great and there's been a lot of talk of us moving in together.
Then yesterday Dp brought up our future and said he couldn't marry me cos he didn't want to be legally tied to my DS.

My Ds has a father and I am not expecting anything from him in that regard. He doesn't even have to be a step dad if he doesn't want to. But he said that if we marry and divorce, because of my Ds additional needs he could be financially responsible for child maintenance .

I have never heard of this before and even if this was the case, and I wouldn't go down that route anyway.

I appreciate his honesty, but it hurts a little.
I did want to marry one day and now it feels like he can't trust me to do the right thing if things go wrong.

It's a good thing that he's been honest with you OP, and he's right that DS having a financial impact in divorce can't be ruled out I also think you can't really say you'd never try and claim maintenance, because you don't know what might lie ahead.

That said, you're allowed to feel however you want about this. Personally I don't think I'd necessarily want to cohabit in this situation. I'm married to the father of my DC, so haven't been in this position, but I can see that either separate houses or all in would be easier to manage.

Not true, I'm sorry. Step Parents CAN be made to pay maintenance for a step child, in certain circumstances, as others have said

This is what I suspect, that the DP is thinking into the future and can see an adult man unable to live separately (or that OP does not want to live separate from) and does not want that.

He is never going to be financially responsible for the DS in the event of a split, otherwise mothers everywhere could just marry sequentially and be collecting child support from every single man they'd been married to. It doesn't work like that.

Did he specifically mention divorce?

I wonder if he's thinking of the long term implications if you were to die first.

Will your child be independent? Will they need to continue living in the same house?

I can see that side of the argument. It's similar to when elderly parents marry someone new. Things get messy when they die despite good intentions.

What he’s saying is he doesn’t want financial responsibility for a child that isn’t his, he doesn’t want to parent a child that isn’t his.

It’s a excuse,get rid

There are some situations where a step parents income is taken into account so he is not entirely wrong. He might also feel a moral obligation even if there was no legal obligation.

This sounds very much like half a story. If they jointly owned the home she couldn’t just kick him out of it.

I think reality has finally hit him and the initial crush is wearing off. A man who doesn't want his own children is very unlikely to want to live with somebody else's child. The idea of it might have seemed nice but the reality is that it is very limiting and thankless. It is hard to love someone elses child, and he has only known yours for a few months. I don't think he's a bad person, I just don't think he realised what it was actually going to be like dating someone who was a mother and who's first priority is their child.

I also don't like that you have offered him to not even have a step-father role to your son. It's seems almost desperate. That you want him to be with you but if he doesn't like your son he just pretty much ignore he's there. You and your son comes as a package.

Your DP might need to think about more than just marriage.

There is a co-habiting legislation coming into force which stipulates that cohabiting couples will be entitled to share of assets of their partners in case of separation.

So you might move in, continue living without marriage, then split up and court will consider you as a vulnerable party and award you a share of his assets.

If tables were turned, would you marry a man with an autistic 9yo child?

OP, what is your reasoning for wanting to get married?

Hi OP,

You're getting a lot of stick for timelines but I wanted to chime in with the other PP pointing out that "he was burnt by an ex who kicked him out of the home and left him with nothing" is potentially an enormous red flag 🚩.

Why was he kicked out? If it was a LTR, why did he have no stake in a shared home? If he was living with someone, where did all his money go while he was probably paying little/no rent?

Personally, I think you need to dig more into this before you open the door to a potential cocklodger.

With regards to your actual question about your son and your DP's comments, I dated (and talked about moving in with a partner and 1DC), I can understand the instinct to protect oneself financially. My ex assumed that we'd split everything 50/50, whereas I wanted to split things 60/40. My reasoning being that we had equal incomes, an adult is 1 person and a DC is 0.5 on a tax return here, and his DC already had two present parents.

Personally, whenever I have dated someone with DC (I am childfree), I found the whole experience more complicated than it needed to be and as such, I have decided to not date parents. If your partner is already thinking of protecting his assets against an imagined responsibility towards your son, I think he also needs to not date parents. I am sorry that you are finding this out about him once you have invested emotionally 💐

PS. I am doubling down, "left him with nothing" - find out why this able-bodied, employed adult was unable to organise himself into having secure housing and an emergency fund. You do not need to add crisis management for him to your load.

He's full of shit and doesn't want marriage RN.

But also, a year is not very long in a relationship at all.

You’re still with him when he has effectively told you he doesn’t want to form a relationship with your DS (if he did he wouldn’t be terrified of being chased for CMS if you divorced)?!

Doesnt it give you the ick that he’s wondering to himself “hmm, should I marry OP?” And the reply coming back to him his “no, because imagine how awful it would be if you got divorced and then got sued for child maintenance for her step kid and I was out of pocket”!

This is not the sort of thought that would occur to a man serious about entering into a proper relationship with a woman and her child. He sees your child as inconvenient but at the moment you’re worth the inconvenience to him. If he could choose that your child never existed, I bet he would prefer that….!

I didn't mean that at all. And he doesn't ignore my son either.
I am not prepared to give someone the title of step dad right away, at this moment in time. That's what I meant and what I said to him!
The basis of this post was to just get it off my chest. I have no one else to talk to and I am not a bad parent as many claim me to be. I haven't moved him in and we aren't planning to!
It was that I had not heard of the step parent paying child maintenance side so that's what I wanted to share!

I see this has descended into people criticising the OP for doing what she wants in life. There is no rule to say you cant have a child and date, live with someone else and potentially marry. Just because you dont want to doesnt mean others shouldnt.

Also the - too soon to meet new partner - that is down to the people involved. Each situation is different and each person is different. In some cases 12months would be fine, in others a few weeks would be fine. We all booked a 'blended family' 2 week holiday some 5 months after meeting - all fine, no issues. Wouldn't work for some but did for us.

But it seems like there are legitimate concerns that need to be sorted such as future CMS claims and what happens in death etc... better these are discussed now than later.

For example, if I was to marry, I would want to make sure my kids do not miss out in inheritance. i.e. if I died next year single and estate is worth 500k, they would get 500k. I was married and died next year I would be gutted if my estate went to wife then she left it to her kids too. That inheritance is for my kids (and any money she has for her kids). It's for the OPs benefit that the child is protected and the money doesnt go just to him if anything was to happen.

I would certainly be having the conversation with anyone I was to marry - I die and my kids get the house and stuff.

I don't actually think it matters if a step parent can be made to pay for a child that isn't theirs. What matters is that he doesn't want a family life with you, regardless of if you can prove to him that he won't be made to pay for your son. He would probably gladly continue to date you, but he doesn't want any of the responsibilities that comes with being a family. I don't see how that could work if your child is going to continue being a part of this relationship. It sounds like he wants more of a fwb type of thing, but that is obviously not a all compatible with you having your child around him.

You’re simply not compatible. He doesn’t want children, and you already have a child. That means you can’t realistically marry or live together — it wouldn’t be fair on your son or on him.
When someone says they don’t want children, it’s not just about biology. It’s about not wanting the role of a parent, the responsibility, or the constraints that come with having a child in their daily life.
Yes, your son has a father, but your partner can’t live in a home with a young child and have no relationship or responsibility toward him. And life is unpredictable — if you and your ex couldn’t step in at some point, being married to you could mean he’d have to.
He’s telling you clearly that he doesn’t want that.

I dont see it like that - he seems happy with the setup, but does not want to be financially responsible for that child or risk future finances. Perfectly understandable.

If you got together (say you have no kids) and the other person did, would you be happy being financially worse off? Would you be happy if you split in 5 years and had to give more than 50/50 as the other persons needs were greater because of child?

Ask him if he’d want to marry if this weren’t the case. If he says yes then book a jointed consultation with a solicitor and find out the actual law. Might as well get out now if you don’t want the same things

Marrying you won’t tie him legally to your son. He’d have to adopt him for that.

But if the son is never able to live independently and his father stops contributing when he turns 18, that would mean that OPs DP would HAVE to help financially keep the lad, almost in a roundabout way. There is the possibility that he might be thinking like this - we don't really know.

F him, what else he doesn't want to do because of your son. Throw him back where he came from and find a decent guy.

I fully empathise with him having fears about being financially responsible for a child he never asked for. That's not a reason to split up, in my opinion. I'd ask him to get legal advice because you have conflicting understandings of the law on this.

You were hoping to marry him eventually, but “he doesn't even have to be a step dad if he doesn't want to.” How would that even work?!

Ignore the posters criticising your parenting.
YANBU to want to know where your relationship is going.
He could be using your DC as an excuse, because he's getting cold feet about your relationship, or not want to share his assets.
Or he could be genuinely scared of taking on someone else's child, especially one with SNs, and what it will mean to his life, living with your child half/most of the time.
Many men are scared of taking on DC. I know a man who swore blind he's never go out with a woman with DC, but then met a woman with a child, and fell so deeply in love, he married her. I don't think he regretted it, but he did say that the DC's own father wasn't on the scene, and that was how he coped with it.
None of us can tell you what's going through his head - so maybe think about what you want out of the relationship, and don't let him start dicking you around. I tend to fall on the side of "he will want to marry you if he really loves you" I'm afraid.