Being Married

Security for your children, should anything happen to mom / dad money would be passed over more easily. Love, religion my other half takes his vows seriously being religious. If you are a stay at home mom & his working should anything go wrong in the future then you are entitled to half as you’ve built that together as a partnership in marriage 🇬🇧 a lot of legal security reasons like that to get married. Same surname as kids. Talking as from the Uk though not the Us or anywhere else, unsure about that

@Hollie how would money pass over more easily? If we are the parents and something happens, wouldn’t the money automatically pass on to the child even if we’re not married? (Btw I’m not against marriage I’m just honestly trying to make sense of it for myself) thank you for replying 🙏

In the Uk money doesn’t automatically pass on between families if you are not married. It goes through a process which can be stressful and people can get involved and other risks. It just makes sense to be married for legal & financial reasons in some circumstances. Example me and my other half own a house together with our little one and if I pop my clogs I know that automatically gets transferred over to my other half and vice versa hence security for my children x

Nothing. Zero. We got married and financially day to day nothing changes.

Every situation is different though. You could do a will instead if you are not ready for marriage. Really depends on what country you are as well x

@Hollie Yes I see, but I believe domestic partnerships also has those benefits? It just that literally 90% of people around me that got married before are divorced and divorce seems like such a cruel process. I am very happy in my relationship now and have been from the start so I’m just trying to understand why I should fix something that’s not broken, Idk, just thinking out loud lol ty tho!

@Lisa you’ll be entitled to half of your other halves pension. If his working full time that will accumulate a lot by the time it’s needed? X

@Lisa that’s how I feel it would be lol, but do you feel more secure in life now?

I wasn’t bothered myself about getting married but it was important to my other half. I saw bad divorces happen around me also in my younger years. But i weighed up the pros and cons. I have children with him I want the same surname as my kids and I want the money and assets staying within the family and no the common law domestic partnerships doesn’t have weight in an English court I believe unlike with marriage. Maybe get some legal advice x

@Hollie ok so question, let’s say you are rich and you end up in a relationship with someone that has way less than you somehow (just a scenario lol) you get pregnant, have the baby, give the baby both last names, would you still get married even though you’re set without him? Again it’s just a scenario 😂

Yes that is a risk isn’t it if you are rich and in that scenario. Me and other half were similar ish financial position and just bought a house together. From what you have posted it doesn’t sound like you are ready to get married right now but things may change in the future. I’ve only just got married at 38 years old there isn’t any rush at all and it’s a big commitment one you have to not really have any doubts on & deffo don’t listen to the voices of others outside your relationship. What’s important is what you and ur other half want & happiness is important. It is stressful planning a wedding! Like I said my other half it was really important to him with him being religious as well and i knew those vows meant something to him x

@Hollie what pension? I doubt there will even be a state one by the time we get there.

It all adds up. I’ve been paying into my private pension since I was 19. That saying…Look after the pennies. I’m definitely not relying on that state pension like you say x

The only benefits is if anything happens to you or him only you two will have medical say on what to do. For taxes even if you’re married you can still file separately. For everything else once your married it’s like the government turns on you and expects you to do everything on y’all’s on. If yall both are struggling you don’t really get that much help. You can go on your government assistance website and see their income cut offs for family sizes. As far as security that’s kinda bs to me because if you both are at an understanding yall want to be together then a piece of paper shouldn’t make any difference. If you get married and yall come up after marriage everything y’all have gotten throughout the years will have to be spilt down the middle and cause a massive headache during divorces. However I don’t advise signing prenups. Legal Marriage has a lot of cons to pros tbh.

As far as happiness and confidence that has nothing to do with marriage. If you have a wonderful husband or wife then that is what makes you happy and confident. Now if you both want marriage then that’s great but if being married is your goal and not having a healthy sturdy relationship then ehh, I wouldn’t be marrying that person. If yall have a lot of debt ignore your family and work on bringing your debt down. I know there’s a company that helps with debt if it’s over 10K. But don’t rush into it. Also in certain states if you’ve been together for more than 5 years you’re consider life partners and it’s like you’re married without the paperwork. Different states have different names to it so you’ll just have to look it up on your on. Also even if you aren’t married both of you can write up a medical and legal paper explaining who and what you would want done if something happens to you and get it notarized.

@Eviee thank you for your comment! That’s exactly how I see it, and I think now in the position that we’re in, it’s only going to make our life harder and not easier. For the medical say part, I read that in my state at least (WA) if we sign up to be domestic partners we can have say too. And thats good to know about the taxes I didn’t know that. And I’ll look up those companies for over 10k debt that you mentioned thank you. Whenever we’re ready in a few years we’re planning on buying a house together and that would be under both of our names so if something ever happens we would have to split it anyway even if we’re not married. And idk if I’m dumb for that but anything else he has or will have I truly don’t want half off. Unless I helped with it, but then I’ll make sure to have my name on it too or we can write our own agreement.

@Eviee I just want my baby to be good and I know he’ll never leave her struggling. And worst case I can put him on child support. But question tho, if we do get married, why don’t you recommend prenups? And this is where my head is at now, maybe after we get more established and everything I will think differently and would want to get married to create more of a « union » (that’s what my family says, you’ll be a union, you’ll be one) then we’ll get married (boyfriend is open to whatever I want) but for now I think we’ll just struggle more.

Honestly, it’s nice having good insurance for the kids and myself. I don’t want to have to jump through hoops to try and get assistance if I don’t have to. Sometimes I think dang it’d be nice to get financial assistance for childcare so I could work or something if I wanted to. But also, having worked at a childcare facility who accepts the state assistance program, those facilities are often horrible and I don’t want my kids to be subjected to that just because it’s free or discounted for me. But then, marriage is definitely religious for me as well. As soon as I found out I was pregnant we got married because that is what I believe for myself. I wanted to be married before having kids. Granted we were already engaged. But yes being married makes things more seamless in terms of legal issues if someone were to die or something. Every state has different laws for those in a domestic partnership that vary greatly from marriage. You aren’t considered spouses so you need more proof to get

The same benefits and rights as those who are married even if it’s a “right” to domestic partnership sin your state. You don’t get to claim yourselves as a “family” legally this goes for taxes and benefits etc you won’t get the right to adopt children if you ever wished to do so. Domestic partnerships mean that if your partner dies and owns the land, you don’t automatically legally inherit it without having to pay taxes. You have to go through a process usually and have to pay money and sometimes you may even need to hire an estate attorney. If you move to a county, city, or state which does NOT recognize domestic partnerships, that’s that. You aren’t just legally obligated to the same incentives and benefits and such as a married couple.

Going into marriage with a prenup in mind means that you highly expect your marriage not to work out long term and has been shown to play into divorce. It puts you and your spouse in a position of “this isn’t serious”. Marriage, many believe, should be taken serious. You don’t just give up on marriage, you need to be willing and ready to fight tooth and nail to keep your marriage strong. A prenup basically says you aren’t prepared to do that and you want your fair share when it ends. I think putting the faith into your marriage, into your spouse, that you trust they wouldn’t leave you empty handed is extremely important.

And here’s the thing. Even though I’m religious and believe it for myself and my family, I think it’s completely OK if you don’t believe that you need to be married! It’s OK not to want to be married. There are ways to make things work and maybe some stuff will be more tedious, but if that doesn’t bother you then it doesn’t truly matter! You will make the decisions you feel are best.

Literally changed nothing. As unmarried partners for 8 years before we had joint wills, life insurance, were beneficiaries of each others pensions, had joint assets and investments, joint banks and were named next of kin. We don’t gain any additional security just because we married. All that changed is my name making travelling easier with the kids.

@Sarah ooh yea, I travel to Europe once a year to visit family (daughter is 8months we will be travelling when she turns 1) it would just be me and her and boyfriend will join later but I’ve heard that I’ll have to get a notarised child travel consent form to travel with her. So that’s a good point, unmarried people just have to go true more steps with that. 👍 thank you

@Anna valid points, thank you for replying 🙏

Marriage is just a piece of paper that grants legal or monetary benefits. But not all the time. If it's not going to give you guys either of those things then it's just a frivolous action that would be done purely for self indulgence. I have been married, because it made legal sense (bf/husband joined the military) I'm now with the love of my life who I intend to be with forever and marriage isn't in any future plans at this time.

All the concerns people have with money or land are silly, just make a solid Will. There are legal documents that cover everything a marriage certificate would

@Samantha that’s exactly how I see it! besides getting his last name/same last name as kids (if you choose to) everything else can be written down on a will/legal documents. And people can argue that if you need to do all that (will/legal documents) than why don’t just get married? which is also true but yea idk, like I said I’m just trying to make sense of what’s best for us right now lol thank you for replying

I only got married because I needed health insurance I never wanted to get married. Never dreamed of being married when I was growing up. I had zero interest in anyone lol I asked the first guy that paid attention to me to my junior prom and turned out to be my husband too. lol

@Christina🤱🏼🍂☕️♈️ lol I love that and it works for you! It’s weird because when I was younger I always wanted to get married but now that I’m older I just don’t really see it (maybe because I’ve seen a lot of bad divorces) But for me, I’ll never be able to get health insurance from my bf since he is self employed. Getting help from the state now and when baby start going to preschool, I want to work again, and I’ll get it from my job

Btw my own mom is going through a divorce now with my step dad (2nd marriage) seems so stressful idk

Also this is not a « convince me to get married » lol I just wanted to have an open conversation and see why you ladies did it and why it makes sense for you, and who knows maybe in the future I would want that too! Thank you for everyone that is answering ❤️

Yeah when you watch parents go through a messy divorce it deffo stops you in your tracks and makes you question everything to do with it, I understand that. In the end (when I was ready at 38) I decided I was going to see it as a positive and stop thinking of what could go wrong & look at what could go right in the end. Happy I got married but it’s only been 3 months since ha ha 😂

You can legally change your name without marriage so still can all have the same last names

There’s nothing wrong with not wanting to get married. I know plenty of couples who aren’t married and live happily together

We didn't have much of a choice because my husband is in the Marine Corps and I'm not American. We met in Japan and wouldn't have been able to stay together if we hadn't married. I do feel more secure though. I get great benefits with the military and I think it's nice to be married now we have a baby. It's also nice to feel like a family and to have actual in laws that are lovely to me.

@Rosie ohh lol congratulations you like just got married haha, love that you took the time! I’m 30 now so maybe in a few years it will make more sense who knows

@Samantha omg I just looked it up, looks like anyone can change their name and LAST name to anything they want without proof of nothing 😱 probably not gonna do that but that’s good to know lol

@Susie Love that, would be married right away too in your situation 💫