To Marry or not? Pros and cons please

Mojisola

You can nominate each as NOK - have a look here - https://www.advicenow.org.uk/living-together/next-of-kin/ - but all the legal/tax/inheritance stuff is much easier if you are married.

It's worth reading through all the Living Together stuff - https://www.advicenow.org.uk/living-together/ - to work out the pros and cons.

VfM4meplse

Legalities aside, being married will be of greater benefit to you if you do require care. At the moment, if something was to go seriously wrong your OH could theoretically just walk away and get on with his own life. Marriage vows, including "for better, for worse" should be taken seriously and I would suggest that you OH would have considered this before asking you. That to me is far more important than being romantic.

To me it sounds like a no-brainer.

whitewing

I love being married. We would have lived together anyway. I wouldn't have married the wrong man anyway (by which I just mean that I would have stayed single rather than marry for a wedding). I believe that we try just a tiny bit harder with the day to day stuff because we are married.

I also think it is joyful when older people get married, because you know they are doing it because they want to.

JimmyTheWig

fluffnutter wrote: »

You are next of kin to your spouse, so any decisions that need making about their health will be made by you, rather than a child, parent, sibling etc.

Given the apparent lack of assets, this seems to me to be the biggie.
But if you can simply nominate a next-of-kin (see Mojisola's link) then this seems to be irrelevant, too.

OP, if it's just about the money side of things then talk to your OH and see what he thinks are the benefits. Would be silly to "waste" money on getting married to find that you already had the benefits that he thought you were getting or you could have achieved them cheaper otherwise.

But if it's about more than the money then that's something for you to decide. Would you like to refer to him as your husband. Would you like him to refer to you as his wife? Would you like to take his name (though you don't have to - you could keep your own, he could take yours, you could choose a new one between you)? In (many, hopefully!) years to come, would you like to be burried together with a headstone that reads "husband and wife"?

I always said I would never get married until I met my OH. Now I can't imagine not being married to her.

System

Personally I think romance is overrated in terms of reasons to marry

Personally romance is the only thing that I would get married for not practicalities. I love being a wife.

Saying that, if i was single he'd have to be pretty special for me to want to get married again.

booma_mitch

I have only skim-read the thread so if someone has mentioned this already then please ignore me. As a former family lawyer my initial thought when reading this question was in relation to pensions. If you are married to somebody who has a pension in payment and they subsequently die, there is usually a clause whereby a spouse can continue to receive a spouses pension throughout their lifetime. Unless you are married you cannot receive this payment. We often dealt with it from the other angle, where a husband and wife in retirement separated and the husband wanted a divorce but the wife didn't as it would end her entitlement to her husband's pension if she outlived him. Often these ladies were wealthy but as they had spent their married lives caring for the children and the home and did not have a pension pot of their own and were therefore financially dependent upon their husband. The loss of entitlement to their husband's pension upon husband's death would have been financially devastating for them. So I suppose if either of your pension pots are of significant value then this might be something that he is thinking about?

There is also the tax benefit which has been covered extensively in this post already.

Bluemeanie_2

Marry him!

Jinx

It sounds like marrying him is a good idea for all the practical side of things and you say hes your future. In that circumstance I'd get married.

I actually got married for the second time 3 years ago after thinking I wouldnt remarry. Was perfectly happy with my partner of 4 years at that point - funnily enough I think it was a conversation about 'what ifs' that prompted him to start proposing! I only accepted when he told me he wouldnt ask again lol (I thought he was kidding each time) The upshot is I am actually happier in my relationship now we are married, a happy side effect I didnt expect!