Pensions /Married or Singles Allowance?

margaretclare

BobQ wrote: »

OP some very important observations for you and your partner to consider. At the very least you should each make a will unless you are content to rely on intestacy rules achieving what you want.

I know a couple who had a similar approach to yours. After 18 years living together, three children, they started to ponder these things, went on holiday, got married in Las Vegas and never told a sole for a further 10 years when they invited their friends and family to their anniversary party.

I have a relative who 'didn't believe in marriage' - one reason, he's an atheist and two, he's the product of bigamy. He thought it complete hypocrisy that his father 'married' his mother in the local parish church. He's also, politically, about as far left as Lenin. So, he and his partner had 2 lovely children, when the second became 18 they decided to get married. A civil marriage, naturally. We were invited to the wedding and the party. I said 'You can tell me to mind my own business but - why, and why now?' His reason: we are not a long-lived family (on his side, certainly true!) He has an excellent pension fund and was concerned that she wouldn't get it. That was the only reason, but valid for a couple with their kind of views and outlook.

I was certainly the most over-dressed guest at that wedding in my wedding hat and lace gloves! His suit looked as if he'd slept in it, her mother wore a grubby old raincoat and all the other females wore strappy summer dresses and bare legs. The registrars, in a historic building, made it a lovely wedding nevertheless.

We're all a product of our environment and upbringing. For me, as opposed to my relative above, I would not bring a child into this world if I was unwed. I wouldn't even want to have one too closely following the wedding ceremony. His and my backgrounds, although some similarities, have made us different in outlook.

jamesd

That seems sensible. As would divorce for similar reasons for those with such views.

atush

The only reason I married was for starting a family. And I had to give up my job/career/emigrate to do so.

While children of parents who cohabit are not disadvantaged compared with those whose parents are married while they are still together, the fact that these informal alliances fail more often means that resulting children do suffer disadvantage after a split.

In that property/assets are not automatically split as in marriage/CP and no maintenance is paid to the partern who may not have been working or working PT. Taxes on each parent working are higher, as are expenses. So the children tend to end up lower down in the economic scale even if child maintenance is paid on time in full.

Marriage is Not really religious. It is a contract between two people with both responsibilities and advantages. w/o the contract, the alliances are temporary and more easily dissolved. Which is why some choose to go that way (esp those who have assets and income they do not want to share). As is their right.

And those responsibilities and advantages are not taken against/available to those who don't enter into the contract.

xylophone

never told a sole for a further 10 years when they invited their friends and family to their anniversary party.

A fishy tale?:D

jamesd

Or maybe they shared the beliefs of those in margaretclare's tale and couldn't possibly tell a soul because souls don't exist?