'Don't have kids unless you are ready to marry' says judge

Dunroamin

Savemesomemoneyplease wrote: »

Yes. Not sure what that has to do with marriage though, you'd do that - married or not.

Many people don't, and it's worse for those who don't have the protection offered by marriage.

lostinrates

shop-to-drop wrote: »

From what I understand he meant was if you are a couple who wants to get married but doesn't feel ready yet. Then you are not ready to commit to children together either. I think he has a point.

That's exactly it.

It wasn't about 'marriage'. It was about commitment, stability and maturity.

It was valid, and something people should, IMO, be considering more.

Savemesomemoneyplease

Georgiegirl256 wrote: »

You are being very naive....

Yes, marriage should be about your love for one another, but the legal benefits it brings cannot be ignored.

I don't think so, I have recognised the benefits legally but I'm saying that shouldn't be the pure reason to get married, unless you're maybe older and aren't too concerned about marriage but want to ensure your finances are sorted.

I still think the majority of people that get married (first time) don't take into consideration the legal benefits - the reason is love. I don't think that's naive, I think that's true!

Savemesomemoneyplease

Dunroamin wrote: »

Many people don't, and it's worse for those who don't have the protection offered by marriage.

I'd protect and love my boyfriend if anything like that were to happen to him, and I know he'd do the same. But as I've already said, I'd like to be married in 5 years.

lostinrates

Tropez wrote: »

Ah, don't remind me. Maybe it's just some sort of early midlife crisis but work is just getting in my way now.

But I get what you're saying. It is substantially easier that we have no children to keep our finances separate. I know that I am phenomenally fortunate to be with someone who doesn't want children and enjoys financial independence in the same way that I do.

Ok, and you are both well.

I dislike being financially 'dependant'. (I was a bigger earner than DH in the very dim and distant past, then , when when we met I wasn't , but was certainly independent, and had a very healthy bank account . .....

I don't actually feel dependant as such, just not ...contributory. Dh talks about 'our salary' and we do make a team in our endeavours apart as well as together but, nonetheless, I had not been dependant before him ever. Marriage offers me a security in case of the breakdown of our relationship I would not have as simply his loved partner for now. As the 'weak point' in the relationship its a reassurance I suppose. I don't really feel I need it, but.......I suppose its nice to have,

Saturnalia

For me the biggest plus to marriage would be having a partner as legal next-of-kin. On a purely practical level, it would make more sense to have the person I'd live with and share life & responsibilities with in that role rather than my parents who are at the other end of the country and might not be able to be at my hospital bedside for days.

It happened to a relative - her boyfriend was badly injured at work and rushed to hospital. Work called his parents who live abroad and couldn't get back quickly, and neither his work nor the hospital could tell her anything at all about the situation (it was boyfriend's colleague who called her and told her what had happened) until his parents agreed to her being informed. They had only just bought their house together and when they married a few years on, that incident was a big driving factor in the decision.

I don't know if you can get some kind of legal paperwork naming a partner-not-spouse as NOK, but if you're going to give each other such a massive trust & responsibility and are going to be spending money on lawyers anyway, what reason is there to not just go to the registrar and have all the legalese done in one shot?

Of course it swings both ways - if you aren't prepared to give them the responsibility for life and death decisions, don't marry them and definitely don't have their child!

neverdespairgirl

Saturnalia wrote: »

I don't know if you can get some kind of legal paperwork naming a partner-not-spouse as NOK, but if you're going to give each other such a massive trust & responsibility and are going to be spending money on lawyers anyway, what reason is there to not just go to the registrar and have all the legalese done in one shot?

You can indeed - and if you are both lawyers, and related to / mates with more of them, it's neither difficult nor expensive (-:

In any case, you could most certainly list your boyfriend / girlfriend as NOK at work, or with a hospital, for example. OH is listed as my next of kin at work, and on my GPs records, which transferred easily and quickly to my hospital records when I;ve been there (only for pregnancy / childbirth, fortunately for me).

Mojisola

Saturnalia wrote: »

I don't know if you can get some kind of legal paperwork naming a partner-not-spouse as NOK

http://static.advicenow.org.uk/files/lt-nextofkin-2-8-10-1-988.pdf

There's even a card to fill in and keep with you in case you end up at a hospital where your NOK wishes aren't on file.

Tropez

Saturnalia wrote: »

I don't know if you can get some kind of legal paperwork naming a partner-not-spouse as NOK, but if you're going to give each other such a massive trust & responsibility and are going to be spending money on lawyers anyway, what reason is there to not just go to the registrar and have all the legalese done in one shot?

Because for some marriage isn't as straightforward as it is for others.

I never expected to get married because my partner hated the idea. She hated the idea because of the marriage that her parents had. Her parents weren't married when they had her and it would appear that for the first few years of her life she grew up as a normal kid. They clearly had many, many issues long before she was even born though but as a child she was unaware of them. After they married for some reason it became open season on the level of animosity that these two bizarre individuals expressed both to each other and to their children and when they hit breaking point and divorced they inflicted an extreme level of psychological abuse on everybody in the household.

From my partner's perspective as a child she saw a relatively normal household turn into a prolonged, living hell due to marriage. She would openly admit as an adult that it wasn't the marriage itself that caused this but it did birth a phobic aversion to marriage.

It is one of the more extreme examples of what is undeniably a bad marriage but I could quite understand why someone who as a child was unfortunately caught in the middle of such a violent collapse of a marriage would hardly be warm to the idea of getting married, no matter how much they loved their OHs or how many legal benefits were put in front of them.

Of course, we are getting married at the end of the month because she asked me to marry her which is obviously a huge step for her so it also doesn't mean that even those with the most severe aversion to marriage won't get married.

owen_money

I had kids and got married, why should others get away with it?