This year is the eleventh Valentines Day we have celebrated since being married. I am sure there are many more to come too.  Cue some roses, chocolate, wine and a lighthearted romantic film to celebrate still being in love so many years on! Our relationship moved with such momentum we never considered legal rights.  We were all starry eyed, deeply in love instead.

Valentines can be hard if your finding your feet in a new relationship or hunkering down on the dreaded day of love desperately waiting to be found by a special someone.

But once it gets its grasp on you love can really sweep you off your feet and in my case it certainly did. We moved in together, got married and had our first child within the first year of our relationship.  Those steps which in reality were really big steps just seemed like natural progression. We didn’t have time to stop and think about legal rights and responsibilities, we were riding the wave of love!

Financial Commitments

Once we moved in together financial commitments became merged.  This meant my maxed out credit cards started to impact upon our joint daily finances. I was lucky in this case that my wife had money to clear the debt.  She wanted us to live a more affordable life and start with a clean slate before the arrival of our first child.  We never once thought about the legal implications involved in each relationship stage.  If things had not worked out where would we both stand with the debt that was paid off for me? Likely it would have been in my favour because we had no formal written agreement.

When you think about it there can be all-sorts of issues around relationships and the law.  Whether its inheritance or custody of children. Being married can clarify some of the issues, along with having a will in place. However if you have concerns where would you even go to in order to get advice on the subject? After all the law can prove to be quite confusing at times.

The Legal Perspective

Tetiana Bersheda, the founder of the legal knowledge platform LexSnap, has heard from countless clients who wish they had been properly informed about the effects that the law could have on their relationship.

When I have had legal queries with other sectors such as property I have always found it much easier to get advice from the experts than trying to unpick legal aspects myself online.  We don’t always have a clear head when we are in love so its probably even more important then.