Disable Marriage Equality: Why Do I Lose My Benefits If I Marry an "Able-Bodied" Person?
When you hear the words ‘marriage equality’ spoken, I can bet that your first thought is of same-sex marriages. It makes sense. That’s almost always the context of the LGBTQ+ community and their right to equal marriage rights.
For a lot of people, marriage is important. It allows you to proclaim your love to the world in such a beautiful public setting and experience. So many people spend their younger years planning their weddings, knowing what they want.
But for disabled people, there is so much more that goes into it than just wedding planning and cold feet.
Marrying as a disabled person can, truly, be a dangerous experience, for a multitude of reasons.
If you get married, you and your partner are then viewed almost as one person, including that of your income. That will oftentimes then lead to your income and your benefits becoming intertwined with your partners’. If you’re a disabled person and you marry an able-bodied person, one who works a qualifying significant income, the disabled person in the relationship will likely lose their benefits altogether. If you live outside of the UK, not only are you left with the strict laws on benefits causing issues, but also your access to healthcare, such as insurance.
Not only does that take away financial freedom, but it also is inherently ableist. It’s yet another thing that disabled people are supposed to just…put up with, and not take issue with or speak out about.
When two healthy, able-bodied people that are both being paid a working wage get married, one or both of their wages aren’t slashed (or even, in some cases, stopped altogether), so why is that the case for disabled people on benefits?
Moreover, according to GOV.UK, disabled individuals are allowed to have six thousand pounds in their main banking account, with a minimum of six thousand and a maximum of sixteen thousand pounds reducing the amount of money you’re awarded on Universal Credit. Any amount over sixteen thousand would mean that you would become ineligible for the Universal Credit benefits scheme all together.
I haven’t found my forever person. At least, not yet. But there are thousands upon thousands of disabled people that have. There are so many disabled people that so desperately want to have a big and luxurious wedding, to have their forever legally recognised, and those very same people are also terrified that they’ll be losing out on not just a quality of life but also a way to experience life with the person that they love if they were to make it a legally binding relationship.
We’ll never have true marriage equality until disabled people can marry without fear of losing their income source, being unable to pay their bills and even becoming homeless.
When this subject has come up before, I’ve heard and seen comments like ‘just don’t get married’ and ‘you don’t have to be married for it to be real love’, and while, yes, that is true, that shouldn’t matter. It’s the principle of it all.
If you aren’t disabled, you might not be able to comprehend just how unjust and unfair all of this is, and that lack of understanding often leads to the issue being brushed off or pushed aside. You might not see the importance of it, but we are forced to live with this fear that we might never be able to marry the one that we love without risking our ability to live.
Disabled people shouldn’t have to live in fear of losing their only source of income in order to live a life with the person that they love. We shouldn’t be forced to choose between love and a ‘liveable’ income.
Nobody should have to choose between living and loving.
In a relationship between two able-bodied people, you would never see it be the norm that one of them to have their income slashed significantly so that they are able marry one another, so why is that the expectation of disabled people?
We deserve to experience the joys, the triumphs, the highs and the lows of married life. We deserve to have the ability of making that choice, not having the government making it for us, in the same way that non-disabled people are able to. Yet, it is still a struggle.
If love is love, then why are disabled people penalised for wanting to spend their forever with someone? If all love is just love, then why does disabled love come at an expense?
Written by Phoebe Jenkins
