I’m 36 and have been with my current girlfriend for almost 5 years now - my longest relationship yet. We live together & everything else couply, just not married. I see marriage as unnecessary pressure that has a tendency to put strain on the relationship. Right now if we’re happy together we stay, if we’re not we split. Simple. Marriage complicates it.
Not sure where you are, but where I am at in the US there are a ton of legal benefits beyond taxes. Being married means being involved in medical emergencies if she can’t make her own decisions, we both have legal rights involving our child, possessions, can usually take care of things for each other that have exemptions for spouses, etc. It basically makes emergencies and coordinated stuff easier to take care of. The cost of those benefits through marriage is super cheap and easy, with the downside that splitting up is a huge deal.
So it isn’t worth it for everyone, and to be honest most people shouldn’t jump into it as quickly as they do. It also does not require a ceremony beyond the person who makes it official, basically the same steps as getting something notarized.
If you want a ceremony without the legal part that’s cool too!
I’m in NZ. Theoretically we’re listed as each other’s primary emergency contacts, so that shouldn’t be an issue. I just hope we never have to find out.
As for children, property etc. NZ has this idea of a defacto relationship, which you can enter into either by living together for 2 years, or by having a child together. It offers the same protections that marriage does. I think it gets a bit greyer if you just have a child together, but living together for 2 years is as good as a marriage in this regard.
Where it matters the most is if one of us passes away, but that can be negated through a will.
It could matter if we ever decided to move out of the country, but I don’t see us doing that in a hurry. We’ll cross that bridge if we ever get to it
Yeah, that sounds like a much better system.