Zeus posted...
Not many states have that. His state certainly doesn't, neither does mine. Plus even in common law marriage states, you can file for an exemption.
It also usually hinges on a couple legally living together. Technically speaking, you could theoretically continue to live in separate residences and just "date" without triggering most of the usual common law flags.
The government generally doesn't care (except in cases where one half of the couple makes it an issue by pursuing legal grounds ex post facto to claim common law marriage in a bid to seize assets), because by staying officially separate you're both accepting the tax "penalty" for being single, and assuming the burden of having trouble sharing the same insurance benefits. A LOT of things in the US are essentially skewed to reward marriage and punish long-term singlehood.
pionear posted...
Well, I think this guy is just a rarity...I guess it's mutual for both of them (like Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell)
I always made it a point while dating to lay it out very early in a relationship that I had absolutely no desire to ever get married or have kids, and if the woman I was with at the time ever saw either of those things being part of her future, she might be better off finding someone who shared her interest rather than staying with me with the idea that she'd "change" me or otherwise badger me into it. Especially since I'm an incredibly stubborn motherfucker, and that kind of pressure would probably just make me even more opposed to the idea.
But you'd be kind of surprised how many women you can meet who have absolutely no interest in having kids or getting married. Moreso these days than ever before, most likely, but I honestly rarely brought it up to anyone who was adamantly offended by the idea or who acted like it was a total dealbreaker. As long as your open and up-front about it, you may find more women who are receptive to the idea than you'd expect (especially in an era when women are being raised to have interests and careers and lives of their own outside of just being babymakers and some man's property).
I've probably known at least a half-dozen different women who felt really strongly about never having kids and who never really cared about the whole idea of marriage (especially because a lot of the appeal of the idea of marriage is family-oriented, which goes away when you don't want kids), and a couple of those also live with long-term boyfriends they're probably never going to marry. It's not like I found the one-in-a-million catch who would tolerate my crazy eccentricities and would have been a forever alone if I'd failed to lock her down.
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