@GoatGirl19 Thank you for sharing that with us. I wish you both the very best.
It is nice to see a relationship begin the old fashioned way - in person. I am so glad I am happily married. I am not sure I would be able to navigate the single scene in 2017. After reading this long thread, it seems very complicated.
The difference between marriage and long-term-relationship may or may not be important. I do know a few straight couples who have truly maintained a long-term committed relationship over decades – and neither of whose members were previously married – but those examples are few and far between. In my experience, when people who are in a long-term relationship and are not married, there are usually reasons for that, and they don’t include that the relationship is so strong that marriage is irrelevant. I had one set of friends who were involved for years, bought two houses together, had two children, and finally got married because there was a specific reason to do that . . . and their relationship lasted about two more years. Like Brad and Angelina.
I do have other friends who have lived together for 40 years now, raised a child, etc., and who only got married a couple of years ago when they figured out what a tax penalty they would pay when the first of them died if they weren’t legally married. And one of my nieces is in a nine-year relationship that includes a three-year-old child, and no marriage, but that is the cultural norm in the community where she lives. Culture does matter! But, honestly, I think that cultural norm also includes more fragile relationships, too.
Even gay couples, who only got access to marriage as an option relatively recently. At this point, I don’t know any long-term couples who decided not to marry and who have remained together.
@GoatGirl19, So Happy for you!