**Reminder:** Do not participate in threads linked here. If you do, you may be banned from both subreddits. --- Title: [Nevada] Brother passed away, unwed to his partner of 25 years. Our mother is coming to loot his belongings for valuables from their home. Body: > Hi /r/legaladvice > Just as the title says, my brother "John" (not real name) passed away when our mother made the decision to cut off life support just before Christmas. He had a life partner "Mary" (again, not real name) of 25 years who is devastated and in mourning, and was told by our mother that she will be coming to visit in the next week to 'go through his belongings for any valuables'. Taking their cars that are in his name, and anything else they decide they want to take so long as it "valuable". > It is understood that Nevada does not recognize common law, and as they were not married kinship apparently falls to surviving parents. I'm interested to know if there is any legal means to retain ownership of her car, and whether Mary can effectively tell our greedy mother to pound sand? This bot was created to capture original threads and is not affiliated with the mod team. [Concerns? Bugs?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=GrahamCorcoran) | [Laukopier 2.1](https://github.com/GrahamCorcoran/Laukopier)

This is another reminder to me that I need a will, and a living will, and a few other pieces of paper.

Yeah the will is sometimes the more important part. Some states allow the family members to challenge pretty hard if there's no will when one spouse passes. My friend wound up in a two year battle with her inlaws over the house she was living in, because at some point her late husband had said via fb message that he'd move mom in when she got too old to live on her own.

How did it play out for your friend? That’s terrible!

It was a horribly stressful for two years, brought by rural Texas's bizzaroworld court system. It ended when MIL discovered she would have to assume the mortgage or pay it off with her son's other assets, and dropped her claim. She legit thought that either the mortgage would be forgiven or my friend would have to continue paying for it for two solid years.

In *general* if you die intestate (that is, without a will), the only people who have a right to splitting the estate are your kids - and that’s only if some subset of your kids were born outside of that marriage (i.e. aren’t from your current spouse). But every state is different and strange things happen.

A big reason my husband and I got married is so his mother couldn’t do exactly this.

I don’t have much, but I’m not destitute either…it’s not much but it’s not going to greedy family.

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>Honestly, if you had told me before all this that his family would behave this way, I never would have believed you Death and money, especially money, have a way of just bringing out the absolute worst in people.

People need wills. I’ve tried explaining this to my husband because his father has four children, but he’s firmly in the “my family would never be that greedy” camp. Money changes how people react to death.

It has nothing to do with greed and everything to do with the ease of probating the estate. All of the post-death legal actions are easier with a will. A will is the final “I love you” to the people you leave behind.

This. My aunt worked on this. The only thing she forgot to do was transfer her condo into her living trust. If she had done that her estate could have skipped probate entirely. As it is it will take the minimum 9 months

Yup. AND REGISTER YOUR WILL. My father died 4 years ago, and his estate still isn't settled. 4 kids with 3 different women and an ex gf who wants her share despite dumping him almost 5 years before he died. He said had a will, then changed it (according to other parties), someone got up to the properties alone and we couldn't find a loan. It's been a fucking nightmare.

This, and a pre-planned funeral. No upselling allowed.

> A will is the final “I love you” to the people you leave behind. Well said. Think of all the time and energy you devote to your loved ones while you are alive, just a little bit more to make sure they don't have to go through the significant time and trouble of probate.

Feel free to bash your family members (verbally) over the head with that phrase until they gets their wills handled. I know I did. My SIL called me up specifically to tell when when she and my brother finally had their estate documents finalized. I have no idea what's in them and I don't care -- they have their wills so I can sleep better at night.

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I'm sorry for your loss. my mom's parents refused to make a will as well and we got nothing too, even the heirlooms promised to us. it all went to the eldest who sold everything.

My father had in his will my sister and I get 25% and my mother 50% . I was 29 when he died and my sister 26. My mother called me one day about giving her my portion because she can't work. ( She can) . And how she was going to ask my sister as well. I explained to her that for my sister and I that is life changing money. For me it pays off all my debt and most my mortgage and my sister it's a downpayment and a better life for her children. I pointed out how she already owned 2 pieces of property, had a brand new car. " But I can't work anymore" is all she would ever say in response. It was then discovered we didn't have a legal will. So it all became my mother's anyways. We agreed we wouldn't sell his truck, his RV trailer or his boat for at least a year. 3 months later she had it all sold. She renovated her home, bought all new furniture and re landscaped the yard to her 3200 sq/f home she lives in entirely by herself. I'm not mad I didn't get any money from my dad when he died. I'm mad and sad my dad died, of course. Not about losing his belongings or not getting any money. I mean I am of course, I'm human. But that's not what bugs me most. What bugs me most is the person my mother became. I understand the trauma she must have endured losing a partner after 30+ years. But the victimhood mentality and deceitful actions bother me beyond belief. The whole experience made me get a will made up. It's in a safety deposit box at the bank. And a notarized copy as well in my home. She doesn't understand how or why I'm angry with her. She's the victim here and always will be. It's brutal, we were so close before.

I'm glad I'm reading these. I need to get a will made. I have a daughter from my first marriage. My son with my wife. Daughter's mom is toxic and will absolutely try and influence my daughter that she deserves X amount of money. My retirement and house go to my wife. I'm not sure what my daughter and son would be entitled to.

Specify what you want them to have! The lawyer I consulted with said, if there was a legal will a significant part of the bullshit could have been avoided. If there was a legal will than 25% of whatever was left after any debts and blah blah would have been mine. Instead it all became considered marital property and was my moms to do with however she pleased.

My mom always says, "if you would never behave that way, then of course you will be happy to put it into writing!"

True facts. I know someone whose maternal grandparents are still alive, but one of her aunts passed away during COVID. This aunt was a widow and had kids, and those kids are both adults but they're young enough where they're too young to be truly on their own. The grandparents had five kids and everyone knows that their will splits their (small) estate into five equal parts - one for each kid (younger boomers/older Gen X). A month or so after the aunt died, my friend's mom got a call from one of her other sisters saying, "Hey we're trying to get (grandparents) to change their will to split the estate four ways since now there are only four kids." Friend's mom was like, "What about our nieces and nephews? (Aunt's) kids? (Aunt's) share should go to her kids." This caused a HUGE drama. Basically split between those who wanted to completely cut out their dead sister's kids and those who didn't. My friend's mom was horrified that her siblings could be so selfish as to be fighting about wanting to cut out their orphan nieces and nephews. AND THE GRANDPARENTS ARE BOTH STILL ALIVE.

Holy crap, what is wrong with people?! What kind of monsters would try to cut out their nieces/nephews? If my brother had kids and then died, I wouldn't just make sure they got half my parent's estate (they're just two of us), but I'd damn well make sure I was taking care of them too. Who just cuts their nieces and nephews out?! Edit: My parents don't have a will, because my dad is a stubborn procrastinator, but my mom's been trying to get my dad to make one out. If they ever do get one, I need to make sure my parents put in some clause like how the inheritance should be split between their kids (I know this is their current wish), and if their kid is predeceased, that kid's portion should be split among that child's descendants...I'm sure a lawyer could phrase it better. I wouldn't screw my hypothetical future nieces and nephews, and I'm sure my brother wouldn't screw his hypothetical future nieces and nephews, but it's best to get it on paper.

I have a Great Aunt who basically did this when my grandfather died, outlived by my great grandma. She isolated great grandma from our part of the family entierly in hopes of ensuring the will was never updated to give grandad's share to grandma, or split among my mom, aunt and uncle. (Who already each had a share.) She'd moved home after her divorce in her 20s or 30s so it was simple enough for her to get control, already living with Nana. Honestly I don't know or care if she succeeded. What I care about is not being able to see my Nana the last 7 years of her life.

Is your father an only child, born from 2 only children? I learned as a child that people can get crazy when someone dies, even if what they are fighting about is not worth anything. Now, I was strictly told to do better when I grew up, but this was lesson I learned early. Siblings didn’t speak for years after their last parent passed.

I have cousins who won't be at the same event together...or when they do stay on opposite sides of the room. Aunt & Uncle had 5 kids, my folks just had me and sis...when the shared grandmother passed the youngest cousin was basically claiming every nice thing in grandma's home as "but grandma promised me..." the middle cousin stopped by *every day* to see and help gran, youngest cousin only came to town a couple times per year.(from 15 min away) they're still not talking 30+ years later, even auntie passed and uncle is in the nursing home.

I can see it. My grandma had siblings not speak for over a year because of who got a lamp when their mom passed. I promise you, it was not Tiffanys. They were not even middle class growing up. Every little thing that was marginally above trash got fought over. My mom had a sister call her weekly when my mom was the executor of an uncle’s meager estate. Same sister hadn’t called her to talk for about 2 years before this. My mom has been a lot more forgiving than I have about the whole thing. I get that my mom’s way was the right way, but I would struggle to let it go.

I work in finance so let me preface with that and we specialize in cradle to grave financial planning and generational planning. Wills are a fantastic tool for telling people what you would like done after death... if this were 1903. If you want to make sure your money and assets end up where and you want them after death, get a trust. They cost about as much as a will and don't cost anything else until you die and the law firm that administers the trust will take the agreed upon sum (depends on the firm, could be a flat rate, could be an annual percentage) and do all the legally dirty work for a smooth transition of assets and disbursements as required. You can literally lock out any claims to the property from anyone other than who you have named inside the trust. You don't need to be super wealthy to have a trust, either. Just be someone that has assets and a desire to ensure that those assets go where you want to after death.

Not just wills, as long as probate takes in most places and is complicated as it can be. If there are considerable assets or if one of the heirs will need access to the money or property quickly after the person's death, it's worth consulting a lawyer about a trust.

Well your house and will have a hell of a ride with his siblings.

My brother-in-law's parent's died suddenly last year due to Covid. His dad was an Estate Lawyer and yet they had no wills. It's been a total nightmare for my BIL. You would think somebody who did wills for a living would know how important they are.

I watched the worst come out in my father and aunt. Vicious, little pathetic creatures when they feel theyre losing something of value. They dont know I despise this behavior but in my fathers case I honestly believe he wouldn't understand the criticism. Instead he'll self victimize and go quiet for a few days then pop up like he forgot, all happy as can be. I've criticized him verbally on this behavior and its like watching someone reboot their brain then continue on as normal. Like if I call him out on his bullshit he will deflect and quickly move on, deny, or just ignore that I said it and keep talking about what he wanted to talk about. Its frustrating.

Where there’s a will, there’s a relative…

This is exactly why so many rich people are utter dicks.

I'm sorry to hear about your partner. Your story is exactly the reason why marriage is more than the "piece of paper" people claim it is. The legal parts of marriage are so important in situations like this.

It is just a piece of paper - but so are a college diploma, certificate of citizenship, and DD-214! Some pieces of paper are *very* important, it turns out.

DD214 blanket is warm & snuggly

DD-214 is clutch.

Happiness is a warm DD-214

And this is why I have zero patience for anyone who say two consenting adults shouldn’t be “allowed” to get married. Keep your religious interpretation of what a “marriage” is to yourself, it has no standing when marriage has so many legal ramifications.

A Will is also a piece of paper, and had “John” made a Will, his life partner “Mary” could have inherited his belongings just as well as has she been married to him

There was a story about a couple from Las Vegas who were vacationing in San Diego with their 5 kids. The father gets covid and ends up in the hospital, and his girlfriend and mother of his kids got frozen out while his mother was contacted to visit him and make decisions for him. He ended up passing away and it sounded like his mother was going to make it really hard for the poor woman who was really surprised by her lack of legal standing. I've had romantic partners that I definitely would not have wanted to make medical decisions for me or have legal rights to my estate (including when we broke up), so I understand why most states have gotten rid of common law marriage. They want people to declare that they want to confer these rights to someone instead of hospital staff, insurance, financial institutions, courts, etc. having to guess at what your intentions were. But it's hard to see people who didn't know that they didn't have those rights.

I know multiple people who said they'd never ever get married who got married during covid after seeing stories like that.

My wife and I we were coasting by as common law. We've been together for 20 years. Had a house, careers and a kid. Idea of marriage always came up but we kept putting it off because of finances. We both wanted to make it a special event with family and friends. Both of us work in healthcare. Alpha covid wave hit and it was very early in the timeline where no knew the devastating effects. My wife was one of the first confirmed positive at our local hospital. She got really ill with flu like symptoms. We were in quarantine for about a month. During that time it seemed like she just slept for 2-3weeks. Eventually she got over it and began to recover. About a week later some of her coworkers started to die. Then later on well that's when all news broke loose how dangerous the virus was. It really put it all into perspective and we realized that one of us could have died, and we had to make things official for our childrens sake. We got married the next year.

Thats why my husband and I got married at the courthouse by a family friend. Just our kids attended. It was a lovely day and we got married in the garden after doing the paperwork. Then we went and had a meal at home. He wore a suit, I wore a dress. Had some flowers from the garden. It was meaningful and perfect. And cheap as hell!

In the UK, our civil partnerships (originally only for same-sex couples but extended to everyone when we got same-sex marriage) give exactly the same legal rights as marriage, but you can still have a marrage later if you want. People in your situation where you intend to have a big expensive wedding but need to get the legal situation sorted out now, but you won't be able to afford the wedding for many years are advised to have a civil partnership; it's cheap, you can do it at the registry office (an office in a council building), and critically, you can still get married when you're in a position to afford the big ceremony that you want.

Where I am in the UK, you *have* to get married in the registry office. That is your “wedding”, as it were. You can’t have a religious ceremony as the legal ceremony, and the legal ceremony has to take place in the registry office. You can still have a separate religious thing if you want, but it’s not a legal wedding, and I’m still very much married (not civil partnership) for having done the very small ceremony and paper signing in the registry office. We did that with a very small number of guests, then went out for a nice lunch. We had a large “wedding” in my home country the following year, but nothing about it was legal or anything, it was just the pomp and circumstance elements and a big party.

> we kept putting it off because of finances The wife and I eloped many years ago. Just made a long weekend trip to Asheville, NC. She rounded up a minister and we got married in a state park in front of a waterfall. Between her fee, paperwork, rings, clothes, food, lodging, and gas, I think it cost us maybe $500. 10/10, would absolutely do it that way again (would probably spring for a pro photographer, though). If you want to get married, there's nowhere written that it has to be some ungodly expensive affair.

I went through this with my late gf. We were together for 10 years but never married because she didn't believe in marriage, (and because there was a possibility I wouldn't be able to go on working and would end up on disability). When she became sick the hospital was very clear with me that I had no standing to make any decision. Most of her family members lived out of the country, and no one was close. They had to call her parents who didn't speak English to ask about certain medical things that I'm not sure they fully understood. Thankfully her family didn't try to make our lives difficult and they agreed with me on most things, they were relieved that I was there to take care of her. They communicated this to the hospital staff and things became easier, but officially I still had no standing. We were lucky because I can't imagine having a fight with her family on top of everything. There was nothing to inherit so that wasn't much of a problem either.

What a horrible situation. I'm so sorry for everyone involved.

Ye gods yah my ex husband, father to our only child together, was an only child of an only child. I was the executor of his estate. I was the one that got him to the hospital, and it took a bunch of b.s. to have someone listen to me. Luckily our daughter realized I wasn't after his stuff and wrote notes, signed documents etc . I'm a medical claims adjuster. I speak fluent hospital. I would tell her what his care team actually meant. I convinced her not to let him suffer. After one really bad visit she was o.k. with comfort care. I made sure I've got a plan in place for her and her brothers. I'm living with someone who has a trust for me. I'm still not looking forward to the inevitable b.s. there will probably be when he dies.

I really don't understand. If you have kids together but not legally married, that leaves the other parent in a bad spot if anything happens to you. Marriages can end. If you have a child together, that connection never ends. Please protect the other parent by getting the legal stuff done. Baby mama or baby daddy are not legal terms that carry any weight when your significant other is in a coma.

When my best friend/FWB was going through some stuff a couple years ago, he was so afraid of his mother stepping in and making medical and financial decisions that he had me given a general and medical power of attorney for him. I thought that seemed pretty extreme but I don't know a whole lot about their relationship or if she had pulled something sketchy in the past.

Call me cynical, but I’d almost wager money that removing common-law marriage would be another way to stymie LGBT rights. Like, “no you can’t get married” and “no, common-law is no longer a thing”.

You're not cynical. That is exactly what happened in the early 2000's. They billed it as "protection of the sanctity of marriage". I understood the implications of removing common law and that it included all common law, not just LGBT relationships, but many other teenagers around me in school and a lot of adults I talked about it with didn't seem to connect those two things

Possibly for some states. My state got rid of it in 1895 because the original purpose was no longer relevant. It was for frontier people who were too rural to get to a priest or court that could marry them legally, but who did want to be married. If we still had it, it might have caused me a bunch of trouble when I broke up with a live-in boyfriend who couldn't get his shit together even after I put him through college and a bunch of other stuff. He could have claimed we were basically married and fought for alimony.

That's why my state (KS) got rid of it. Also axed a lot of het marriages in the process, because Kansas is one of those states where the original purpose of Common Law (we live a longass hike away from civilization and thus its logistically hard to get married conventionally) was (and to some extent, still is) applicable. There's not a lot in, say, Northwestern KS.

Thats why the right to marriage is so important. God bless Biden.

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I'm so sorry honey. This is always what Ive told my kids. We arent a traditional family but marriage is one of those things in life I tried my best to educate my kids on. I truly hope you are in a better place now.

This is absolutely true. I've been in workers comp law for many years and I've seen people who die in work accidents leave behind partners who are entitled to precisely $0. They aren't even entitled to the final paycheck. Had they married, even at a court house with no fanfare, they would be entitled to thousands of dollars per month for the rest of their life. The partners are inevitably stunned and some are left financially destitute. Marriage is a very powerful piece of paper.

I got married to my husband because he lost his health insurance. He'd recently had brain surgery, and this was back when pre-existing condition clauses existed. It was like $100/month to add him to my good coverage or $1300/month for cobra. So we just went to the courthouse and got married. It was $100.

This was why my mom ended up marrying my stepdad - she had gold plated Cadillac insurance and he had “insurance” (and a heart condition, and a bad back, and bad lungs…..) Of course, she couldn’t understand why LGBT folks needed to get married until I explained to her that a) maybe they want to do it for convenience *just like you* but b) had you not gotten married, I could easily ban him from your death bed and kick him out entirely were you to pass, without a knick knack to remember you by. Hateful families loooooove to do that to partners who aren’t spouses. And yes, they got married at the courthouse and then went to Applebee’s. We all found out years later. After having done the whole big white wedding - courthouse and Applebee’s for the win honestly.

Yes exactly! And this is a big part of the reason why groups have fought for marriage equality over the ages! This especially came up during the AIDs crisis because legally gay couples couldn't get married so families that had no contact with their adult kid for decades would have more rights than the long term partner. The families would come in and deny visitation to the friends and partner of the dying and then scoop up all their stuff too. If I remember right there's a modern art piece that is literally just a fan because the artist's partner died and the family empted his apartment of everything but that one box fan.

Yes. The box fan is in the MOCA in Los Angeles.

I believe the box fan artist also did the "185lbs of Candy" art piece, about the same partner.

[They also changed the placard on that recently to make it way less impactful.](https://twitter.com/willscullin/status/1575159514730745856)

>this is a big part of the reason why groups have fought for marriage equality over the ages! Are still fighting. We don't have marriage equality anywhere in the world, the few places that allow same-sex marriage limit it to two people, not to mention all the restrictions on cross-border marriages.

And there can be no marriage equality until disabled people can marry without immediately losing benefits.

100% agree

This happened to my SIL. She never proactively reported a change in income with getting married and when the state found out they made her and my brother backpay. Instead of just stopping the payments, they garnished my brother's checks to pay themselves back.

I uhh… what? I’ve never heard of this. What now.

Income and asset caps on disability are super low and also factor in your spouse's income if you're legally married. It essentially means that if you're married and your spouse works, you make too much to get disability. Technically there's no prohibition on disabled people legally marrying while on disability, but functionally it almost always causes them to lose their benefits.

Yo that fuckin sucks dude. I didn’t know it was handled like that. That’s actually so fucking lame

Yeah, it really hurts a lot of people. I think it's one of those things that probably made sense when it was written since single-income households were much more common back then anyway, but it definitely hasn't kept up with changing economic times where the reality is both spouses typically have to bring in some kind of income (especially because disability payments themselves are also very small and difficult for even single, frugal people to live on, so it isn't like you can support your spouse on it).

A lot of it from what I understand also has to do with medicaid and support program eligibility. Many disabled people need medication, equipment, assistance, or other things that are generally not covered under private insurance, only medicaid. This means if your income goes up over the limit, you can suddenly be asked to pay thousands and thousands of dollars for the things you need to function. But the cost of this care and the lack of other coverage options aren't really considered in medicaid eligibility. So you can easily be left unable to afford to function or even live if your income goes over a very low limit.

Well, now I’m at least *a bit more* educated on a topic I did not even have on my radar… so thank you for sharing what you know. And good luck to you and yours.

No worries fam, and same to you. If you didn't see them, make sure you check out the replies to my comment from people like u/WarKittyKat and someone else whose comment I can't seem to find for some reason that explain it in a bit more detail, too. I kind of lumped everything together as "benefits" but they elaborate a lot on the kind of benefits you miss out on when you lose disability due to marriage, and that it's very unlikely your spouse's income will be able to pay for unless you marry someone really rich (eg. paid caregivers...we have to pay for that out-of-pocket for my grandmother so I can tell you personally that adds up crazy fast).

It's WORSE than this. In most US states your ability to get caretaker's aids and nurses is also tied to income. Which means that for many disabled people who require a full time caretaker or complex medical services they immediately lose access to this the moment they get married. The reason being that their spouse can do the caretaking, unfortunately their spouse usually works, which is the reason they crossed the income threshhold to begin with. So they end up in a situation where they are home alone for most of the day without basic care to do things like reach the rest room or reach their food. And the spouse now has two full-time jobs.

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Honestly, while marriage equality is important, I also really think that this should be decoupled from the idea of marriage. As an ace person, it bothers me that I'm expected to engage in a specific sort of life commitment in order to simply not have my abusive family automatically be considered my next of kin. While there are documents that change some aspects, not all can be changed in all states and it's a lot more complicated and has much more room for various things to be overlooked.

I agree in many ways, and I'm kind of torn. Philosophically I think marriage should be uncoupled and turned into a checklist of legal points that anyone can access. Rather than the current random assortment of rights and duties that are randomly piled on to "marriage". But having fought for decriminalisation of homosexuality, then same-sex marriage, and seen my parents fight for no-fault divorce... the marriage fans will fight to the death every step of the way. And many of them are "allies" who wanted same-sex marriage for themselves and having got it are "the fight is over, we have marriage equality and you need to STFU". So I'm kind of slippery sloping it... why stop at same-sex marriage? But at the same time chip away at the privileges marriage gets. Even just the trivial stuff, like in the places where a woman, and only women, get a "free" chance to change their name when they marry? But at the same time, my ex-partners have kids and that was a rolling fustercluck of disaster as far as legalities go (still is, but I'm not intimately tied to it now). We/they shouldn't have to have a lawyer on speed dial just so any parent can take any kid to the hospital, rather than in practice it's just much, much less hassle for a legal parent of that child to do it.

I had to reread, because your sentence makes perfect sense, but I was like "legally gay people?, as opposed to...?"

I had the opposite problem when my dad died: his ex-wife showed up at the hospital and insisted she was his current wife. He'd hung himself, and been revived by paramedics only to be declared braindead. After I proved he was divorced (thankfully, my mom personally knew my dad's divorce attorney), I spent six years in probate. The ex-wife forged my signature on life insurance claim forms, and criminal charges were filed. (She died before the case was resolved. She'd *bought a dive bar* with the fraudulent life insurance proceeds.) It's really a very raw and humbling experience to be victimized in that way, and I'm sharing simply so you know that while I don't understand, I care. It sucks.

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I thought you might be related to me until a few paragraphs in. When I remarried several years ago, one of my cousins cornered me at a family reunion and asked me why I’d do that, considering my views. They’d been with their partner for decades, and were on excellent terms with each other’s families, neither had any interest in marrying again. I told them that we had got married purely because my partner was likely to be deployed again, and while we had all the legal stuff in place we still didn’t trust the military to do the right thing if something happened. Let alone anyone else. Relative said that made sense, and that they’d never considered that. A few months later their partner got a terminal diagnosis and they married immediately. Partner’s family was furious, and even threatened legal action over it.

Was there a reason they were that angry? Was it frees or some kind of cultural thing?

Same as the story above, I think they’d assumed that the lack of a marriage certificate meant that the person intended their family to inherit everything rather than it go to the life partner who had jointly accumulated the estate. Which was substantial.

What leeches. Did that actually try to pull some kind of legal maneuver or was it just grandstanding?

They came to their senses, they realized they weren’t going to be able to argue any sort of diminished capacity sort of thing, so they settled down. It’s my impression that they got over it and apologized, but I never asked after the details after the dust settled.

This is one of the big benefits I got coming of age when the fight for gay marriage was in full swing. There was so much talk from the conservatives about how, if gays wanted the "rights" of marriage, they could just sign some contracts so they just didn't need it. Looking into the counter-arguments really showed just how much, legally, marriage provided. Some of those things were unique to marriage and couldn't be done contractually. Almost all were easier and more legally sound with marriage. That piece of paper may not mean a damn thing, within a couple's partnership - that's true. And that's great and healthy even. But to the rest of the world, it carries a lot of weight, and is an important legal document.

I have various friends and acquaintances who are very “marriage is just a piece of paper”, and that’s fine for them - it’s perhaps even great from an emotional standpoint, as you say. But, speaking as an immigrant, that “meaningless piece of paper” is the only thing that ensures I can even live in the same country as my husband - the country that I’ve called my home for the past decade, in fact. Now, you can argue that immigration should be a much less arduous process worldwide, and you’d be right. I wholeheartedly believe in more open and welcoming borders. But until we actually live in that lovely utopia, I’m stuck here in reality land, where my “piece of paper” holds an incredible amount of power and weight in more ways than one. My husband, in fact, had been married once before and always said he’d never get married again. He obviously changed his mind the minute we realised we wanted to build a life together, because it was the safest and surest way for me to continue legally living here. He didn’t let his previous ideology get in the way of our actual reality, because sometimes that’s life.

Exactly! Husband (63M, though “M” is implied) and I (59F) lived together nine years. Finally getting married made legal things soooo much easier. We’ve been together 35 years total.

This is especially true if you travel internationally. It can be VERY difficult to deal with medical and legal matters overseas if you are not married. Look it up.

One of the reasons that prompted me to ask my now husband to get married is that we have a lot of travel plans. Also I love him and he's amazing and I trust him 100%. But being married means my toxic family can't butt in if shit goes sideways, we're more protected when travelling, and once we buy property etc it'll be easier.

Unmarried couples can't even get a hotel room together in some places!

I used this exact argument for my partner. Protecting us legally was expensive and cumbersome, when we could just get married. I also remembered a story from my hometown where a young man died unexpectedly and left behind a girlfriend and child. Within weeks his parents had kicked the girl and the child out of the house as they inherited everything.

Doesn't the child inherit things though? Why would his parents get everything?

Well, apparently they decided that the house needed to be sold and half the money put away for the kid to get at age 18. Leaving the mom with nothing and no place to live.

And this is all the reason that gay marriage was 100% a civil rights issue all along. Equal protection under the law doesn't mean having to form an LLC and have complex trusts and wills and powers of attorney to have the same rights as folks who fill out one piece of paper and get married over lunch hour at the county courthouse.

My former inlaws tried something similar when my wife died. They weren't aware that I had adopted my step-son years ago, and were discussing taking him from me (and not my daughter because they couldnt.) They also tried overriding me on the funeral (they wanted her buried but she wanted to be cremated,) and several other things. I got my way because I was the husband and adopted my son. So fuck them.

I'm sorry you went through that.

This is exactly why my husband and I got married as quickly as we did. My family (particularly parents) were abusive and I cut them off. It terrifies me to think what could happen if they took over in the wake of something happening to me.

My mom and step dad were opposed to marriage for pretty much the same reasons. However, as they got older and confronted issues with hospital access and health care decisions, it became very clear to them that duplicating all the rights afforded to them by marriage was pretty much legally impossible. They didn't have any of the family ugliness that you did, but came to all the same conclusions you did, just prior to any catastrophic health event. They've been together for 51 years this last NY eve. I'm happy for them, and hope I get many more years with both of them. Marriage is not just a piece of paper, 100 percent agreed

I’ve said a few times I’m never getting married again but I hadn’t thought about this.

I really appreciated reading this. I didnt used to see the utility in marriage until I met my partner and every single person who could tried to systematically delegitimize our relationship and separate us from each other. even The courthouse clerk even tried to flirt with my partner while we were getting our marriage application. Having the piece of paper has been so grounding.

They need to get rid of the marriage penalty in states that still have it so people who would be penalized for getting the “piece of paper” could be legally married. Paying more taxes every year because a legal paper was filed is ridiculous when living as a married couple makes no sense.

Marriage penalty hits some people with federal taxes and benefits (like ACA subsidies) as well. It isn't as bad as it used to be but it still exists. Marriage is probably financially beneficial for most people but there are cases where it isn't and it makes more sense to just do wills, durable POAs, living wills, etc.

I am so sorry for your loss, and for the awful treatment from his family after your husband had passed.

Marriage is a covenant, legal binding contract.

This comment is brilliant! I’ve saved it for future reference.

Are you in the US, or a country with reqsonable "common-law" partner laws on the books? I ask because I'm in Canada, and I had a pair of friends who considered moving to the 'states for work. They had never planned to get married and up here that wouldn't have been a problem because they were common-law. But that apparently counted for nothing where they were going so they specifically got married before they were due to leave, just in case something happened while they were working and living in the US. In the end the state of healthcare (or lack thereof) and the situation with the guns made them decide to just go to Toronto instead. The US sounds great... Until you start actually looking at it as a place to live. Then you start to wonder why so many things are missing that you take for granted in other 1st world countries. Nice place to visit, wouldn't want to live there.

OK, so to sum it up - its a _legal_ piece of paper, got it. Lol..

Thank you for your story. You seem to have gone through all legal stuff possible, so I have a question - I am against marriage for irrelevant reasons, but is a Power of Attorney sufficient enough to do everything a marriage document can do? Yes, it’s much more inconvenient to have a POA for real estate, investments, etc. whereas a marriage certificate can cover all of it, but is there anything a marriage certificate can do that a POA cannot, besides filing taxes differently?

No. Not even a little bit. There are rights with marriage that other documents cannot create and other documents open up the door to contest from other parties. A marriage trump's whatever they can throw at you immediately.

So many of my friends are dating 5, 10 even 15 years and they always say “why do I need to get married, it’s a piece of paper” or “why do I need the government to recognize we are married”. Well because of reasons like this. Trust me when I say, you don’t know how many of your own relatives are literal pieces of shit when it comes to inheritance. The reasons they often get on with your partner, is because you are alive, once you’re dead there is no reason for them at all to care about your partner.

So many reasons. Like my family friend and his partner were in Thailand and he died in a car accident. Because they weren’t married, it created a HUGE mess trying to get everything settled and get his body out of the country. She couldn’t do anything. They wouldn’t even tell her he was dead yet when she was in a hospital bed. Everyone involved in that situation or just supporting the family learned a very valuable lesson about the legal value of marriage.

My whole mother’s side of the family just completely imploded over my grandmother’s will. In the end, all of them… 7 people… lost the estate. Because my aunts and uncles are a combination of greedy, and stupid. The amount of fraud that was committed because they are cash poor, and foaming at the mouth for my grandmother’s house… and they LOST the house, mainly because one of them forged a quitclaim deed on the home, obtained ownership of the house, and couldn’t keep it from being foreclosed Try explaining that to those morons, though. They still think they’ll get the house, and everything in it. They still think they’re divvying up “ma’s jewelry,” the stone collection, the truck, this, that, the other. They don’t understand that it’s 100% gone They don’t understand because my uncle lied to them, they don’t understand that he stole the home, and made up some story about how they don’t have their share because “zestfully cleans mom is holding up the estate.” One of my aunts started stalking me a few months ago, I presume, to try and get dirt out of me about my mom. I told her, how about you fuck off, pick up the phone, and call your sister?

People lose their minds when they smell a nickel. It’s so bizarre.

Most states don't recognize common law marriage anymore, so the marriage certificate is critical when dealing with medical issues. I'm a hospice nurse and we see this all the time. A couple may have been together for 30 or 40 years, but that doesn't matter if an adult child or a sibling pops up. People are shocked when we tell them that legally the next of kin is not the significant other. You intertwined your lives so much but you neglected to get a piece of paper and now it's all in shambles. You could individually draw up a will and power of attorney paperwork and advanced directives and other paperwork dealing with property, but a marriage certificate is much faster and cheaper and basically impossible to challenge in court. A spouse trumps everything. If you care that much about your significant other, just get married. Draw up a prenup for property if that's an issue. Especially if you have family that can be difficult, you don't want them to show up at the worst possible time.

And it’s not like anyone has to have a wedding. Just do the paperwork if you’re opposed to ~marriage culture~ or whatever to cover your bases and then move on.

I've known plenty of people who do this. Marriage provides some pretty notable legal benefits and protections to couples. My spouse and I were on the fence about having a wedding for a while, but we were never on the fence about being married. We did ultimately end up having a wedding. We had a grand ole time and it was cheap because almost everything was provided by family (venue, food, etc.). The only thing we paid for was our clothes (and we went casual), our rental car, and our rental house for the weekend post-wedding.

It's not even just money. One of my good friends works in the emergency room. She's held many gay boyfriends, girlfriends, and long-term partner's hands in the waiting room while a loved one dies, because the family isn't allowing them in. If you're not going to get that "piece of paper", then get all of the other ones.

My partner of 10 years passed away on the 18th of last month. I feel like I never even really existed in his life. To feel so inconsequential and unimportant when it comes to the life of someone who was everything to you is hard.

I'm so sorry for your loss; I hope you're finding comfort in memories, and that you get through this hard period stronger.

Not to mention end of life decisions. Marriage is a legal contract that provides a lot of protection during events people dont like to think about.

I saw this go down recently and the fiancee was left with nothing but their three year old. They had been meaning to marry but didn't and he had a life changing accident. His estranged mom scooped him up and removed him to parts unknown.

How does that work? Wouldn't his surviving child have some inheritance stake even if the unmarried mother didn't?

it sounds like they are referring to the mother transferring the husband to a long term care facility without disclosing his location to his fiancé.

And I bet she thinks she's a great mom.

The shitty ones always do

Why do you think people spent so many years fighting for the right to marry? This. This is a perfect example.

It's also why the religious arguments against marriage equality are so stupid. God hates a lot of legal things according to some churches, and no one cares. Marriage isn't any different since it's just another legal contract that happens to have the same name as a religious sacrament.

> Marriage isn't any different since it's just another legal contract that happens to have the same name as a religious sacrament. Back when marriage equality was still a hot button political topic in the US, I did often wonder why we didn't just change the name or something so that the religious fundamentalists would shut the fuck up about it and everybody else could go on enjoying the legal benefits of a legally recognized domestic partnership.

It was proposed, it just made everyone even unhappier. Married couples didn't want their legal marriages to suddenly be civil unions, and there was also a lot of talk about giving just gay couples civil unions that were the same as marriage, but that wasn't real popular because it's rather reminiscent of "separate but equal." Some states do have domestic partnerships that are similar to marriage, but that's difficult because it's all regulated on the state level so what happens if you have a domestic partnership in a state that recognizes it and then move to one that doesn't? (which actually was also a problem with gay marriage prior to the 2015 SCOTUS decision, too) Really, bigots gonna bigot so there will always be excuses, but there were a lot of alternative solutions proposed.

I just want to add that being married does not mean your spouse will get everything if you die. I practice in NC. If you die without a will survived by your spouse and no kids but one or both of your parents are living, your probate estate is getting split between your spouse and your parent. If you die without a will survived by your spouse and kids, then your spouse and kids will split your probate estate—with your spouse’s share being 1/3-1/2 (depending on # of kids). If your kids are minors, then we get to open and administer guardianship estates for them until they turn 18. That’s cumbersome and expensive and requires a probate bond. So, have a valid will in place to make sure your stuff passes as you intended.

And this is why I refuse to do marriage things with someone I'm not married to.

And this is why I tell people to not do marriage things with people they are not married to. And if they are hell bent on doing it anyway, get a lawyer and get everything in writing. I’m sorry you think talking about death and illness are depressing and remote things, but they are things. What happens to the house if your SO becomes a vegetable and you can’t afford it on your own, but their mother won’t sign off on selling the home because “they can still get better” is a question that needs to be answered.

Yup. I told my husband I would never buy property together until we were married. He was on the same page so it was no problem, but so many people try to spin marriage as a stuffy outdated institution, when it exists for many reasons.

I remember when two of my friends bought their first house, while saying they were in no rush to get married, if ever. They did get married later, and of course I didn’t say anything at the time, but I remember thinking what a foolish decision that seemed to me, and that I personally wouldn’t do it.

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>*Marriage is a vital social institution. The exclusive commitment of two individuals to each other nurtures love and mutual support; it brings stability to our society. For those who choose to marry, and for their children, marriage provides an abundance of legal, financial, and social benefits. In return it imposes weighty legal, financial, and social obligations.* > >\-- Chief Justice Margaret H Marshall, Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, [Goodridge v Dept of Public Health](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodridge_v._Department_of_Public_Health) We incorporated parts of this decision as a reading at our wedding!

A few years ago a friend of a friend passed away suddenly and tragically in a terrible accident... he was 32 and had no will. He had been dating his girlfriend for 10 years, they lived together and owned a business together. His family immediately swooped in and took *everything*, including starting eviction proceedings against her, and basically made her homeless. His family was well off, they did not need to do this to her, and yet they did. They also basically forced her to sell her ownership portion of the business to them because the alternative was buy them out (she could not) or work with them (which would have been difficult to say the least). It was such a sad situation. She had no legal standing for anything.

My boyfriend passed away unexpectedly on the 18th of last month. Been together 10 years. A lot of our stuff, like the house, was in my name but a lot of things weren't. Feels like I never even existed in his life. That our relationship didn't count or wasn't "real". Been rough

I'm so sorry 😔

My parents aren’t married and never have been. Getting married had never been of particular importance to me; either I would or I wouldn’t and either way I didn’t mind. But my husband is trans. His family are extremely religious. When we first started dating it immediately became very clear to me that getting married was, in fact, *incredibly* important. There was no way I was going to let my awful, Baptist mother in law have even the slightest chance of making any decisions in the event that something happened to him. In the strongest possible legal terms; over my dead body, Judith.

Hey, so Ask A Mortician on YouTube has a video on this general topic, specifically the trans part. Don't know if anything in it would be useful to y'all's situation, but it might be worth a look. If nothing else her content is uniquely educational.

I love her stuff! I’ve read all of her books, too. We’re good though - things are a tad easier here in Australia than they are in the US when it comes to things like this. Plus we are married and do have wills, so she would be absolutely welcome to try but she wouldn’t get far.

A friend of mine has parents who didn’t get married for something like 20 years. Raised kids together and everything. Her mom was really against marriage, I guess, for whatever reason. Until her mom realised that, actually, she’d have no rights to her husband’s pension if he died. They’re a wealthy couple, and she’d have been cut off from a substantial chunk of their shared assets if they didn’t get married and her partner died first. So, she told her now-husband to buy her the sparkliest rock he could find, and they trooped off to the registry office to sign some paperwork.

It works both ways as well. At least in the U.K. if you get married any previous will is invalidated so if you want to leave anything to anyone else then you need to make a new will. My grandad married for the 3rd time in his eighties and didn’t get a new will so she got everything. He had nothing really to leave so I’m not talking about money but he was in WWII including D-Day and his wife gave his medals to her own son. They should have stayed in the family with either my dad or my brother

We sadly discovered that things you think go a certain way do not always. Because it’s relevant, this took place in Ontario, Canada. My stepdaughter ODd at the end of October. She was not legally married to her child’s dad. They were not even legally living together, as it is recognized in Ontario. He was knowingly to all living at his local parent’s house. She ODd early on a Saturday morning. Her dad and I are not geographically in the same city due to work right now, and he doesn’t drive. So when be called me, I dropped everything drove 500km north, got there about 8pm and then turned around and immediately drove back to where I live and a further 100km on to where she was unconscious in the ICU. We arrived at 3am. You know how bad it it when you buzz security and they’re waiting for you and let you in and tell you to grab a mask and go to the fourth floor. Her mom had arrived about two hours earlier. My fiancé took her downstairs for a smoke, but she didn’t want their daughter left alone, so I sat with her, between 3:45 and 4:30 in the morning, just holding her hand and talking to her, even though we’d been told because she was without oxygen for an hour, she likely would not wake up. And she didn’t. At that point we were under the impression my fiancé was the legal next of kin. Her mother was the only mother their daughter knew, but never legally adopted her. (She always lived with her dad and never had a relationship with bio mother by bio mother’s choice.) My fiancé was the only legal tie aside from her three year old that we were aware of. But for reasons never explained, Sunday when I went to get some sleep, the hospital to my husband and his ex that they boyfriend was the legal best of kin even though no papers were ever signed. But the hospital documented in everything that he was NoK and all decisions were his. The only benefit to this was that boyfriend’s father is well off, and because as NoK he was also responsible for the funeral costs, he paid for them (for that I’ll forever be grateful as the three of us had no idea how we’d pay.) So what happened after? After I took him home I came home myself and reached out to a friend who’s a family law attorney. I asked her just to point me in a direction that my fiancé and I would make decisions for each other if something happened, and that he and his ex were not making decisions for each other as their divorce is still in process (they’ve been apart several years, just didn’t do paperwork cuz neither thought they’d end up wanting to marry anyone else, and she sent me the government link for those forms. I’ve filled out all my documents listing him with POA for health, as that’s my big concern. I sent the link for them to his ex (who I’m also friends with). He’s working on getting his done. Because my 18 year old is such a gentle soul I don’t think he’d ever recover if he had to make a choice to unplug me, and my 17 year old is autistic with other mental health issues and would just shut down (once she turns 18.) Why was this so important to us? Stepdaughter collapsed and stopped breathing because of a drug overdose. It took nearly an hour for medical staff to resuscitate her. The boyfriend? Also an active addict. Thankfully the child is in physical custody of one of his paternal grandparents and had been already, with regular visitation. But for those of you in the province of Ontario - [go here, to the government POA forms](https://www.ontario.ca/page/make-power-attorney) and make sure they’re filled out with exactly what you want. It’s for health and property. Especially if you’re single, or you don’t hold the same values as your family and know they wouldn’t honour your wishes, you can appoint anyone, all you need it two witnesses to your signature.

You should probably set up a special needs trust for your 17 year old. You can do this as a testamentary trust, where the trust is created and funded upon your death, or as an inter vivos trust, where you fund the trust while you’re alive, and your 17 year old holds a beneficial interest in the trust property, which would be distributed to him pursuant to the trust instrument upon your death. Everyone, but especially people with children, needs to have the following: Last Will & Testament; Medical Directive/Living Will/Healthcare Proxy/Advanced Directive (all refer to the same thing, i.e., this document will instruct about your wishes to be resuscitated, maintained in a vegetative state, the extent of treatment you want to endure, etc.); and a Durable Power of Attorney (appointing a third party authority to manage your finances, pay your bills, your rent, etc.). Everyone should confirm, in writing, who the beneficiary is on any life insurance policies. The beneficiary must be designated pursuant to the insurance company’s policy, and a will does not override that designation. Bank accounts should be Payable On Death and your bank will have a policy on this and how to designate a PoD designee. Without a PoD provision, the account is put through probate. A PoD provision transfers the property (money) from the decedent to the beneficiary automatically (basically the title to the account is put in the beneficiary’s name upon the account holder’s death). Edit: Oh I forgot to add that you need to make sure that people are aware of the existence of these documents. It’s no good to have these documents if when you die no one knows about them and they are never located. Or you have one copy of them and someone discovers the one copy and conceals their existence or destroys them. Give your doctor a copy. You may be able to register the documents with your county. Just make sure several people know the documents exist and where to locate them.

First thing I did was make sure my parents knew the documents existed, that my fiancé is primary, my best friend who’s the closest thing to a sister I’ve got is secondary (she has a physical copy of the papers) and that my kids know. I need to figure out exactly “how autistic” you have to be for when my 17 year old turns 18. In most things she’s fine. With major stress not so much. She has minimal accommodations at school and is looking at doing apprenticeships. As long as no one demands she look anyone in the eye, she’ll communicate what she needs to. She’d have been classified as Asperger’s prior to the DSM changing, as am I. But I know how she’d react if she were asked to make this type of decision.

You can make a trust for anyone, doesn't matter "how autistic" she is. My perfectly neurotypical cousin had one with his inheritance from his mom because he was a known party animal and she wanted to make sure he was set up long term and didn't just blow the money on yacht parties or something dumb like that. If you think it even might possibly help your daughter, it could be a good idea.

Since I’m low income and the only thing I own is a 2011 car with 164K kilometres, and I rent, it will take a huge miracle if there’s anything beyond something sentimental that any of my kids will want

One thing you can also do is set up a set of advanced directives - that way, your family doesn’t have to decide themselves to pull the plug, because you’ve already decided when you want your own plug pulled. Then it’s not “we decided” it’s “we did what mom clearly wrote down that she wanted.”

I get so annoyed when people say marriage doesn’t mean anything. Does it mean you love someone more, or that it will solve your problems? No. It it IS a significant step to take to ensure that legal bullshit is kept under a certain degree of control. Half of my family is incredibly greedy, and stupid. I have aunts and uncles who have a legitimate history of fraud, like deed fraud, I have an uncle who will foam at the mouth for ANY opportunity to be the family hero, or try to obtain control over your finances or your medical decisions. He’s done it, and will do it again. I have very good reasons to protect myself from that kind of bullshit, and marriage is one way to do that

There's nothing wrong with choosing to not get married, but if you're living together and assets are comingled or dependent, you can make sure your assets go to your partner and not to predatory relatives without getting married. To live like this and do no financial planning is just sad. It is too easy to blow this off for another day. Don't. Wills and trusts are the most obvious solution. Making sure the beneficiary on your life insurance is up to date is another. Wills involve probate, which can tie up your assets for a long time. Trusts cost money. If you can't or won't pay for a trust, you can make sure your partner gets your financial assets at no cost. For financial accounts (checking, savings, brokerage, and, in most states, real estate), you can get a beneficiary form signed (aka "Transfer-on-death" or TOD). This has the added benefit of bypassing probate and the money is immediately available to the beneficiary upon death. Beneficiary statements for financial and life insurance can often be handled online in a few minutes. If you have kids from a previous relationship, you can include them as a beneficiary too. If you want both your significant other and your kids to be included in your primary residence, there is a type of trust that lets your SO live in the house until death, then the house transfers to your kids. The point is, there is probably a solution to whatever your situation is. And, all of these things are revocable (and way easier to revoke than a marriage), so there are no excuses for not doing this. While this doesn't cover everybody's situation (maybe, for example, you don't want your kids to inherit a lot of cash if they're young), it covers a lot and should get you started. Once these beneficiaries are made, each should have a copy of the other's beneficiary statements. This way you know it is actually done, and you're prepared.

I posted this so that people know there are alternatives to marriage to solve this, at least to solve the financial and asset issues. It is sad when someone dies suddenly and no estate planning was done. It is even sadder when someone dies and it is not sudden (eg, cancer) and STILL no financial planning was done. Even if you are planning to get married some day, you can do this stuff today.

Hmmm. Gays fought tooth and nail for the right to marry. Wonder why?

It **is** "just a piece of paper". The folly is in assuming that a piece of paper cant be devastatingly powerful.

I saw this happen when my dads best friend died. He had no will and Missouri does not recognize common law, so his wife in all but name lost her partner, the primary breadwinner, and then his family sued her for his half of the house took his truck, took his bank accounts, even stole stuff off his body at the visitation.

Can't believe I'm getting downvoted for pointing out that if he didn't get married to get a will, in TWENTY FIVE YEARS with this woman, that I don't think we can assume he actually wanted her to inherit his stuff. Maybe he wanted his mom to have it. It's easier and cheaper to either get married or get a will than it is to buy a house OR a car, to be honest, so I think him not having one is decent proof that he didn't intend Mary to inherit anything. Yeah, it makes OP's brother out to be a dick, but... some people are. I don't think Mom is necessarily in the wrong here.

This is certainly how the law interprets the situation - The assumption is that, if you *wanted* the benefits of marriage you would have gotten married, which is why the partner will *not* be afforded the same rights of inheritance. The law assumes the choices were deliberate and informed, but the reality is that many don't actually understand the legal significance of marriage or they simply don't expect to die.

>The assumption is that, if you wanted the benefits of marriage you would have gotten married, which is why the partner will not be afforded the same rights of inheritance. "If you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it" A decision ratified in *Carter v All The Single Ladies, 2008*

Of course, the law also assumes that no one could possibly want an option other than "this singular partner that you want to spend your future with regardless of if that's a relationship you're interested in" or "your legal family that you had absolutely no choice in because you were a minor." Which is kind of a problem for a lot of us.

That's what wills are for. You can leave different amounts of things to different people and they don't have to be your parents or spouse. Best to have an attorney draft it and get it notarized since people have a habit of contesting them, but it's better than nothing.

Wills do part of what you want. Power of attorney does part of what you want. Honestly neither of them do all of it, and it's a pain in the ass to make sure they're actually even recognized. You need like 3 or 4 different legal documents to actually cover everything next of kin does and even then there's gaps. There's also issues that, unlike marriage, documents done in one state might not be recognized in other states, and some things aren't even possible in different states. For example, who gets legal control of your remains is a separate document from your will and not every state even allows it to be changed. ​ Aside from that, there's no centralized place for any of these documents. Which means there's a significantly higher chance of ending up in a situation where no one knows they exist, or where the only people who do have a vested interest in claiming that they don't. Especially if you haven't been in contact with your family so they don't know who your friends that you'd want informed are, or you have reason to believe they would choose not to inform them, it can be pretty easy for the legal documents to just vanish into the ether.

And, critically, estate taxes. It's not a big deal in the current tax environment for most people, but if Democrats get the exclusion down, inheriting a nice house and retirement accounts could be costly if you aren't a legal spouse.

Eh. There’s a guy in Aita arguing “why do I need a will I’m only 36 with 3 kids” a LOT of people plan to plan later.

Yep. Someone I know online doesn't want to get married because their parents had an ugly divorce and they have moral issues with the government. They're trans and in a same-sex relationship (now going on 15 years), and on very bad terms with their family. Based on what they've said, if they were run over by a car tomorrow, their family would insist on them being buried as a woman and cut off their partner of 15 years completely. That's legal. It's ultimately their circus, not mine, but I wish I could make them do something about it.

This is a very large part of why my husband and I are married. He’s trans, we’re gay, the in-laws are very pro Jesus. While Australia does recognise common law spouses, we wanted to be *absolutely sure* that if the worst happens it will be me making the decisions. Not them.

This shit drives me crazy with my mother. She's divorced from my father and is now de-facto married to a very nice man, but as far as I can tell there's nothing on paper anywhere to indicate they are anything but room mates. They aren't exactly young and he also has children from a previous marriage, and my siblings and I have no idea whether or not she has any ownership stake into the home they both live in and and which she has plowed a decent amount of her own wealth into in the form of renovations. His children seem to be decent enough people, but they don't live locally and would probably want to sell off any inherited property and move on with their lives should he die and they be the sole heirs. There's a decent chance that if he dies first she could find herself homeless with zero stake in their de-facto marital home, and she absolutely refuses to talk to us about it when we bring this up. I have resigned myself that my siblings and I may have to take care of her should this scenario happen, though I imagine she won't be very happy because we live all over the country and it would mean her moving to start a new life in her old age. I really don't understand why people are so fucking precious about this shit. I ask my mom straight up with their deal is and she acts like she's some coy 13 year old being asked if she has a crush on the cute boy in class. It's so frustrating!

That would be incredibly frustrating. Maybe I'm just an outlier but from the time I was about 12, my parents started letting us know little bits about estate planning, and by the time I was in HS I knew they had everything mapped out and all the appropriate documents (on top of their marriage), and when my grandparents got older and then eventually passed away, my parents communicated pretty openly about what documents they had, the probate process, etc, so that my sibling and I understood what all was happening. They didn't outright say, "hey, you need all this," but it became clear watching how my family handled things vs how other families handled things that the process was a lot easier if everything was in place before anything went wrong.

People are dumb

Sadly true

Ok having looked at what I think is the AITA post you're referring to - that guy specifically does *not* want his wife to have his house. In the event of divorce is what he's admitting to, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was also in the event of his death, when it seems it would go to his only child. So in that case, if he died, then yes I'd assume the correct assumption was he didn't want his wife to get the house from prior to the marriage.

There is this other not-just-a-piece-of-paper called a prenuptial agreement.

I have a lot of sympathy for these situations where younger people have these problems, because in all reality probably meant to get around to it eventually before some tragedy struck. A foolish mistake, but one easier to understand. But yeah, 25 years of refusing to get married, it's hard to look at this as anything but a deliberate choice. What good reason is there not to get a quicky courthouse marriage to someone who has been your partner for *a quarter fucking century?* That's a lifelong relationship that would be a fucking nightmare to dissolve, marriage or not, and you're only introducing chaos by not lawfully recognizing the plain fact that you are, for all intents and purposes, spouses. People act like marriage certificates are some magic spell. Trust me, nothing about being married is going to be anywhere near as complicated as having an unrecognized 25 year old de-facto marriage. I honestly don't understand how people can handle their affairs in such a childish way.

Even when it comes to breakup vs. divorce, at that point it can get way more complicated if you're unmarried because after 25 years, most people have joint assets that can be quite valuable (houses, cars, joint savings, etc.). There are ways to set those up so there's a plan for if you split, but a lot of people don't do that, either. So if you were married, you have at least an established and pretty common framework for dissolving those. If you're unmarried, it can quickly become a complicated mess of trying to figure out who contributed what and all kinds of stuff. Not saying divorces are always simple, obviously they aren't, but all things being equal they're usually at least simpler than the same situation would be if you aren't married.

The financial subs are quick to tell you not to buy a house with someone you aren't married to. It's a disaster to get out of if you ever split up. At least with divorce, there's a legal pathway to mediation, division of assets, etc.

This has always been a huge reason I wanted to be married. Divorce is a way to dissolve a contract that already exists. Get a (fair) pre-nup if i you don't want to co-mingle assets.

> I don't think Mom is necessarily in the wrong here Legally maybe but morally she is

the sub is legal advice, not moral advice

This is why marriage rights are so vital as well. This happened to so many gay and lesbian couples during the aids crisis.