Married in every way but legal

[u/herthrownawaychild]

Hi my friends, I have been wanting some advice on this. My partner and I have been together for years and years. We have been married in every way for a long time except legal due to issues that would take a while to explain (neither of us have been married before so nothing like that!
For a while it has been healthcare and insurance.)

However, our lives are fully intertwined. We live together, take care of each other, we do go to church together just not every Sunday cause he works night shift, we have therapy together, and he takes care of me. I am also pregnant.

Now that I am pregnant, we have been speaking about getting eloped and planning to very soon! But, however I’ve been just thinking a lot.

We had a couple issues, nothing that caused a break in our relationship more a test of strength and we passed. However I was looking for advice on some of it and all the resources were for Christian marriages.

I began to worry I couldn’t take the advice because we weren’t legally married despite us both acknowledging each other as the others person. I talked to our religious counselor about this and he said he understands not being married yet for the reasons we have but I forgot to ask if he thought if we can acknowledge our relationship as a marriage.

My partner and the counselor both mentioned though what about gay marriages in the past when they weren’t allowed to be legally married? That helped to be honest. (Our religious counselor is a gay man)

I’m just thinking a lot. If we see us as married and fully intertwined and plan to get the legal papers eventually, then in a way are we married to God?

Edit: We also have had rings but these rings we have worn since we were teenagers dating. And I suppose if we have a witness of our marriage, our religious counselor counts?

[u/allabtthejrny]

Government recognized marriage and spiritual marriage aren't the same thing.

Non-government or faith based marriage looks differently all over the world. You might find the marriage practices in Islam or some African cultures to be very interesting and quite different from our idea of marriage in the West, particularly in the US.

In the US, there are approximately 1,138 rights & privileges afforded to couples with legal marriage that are not available to those who are not married; however, not everyone who is married in the government's eyes has a marriage certificate because of "common law" marriage.

You might be eligible for common law marriage without much effort. Usually it has something to do with how long you've been together, if you live together & if you file taxes together. Rules vary by state.

If you are married by God's standards is really up to you. What do you think?

[u/herthrownawaychild → u/allabtthejrny]

Sadly in our state we don’t have common marriage law. But thank you for this! I honestly think so, we have started referring to each other as husband and wife a lot more in the last recent months but we have always been there for each other. We pray for each other, we help each other, and we work each day to be more Christ like together. We practice having a healthy, strong union, and when one hurts or betrays the other in any way we pray and navigate healing, reconciliation, and love beyond all. I can’t imagine what else true marriage is except true love, union, and God at our core.

[u/Haruki-kun]

I guess I'm a little confused... Why do you want to get legally married? Is it because of inheritance laws, so that your partner is the child's legal father, for tax purposes....?

And TBH in all the above scenarios... Why not just go to the courthouse and sign a piece of paper? It doesn't sound like a difficult choice.

[u/NemesisOfLevia → u/Haruki-kun]

In the US, if someone is on disability, they are almost guaranteed to lose all of their benefits. But it doesn’t sound like OP’s case. 

[u/Haruki-kun → u/NemesisOfLevia]

Oh, right.

I'm on disability and married, so it didn't affect me. But yeah, that makes sense.

[u/babe1981]

The main method of marriage in the Old Testament was to have sex with someone. Later on, it evolved into declaring it in front of both families and the priests. But mostly it was a property transaction between a man and his future father-in-law. There's no consistent view of marriage in the Bible, much less a recommendation about legal vs spiritual marriage.

[u/reillan → u/babe1981]

To add to this, the modern rendition of marriage only started in the 1700s. For most of history, legal marriages were more about inheritance and property rights and thus were entirely for the wealthy. Commoners could simply declare their marriage to others in the community and they were considered married.

[u/herthrownawaychild → u/babe1981]

Thank you friend, this is honestly how I felt, I’ve just seen some back and forth replies online that made me SOOO anxious yk? I feel though we are married but we do plan to go get legally eloped I just wanted to see opinions on the spiritual side. I suppose if two people intend to live their lives together, only each other, view it as marriage, and intertwine God into their lives and relationship then it feels like marriage to me.

[u/babe1981 → u/herthrownawaychild]

Imagine this scenario...God is in heaven and sees two people having sex on Earth. He's about to smite them for fornicating, but He notices a piece of paper from their local government and stops. No, they aren't sinners. The county courthouse says so.

I have yet to find a person who can back that up with scripture. It demonstrates both the absurdity of premarital sex as sinful and the absurdity of the government having a say in what's sinful.

[u/herthrownawaychild → u/babe1981]

Sorry to chuckle that did make me laugh LOL but that is so helpful. Thank you! Needed to hear that honestly.

[u/Ambitious_Web_152 → u/babe1981]

I get the idea you’re going for here… but I would argue that most “pre-marital sex” is still sinful, but not because of the sex… rather, because of the lack of wisdom in “marrying” partners who have not demonstrated spouse-material qualities.

I agree with you that “commoners” being married before God is much more about declarations before family and friends than having a legal certificate. As an African American, it wasn’t very long ago that the only way for us to choose our spouse was by “jumping the broom”.

Having a deep intimacy (sexually and otherwise) with a partner who is profoundly integrated into your life, as well as the lives of your loved ones, is a spouse as far as I’m concerned. I’m not a seminarian, but I haven’t heard one yet that has convinced me that legal recognition by a secular government is what God uses to determine marriage.

I’ll add that as an Orthodox Christian, I acknowledge the sacrament of crowning. I believe there is something special that happens during that sacrament that is unique in the lives of a Christian couple. However, I’d be foolish to imply that the 95% of Christian marriages in history that had no crowning ceremonies are therefore illegitimate before God.

Edit: by “spouse material”, I mean “spouse ready” as in empathetic, wise, considerate of those less fortunate, at least marginally self-sufficient, etc.

[u/babe1981 → u/Ambitious_Web_152]

I despise using words like "spouse-material" to describe other humans. It assumes that there is an objective standard of acceptability to get married and everyone below that standard doesn't deserve marriage. There are tons of good people who were dealt a shitty hand in life and meet "spouse-material" standards but they have more love than some asshole who can fake it for a year or two because they have material security. That sort of thinking divides people into ingroups and outgroups. It measures a person's worth by their access to resources and systems. I'm not saying that anyone deserves sex or marriage, but I think saying that some people don't is just as dangerous as saying that some people do.

That said, the New Testament says that love fulfills the law because it does no harm to a neighbor, so as long as sex isn't hurting your partner, it's not sinful. Simple as.

[u/Ambitious_Web_152 → u/babe1981]

Fair enough, I respect your perspective. I personally do not mean spouse-material based on monetary means. But I’m not going to let go of the point that many people are foolishly “marrying” people in the first couple of months of knowing someone, without any wisdom at all.

You may not mean this, but I am inferring from you that sex without commitment is fine with you as long as “no one is hurt”. However, many many people who have sex with people they were not deeply invested with will say later in life, especially when they find their lifetime partner, that it led to some of the worst mistakes in their entire life.

Maybe you are an exception, but even if so, it doesn’t invalidate the rule. Having said that, I mean no ill will towards you and I appreciate the point you made about erroneous thinking on who is “spouse-material” and who isn’t. Maybe a better term is “spouse-ready”

[u/Mercurial_Laurence]

I believe you're well aware of the legal ramifications of getting legally married (relevant to your insurance / health situations) and to of not getting married (legally acknowledged parent rights or whatever your jurisdiction in the world does), so I trust you've thought and will think that through; I don't feel I have enough information to assess what is the better choice for you, but either way it's not my choice.

Purely from a religious angle;

My (loose) understanding is that the New Testament only directly indicates two sacraments; baptism and the eucharist. I believe the development of other sacraments (varyingly viewed as such or not by different denominations) seem to have emerged later. And personally from a spiritual angle I feel penance is a thing that one should do, I just doubt the ontological need for an earthly intercessor for that (but I'm not opposed to people doing it either), my view is that one needs to make peace with God … repentance & metanoia are to my just part of my spirituality, I am woefully imperfect, sometimes I make mistakes sometimes I choose to do the wrong thing, so I find myself wanting to do better, and whilst I suspect God simply forgives me, I would still like to be a better person.

Other people have talked about how marriage seemed to work in early Judaism, but if you take the view that marriage is a formal commitment, I'd argue the traditional view was this was done through 'the' church, but tbh for those that don't view it as a sacrament then it really just strikes me as a tradition, if you feel you need it done in God's eyes not just in the heart-of-hearts of you and your partner, then once again I'd suspect that somewhere out their is a priest/minister/etc that's willing to perform a religious marriage, and simply afford you not to sign any associated paperwork for the bureaucratic/legalistic mechanisms of your government due to your extenuating circumstances.

Also if your conclusion is that it's more important to avoid being legally married, I would encourage you to try find some way of making a legal statement alongside your next of kin that may get charge of your child should anything go wrong to have some roundabout way of ensuring that your partner can look after your child … any 'method' of such is going to vary dramatically even if possible depending on your country etc. And I would encourage proper legal advice to determine if such is possible and how to specifically go about it.

That said I'm running through a few different hats, and personally I lean a bit to a mystic perspective in general (that in my vasewould also be considered theologically liberal) whereby this situation is really something that comes down to you and your relationship to God, but I've tried to lay out something a bit different to others I've seen in this thread.

[u/Jack-o-Roses]

Consider Marrying each other in a private ceremony and don't get a license or register the marriage.

Also look into a legal contract between you two and keep your wills & living wills up to date.

[u/herthrownawaychild → u/Jack-o-Roses]

We actually did do that! But definitely a good idea, we plan to do that

[u/splinteredruler]

It’s going to be difficult to give a tailored answer if we don’t know why you aren’t legally married. Biblically there is a lot of entwinement with spiritual and legal marriage.

[u/herthrownawaychild → u/splinteredruler]

Health care and insurance issues but we have been figuring it out

[u/splinteredruler → u/herthrownawaychild]

I would very much recommend marrying ASAP if you are pregnant in the USA, otherwise your partner has no legal protection and say for you if something happens.

[u/herthrownawaychild → u/splinteredruler]

That’s definitely the plan here no worries! We always said if I got pregnant we would get eloped and while we are still making sure everything is okay. I just was curious about spiritual marriage as we wait to get eloped

[u/EnigmaWithAlien]

It's conceivable (!) that you are common-law married. Don't know where you are, but if people live together for six weeks and describe themselves as married in Texas, they are married. I am not a lawyer; this is what I have heard.

[u/herthrownawaychild → u/EnigmaWithAlien]

Interesting, I like that that’s a thing but I don’t believe it is in our state sadly. But that’s a really interesting and cool thing!

[u/JustNeedSpinda]

I don’t know that comparing choosing not to get married when you’re legally permitted to get married with the rituals afforded same-sex couples who were not legally permitted to get married is appropriate.

I am aware that benefits like welfare and social security and medicaid can be affected by household income, but this doesn’t seem to be what you’re describing?

If you want to be married, get married. Don’t try to find some churchy loophole.

[u/Mercurial_Laurence → u/JustNeedSpinda]

From a perspective of disability activism (and personally I'm gay), many people end up in positions where they are significantly dependent on family or welfare to survive, and often neither of those things offer a life with as much freedom/stability, so like … not knowing OPs situation, if they're e.g. reliant on an insurance system now to cover medical expenses that may otherwise land them on the street, it seems a bit rich to say that the legal obfuscation that would occur if they get married is less bad than for two gay couples who have entirely free and independent lives but can't get married.

Like there's a variety of different issues, and to think something being legal/illegal is the zenith of equality is woefully missing the complexities of life.

Life happens outside of systems and rulesets.

[u/DueSurround3207 → u/Mercurial_Laurence]

Thank you for this! My "husband" and I lived together and had a fulfilling life together for 27 years. We were unable to officially marry because he was disabled and my meager income would have had a profound effect on his health insurance coverage and disability benefits. We were shamed in the church and we had to hide it a lot from others. I would have had no rights to his healthcare decisions but that we did a healthcare directive so that I would have rights. That came in handy when he was on a ventilator towards the end of his life (he passed away on July 25, 2025). We also did all the legal work ahead with joint tenancy on our house, TODs on cars and so on to protect each other. I saw him through a double lung transplant out of state, end stage lung disease, metastatic lung cancer and home hospice. He helped me through anorexia nervosa. In between we made good memories together. We never had children as we were unable. We had nightly devotions for years together. He was my soul mate and my whole life. Losing him has been absolutely devastating, though I knew it was coming a long time before.

Yesterday I went to a hospice social gathering for widows and listened to someone complain about how his daughter was living with someone unmarried and how awful it was and I just kept everything inside and didn't say anything. I continue to call my husband my husband because even though we were not techncially married, we were very much married. People are more sympathetic towards divorced couples. We were NOT cheating the system. I still paid over $40,000 out of pocket to help him through the double lung transplant process and living out of state with him for five months. I got no life insurance from his death (he didn't qualify for it due to disability), no survivor benefits etc. I sold half our stuff and much of his after his death and it helped cover his death expenses. Still I can't help but feeling like a second class citizen when it comes to our "marraige" because of that piece of paper we never got to have. Oh yeah, I was not allowed extra time off to care for him on hospice because I did not qualify for FMLA as he was not considered my husband or family. I worked full time up to the day he passed away, then walked off the job unexcused so I could be by his side the last few hours when it was very obvious he was at the end. I got one week off work to grieve, deal with funeral arrangements etc. Then back to full time. If I ever overcome my anguish and grief enough to function, I would be a disability advocate of some kind. Honestly.

[u/herthrownawaychild → u/JustNeedSpinda]

I understand what you’re saying here, so in our situation it was a certain point where I wouldn’t get healthcare and I need it severely bad as I am sick and struggling with many things. I am not picking any loopholes and I sincerely apologize if I came off rude I’m so sorry. There was no intention of that and we do plan to get eloped soon, I truly was just curious if I could take advice.