Marriage verses Living together for Seniors.

OneEyedDiva said:
Well the Social Security Administration is contributing to seniors "living in sin". LOL Widows will lose their husbands' benefits if they remarry but not if they cohabitate. Although I realize "shacking", as we used to call it, is very much a no no for Muslims (and maybe still with Christians as well) I think at our age we should be able to choose for ourselves what works best. Like @oldaunt I am not interested in doing either since I no longer want or need to be in a relationship.
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Agreed, religion tries to define the path, but unfortunately the "one-size-fits-all" approach has it's shortcomings.
 
jujube said:
For a while the U.S. Census had a designation called "POSSLQ", which stood for Persons of Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters. I guess that sounds better than "People Shacking Up Together"
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My last wife and I lived together for a couple of years before we got legally married. I used to love telling people that "we are living in sin" or "we're shacked up" just to see their reaction. Ha, ha, ha!
 
Pinky said:
I would do away with the name changing for women when they marry. It's also a headache once divorced,
to go through all that again.

Our married daughter wisely kept her maiden surname.
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I agree and know of more and more women keeping their names. My husband died and when I realized I am no longer married, I think I would not mind using my maiden name, but the change is too much trouble.
My only question here is what to name children..do they take the mothers or fathers name or both and end up with a hyphenated long last name...
 
Here in Canada if two people live together for at least 2 years, they are considered to be " a common law couple " with legal status equal to those who were married . This helps with taxation matters, as they can do "income splitting " and pay less income taxes than if they filed as single individuals. JimB.
 
It appears that Humanist marriages are not recognised in England and Wales. Couples must also have a civil ceremony to have a legal marriage. Some 2019 stats from Scotland...

Humanist Society Scotland was the largest single provider of marriages, with its celebrants conducting 3,276. The Church of Scotland conducted 2,225 marriages, while the Catholic Church conducted 911.

On the point of changing surnames, gravestones here for married women generally use their maiden name eg. Mary Smith wife of John Brown. In life they would have been known as Mary Brown.
 
Serenity4321 said:
I agree and know of more and more women keeping their names. My husband died and when I realized I am no longer married, I think I would not mind using my maiden name, but the change is too much trouble.
My only question here is what to name children..do they take the mothers or fathers name or both and end up with a hyphenated long last name...
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And it gets worse the father down the tree you get.....

Mary Jones marries (or doesn't marry) Jim Smith and they name their son
Harry Smith-Jones.

Harry grows up and gets jiggy wid Susan Howard-Wilson. What do they name their child? Thomas Smith-Jones-Howard-Wilson?

And heaven forbid that Thomas falls for Eleanor MacKenzie-Johnson-Cunningham-Thompson........
 
grahamg said:
Do you remember something called a "shot gun wedding", when the guy maybe needed a bit of persuasion to head up the aisle, having despoiled some girls reputation?

" Things ain't what they used to be"! :)
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The guy despoiled some girl’s reputation? I think not. I’ve been questioned several times in my 20s about “being gay” because by the third date I was not jumping into the sack.

The biggest issues with getting married and a senior are financial, especially regarding how the estate is handled.
 
In the US there are tricky legal issues if you're not married. I'm specifically referring to inheritance and end-of-life/healthcare issues. If you are not married, and have not fully completed your wills/trusts, legal/financial/healthcare Power of Attorney docs, you might well run into serious problems.

In many states common-law marriages are no longer accepted. California is one of them. We knew a couple who had written, but not fully executed, their legal docs. They had divorced, but were the best of friends. He suffered a serious auto accident, was judged disabled and unable to care for himself, and his ex-wife was completely powerless to help him. His sister came in from out of state, sold his house, took everything and anything she wanted for herself, including all his life savings, and left him for the VA to take care of him for the rest of his life.
 
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