-Think you and your live-in guy aren’t truly committed? Try splitting up and you may be surprise by the law says By Michele Sponagle
“I don’t believe in marriage.”
My friend Marissa”, who’s successful stockbroke, announced to a group of friends one night over cockrails at a downtown Toraonto lounge. “I just don’t want all the bassles that come with it –like drivorce,” she added. That comment struck me as funny, since Marissa’s boyfriend, a night manager with a medium haircut at a pizza joint, had been living with her for four year.
“Guess what?” I chimed in. “In the eyes of the law, you are married for all intents and purposes. What’s yours is has what’s his is yours,” Her face went white and her jaw dropped “Congratulations,” I said. “You’re accidentally married.”
It’s amazing how few women know that cohabitation an put you in a similar position as a legally wedded wife—for better or worse. Living together seems like a more attractive option than marriage for many. In fact, the 2011 Statistics Canada Census report says that 12.8 percent of couples are common law, compared to just 3.9 percent in 1981, when the government started counting cohabiting twosomes. What you should know, though, is that in those intervening 25 years, a lot has changed.
“The legal differences between marriage and cohabitation are melting before our eyes,” says Lloyd Duhaime, a family law lawyer in Victoria and the creator of Dubaime org, a legal-information site. “Those differences are getting smaller and smaller.”
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