Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
In case one of you winds up in the hospital and needs the other to make medical decisions. A power of attorney can cover that--unless the family contests it. Contesting marriage rights is a lot harder.
Also, in case one of you gets killed and the other wants to sue for damages (the reason I'm now married; the man I'd lived with for 6 years & had a child with was not my husband when he died, so I had no right to sue for medical malpractice).
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This is the reason why my cousin, who was with his wife/gf for 20 years, with whom he had 2 children, got married. By all accounts we all saw them as married and a single family unit, but after 9/11 there was a lot in the news about the widows of workers and the firemen who weren't able to get any death benefits because they weren't legally married, even though they had children together and lived together for over a decade. My cousin was in the Army Reserve and got called into active duty, so for legal reasons, they got married.