Even adoption?
Yep, but it shouldn’t be that way.
I can see the government having a roll to protect the minor child, sure.
I am an orphan FWIW. (My parents are both gone)
I have a friend who lived with a woman for 20 years, unmarried. By the time she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s it was too late for her to sign a health proxy. Her son now has power-of-attorney over all her affairs and my friend has no rights whatever, for example, over her care. His son sold her house (where they lived) and is–according to my friend–now retired and living off the proceeds (although that is illegal, who will enforce it?) A lot would be different had they married.
One downside is that if your incomes are similar, you can lose out by either filing joint returns or separate returns. If one of you makes considerably more than the other, you will benefit from income splitting.
Add it to the list…
All these automatic rights might actually be why some people in long term marriages decide to not get married. If you only want your partner to have certain rights but not others, it would be better to not be married and explicitly state which ones you want them to have. I think this is one reason we can’t assume that people in long-term relationships should automatically be granted rights like health directives and proceeds from the estate. It could be that the person wanted the default rules to apply (e.g. the oldest child has the power) rather than their partner having those rights.
I believe you should. What took you so long?
Nah - keep your options open. Tell her, “in case someone better comes along!” 
Is that not literally the definition of a “contract”?
IMHO, the important stuff in the legal aspect of a “marriage” is that it gives each party specific rights regarding their shared assets. This becomes important in the event of things like death or illness.
You say it “shouldn’t be that way”, but I would suggest that it’s valuable to have that distinction. Like if I died, I would want to be sure that my wife would have certain rights to my assets that I might not want to grant “Bob, this dude I’ve been living with for 4 years” or “this girl I’ve been seeing who is crashing on my couch while her apartment is being renovated”.
Of course, you could always stay unmarried and create your own will or contractual relationship if that’s what you want.
After living together for 4 and a half years, and being a couple for a few years before that, I realized I could no longer think of a good reason not to get married. So, we got married, and 42 years later, we’re still married.
Her family and mine started treating us with more respect after we’d made it official. It’s better to be an in-law that an outlaw. Facetious, maybe, but that’s how it felt.
DISK
FULL
ERROR
18 years?
And you ain’t married her yet?
And she ain’t KILLED YOU YET?
Marry her.
I would make comments about a guy who waited this long, but this ain’t the Pit.
On the off chance this isn’t humor/performance art, I’ll just point out that our relationship is a joint project.
I appreciate that. It may help to think of marriage as informing the government, and anyone else who interacts with you, that you and your gf now require them to grant the two of you all of the rights available to married couples.
If you bristle at the idea of a government form being the thing that defines your relationship, at the idea that sending in that form somehow changes your relationship to the point where you need to have a big party, then don’t let it be that way. Don’t have a big party to celebrate it, but if you want to have a party, have one, just not about this.
Emphasis on “joint”?
You might want to check with a lawyer about that. Bequests from a dead person, and gifts from a living person, may have different tax obligations.
You mentioned you were discussing getting married. Which of you is discussing it more? In general, women seem to get more of a sense of satisfaction from being married than men do. Certainly men like being married too, but men are generally more indifferent about it or look at it from a practical sense. Women, in general, seem to have a more innate desire to be married and being married seems to make them feel more complete. If your GF is typically the one to bring up the idea of being married, then maybe that’s coming from this innate desire and she might be more content being married.
My wife and I were in a similar long-term relationship before we eventually got married. I feel like I also have met a fair number of unmarried couples who have been together 5-10 years or longer.
I suppose one argument is it’s a two-way street. I’m not “promised” to you. There’s nothing written where a relationship inevitably results in marriage. Any any point the other person can say “we’ve been together X years. I want to get married someday and if this isn’t going in that direction, I think we should split.” (Ideally X<18). If both parties are content with a non-marriage marriage, then who’s to judge?
OTOH, in retrospect I think it’s probably better to evaluate what you really want 6-18 months into a relationship and either shit or get off the pot. If you’re not thinking about marriage in the future with this person, why stay together? The danger is after a couple of years it’s easy to settle into a state where your relationship is just sort of “good enough”.
I kind of like the idea that “I’m with you today, and every day, because I want to be. Not because of some long ago promise.” I think people are more likely to stay in a marriage that’s just “good enough” than a non-married situation.
You might want to check to see if there’s an advantage to being married for Social Security benefits.
Maybe it shouldn’t, but it is. If you don’t get married, it won’t change that. I would suggest looking at marriage as a way to protect her and her rights, and finding another way to protest the government’s involvement in marriage.