And have the dude and ex mentioned in the OP spent fifteen years telling people they weren’t married?
Put me in the camp of ‘the lie is trivial, ‘Marcia’ is a drama queen, and ‘Paul’ is lucky to have been relegated to a brief walk-on part in her drama, rather than a continuing role.’
You’ve got the standard backwards.
What you’re not understanding is that main difference between a common law marriage (in places that have them) and a ceremonial marriage is the ceremony and the record keeping. Both are legally recognized in every state of the US so long as they were established in a state that allows them. It’s not an in-between status where you fill out different paperwork to end the relationship. If I enter into a common law marriage in Texas , a divorce will be needed to end that marriage , just like a divorce is needed to end a ceremonial marriage. That divorce will be needed even if we have moved to NY . There may be an issue with establishing the marriage if one party contests it , but that would be the only difference. It actually has a lot in common with that Catholic Church thing you were talking about - because that historic situation still required vows, still required an intention to be married and the parties could not marry someone else without an annullment as they were just as married as a couple who had a ceremony. You didn’t end up married even in those days just because you lived together and certainly not just because you had a kid together,
In the US , there generally aren’t differences based on living together or having a long-term relationship other than a legal marriage ( which again, includes common-law marriage) If I have a child while I am unmarried, either parent can get a custody order, child support order,or visitation order - but that’s true whether the father was a one-night-stand or I lived with him for 5 years before becoming pregnant. I can own a house with that guy who I lived with for five years , and it will be split up as if I owned the house with my brother. Only jointly owned property will be looked at . Unlike the situation when ending a legal marriage which generally looks at marital assets as a whole no matter whose name is on it.
No, I understand that! That was what I meant when I said that the difference between that relationship and an official marriage is a procedural one.
What does “procedural” mean, to you?
This guy and his ex lived together for years, had and raised a kid together, he’s referred to the ex as his ex-wife which leads me to believe he used to refer to her as his wife. He probably wouldn’t say “my lawfully-wedded wife” because who out of The Ten Commandments talks like that. They didn’t have a wedding. How does that not meet the definitions of a “common law marriage” versus a “ceremonial marriage”, for those places where the language includes the expression “common law marriage”? Note that I’m not saying their location’s laws recognize such a situation as being a “common law marriage”, I’m saying the language does.
I’m not sure why people are arguing legal technicalities of marriage. I doubt that the guy made the specific claim ‘my wife as defined under the law’ or ‘my wife as defined under the law of…’ or tried to get the friend to extend benefits to him, so there’s no legal question. Since marriage as an institution predates every legal system in place today, trying to limit the term ‘marriage’ to just what a particular legal system heavily influenced by one particular religious and social tradition is willing to recognize for benefits purposes looks pretty parochial and unreasonable to me. Federal courts have ruled that, while the state does not have to accord benefits to any particular marriage, the first amendment prevents any state from passing a law that tries to restrict people from calling themselves married, even if the marriage runs counter to social norms (the specific case I’m thinking of involved a polygamous marriage). And legal marriages today look a lot different than they did 75 years ago even without same-sex marriage (no-fault divorce, no negation of sexual consent, interracial), it’s not like the legal concept of marriage is based on a static, long-standing tradition.
If the guy and his former wife called themselves ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ while they were together and considered what they had a marriage, then it’s not a lie for them to use the terms for each other. Whether they have particular religious, cultural, or spiritual traditions behind it or they’ve just decided it works for them, I don’t see any grounds to declare that their description of themselves is arbitrarily false and deceptive. You might not think that their form of marriage is ‘legit’ in some sense, but you not respecting their beliefs doesn’t somehow make their beliefs inherently deceptive.
My call, the friend is a drama monger who lacks respect for other people’s beliefs.
That’s getting into " How many legs does a dog have if you call a tail a leg?" territory. I’m sure there are people who don’t know what common-law marriage means, and I know there are people are people who call the person they’ve lived with for six months their common law spouse. There are also people who call SO their “fiancee” even though there are not even the vaguest of wedding plans (like when she finishes school in eight years.) There are even people who call their parents’ friends “aunt or uncle”. But “fiancee” doesn’t mean "girlfriend " and the definition of “aunt” doesn’t expand to include “parent’s female friend” just because some people use it that way. Sure , definitions can change, but the this one hasn’t changed in the US- perhaps precisely because there is something already called “common law marriage” and it would be confusing to have non-legally binding relationships referred to with the same phrase.
And the odd thing is, the more marriage-like the relationship is, the less likely people are to call themselves “married” to outsiders in a state that doesn’t recognize it. I know plenty of people who are not married, who were together for years and who referred to each other as “husband” or “wife” but they didn’t answer questions about marital status by saying they were any kind of married and after the breakup they always refer to their exs as just that, their ex. No wife or husband after it. The only people I encounter who say they are common law married or who call a “girlfriend” a “fiancee” think that doing so is more respectable or advantageous in some way.
When you say
[quote]
they just get solved differently depending on the paperwork involved, but that’s a procedural difference, not a social one.[/quote} I’m truly not at all sure what you mean by that. What social difference do you imagine there is between a ceremonially married couple, a couple with a common law marriage, an unmarried couple that lives together and an established unmarried couple that doesn’t live together? Because I can’t think of a social difference between any of them. It’s not like it’s socially unacceptable to invite half of a married couple to a party, but it’s just fine to invite half of a couple that lives together. People don’t flip a switch and suddenly start treating their daughter’s boyfriend differently once she enters a legally-binding relationship with him.
Now, I don’t think the situation in the OP is a lie or a deal breaker, based on the information given. but I do not agree that it would be seen as a common -law marriage based on the information given.
Thank y’all for the answers.
It kind of confirms how I feel about it, much ado about nothing. That is typical of her
Unfortunately she is still calling/texting me and I don’t want to be sucked into her drama.
As an update - Marcia and Paul did meet up this weekend. I’m not asking her about it, I just said that is nice and am ignoring the rest.
Huh??? Staying with a woman for 15 years and having a child together is “having commitment issues” in your book??? :dubious:
:dubious:
Hmmm…would Marcia be a staunch believer who would frown upon people having a relationship and children without being actually married, for instance? Is it possible that she finds it immoral?
I can see how saying “wife” might simplify things in a great number of situations, but in this case, it does seem like a material omission. I’m not sure I’d go so far as calling it a lie and I also probably wouldn’t think it’s worth an extreme immediate reacton, but I don’t think it’s nothing either. I understand why Marcia might start to question what else Paul’s “simplified” too.
This, however, is nuts.