SIGNIFICANT OTHER: Increasingly Significant Issue

[Thom Harrison]

There is, or used to be, a legal issue here.

I don't know whether there are any common-law states left since Georgia
stopped being one, specifically to prevent the state's having to pay
benefits to same-sex partners.  But in common-law states, if a man and woman
live together, have sex, and refer to each other as "my wife" and "my
husband," respectively, they are married.  That means that, legally, if they
want to separate, they have to get a divorce through the courts.  It's a
system that has had interesting consequences when estates are settled long
after the partners have separated.

Thom