How Important is a Couple Being Married in Today's Society? Does Society Look at You Differently?

To most getting engaged and married is the most wonderful thing in the world. Don't get me wrong, it is an exciting time in some people's lives. But how important is marriage really? Can you live with someone without being married and raise a family? From my point of view, I say that is perfectly acceptable.

My current spouse and I are not legally married. When I say legally married, I mean with the piece of paper that two people sign and is witnessed by two other people that you can obtain from the justice of the peace. Also, we never had any sort of ceremony take place between us.

Paul and I are what you call common law married. We have lived together as a married couple for almost four years now. We currently share two beautiful daughters together and have bought homes and automobiles together. We even file our taxes as married filing jointly. By all aspects we consider each other married to the other and live as such.

The only thing that we lack is the marriage certificate to say that we are legally married and for me to change my last name. I don't have Paul's last name but my children do. It is confusing at times, especially since we have worked at several places together. People always got confused on how we were married but had different last names.

The reason for this type of arrangement for us is because we believe that if it's not broke then don't fix it. Both of us have been previously married before and it obviously didn't work out. Paul has had two previous marriages that ended badly. I have had one marriage that ended badly.

When we were dating and I became pregnant with our daughter Meagan, every asked if we were getting married. My answer would be, "Just because I'm pregnant doesn't mean that we have to get married." My mother in law pushed for to get married but I pushed back because I didn't want to be forced to marry someone just because I was pregnant. There are too many couples that get married for the wrong reasons and I didn't want that to be me and then resent my marriage.

In the end, four years later and two beautiful daughters later, Paul and I are still together. Both of the girls have his last name and we are all a happy family. Every now and then we talk about officially tying the knot but we haven't done so yet. Maybe we will soon and then again maybe we won't. What ever way you look at it, we are all happy and wouldn't change our situation for anything in the world.