Am I doing the wrong thing?

My one question is why now is it so important to be married as you have obviously waded through 17 years without marriage which you say you so deeply believe in if it was that important to you surely you wouldn't have broken your principles and lived out of wedlock all these years

It feels as if you have become obsessed with the need to change his mind and it is taking over your life I think the day you said NO he connected with NO and has taken that as THE RULE you can't now change these rules and expect him to understand, you however have grown into needing what you now can't have more and more so you are at totally opposite ends of the rainbow and will continue to get further and further apart until the love dies completely, obviously the lack of sex doesn't seem to be working and will just be a further wedge

One of you has to give in if you want to stay together and it sounds very unlikely to be him

My close friends did not believe in marriage and had been together for 25yrs when one of them had a serious bike accident, it was at that point they found out that neither the police or hospital recognized her as having rights, they would not give her information or allow her to consent to surgery on his behalf. Thankfully he recovered and the very first thing they did was to have a civil marriage at the registry office with no one else present so they don't have to face the same issues again. She still uses her maiden name so it has not changed anything.

A lot of people don't realise how simple a civil marriage ceremony can be. The only words legally required are

I do solemnly declare that I know not of any lawful impediment why I [name] may not be joined in matrimony to [name].

And

I call upon these persons here present, to witness that I [name] do take thee [name] to be my lawful wedded wife / wife-husband / husband.

That's all that you need to be legally married.

My friend has just had to considerably downsize as her partner of 28 years died and his pensions died with him. She was very distressed to be told over the phone that she couldn't register his death as she wasn't a relative, however that turned out to be wrong information as she was present when he died, however her initial shock and distress had been done. He was a widower end had left every thing to her but she still keeps saying " why didn't we just get married?"

The old idea of withholding sex as a punishment or to get your own way is a very old idea indeed. I'd be surprised if Gononsuch didn't have tongue in cheek when she expressed that!

I didn't hesitate to point out the legal benefits of marriage to my daughter when she and her boyfriend moved in together. They were in no hurry and I didn't press the point but as soon as they began thinking about a family, they made it legal, much to my relief. I think the term 'common law wife' is dangerously misleading since there is no legal protection at all for that state, as far as I know.

I don't think what you are doing will work, probably make things worse. I suppose you have to decide if you would rather be without him in your life, which is how it will end up, or settle for what you have. You could say that you feel vulnerable for all the reasons given and see if you could perhaps have a solicitor draw up a document covering all the things that bother you. Don't know if that is possible, but know he could will everything to you if he wanted and perhaps nominate you as next of kin should anything bad should happen.bhe will probably think a quick civil ceremony will be quicker and less expensive.