I think I have to differ (personally) with this, absentgrana. The circumstances of how the unmarried partnerships come about have to be taken into account. In my own case, I fell in love - hook, line and sinker with the man I'm still with after 41 years. Both of us had been hurt (myself in a most drastic way, both physically and psychologically), in our first marriages. He cared for me, and he was my crutch through so much in the immediate months following our 'getting-together'. His being older than me by 11 years, at first seemed to make me feel safe, then as time went on, where family had said 'it won't last, there's too big an age difference', we realised that there was no need whatsoever to cement our relationship by marrying. We have always had something 'worth working to preserve' and although perhaps legally 'harder to undo', emotionally it would be just as hard. He relies on me now, not through ill-health, thankfully, but because he's not the most confident of people. We have sworn out loud, not in front of witnesses, but to each other, that everything that we have come through has meant so much that we're bound together by it. In other words, if we could get through all that, then we could get through anything! It's not all been rosy, but it's been strong.