"I don't need a piece of paper to prove I love someone."

"I don't need a piece of paper to prove I love someone."

I heard some version of that sentence from cohabiting clients more times than I can count.

Thing is, getting married doesn't necessarily prove you love someone, and getting a cohabitation agreement doesn't necessarily prove you don't.

But formalizing legal arrangements to make sure you both will have a fair share of your cumulative wealth, should your relationship end, is showing you love each other enough to ensure you are both protected, no matter what the future holds.

Here's the ADHD piece nobody puts alongside this conversation: your brain runs on Now and Not Now. A cohabitation agreement lives entirely in the Not Now.

Nothing's wrong. You're not going anywhere. A cohabitation agreement sounds boring, expensive and a potential RSD bomb.

So it doesn't get done. But it should. Think of it like insurance. You don't buy pet insurance because you expect your pet to get seriously sick, you buy it because you want to be sure you can help them if they need it.

A cohabitation agreement is the same. It's not a hedge against your relationship — it's both of you saying, in writing, that you're serious enough about each other to make sure neither of you gets destroyed if the worst happens.

That's not the opposite of commitment. That might be the most literal version of it there is.

The government just closed a consultation — "A Fairer End to Relationships," running June to mid-August this year — looking at whether the law should finally catch up with how people actually live now. Nothing's changed yet. It might be years before it does.

If a cohabitation agreement still feels like an RSD bomb — that reaction makes sense. It doesn't mean the conversation should stay off the table forever though.