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Hi everyone, I’m Dr. Michael Mantell, joining Bonnie Rabinovitch-Mantel, who is the owner and managing partner of the Primus Family Law Group with another Family Law Matters. Hi Bonnie. Hi Michael, how are you doing today? Doing well, doing well, lovely San Diego.

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How bad can it be, right? We’re blessed. Yeah, we’re blessed. Bonnie, I wanna talk with you about an interesting dilemma that some people have and many people probably don’t even think about.

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And that’s the difference between being legally married and being, let’s call it religiously married. Each religion, it seems, has its own religious ceremony, pronouncing people to be married. And yet, you can have that without yet being legally married.

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I suspect that presents a number of different concerns and issues. I know you’ve experienced it, so tell us a little bit about this. Well, it does, Michael, because California only recognizes the legal marriage, which is the one that’s that civil piece of paper that a judge signs.

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Most of us will have a religious ceremony, be it Catholic or Jewish or Arabic. They’re all different religions that have these religious ceremonies, and it means something to the couple. And it means nothing to the law.

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So people can believe that they’ve been married for years. They do everything together. They buy things.

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They, you know, one person’s name, not the other person’s name, because they don’t think about it. They think they’re married. So it’s all hours until they finally get divorced.

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And then all of a sudden it’s, well, where’s your civil ceremony? And if you never had a civil ceremony, in California, we don’t recognize common law marriage. So you weren’t married at all. And then you don’t get things like spousal support because you’re not a spouse.

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But if you’ve had a civil ceremony, even years later, well, that will truncate how long you’ve been married and the benefits you get. So people who buy properties, make businesses, cars, retirements, all before the legal marriage, those don’t have to be shared. So I know a couple who are religiously married, but not legally married on purpose to protect tax issues and business investments and things like that.

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What about that? Is there an advantage for some people to not be legally married, but only religiously married so they can live together? If you wanna keep everything separate, if you want to make sure, I mean, that’s kind of like what a prenup does. It keeps everything separate and it eliminates some of that liability, but it also then takes away the benefits that you, because you will not be, whatever, let’s say the retirement grew during the marriage, well, you’re not getting any piece of that. If let’s say you were the stay-at-home parent and the other parent worked and now you’re getting divorced, well, you’re not getting any spousal support.

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You will get child support, that never changes, but your benefits, even social security, derivative benefits that are a state benefit because you’ve been married to somebody who was making so much, you’re not getting that. And if one person wants a legal marriage and obviously a religious marriage, but the other doesn’t, when they come to you, what do you tell them? Well, I’m usually at the back end of it, remember? Once they’ve already been married and they realize they shouldn’t have done that. I mean, I can’t force somebody to get married.

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You can’t force them legally to get married. I would think it would cause for pause if one person did not want to be legally married as to why, and that may be a reason to come to you. You know, a life coach to figure out what up.

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Right. So if people have questions about this and they’re going into a marriage or they realize we haven’t been legally married, how can they be in touch to get some more information and insight about how to protect themselves? Well, they can reach us directly at 619-574-8000 or they can reach us online at www.primusfamilylaw.com. And you will be put on one of our calendars, all certified family law specialists for a free 30-minute telephone or Zoom consultation. See how we can help.