Back to the "M" word - again

Gosh I go through this on a regular basis it seems. Chris and I have been together 7 years this coming March, and again my mind is drifting toward that M word. We dated a total of 6 (SIX) months before we were intimate, and only after that face-to-face discussion about where are we going with this? Do we mean it? Are we going to commit? Yes, we dedicated ourselves and our lives to our faith and eachother, and so here we are, looking at 7 years, and even though we are committed, and belong together, and will be here 47 years from now (God willing), it is still on my mind that legally we aren't linked.
Should (God forbid) anything happen to either of us, legally, neither of us has the right to speak for the other. The health care industry doesn't recognize a live-in relationship as a legal right to say treat or don't treat. The housing industry doesn't recognize either that we have split the house payments, insurance, and taxes for half of the time (so far) that I've owned my home, so if I died tomorrow, he'd be homeless. Well - Amanda promises that in the event I die first - she as the next of kin would never put Chris out on the street, the house belongs to him. BUT what would the probate court say?
And so, we talked about it again while we were in Oregon for the Eat Turkey and Take a Nap holiday weekend. He says he's not opposed to it - though Jesus himself said don't get married - he's opposed to doing things the way everyone else does it. Well - my wedding wouldn't be the way everyone else's is. He's just waiting on me to get the paperwork that we need and set a date and he'll be there.
If I can have my perfect wedding, it would be him and me and a justice of the peace standing together at sunset on the beach in Lincoln City Oregon. Probably in March it'll be cold on the beach, so there won't be formal dress, just comfy warm clothes and us and the legal binding of our relationship. Witnesses? Heck I don't know - might get Amanda and John and Fay to come along, or Chris's parents maybe - I don't want a big party. If I can't get us to LC, then the rose garden here in town at the courthouse is beautiful too.
We were watching a movie this weekend called The Theory of Everything (see it if you can, please!!) There was a line in the movie the man said regarding his late wife (this is a paraphrase) - he said sometimes there was joy and sometimes there was silence, but the committment was always there. Yep - that's us, sometimes happy, sometimes not, but always together - no matter what. Well - there are a couple of exceptions to the NO MATTER WHAT rule, but let's not go there right now.
Tomorrow I'll probably want to kick his ass out the door again.... Ahhhh love.
I clean for a couple that are 96 and 90 and just celebrated their 72nd wedding anniversary - oh my gosh can you believe that? Going from 24 years old to 96 with the same woman? Going from 17 to 90 with the same man... wow, how amazing. That's committment.