I’ve been living with my girlfriend for almost 10 years. Things are not going well even though we’ve been going to counseling and I am considering ending the relationship. We live in Dallas and I know common law marriage can be a legal marriage in Texas. I was never concerned about it because I never thought we’d break up. We didn’t get officially married because she would have lost the retirement payments she got from her ex-husband if she remarried. I put her name on my house and we own other property together. If I do decide to leave the relationship, do I need to get a divorce in order to deal with the division of our property if she and I can’t agree? I suspect that if I tell her it’s over, she will make things very difficult and not want to settle things with me without involving court.
