Me and my partner have been together since we were 15, we're now 23. We've had two beautiful children, live in our own houses together, have careers and are settled. We are the standard family. HOWEVER, he hasn't proposed to me. We have ups and downs like couples do, in fact we had a year and half apart and saw other people, but we always went back to each other. I honestly think he is my true love and fate put us together. Obviously, any woman (I know anyway) wants to get married and marry her prince. I even have my perfect wedding etched into my brain. Ive brought up the subject and his first response was that he didn't want to get married because its just a contract. I explained to him what it meant to me, a lot of shouting and crying. After that we left it. It really upset me. Then it was brought up again one day and he had actually said he wanted to ge married when he was in his late 30's :O. Now to me, I didn't disagree but I didn't agree, I told him its great that he reconsidered marriage just for me, but late 30's, was a no no, mainly because I would like to look young and youthful for our photos, and to be honest my partner is receding at a rapid pace and I'm scared hed be bald (although he suits the jason statham look pretty well). I sound really vain, but like I said, I want a perfect wedding. I love this guy and I just want to make it official and feel like he's actually mine, rather than just some 'boyfriend' and 'girlfriend' who happen to have kids and live together.

It's not "just" a contract -- it is a VERY important one that will improve his life.

Does he know that if he has that legal piece of paper in hand, he will gain all sorts of benefits?

Marriage Rights and Benefits | Nolo.com

You do have to admit that he has "everything" now -- a woman, kids, a house, etc. so there's the saying, "Why buy the cow if you can get the milk free?" Print out the Nolo link above and show him.

I've always dreamed of a dream house that I'd love to live in one day, I've always dreamed of what going on a nice vacation would be like, I've always dreamed of what it would be to actually have my own business, I always dreamed of having a great marriage. I have a boyfriend of almost 2 years, we live in an tiny apartment with one door and two windows (I call it the cave), for our business we have a broke down tow truck, broke down box truck and a broke down dump truck. I'm still dreaming at 58. Be thankful that you have a long term relationship with a guy that loves you and children to him