My girlfriend and I are having a symbolic ‘wedding.’ She does not want to lose her health benefits — and I don’t want to lose my shirt. Is that wise?

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My girlfriend and I are having a symbolic ‘wedding.’ She does not want to lose her health benefits — and I don’t want to lose my shirt. Is that wise?

‘I want to imagine a long, happy life together, but I was raised to expect the best and plan for the worst.’ (Photo subjects are models.) – Getty Images/iStockphoto

Dear Quentin, 

My girlfriend and I don’t plan to get legally married nor married in the eyes of the *******. We’re simply having a wedding to celebrate our love, but we are not signing any paperwork. I am concerned that my significant other would lose her state health insurance because she doesn’t work. To cut a long story short, I feel terrible that she’s utilizing a program for low-income people, but she has serious mental-health issues that are completely treatable but expensive. I make too much money for her to qualify for medical assistance if we marry, but not enough to absorb what I’ve calculated to be $35,000 a year in additional expenses.

We want kids eventually and I’m concerned that, given that I live in a state famous for treating men poorly in divorces, she’ll end up with at least half of everything I own despite the fact that I accumulated quite a bit in assets before we ever met. I’m also likely to accumulate quite a bit more in assets before we have a child, and it’s actually necessary or helpful that she stays home to care for said child. We agreed several years ago that it was best she stop working because she was in an extremely high-stress environment as a pharmacy tech that was exacerbating her mental-health issues.

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My ***** is that this will be construed as my girlfriend giving up a career to be a homemaker, which is patently false but could also feasibly be used as a reason for her to believe she is entitled to my assets (or more of my assets). I want to imagine a long, happy life together, but I was raised to expect the best and plan for the worst. I have this gnawing feeling that I’m setting myself up for disaster. Connecticut is an equitable-distribution state. I have already purchased my condo and formed my business, so I expect that they would be exempt from division in a divorce. Could she make a claim on my condo and business if we live together?

Unmarried Man

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You have no reason to be concerned about your girlfriend making a claim on your assets. – MarketWatch illustration

Dear Unmarried,

Your symbolic wedding will have more long-term negative implications for your girlfriend.

As you say, you have no plans to marry your girlfriend for a variety of legal and financial reasons. Assuming you stick to those plans, she will not benefit from community property, or the rise in value of your community property during your cohabiting relationship given that you are not signing an actual wedding contract. You have no reason to be concerned about your girlfriend making a claim on your assets because — while Connecticut is an equitable-distribution state where assets are divided fairly, if not always equally, in a divorce — your state does not recognize common-law marriage. (Those states are Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and D.C.)

Now let’s turn to your soon-to-be nonwife, and her own marital and medical predicaments. She is, as you suggest, stuck between the proverbial rock (health benefits) and a hard place (voluntary unemployment). If your wife did get a job with health insurance, with the right practical support she would be unlikely to face $35,000 out-of-pocket costs for her mental-health services. Insurance claimants are more likely to go out of network for mental-health services than other services. But

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shows that, while those who seek treatment for depression and/or anxiety pay almost double in out-of-pocket costs compared to other enrollees, they still pay $1,501 out of pocket vs. $863 for physical illnesses.

Federal law protects enrollees who require mental-health treatment from being discriminated against. The Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 (MHPAEA) is geared to stop group health plans and health-insurance providers that offer mental-health and/or substance-use-disorder benefits from leveling more restrictive limitations on those benefits than on medical or surgical treatments. While this law does not apply directly to small group health plans, “its requirements are applied indirectly in connection with the Affordable Care Act’s essential health benefit,” according to the

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.

How insurers manage mental-health services can vary, says the

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, a left-of-center think tank. “Insurers often offer providers low payment rates, limiting willingness of an already insufficient workforce to join networks and impeding compliance with network adequacy standards. Insurers can also set treatment limits to manage care; these plans often do not offer as much treatment as a patient or provider may find beneficial or clinically significant. Moreover, insurance companies may require prior authorization or medical-necessity forms that can slow or prevent access to care. While these limitations impede parity in principle, they are often more challenging to enforce and may proceed undetected by regulating bodies.”

Should you live together and have a family, she would remain financially dependent on you and have no ability to save for retirement, nor would she be entitled to 50% of your community property in the event that you did actually marry and divorce. If she becomes a stay-at-home mom, she would lose those Social Security contributions and would not benefit from

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. If you did split up after having a family, you would be obliged to pay child support. “Connecticut follows the ‘income-shares model,’ which means that courts will estimate the amount parents would spend on children when both parents and children live together in one household,” according to

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, a Connecticut- and New York-based attorney.

Connecticut does not, in theory, treat men differently than women in divorce. But that is, of course, a moot point.

More columns from Quentin Fottrell:

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