How We Were Married

couples who eloped (just the couple at the wedding) were 12.5x more likely to end up divorced

Milady and I have always been exceptional, as opposed to being the rule, I mean.

After several years of living in sin cohabitation, we just agreed to make it official. Changed my will, and started holding ourselves forth as married, per Oklahoma common law. Our ceremony was, our lawyer treated us to lunch.

I'm not proud of it, and regret it in some ways, but we felt somewhat estranged from family at the time, relatively friendless, and had just recovered from some terrible experiences together, so, it seemed right.

And that was thirty-six years ago.

Married before we had kids, at least.

My mother-in-law, years later, said to my mother, it took her a while to realize, that isn't how most people in Oklahoma did it.