How many people have committed relationships but aren't married? There are young people, middle age people, and even very elderly people that have strong and committed relationships. But, for various reasons they are not married, and as a result do not have the same default protections that are automatically granted to married couples.

I bet you know some of these people. They may be your children. Or maybe a parent! While there's a lot of reasons couples may elect not to be married, this article isn't going to explore those. Rather, I want to make us aware of some of the situations that these couples need to consider. At some point, sooner rather than later, these questions should be raised.

• Who pays for what? Two people living together will have both individual and shared expenses. What complicates this picture is when they have widely different incomes.
  
  
• Insuring property and lives. Often unmarried people that live together rent rather than own. Of course, these people should have property insurance (renters insurance). The expectation is that if one person has rental insurance, all the property in the dwelling is covered. But often that's not the case. Only the policy holders property is covered.
  
  
• What happens if the couple breaks up? Or worse, what happens if one person dies? This is especially important for couples that have been committed to each other for many years. For younger couples there may be minor children involved. For older couples there may be issues surrounding social security and/or pension benefits. For everyone there is the need to consider wills & powers of attorney.
  

One option to explore would be a domestic partnership agreement that sets out the legal and financial rights and responsibilities for each partner. How they will share income, assets, hold bank accounts, own property, pay for expenses. This doesn't have to be a complicated document.

The thing is, many people are reluctant to talk about money. That includes married couples. Imagine how much more reticent unmarried couples are to discuss their financial situation. It can help to have someone independent to talk through these scenarios. A CFP ® is a good place to start.

There are a lot of people that do not work with a financial advisor. They are more comfortable as do-it-yourselfer's. Many people view decisions on financial matters as simply requiring common sense. I understand that idea, we use common sense to make many decisions. Of course, one might ask what constitutes common sense on financial matters. There are a number of commonly accepted common sense maxim's that can guide us. Spend less than we earn. Save for a rainy day. Buy low, sell high. Avoid credit card debt. Invest for the long term. Diversify investments.

The challenge I see with common sense maxims is that they are so superficial. In fact, we all need to apply far more reasoning to the myriad of financial decisions we face. Too often we don't. And that's what concerns me. What substitutes for the effort in understanding and reasoning may often be electing a simpler decision choice. Examples might be just doing what we think other people do, taking off the cuff advice from friends or family, or often just doing nothing. While these could result in good decisions, it seems to me that we are really just hoping for the best. Not exactly a good strategy for success.

Here's an example of what I observe. Recently I was talking with a person who explained they were approaching their full retirement age for social security, age 66 for this person. This person related that when discussing when to begin taking social security benefits with a friend, that friend enthusiastically counseled that is it optimal to begin social security as early as possible, age 62. When I engaged this person in further discussion of this topic, it was clear that person was well aware that amount of the benefit would be lesser or more depending on at what age the benefits began. Yet, their thinking had not progressed to actually consider what the full financial impact would be over the short and long term. I can report that the conservation proved very useful for this person as I assisted them in reasoning out the variables in this matter.​

The big difference between my guidance and the friends advice is that I wasn't attempting to apply my idea of what I think is the right decision. Rather, I was guiding the person through the thinking process that mattered for them. There are many financial decisions that matter in our lives. It makes common sense to get advice from someone that will help you reason through these decisions.