 Common Law Marriage Recognized as a Legal Marriage when you move out of state?
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? WEST VIRGINIA
My husband and I moved from Texas to West Virginia last summer. While we were in Texas, we established an informal/common-law marriage under Texas law.
Under § 2.401 of the Texas Family Code, an informal marriage can be established either by declaration or by meeting a 3-prong test showing evidence of (1) an agreement to be married; (2) cohabitation in Texas; and (3) representation to others that the parties are married. As an example of this, you may have introduced you partner socially as "my husband," or you may have filed a joint income tax return.
My husband and I agreed to be married, lived together for over a year in Texas (and are still living together), and represented to others that we were married. We also signed a Declaration of Informal Marriage and had it notarized for my previous employer. This declaration states that we realize that this marriage is recognized as a legal marriage in all other U.S. states.
We moved to WV and asked a lawyer if we needed to do anything concerning our marriage since TX does not have state income taxes but WV does. We were told that according to Article IV, Section 1 of the United States Constitution (commonly known as the Full Faith and Credit Clause), states within the United States have to respect the “public acts, records, and judicial rulings” of all other states (i.e. we were told that that state of West Virginia recognizes that we were married in Texas, according to Texas laws, and that we are, in turn, married in the eyes of the state of West Virginia and that we could file our taxes as a married couple here in the state of West Virginia).
Well, we have been filing our federal taxes as married since we started living together and signed our Declaration of Informal Marriage in Texas. We started filing our WV taxes as married this year when we moved here.
The problem is now my company is doing a Dependent Eligibility Audit for health insurance. I have provided the company that is doing the audit with all necessary info, but my employer does not recognize common-law marriage. I have tried to explain to the company that is doing the audit and my company's HR rep that since I have moved from a state that recognizes informal marriage (TX) to another state (WV), that the new state must recognize our marriage as legal.
The problem is that the HR rep called the courthouse and was told that WV does not recognize common-law marriages. This is true...if the marriage originated in WV. It did not.
I have contacted a lawyer that is looking into this and the lawyer believes that I might be able to get an affirmation of marriage from a Family Court judge.
What should I do? Should I try to go to the courthouse here in WV to get a marriage license or is that illegal since I am already married?
Thanks so much!  | 
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