We were together for years before we could legally marry. Will our whole history count, or just the date on the marriage certificate?

This is one of the most important questions a same-sex couple can ask, and I'm glad you're asking it. Here's the honest picture: New Jersey often looks at the date you legally married or entered a civil union as the starting line, not the day your life together actually began. For couples who built a home, a life, and savings together for years or decades before marriage was even legal, that can matter a great deal. Property held in one person's name from before the marriage can be treated as that person's alone, and the length of the marriage can affect alimony. The law here is still evolving, and there isn't a single answer a court will always land on. That's exactly where mediation gives you something a courtroom can't: you two decide. Instead of leaving it to a judge who may only see the certificate date, you get to untangle your real history together, to honor the ten or twenty years you actually shared, not just the five the paperwork recognizes, and shape an agreement that feels fair to both of you. That's self-determination, and it's the whole point. There are a couple of related pieces we'll look at, depending on your situation. If you're dissolving a civil union, you have the same rights as a married couple: alimony, equitable distribution, all of it; a domestic partnership is different and carries fewer of those rights, so we'll get clear on which one you actually have. And if you have children, where one of you is the biological or adoptive parent and the other has been a parent in every way that matters, we'll make sure the parenting plan reflects the family you truly are. Where parentage was never formally established, that's worth getting your own legal advice on, and I'll tell you plainly if I think you need it.