That sounds great. But I couldn't do that with my wife, because we're both terrible with paperwork and planning. My wife even refuses to use a digital calendar,

That sounds great. But I couldn't do that with my wife, because we're both terrible with paperwork and planning. My wife even refuses to use a digital calendar, for example, as well as anything involving receipts or basic algebra. And its not that she doesn't pull her own weight, she's just insane. I'm in Europe, so most of my friends with children aren't actually married. They know what you wrote above. Most of them still get married at some point, because it's an effective way to reinforce the internalized relationship status by externalizing it, which is in general is valuable to long-term couples.