I lived in the UK for a while (Edinburgh), and knew tons of couples like you, long-term, with kids, obviously "the real thing" ... but not married. Many were f

I lived in the UK for a while (Edinburgh), and knew tons of couples like you, long-term, with kids, obviously "the real thing" ... but not married. Many were from continental Europe, and there was a clear sense that it was a "normal" thing at least in the circles I moved in (mostly university faculty). The other places I've lived long-term are the U.S. and Japan, and in those places, such relationships seem much more rare. If a couple isn't married, there's a sense the relationship isn't quite real yet, and there's almost certain to be some negative societal reaction to an unmarried couple with kids... not as overt a reaction as it might have been in the past, but still clearly an issue. From my contacts with other east-asian countries (Korea, China, Taiwan), I get the feeling the same is true in those places...they're often still relatively conservative in many ways compared to europe.