We started seeing each other the weekend before Diana died, Labour had been back in power for just a few months and Britpop was just beginning to enter its death throes.

Harry Potter was a mere magical babe in child literature’s arms and Elton John became the sir we all know him as today in that new year’s honours list .

In our time together we’ve watched Geri be the driving force behind the Spice Girls before quitting at the height of their fame to go solo.

Seen Britney grow from winsome teenager singing songs to her love in her school uniform into troubled adult shaving her head during a very public meltdown before emerging from it like a phoenix in her thirties as a judge on one of Simon Cowell’s many talent related shows.

Celebrities we thought were lovely people who did great things for charity have turned out to be not quite as nice as some of us had been lead to believe , in fact downright despicable in some cases given the trust people had in them .

Brad and Jennifer became Brad and Angelina and have since morphed into Brad and Angelina singular and many other famously love struck couples have come apart at the seams when faced with some kind of problem or another.

The world of gay rights have undergone a massive makeover and now boy meets girl isn’t the mainstay of marriage criteria.

 And as for us, we’ve lost cherished family members, friends and colleagues, weathered some bad times, traumatic births, deaths and illnesses and managed to emerge virtually unscathed still cohabiting harmoniously because for various reasons neither of us has any interest in taking a trip up the aisle.

However due to a pension plan drawn up before the world became the much more diverse place it is today we may be forced to go against the ideal that has worked so well for us for all these years because it decrees that as we only live together I don’t class as my partners spouse and that should he pass away I don’t have any official right to money he may wish to bequeath me with.

Two decades, two children and a house together aren’t enough for them apparently, I’m no one important unless I’ve got a gold band on my finger and a marriage certificate tucked away in a drawer.

In this day and age I think it’s outrageous that they won’t consider revising that outdated view, don’t you?