What is the relationship between an unmarried couple and a disabled plaintiff?

On balance, I am satisfied that the relationship that the Testator chose to have with the plaintiff was, in many ways, very much like the relationship one would expect to see between two persons who were committed to one another. In making that assessment, I find useful and worthwhile direction in the following statement of Lambert J.A. in Gostlin v. Kergin (1986), 1986 CanLII 164 (BC CA), 3 B.C.L.R. (2d) 264 (C.A.): So I would ask whether the unmarried couple's relationship was like the relationship of the married couple in that the unmarried couple have shown that they have voluntarily embraced the permanent support obligations of s. 57. If each partner had been asked, at any time during the relevant period of more than two years, whether, if their partner were to be suddenly disabled for life, would they consider themselves committed to life-long financial and moral support of that partner, and the answer of both of them would have been "Yes", then they are living together as husband and wife. If the answer would have been "No", then they may be living together, but not as husband and wife. Of course, in the particular circumstances of any case, the answer to that question may prove elusive. If that is so, then other, more objective indicators may show the way. Did the couple refer to themselves, when talking to their friends, as husband and wife, or as spouses, or in some equivalent way that recognized a long-term commitment? Did they share the legal rights to their living accommodation? Did they share their property? Did they share their finances and their bank accounts? Did they share their vacations? In short, did they share their lives? And, perhaps most important of all, did one of them surrender financial independence and become economically dependant on the other, in accordance with a mutual arrangement.