{"id":51383,"date":"2022-10-14T11:44:55","date_gmt":"2022-10-14T15:44:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cleo.on.ca\/?post_type=publications-page&#038;p=51383"},"modified":"2026-04-24T11:57:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T15:57:23","slug":"rules-about-who-is-a-spouse","status":"publish","type":"publications-page","link":"https:\/\/www.cleo.on.ca\/en\/publications-page\/rules-about-who-is-a-spouse","title":{"rendered":"Rules about who is a spouse"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>OW or ODSP will decide that you are spouses if <strong>any<\/strong> of the following are true:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>You tell them that you are spouses.<\/li>\n<li>You are married to each other.<\/li>\n<li>The law says that one of you must support the other person or their child.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If you live together, OW or ODSP will also decide you&#8217;re spouses if <strong>all<\/strong> of the following are true:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>You have been living together for at least 3 months.<\/li>\n<li>One of you supports the other or the two of you are &#8220;financially interdependent&#8221;.<\/li>\n<li>You&#8217;re \u201cliving together as a couple\u201d, not as two single people.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h2>Being financially interdependent<\/h2>\n<p>To find out if you&#8217;re financially interdependent, OW or ODSP will ask questions like:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Do you own things together?<\/li>\n<li>Do you have joint bank accounts?<\/li>\n<li>Have you borrowed money as a couple?<\/li>\n<li>Are one or both of your names on leases or bills?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Living together as a couple<\/h2>\n<p>Living together as a couple means that your relationship is like a marriage. To decide if you&#8217;re living together as a couple, OW or ODSP will ask questions like:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Do friends and family members think you&#8217;re a couple?<\/li>\n<li>Do schools, doctors, or other organizations, know you as a couple?<\/li>\n<li>Do any children from another relationship treat the person you&#8217;re living with as a parent?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It does not matter if you have a sexual relationship with each other. They&#8217;re not allowed to ask about that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","class_list":["post-51383","publications-page","type-publications-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Rules about who is a spouse - CLEO (Community Legal Education Ontario \/ \u00c9ducation juridique communautaire Ontario)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cleo.on.ca\/en\/publications-page\/rules-about-who-is-a-spouse\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Rules about who is a spouse - CLEO (Community Legal Education Ontario \/ \u00c9ducation juridique communautaire Ontario)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"OW or ODSP will decide that you are spouses if any of the following are true: You tell them that you are spouses. 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