You should check in your State how many years of ‘shacking up’ constitutes ‘marriage’. I am very serious here.
If she can declare a ‘common law’ marriage, she gets half your stuff.
There is no safe way anymore, thanks to our wonderful courts, to cohabitate with anyone without liability.
Hell, even a stranger roommate could wind up suing you for mental or emotional abuse.
No, all of society is under the constant and watchful eyes of the court. And any perceived or alleged agreivence must be made right by them.
Like a wrinkle in a shirt, they will iron out the inequities of society, ham-handedly, using weight and heat and force.
That's good! Did you just make that up?
And not just in the USA.
In Australia, a recent case awarded a lodger a large payment from his landlady's estate. She was an older woman who allowed a young man to rent a room in her house on easy terms. Obviously, it was safer and better for her not to live alone. He was one of these perpetual student types, drifting through life.
After a few years, she died, and he put in a claim for nearly half her estate, disinheriting her brothers. The judge simply decided that she should have included in him her "testamentory bounty" when making her will. The judge conceded that the young man had made little use of his talents, but seemed to think it was the duty of his woman - who was in no way related to him - to provide for him for life. Simply because they were under the same roof!
You make her keep an apartment.