As someone who lived abroad for 6+ years then returned to my home country happily married I want to give out this advice: if living/working abroad from your home country and having your partner with you is an important part of your life plan - get married now. This includes couples who have the same citizenship but might go abroad for work/travel for an extensive period of time. While many countries have domestic partnerships, and other forms of legal "pair-hood" you could also theoretically use, it's often not recognized across country lines and many times can slow down and really complicate paperwork because foreign jurisdictions don't understand the law in other countries. Without it your ability to get travel/resident/work documents in foreign countries together can spiral out of control or not happen at all. Then you would have to choose between your life goal, dream job, or significant other.
This is one of those things many people I've spoken with never considered or knew about (why would you!) until it was too late and -- had they been "married" for 2/3/5 years or some threshold, everything would've been a cakewalk.
Canadian immigration gave us hell because we could only prove the relationship existed for 11 months and 3 weeks (gotta be able to prove 1 year).
In the end we were saved by online pizza receipts and amazon orders that proved we were living in the same place at the same time for a while. Delayed the application for months though. Should have just put a ring on it earlier, even if a pro-forma sign-at-the-courthouse thing.
This is one of those things many people I've spoken with never considered or knew about (why would you!) until it was too late and -- had they been "married" for 2/3/5 years or some threshold, everything would've been a cakewalk.