that sucks, but I'm glad you have that protection now. Of course, Earl should put it in writing too, just to be safe.
Oh yes, it's in the will, but before the overturning of the marriage ban, Virginia law made it a lot easier to break a contractual arrangement between two people of the same sex, anything that hinted of a marriage-like state.
Ironically, those provisions demonstrated the animus that made overturning the ban that much easier in the courts.