Common law marriage

I did leave with someone from 2000 until now and she recently filed for divorce claiming common law marriage setting the date of the marriage January 2000. Does she have to stick to her plead and prove that common law marriage existed in January 2000? or can the judge set during the trial the date of the common law marriage for another year where there are other evidence such as the first year where we file a joined income tax? we filed joined for the first time in 2005, before that everything was separate and there are no evidence of common law marriage at alll. In any case I think that, if she is not able to prove that common law existed on the date of the plead the judge should dismiss the case, am I correct on my assumption?

[tbyte]

What State do you live in? Most States do not even allow common-law marriages. Check wikipedia: Common-law marriage in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia