Hi there,
thanks for your the quick feedback!
It's not like we have stopped living together by the end of July 2015 - we have moved to Germany, at different points, and continued to live together till April 2016. So we were actually living together for 20 months with a gap of a month.
Also looking at the definition of common law again it says:
"... Has been living with you for at least 12 consecutive months. That means you have been living together continuously for one year, without any long periods apart. One of you may have left the home for work or business travel, family obligations, and so on. That separation must have been temporary and short."
"temporary and short" is subject to interpretation, so they don't mention a specific time frame and there must be a good reason why it happened - but it doesn't say that a break is not possible.
Further looking into the issue of maybe needing to refile my taxes, I stumbled upon this definition from the CRA:
"..you and your common-law partner have lived together in a marriage-like relationship for at least 12 months in a row (including any time you were separated for less than 90 days because of a breakdown in the relationship)"
So it seems that different definitions are applied and it is still not 100% clear if we are common law or not.
I will look more into it and inform myself. Thanks for your help guys.
