I am in a common law relationship. Neither of us want to…

What you can do is each of you sign two different continuing Power of Attorney documents. One would be for finances and one would be for care.

You can appoint each other.

This would come into play if you became incompetent.

You can also prepare a document generally called an "advanced directive". In the US it is called a living will but we don't use that term. There you could set out your wishes. But this is not a legal document. Only the two POAs are.

You could also sign a cohabitation agreement and that may help to make things very clear if the family tries to challenge anything.

Does that help?

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You don't need a lawyer to do the documents. But if you are worried that a family member is going to allege incompetency or undue pressure it may be more prudent to pay a lawyer so they can be there for you if necessary if the document is challenged.

The POAs are for substitute decision making if the person cannot make decisions on their own because of their incompetency.