Non EU citizen living with EU citizen

I work for the US Dept of State.  I have done a few years in Consular Affairs.  So, I can provide some unofficial advice on US law.  I dont know about EU (Im assuming you are on the Greek side).  Where you get married is really not an issue.

Now, if you have been living together there might be a common law marriage of some type.  I would check with the Dutch Embassy for correct information concerning your situation and the best course of action moving forward.

I don't think that you need to be married before you get here.....all you need to be able to do is be able to prove a durable relationship... Via property or by bank accounts in both names bills in both names and payment going from joint accounts things like that that proves this.... What may be more of a problem is gettIng married here.. it may involve many trips to Nicosia

Thank you for your responses.

Ofcourse you do not have to have married before living here!  As Toon says, they will want to see durable relationship; that is all  I doubt that you actually need to be married for residency, but that is easy to check on the cyprus gov web site

@pete21 Correct you don't ...five years legitimate residency allows you to be able to apply for permanent residency... Reducing to 4 years legit residency if you can speak greek

As @ricolo has been here for 9 years.. .hopefully legally as a temporary resident then applying is all that is required..... And could have applied 4 years ago.... Assuming that no continuous absences of more than 90 days has taken place each year