Tuesday, 04 November 2008
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Is Living Together Before Marriage Okay?
This is a guest blog submitted by righteousthang.
I found a brochure the other day about young unmarried couples who decide to move in together. It gave an example of a girl and a boy who start off thinking it's a good idea, and then they end up fighting a lot, calling each other names and slamming doors in each other's faces...then they break up and tell each other to move out. The supposed moral to the story? Don't move in with your S.O. unless you're married because this is what will happen. Okay, I don't really know who believes this kind of stuff, but can I just point out how completely illogical that is?Whether you're married or not, you're still two people living together. Marriage won't make you slam fewer doors or change who you are. If he leaves his clothes on bathroom the floor before he's married, he'll do it afterward, too. If she uses his stuff all the time without asking first now, she will continue to do so after marriage. These things are habits that can be broken by a little counseling and making an effort to respect each other, not by marriage. The only difference is a break up vs. a divorce, and in a marriage, people tend to try a little bit harder for marriage's sake. But it's still essentially the same thing - you can find out if it will work before or after you get married. And it makes more sense to do so before marriage, to help lessen the divorce rate and to check it out first to see how it goes.
Do you think it's a good idea to live together before marriage? Do you think it will lessen your chances of marriage or staying together longer?
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Comments (302)
in a word- no.
unless you really like increasing your chances for divorce...
Truuuuuuuuuu dat. Marriage changes virtually nothing.
Yeah. Then you know your SO's habits when it comes to hygiene and cleaning up after themselves.
I don't know if it would lessen chances of marriage or not.
Uhm, I wouldn't ! But it DOES show how compatible you guys are for each other..Make sense? Cuhs after you're married, you're going to live together.Lol It'll lessen ur chances, I THINK ..I just wouldn't move in with them b/c I don't wanna see them everyday...lol like..the day before the wedding; i want them to miss me :)
I think living together before marriage can work, but both parties have to be willing to make it work. What does marriage change? In theory, it's only paperwork. If you can put the effort into making living together work without being "official", then good for you both.
I don't think I would marry someone until I lived with them first (not that I plan on getting married).
In living with someone, you see who they really are. You see how much of a slob/neat freak they are. You see all the things they might not want others to know about, for whatever reason.
I would think that living with someone before marriage would help you decide if you are really ready to share everything with that person. And if you cant deal with the person they are in the comfort of their own home, then you might want to think twice about marrying them in the first place.
my .02
Heck no. Period.
living together before getting married is the normal step.in some states; if you live with a girlfirend under the same roof for more then 15 years; you are married legally. ummmm thats only in a few states. the odd ones.
I live with my boyfriend, but we have our own rooms, so we have our space. Technically we are more like roomates than a couple living together in that aspect.
"The only difference is
a break up vs. a divorce, and in a marriage, people tend to try a little bit
harder for marriage's sake"
That pretty much sums up my own thoughts.
I see nothing wrong with living together before marriage.
@AlterEgo909@xanga - its under the same roof?
@raved@xanga - nor do i, as a matter of fact it should be the normal standard.......
@thegreatchristopher@xanga - Yes lol. But we have separate rooms. So yes, we live together, but we have our separate boundaries.
I will say straight out....studies are in. Couples who lives together before marriage are 65% more likely to get a divorce.
I'll wait til' I'm married thank you very much.
I think its definitely a good idea to live together before marriage. I think stats show that when people take the chance to live together before getting married they end up happier.
You dont know what a person is really like (or notice their little quirks) until you live with them. Living together gives you the chance to explore what married life would be like before commiting to it. Think of it like a test run before buying a car.
That way you can get to all the problems before you're stuck with them.
I agree with this for the most part; if your relationship really isn't solid enough for marriage in the first place, living together isn't truly going to magically make the relationship better, just like engagement or marriage won't magically make all those annoying little quirks just disappear.
From my own experience, I will never again live with someone I'm romantically involved with before marriage (or at least post-engagement, with a date set for the wedding). There are just too many other issues to deal with when you break up after living together. Living together (again, in my experience) leads to people taking each other for granted WAY too easily...you don't put in as much effort, etc.
I think it's up to the couple. I mean, you really won't find out each other's habits until you live together. So, if a couple can't be mature about their habits when they live apart, they shouldn't move in together (yet). But the brochure is a bunch of crock shit.
Yes! You don't truly know how a person is until you live with them for a period of time. If it doesn't work out, the break up carries fewer burdens than marriage does. Part of a relationship is your compatibility with the other person, but the toughest thing to deal with and learn is how you are together when you live together.
living with someone helps one learn more about the person, whether it be a SO, parent, or sibling. for the commenter above me who believes that living with someone will increase the probability of divorce, um... no.
if a couple lives together before getting married, the truth is that they'd figure out all the things that have to go on after marriage way earlier; that way, if things didn't work, they can always dissolve the relationship WITHOUT WORRYING ABOUT ALL THE OTHER LEGALITIES. so why not?
of course, serious relationships, only.
I think it depends on the couples. For some couples, it may be a dumb choice. But for some, it may be very successful in finding whether or not they have a future together. However, I have seen data showing that living together before marriage may lead to a higher divorce rate.
the first time i lived with a guy, it went very badly. we partied a lot and ALWAYS had friends over. this time is different though, we spend a lot of alone time together at home and our relationship seems to thrive on it.
i think it is a fantastic idea to move in together of course when the relationship has been going on for awhile and is serious. it gives you a chance to see what it is like to live with that other person and to see if you will be bale to handle their lifestyle sure, when you're married, you're going to have arguments and notlike things about the other person but this gives you a chance to see if they're unlivable (sp?).
I'm a little weary about those studies that say if you live together before marriage your more likely to get divorced. I think they're probably in the same boat as the ones that say that a home with a married mother and father is the "best" situation. They forget to mention that they don't study unhappy marriages, just the normal ones. I could see the same thing with living together before marriage studies. Meaning they could like not look at the couples pre-marriage relationship. So they could have a horrible relationship where they fight all the time and decide to get married hoping it will fix things and surprise, surprise it doesn't so they get divorced. Personally I'd much rather live with someone before marriage because if I can't stand to live with them I'd like to know that before I sign up to spend the rest of my life with them.
I think it's okay even though statistics show that couples who move in together prior to marriage tend to divorce more than couples who move in together after marriage.
Right now I would not move in with my boyfriend. I want my own space and opportunity to really be on my own before I have to share it.