This is a guest blog written by baranorewen in response to Is Living Together Before Marriage Okay?.When I started piecing this blog together in my head, it was more about the shock - yes,
shock - I felt when I read that so many people's answers were "Hell no," or something along those lines. I don't possibly understand this. Is it immoral to live with a significant other? Unless you've lived with 6 or 7 other "significant" others, I'd have to say no, but then again, I am living with a significant other, and we've been happily living as a married couple - yes, arguing over bills included - for the past two years.
We live with our friends, do we not? So, why shouldn't we live with those that we share more than a mental bond with? When you live with someone, friend, significant other, parent, sibling,
anyone, you become privileged to know his or her inner self. It is near impossible to hide anything from someone you're living with, everything is laid bare - your hygiene habits, your eating habits, your work habits, everything. One would think that exposing yourself to these parts of your significant other before marriage would be beneficial. You would learn whether or not you are truly compatible, and if you're not, you can end the relationship before your livelihood is tied up in it.
Then I found an interesting comment by a Xangan that said that studies show that couples that live together before marriage have a 65% greater chance of divorce when they get married. As one that raises her eyebrow at anything she sees on the internet, I immediately started Google searching to see if I could find anything from a genuine source (read: not Wikipedia).
USA Today says that yes, the numbers are that if you cohabitate with your spouse before marriage there is generally a larger rate of divorce, but that by looking at that number alone, we're not seeing everything.
It seems that new studies are saying that women who live with a significant other more than once have doubled the rate of divorce, but that for women who only have cohabitated with their spouses, the divorce rate is 28% LESS!
CNN says that the divorce rate for couples that cohabitated before marriage is higher than those that didn't, but that "[i]t may not be the experience of cohabiting but the people who cohabit."
After reading that, I thought back to math classes I took: Correlation is not the same thing as cause and effect. One must be sure that there are no other factors in order for correlation to be the same as cause and effect, and in a relationship there are a
million other factors that may cause a couple to split or to stay together.
Now, from facts and reliable sources, we go straight to my opinion! Yay uncitability!
In my opinion, this whole issue is because of Marriage Hype. When a couple got married "back in the day" before living together prior to marriage was common, the change was huge. Both parties moved out of their parents' houses, became financially independent, got a house and became functioning parts of society. Marriage was pretty much a rite of passage into being considered an adult. Obviously, this made marriage a
BIG DEAL.
Well today, Marriage Hype still exists. From a young age, parents are talking up weddings, love and marriage to their children. However, as opposed to "back in the day," we are forced to enter society as a functioning entity much earlier (getting a house and a job and becoming independent long before we think of marriage). In other cultures, getting married is still a way to be accepted into the society - I'm specifically talking about westernized culture.
A couple that doesn't live together before marriage still gets this huge change when they move in with their newly married spouse, whereas the living and life situation of a couple living together already doesn't change quite as much (it's still a change, but not as much so). Because we are raised to still expect huge changes after marriage, when that change doesn't seem so drastic to a couple that had lived together prior to the wedding, it may seem as if there is something wrong with the relationship.
Marriage is talked up so much that it becomes this elephant sitting in the middle of any living-together-couple's living room. It becomes a fear because we fear the change that we think marriage will bring. We fear that it will change our relationship forever just because of one silly day and one silly white dress.
The strain of Marriage Hype must cause many marriages to end badly.
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Comments (31)
marriage is not for the faint of heart. living together offers an easier out if things don't go so well.
living together may cause the relationship to fail (in which case, it's a good thing you lived together first instead of finding out too late). i see it as practice before the real thing, i'd definitely want to live with my sig.other once marriage was certain for us, just so we both know that we are truly compatible.
I would definitely live with someone before marriage -- if you can't work things out when you're not married, you will be legally and morally tied to that person when you DO get married, making breaking up (aka divorce :P) much more difficult to do.
You always test the water before jumping in. Why get married and realize you can't stand each other's habits and living ways?!
<-- I have been living w/ my bf for the past 3 years straight out of the parents' (for both of us). We weren't quite ready for the big committment, but now that we're older and this "test run" has worked pretty well, we're not planning the big day.
Yes, absolutely, someone finally told the truth about statistics! Correlation does not mean cause and effect. Absolutely! Just because a lot of divorced couples lived with each other before marriage doesn't mean that was the cause of their divorce. Look at it this way: I'm wearing black shoes, and I don't have cancer. Black shoes, therefore, prevent cancer. We all know that's BS. Just because things coincide doesn't mean they are a product of each other. And living with your partner before marriage is a great way to know just what you are getting yourself into. Its only smart to research a product before you buy it, isn't it? Same principle.
haha i posted that USA today article!
i agree with @haloed@xanga. it's MUCH more difficult to end things when you're married than when you're just dating.
@rocknrollklown@xanga - totally agree! u took the words out from my mind~
Would you buy a car without test driving it first? Heck no! Why agree to spend the rest of your life with someone without living with them for at least a couple months first? Same thing with sex! Test drive, then buy! It's dangerous to buy and then drive for the first time. What you thought would drive like a Lexus might drive like a F350, and then you're stuck with that Ford for the rest of your life. No Thank You!
Ugh. Marriage was so different a few decades ago. People wouldn't live together before marriage and then tough it out. Cause they knew marriage was FOREVER. No excuses. Nowadays, people find the easy way around things. And always have divorce as an option in their mind.
But..to each their own. I can't blame anyone who wants to know what they're getting into. I mean..most people wouldn't jump off into a dark hole without knowing that after they landed, they'd be safe.
The reason behind those statistics is that people who live with significant others before marriage come to think of marriage as disposal. When two people living together, when it stops working out, one person leaves. They come to view marriage in the same light.
Personally, I would be okay with living with my boyfriend if it was after at least a year of dating. But, I don't think it should be looked upon as "test driving." That's IMO. The hard part wouldn't be the living together it would be the figuring out what to tell my parents.
@cokeaddict@xanga - I agree.
What deal-breakers are you really finding out about from living together? Should their eating, sleeping, cleaning habits really determine if you should marry them or not? I understand that you let your guard down at home and might reveal some otherwise unknown flaws, but I think you can learn about the essentials without living together: their character, how they interact with other people, what they value, etc.Â
Didn't read the article yet, I will do that later.
But for me... Marriage is just a piece of paper connecting you to for financial means and whatnot. Right now in life I'm not into the marriage idea. Close relatives have been through divorces, couple that were bad.
Plus the divorce rate in the USA is 50%, so then there is 50% staying married BUT out of the still married ONLY 5% are healthy relationships. So yeah, not a good look.
If I could right now I'd be moved in with my bf. I mean why would you marry someone if you don't know how they are on a daily basis, so for me living together is definate.
I have lived with my previous boyfriends, in a long-term committed relationship. And I have learned, if it doesn't work before M, then it probably will not work after M anyway.
At the same time, I also understand, that if the other person just isn't right for me, living together or not is hardly a high factor of the longevity of the relationship.
i believe living together before marriage is better than the "traditional" way.
i remember there's this old saying, it goes something like this, its easy to love each other, but it might be hell living together.
which is true though.
yeah sure when you and your so are madly in love, do everything together. but living together is the "key" to their "real-selves" so to speak.
think about it. only in this way you will find out your so's living habit. whether you can live with those or not.
for example, the most obvious one, leaving the toilet seats up or down.
or hey. where they put their stuff at.
or how the kitchen is like.
im living w/ my so right now. we're not married
but we act like a married couple
seriously besides tax, and the paper, being married and living together is not that much of a difference than not married and living together.
right?
still doing the same thing everyday.
still have the same vows for each other.
right?
@ChicaLaLoca@xanga - HaHa I definately agree with you.
marriage is difficult and it shoudl be well thought out by both ppl before even considering it. however, the idea to me is so *sacred* that it is *NOT * just that piece of paper that legally binds you...it is a spiritual and sacred bond and a promise that you will never share with anyone else but the two of you on your wedding day. its up there with the ideal of love, the ideal of working things out and the ideal of wanting to build a beautiful life together. my parents were married for 30+ yrs to each other, and i totally expect to do the same :)
i do believe in living together but u def have to be choose the right person to live with or else ppl can get easily stuck in the situation. ive seen many relationships where the guy and girl move in together...then after a few yrs nothing has changed or developed and there are a lot of crushed expectations. its very easy for ppl to take each other for granted.
I think that if you live together first, what's the point in getting married? Also from class I heard the divorce rate is about the same.
@azna_gurl@xanga - what's the point of getting married after living together? so your parents & family stop bugging you LOL or for legal reasons...they die you get the widow/widower benefits etc.
otherwise, there's not really a reason. marriage is so not sacred anymore. it never really was anyway, but i'll leave people fairy tales about marriage alone!
A different hype I've heard is that once you move in with your SO, the chances of you guys getting married is much lower. Only because you guys are already living together and you guys are happy, why the need to get married??? "Domestic Partners" come to mind with that being said. I have several coworkers that have been with their SO for 10+ years and they already have children and are living together. They tell me they don't want to get married because they're already living together. Granted that some couples don't have children yet, but they dont see the point in marriage if they are already living together.
I, on the other hand is (almost) your typical-traditional Chinese girl. My parents want me to stay home with them until some guy is dumb enough to want to marry me hahaahha. I'm 27 years old, and I still live at home. The longest relationship I've ever had was 10 yrs (with the last ex) and we never moved out together. We talked about moving out together maybe a year or two before marriage but I've had mixed emotions about that simply because I was afraid that it would mean I'm forfeiting "marriage" by doing so. Anyways, we never made it that far.
Divorce rates are high and are so common that it makes people "divorce" their spouse w/o thinking twice! It's like having kids out of wedlock. When I was growing up, it was the worst possible thing anyone can do! Now, it happens everyday. People got over it. I think people just got over the whole idea of getting married, period.
@haloed@xanga - "Why get married and realize you can't stand each other's habits and living ways?!"
Because you'd have to be pretty shallow to divorce someone over a bad habit. Seriously, if a person is getting divorced, let it be legit like abuse or something, God forbid it happens to begin with.
Okay, so I am getting married in a year and a half, and we will NOT be living together before we're married. We have discussed so many things about marriage and know that it's not always easy, that is why you promise to be faithful and stick together through thick and thin (aka, sickness/health, richer/poorer, BETTER/WORSE).
I truly believe that couples who live together, before or after marriage, have a difficult time because both persons are finding out how selfish they are. If you really do love your spouse, you'll stop being such a wimp. It will require change from both persons to make the marriage work.
Anybody can say, "I'd die for him/her!" when asked, "How much do you love them?" However, how many people respond by saying, "I'll work on not getting frustrated over this habit/ I'll work on changing this habit because it makes them frustrated."
Let's meet halfway here people, and marriage will work...
(My credibility lies in the matter that marital issues have come with my parents and they MADE it, even through threats of divorce. They are both previously divorced because of alcohol abuse... Also, with my grandfather passing away the day before my grandparents' 58th wedding anniversary, they made it through so much, but they won! "Til death do us part" made them victorious in their wedding vows.)
That's my two cents.
You see, I think living together before marriage is CORRELATIONAL to divorce, but it is definitely not the main reason why couples divorce. You should really read this interesting book that I found online. I learned A LOT of things about myself when reading this book:Â http://www.womensinfidelity.com/download.html
You see, when a couple gets married, a man has a very low expectation of what marriage is going to be like, and women have a very high expectation of what marriage is going to be like. So what happens? Men end up thinking that marriage is not so bad at all, and women are imagining getting married to be this fairytale, and it falls short of that. So marriage usually does not meet the woman's high expectations, whereas a man thinks that marriage isn't as bad as he was thinking it to be.
Women initiate 70-75% of all divorces, most commonly after four years of marriage.
When women are in their prime, around their thirties, they have hormones that are similar to a teenage boy. When they are married and they experience this, it is the cause for a lot of inner struggles with the females. Why? Because females are made to believe that they are NATURALLY MONOGAMOUS, which is not the case. The sterotype is that women are loyal, and men like to sleep around. And sure, there are the occasional girl that sleeps around, but there are actually a lot of guys out there who are turned off by that. They feel that if it's so easy to get a girl to have sex with them, what makes them think it wouldn't be easy for someone else to talk them into it? Girls in society are looked at as whores if they sleep around, when on the other hand, it is a major victory for a guy who sleeps around, because there are no consequences.
I know you may think this is veyr off-topic, but I feel that it's important to point out, because I think a lot of people try to put blame on ONE particular thing that causes divorce, but it's not. Society puts a lot of pressure on our shoulders, and a lot of these pressures are the main reasons that cause divorce, not because people live together.
I feel that one can conclude, that if two people want to live together, then they want to be together. You would not move in with someone just to go sleep around with other people...however, some people wait til marriage because they want to appear more serious about marriage...but I feel that it's just leading up to the massive letdown they will be in store for. And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that you shouldn't get married, but just understand that marriage is hard, and handling those straying emotions is key. As long as couples can work things out as a team, and understand what the other person is going through, then I'm sure that many marriages would be saved from divorce.
In short: Living together before marriage is correlational to divorce, but is not the main cause. Do not be scared of marriage, but do not have high expectations either. Many women want a wonderful wedding, but do not want the troubles ahead that marriage brings. Marriage is hard, but it is not impossible. It takes a strong team of two people to stay together.
@ilive4himwhodied4me612@xanga - 1 bad habit vs. many habits that you can't stand? Maybe you can't decide anything together, or you just get irritated when they don't take care of themselves.
Believe me, it exists. Something as small as leaving clothes on the floor of your room can escalate into a huge fight. Now, multiply that by every flaw someone has. If you don't experience what it's like to live with someone before you're married, you could wind up figuring out that their habits (hint, more than one) are not something you can live with. Or it could be vice versa.
I'm not saying you have to live together before marriage, I just think it's the smart thing to do. And no, I'm not putting you down for waiting until marriage to live together.
(Because I know how easily people can take what others say and twist it around to make an arguement.)