Re: everybody's different.
 

WOW! are you saying that you believe a person can wear a mask for years and then all of the sudden unleash the "true them" once they get (or give) a ring??? you don't think you would know that she couldn't cook before you all got married? you don't think you would know that she kept a messy house before you all got married??? :confused:

what are you doing throughout the relationship if you AREN'T getting to know her? :eek: NONE of those things should be a surprise by time you bend down on one knee and ask that person to spend the rest of their life with you! forgive my ignorance, but i just assumed that was the normal progression of a RELATIONSHIP!!! i am relatively sure many of these things would come to light before you made a lifetime committment to them, but hey i could be wrong! :rolleyes:

Co Habitation is a good thing. I know that a lot of people feel that it is old fashion and everything but think of it this way: you know how sometimes we go shopping and something in the store looks hot you gotta have it so you buy it. But, when you get home and try it on again you dont like it anymore, i mean it is awful and not what you thought it looked like the first time, then you gotta get rid of it so you either give it away cause you cant find the sales slip or you got your sales slip and you give it bad. Now change that scenerio to fit a relationship. Why get married before you live together, see how living together is first. Now I am not saying to do this for a ridiculous amount of time. I you have been dating for a while try living together for maybe 6 months at the least no more than a year. If things run smoothly then that is when you can take that final step meaning marriage. I know personally my boyfriend just got an apartment in North Carolina and I will be living there this summer until time to come back to school but since I have choosen to delay graduation a semester so that I can double major, I will be taking care of the apartment and bills for him while he is away over seas. If this works out then we will get married next year and we have been together since high school. I hope what I wrote can help you or atleast give you some insite to your situation. The worse that could happen is that yall break up and I would rather break up before marriage then spend all that extra money on getting a lawyer to file for your divorce.:(

I would never live with anyone before having at least a ring AND a date (which I currently do have but still have not moved in yet). It's so funny to me when people say, "you need to get to know that person." What the hell have you been doing throughout the relationship? If you date long enough, spend enough time together, experience various situations together (good and bad), you will learn majority of what you need to know. Anything else you learn should be petty enough that you will be able to deal with it. If you get married and shortly thereafter, realize that you can't deal with things about that person, then you never knew that person to begin with and probably had no business talking marriage.

I believe living together ruins the chances of even getting married. Both people are living together knowing in the back of their minds that they can leave the other one at any time because there is no real commitment. They are not living together with the mindset that two married, committed people would. Married people would be more likely to work through whatever situations they encounter and be more accepting of one another because they know it is to be forever. Two people "shacking up" would be more likely to leave the situation quicker when confronted with situations because there's nothing really keeping them there and in their minds they think and know "he/she's just a girl/boyfriend. Not my wife/husband. There's more fish in the sea". And you know good and well, that someone shacking up would be quick to say, "You're not my wife/husband". And then it's like what's the point of ACTING like it if you're not?

Surprisingly there is a correlation or relationship between divorce and co habitation. Of course correlations are not actual predictors telling a person an exact cause, but however they tend to show how strong a relationship is to one another. The divorce rate is already high so I personally think that for someone who is modernized, co habitation is a good thing especially for some one who is very picky or is having doubts about the person they are marrying or marriage just in the general since. I believe their is a very impressionable difference between being with someone four to five times a week and actually living with someone. You could find out how annoying their snorring is, their grooming habits etc. Okay I know that you can see that while you are there the four to five times a week that you are but the difference is this. You mate may be putting up a front when you stay over just to make you think that they are really clean, responsible with the bills, etc. But after a while the barriers break down and their true self comes out and you might then say to yourself that this is not the person u thought that they were...... Same goes for your self, you may turn out to be very controlling or you may snore and he might have thought that it was okay listening to you four days straight in a row but say yall were living together on that fifth day he might decide that he cant take it anymore. But as someone previously stated, dont do things that myself or others are telling you to do follow your heart and put your self in a situtation that is most comfortable to you, because i cant live your life only you can. I am just telling you what would work best for me and what has worked best from other people that I have talked to!!! Hope this is helpful to everyone.......:D

I would have to say NO to "shacking up." I see absolutely no reason for it.

Of all of the people that I know with successfull, long-term marriages, none of them lived to together before they were married. My parents have been married for 33 years and they're still going strong.

Now, of all of the people that I know who did live together as a precursor to marriage, none of them are married right now. Most of them lived together for a few months or maybe even a year or two, and then they broke up and went their separate ways. None of them got close to marriage. None of them even got close to being engaged.

You make a few key points. However, I am inclined to disagree. All of the issues you raised can and SHOULD be discussed prior to marriage. In a relationship/marriage, both parties will either learn to compromise on certain isssues or simply decide that certain issues are not of such importance that they will stop the 2 in question from being married. There will be issues that may not be open for compromise. For example, if it is your dream to have 3 children and live in mansion in Encino, and your mate hates children and dreams of living in a condo on the upper west side New York City, well you just might have a problem.

I am certainly no relationship expert, but I genuinely believe many of the problems folks have in relationships stem from a lack of honesty about yourself, your mate or the very nature of said relationship. People will reveal themselves if you are patient and observant. How and if we accept those truths is truly another story.

I know a couple who ended up living together for seven years and never got married. Every year they kept planning a wedding. He is married to someone else now.

From the comments I have read on here about needing to shack up, I have to wonder if a lot of people have been in a serious, EXCLUSIVE relationship before. If you honestly feel like you could marry someone, then you need to start discussing issues to you that you feel are most important. Honestly, if you were in a SERIOUS relationship to begin with, you would have already discussed important issues prior to the discussion of marriage. I would think that you would not even stay in an exclusive relationship if you felt that both of you weren't headed in the same direction.

And as far as whether you could live with someone's habits, etc. Again, if you are in a SERIOUS, EXCLUSIVE relationship and if you date long enough, you will know most of what you need to know regarding living with one another. And anything else you may learn after you're married should not be enough to make you get a divorce. If it is, then again, you didn't really know that person to begin with and probably weren't in a SERIOUS relationship.

I keep saying SERIOUS because I know so many people that think love and having some of the same interests constitute a relationship. But in my opinion, you both need to encounter many different situations together. That definitely teaches you a lot about that person's character, beliefs, values, morals, opinions, integrity, etc.

Also, why would you shack up, combine income, expenses, etc. with someone when you don't even know where the relationship is headed? Why would your risk your financial livelihood with someone you don't know if you could marry yet? And if you're going to shack up and not do those things, then why not just live at separate places and spend time at each other's houses?

I know someone who is shacking up, they have had a baby and no serious discussion of marriage (even though she wants it). I know another couple that lived together two different times, got engaged and are now no longer together.

The more you PLAY married the less imporant I think it becomes to actually GET married.

I think people shacking up lose the respect that marriage is due when they look at one another as just a "trial period".

I think someone else may have already said this but if someone was able to hide these things, then the other person was choosing to see what they wanted or was living in a fantasy land.

I know you were just making an example, but is snoring enough to get a divorce over? Is it enough to disregard all of the more important things which that person brings to your life or your relationship?

Regarding paying bills or financial background, most people don't know the truth because they really don't care to and shacking up only MAKES them pay attention because they live together. If you're really discussing marriage, then it's time to start whipping out bank statements, investment statements, credit reports, bills, etc. And if you don't feel comfortable doing this with the person you're in a SERIOUS relationship with, then you probably shouldn't be talking about marriage.

Regarding petty things, there are certain ways I like to do things in my house that my fiance does differently at his and vice versa. And I can tell you that a part of growing up means you learn that if you are going to MARRY and live with someone, you have to learn that your way isn't necessarily the best or only way. And if you can't accept that, then maybe you need to be on your own for a lot longer. Here's a very, very small example (I'm not lettin' ya'll all up in my business :D ;) ): my fiance squeezes the toothpaste in the middle, do I tell him to get out or nag him? No, I just squeeze it from the bottom when it's time for me to use it. And how much time and effort did it take? Not enough to not get married over it. And I know he does the same things if it's something he's used to doing that I don't do.

And regarding your example about if you don't know how you will be shacking up with someone, then not only does said person probably not know the person they are shacking up with but need to take a lot of time alone to learn more about themselves as well.

It is impossible to find someone that you will like everything about and if you are searching for it, it's going to be a long journey. However, as long as the most important issues have been agreed upon, i.e. religion, children, finances, values, beliefs, morals, each other's expecatation of marriage, and whatever else is most important to you, then everything else should become minimal and/or nonexistent.

Thanks for all the feed back on what I posted. To some people the littlest things are enough for them to divorce or break up a relationship. Face it some people can use snorring as an excuse to end a marriage/relationship because it is the only alternative reason they can think of because they dont want to tell their companion the real reason. When that occurs then obviously they also have a lack of communication in their relationship. On the other hand I am still a firm believer in the cohabitation. I think that it is a great help to people who want to feel the married life and see what it could be like before and if they decide to make that step. Divorce is not cheap. Living with someone isnt either but atleast you wont keep getting married and then divorced so then when you finally do find someone you dont have to tell them" oh yeah I've been married 8 times"! I dont know that is just me. I like to see how responsible a potential mate would be with bills, just cause you date for a while doesnt mean that you know everything about your mate. Lets be realistic,People can hide things no matter how honest and trusting and open you think that your relationship is. I would hate to get married and then find out that my mate doesnt pay bills on time and then when the lights arent on you will understand why or better yet when you are getting evicted. Just because you live together DOES NOT MEAN THAT YOU HAVE TO HAVE SEX!!!! People who live together and have sex do it because they CHOOSE too. I have been with my boyfriend since the ninth grade. I basically stay at his house when he comes home from the military. We have never had sex and I am staying with him starting the end of the month. Some relationships are not based on sex I think that is where the whole "shacking up" stigma comes in. I dont know maybe I am wrong this is just my opinion i am not an expert well atleast not yet!!!!! :D :eek:

Well what's most important is that people do what is best for their lives. But no, my issue with shacking up is not sex. It's all the things that I posted before.

Why take away the respect of being married by PLAYING married?

Believe me, you should and would know the most important things prior to marriage without living together. Again, believe me, you will know if someone is paying their bills on time if you are in a SERIOUS relationship long enough. If the bills and financial situation is so important (which it should be) then why can't people do what I stated earlier? That is whip out the bills, statements, credit reports, etc. My fiance and I have been seen each others financial statements. Plus I know how he lives his life, I know his family upbringing and I know what is most important to him when it comes to finances. Same goes for him to me. And I not only KNOW how he lives, I SEE how he lives. And no, he's not fronting nor am I because one can only do so much fronting before the truth starts to come to light in time anyway.

And I am marrying my high school/college/adulthood sweetheart. We are both 25 years old. Some may say it's about time. But you know what we were doing and you know what are parents knew we were doing? We wanted to build ourselves individually, grow, learn, become self sufficient and experience the good and bad parts of life as individuals (even though we were together) before getting married. It puts things in a better perspective and allows you to gain more knowledge about life. That's what you do before you get married and then you will be more prepared for marriage.

Please don't think I am tryiing to persuade you or anyone else. I respect your opinion. I am just a person that likes a good debate. Again, through all this and my opinions, I still believe that people shoud do what is best for them. And if one believes the only way their potential marriage can work is by living with someone prior to marriage, then they should do what they feel they need to do.

Everyone of this thread has made valid points from pro and cons sides of this discussion.

It was even made mention that couples that live together before marriage suffer a higher divorce rate.

It is also good to see that there is still some old fashion men out there. Everyone that has posted on this thread has very good insight of this topic.

I am indiffer on this topic. Once a upon time ago, I would say I would never move in with a man without a ring because I am not playing house with anyone. But as time move on, my views changed are I witness some positive aspects on living arrangements that ended up in successful marriages. I have also witness living arrangements that were just plain ol' nightmares.

Personally, it is how strong your relationship with your mate. Marriages end up in divorce before the marriage begins.

One reason I believe that marriages are successful because people are willing to work at them.

Once again I thank everyone for the feedback.:D

Exactly!!

Funny thing is, through all these different points, your statement is the only one that rings true and matters most.

Hey; whateva works for you...
 

I said my piece! The thing with relationships today is tenacity. Everybody gives up so easily. Relationships aren't easy; and you shouldn't even consider "committing" if you have a habit of quitting. If you're used to getting your way, or if you have a hard time compromising(same thang), then you simply aren't ready for a committment.

Today's music and videos have a great impact on the way some people enter into and manage relationships. Some people will admit this; most wont. Today's music is counter-productive to relationships cause the majority of it emphasizes how I don't need you, or it's 'bout bling.

Some people don't know that about themselves yet; and living with that special someone may reveal this.

I guess some people will have to learn the hard way cause that's THE ONLY WAY they've ever learned.

I am gonna rephrase the question I asked before. Ladies, please think and give an honest reply.
How many you ladies would suggest to moving in with your boyfriend/fiance after he had proposed immediate marriage? What I mean is, if your man asked to marry you immediately, would you suggest postponing the wedding for a year or so to start living together first?