Before you get married...
 

Since we tend to discuss marriage, engagements, and long-term relationships a lot...

What do you all think is one thing someone should do before he or she gets married?

I had more but you said ONE thing so I deleted the others. This is my number one

1. Live alone (while supporting yourself) The apartment/house that mommy and daddy bought/paid for doesn't count!

Have sex with someone other than your future spouse.

i couldnt do that before i get married:o i personally dont think it is wise. just my 2 cents

So true. You have to be good by yourself before you can be good with someone else.

DEFINATELY!


my only other thing is to live together before you get married - it gives you a little glimpse of what being married is like.

Absolutely the # 1 thing

i seriously want to do that. but like i said some time before, my mom will want to practically cut me out of her life.:(
my dad wouldnt want to speak to me.

Instead of just saying, "me, too" I'll suggest that the couple takes the pre-marital inventory tests that many churches offer - even if you don't plan to make church part of your life. This is not the pre-Canna weekend, but right now I can't remember the names of them.

In the one set of tests, you answer questions honestly about how you feel about certain issues. Then you answer how you think your future spouse will answer. This is a HUGE eye-opener!!

Let me tell you... living together is NOTHING like being married...it's not even a tiny little glimpse of what married life is like!

I would NOT recommend living together before you're married--not that I have a moral problem with it--I can just say from experience that it really doesn't have any upsides...only downsides. Plus, more people who live together before marriage tend to divorce than people who wait to live together until after they tie the knot.

Just my .02.

1) Live alone for sure. People need to spend time learning who THEY are before they can become ONE with another person.

2) Get tested. Seriously...it's better to know before than after. And perhaps you may have not known you had something and never saw the signs. But at least you'll both be on the same page.

3) I don't think it's completely necessary to "sleep with each other" but I does help ;)

4) Go to pre-marriage counseling

5) Meet each others WHOLE family!!! VERY MUCH A MUST!

I echo that! Living together UNMARRIED just causes problems. I learned that out first hand.

The thing is, people don't have as much of a committment because hell, you're already living together. Not only that but some couples who really don't know each other and THINK they're in love (and live together) are just (as my mother says) "PLAYING HOUSE". It's sooooooo not a good idea.

I think living together before marriage can work, but it also puts a stress on the relationship.

Hootie, you and I are *totally* on the same page--these are all MUSTS!

I think it would better to have that stress before marriage though. Because what if something surfaces after you're married. Its not going to be less of a problem just because you're married.

In general, I think it all depends on the person what they "should" do before getting married. Some people need to spend their early 20s partying like a rock star before settling down, others don't.

I do think its a good idea to finish school and work for some time before getting married (ha ha, I should talk). It's going to be tough living on one income for that last year I'm in school and taking the bar. We just didn't want to wait another year to be married.

One thing that couples should do before marrying is discuss your financial situation and expectations of each other. Find out if your SO is a spender or a saver, or something in between. Know how much debt they have. Let them know how much you have. Money is a scary, tense subject. Know BEFORE the wedding, not after.

FI and I went to pre-cana last Sunday. It was a good program for people who are thinking of getting married. We were bored because we've been dating for 6 years and have discussed all the relevant things way before discussing marriage. But the questions the workbook had in it were really good. I think that it would be a really good idea for ALL couples to do something like that - it dealt with conflict styles, money matters, family and upbringing and how it affects you...the program was only about .01% catholic content. It was mostly just good sense abour relationships

well if you relationship fell apart when you lived together aren't you glad you didn't get married and then divorced?

After Mr. MereMere and I got married, NOTHING changed from when we lived together. I had already gotten used to his little quirks, as he got used to mine.

Musts before a wedding
 

1) Discuss future plans including
A) finances: know what each of you OWES, discuss budgets,
and spending/saving habits. You cannot effectively plan or
*have* anything plan if your finances are out of control.
B) children: if, how many, and when along with child rearing
philosophy. If one of you stringently wants 3 kids *right
now* and the other none, this can lead to major conflict.
Also, if one believes firmly in spanking and the other does
not (just an example), conflict can arise.
C) educational and occupational plans: when, where, and how
to finance. What a shock to realize that the other plans on
moving you away from your family.

2) Family: do not just "meet" the family. Get to know the other's family. When you marry someone, you also marry their family. Know important family traditions and if that persons wants to be near his/her family. Sometimes knowing the family secrets and rifts helps to make the transition easier.

3) Discuss and decide on religious views. When two people come from very different religious backgrounds, it is easy enough to say, "I will go my way and you go yours." For some this works, but after 5 years or so of marriage and no agreeing, it can get lonely attending services alone. This also has implications for the children.

4) Discuss and plan a way to manage fights and disagreements. Lay down ground rules.

Just my 2 cents. :)
Silver

Edited for my horrible grammar....

Establish yourself in a career. If you do that you will know that, if need be, you will be able to function independantly and support yourself.

But that's the whole point--things will *always* surface after you're married, and the strategies you apply for dealing with those things within your committed marriage determine your success or failure as a couple.

When just living together, you don't have that same committment that you do when you're married...so your coping strategies are *utterly* different.

Then, if/when they finally get married, the couple rarely realizes that they need a *whole* new set of strategies....since the committment of marriage changes the entire dynamic.

I know this probably sounds insane...it's kind of one of those things that is nearly impossible to understand until you've been through it (and watched all of your friends go through it).

Marriage (she says, as her 2 year anniversary approaches next week) is a wonderful, amazing, special, precious thing--but it is HARD, and it takes an incredible amount of work and dedication, and a whole new mindset that can be well...very Weird at first.

My husband and I dated for 4 years before we got engaged, then were engaged for a year, and we were shocked at how difficult the transition was (and we have 2 sets of great role models in our parents--mine have been married 33 years, and his have been married 29 years next month).

I just hate to see people setting themselves up for a harder road than the early part of marriage can already be...and I think living together makes that road a good deal harder (and the statistics back me up).

Now the 2nd year of marriage....THAT'S been fun!

Wow, these are all great. Especially the ones encouraging living on one's own, making a living, and just growing up. I've often wondered what drives people to get married right out of college. I felt like such a big baby when I graduated that I would have gone from being a pampered daughter to being a pampered wife. (I would have been like Jessica Simpson!)

I think we've discussed the living together thing on other threads...for some people, it's great. For others, not so much. Living in NYC, I've noticed an epidemic of people who really aren't ready to live together, but insane apartment costs and odd leases usually drive people, who in less expensive cities would wait to live together, to move in with each other early. I guess it all depends on how honest each person is and what they're expecting the relationship to bring. The Alternatives to Marriage Project (www.unmarried.org), a nonprofit group that helps couples who for some reason are not marrying, has a list of things to do if you're planning on marrying your cohabitating partner. Everyone recognizes that you have to go into those situations differently.

Keep 'em coming! :D

on a related but lame note:

nomarriage.com

scary and misguided, but I suppose people will do anything to sell a book :rolleyes:

I second Silver's advice...

Definitely discuss where you're going to be 5, 10, 20, ... years from now. Marriage is a lifetime commitment (or at least, it ought to be). That means financially, professionally (for both of you), and in terms of having children (when, how many, public vs. private school, etc).

Discuss religion, even if you're of the same faith. One of you might want your kids to have a strict Jewish/Catholic/Muslim/whatever upbringing while the other could care less. Naturally, the religion discussion becomes even more important if you're of different faiths.

I'm an advocate of spending some time living on your own and supporting yourself. I'm also an advocate of living together before marriage, if that's something both members of the couple are comfortable with. I personally would (and did) wait for engagement, but that's JMO.

Something else to consider
 

Talk about ways to renew your relationship and continue this discussion FOREVER! Vow renewals are important..whether said over dinner or in front of a crowd.

Always remember that marriage is like any job; it requires work. Some days you want to quit; other days you are king of the hill. To paraphrase _Just Married_
"You must take the good times along with the bad times. The good times are the only ones that appear in photo albums, but the bad times are what sees you between those pictures."

Again, my 2 cents...
Silver

When my ex-husband first proposed I told him that it was too soon because we hadn't discussed religion, future goals, etc. We talked at length and agreed that 1) He would attend the Catholic church, possibly convert and had no problem with raising our kids Catholic and 2) We would move to North Carolina before our oldest child reached the age of 5. While we dated we got along great, communicated, were able to compromise, etc. We went through the whole Catholic marriage prep process with ease, agreeing on everything! Everybody thought we were a perfect fit.

Once we were married, he started watching Televangelists and sending them thousands of dollars a year. He never wanted to go out anymore, he stopped communicating altogether and I found out the most by listening to his conversations with his dad on the phone. He even told me one time, when I said we should do something because it sounded fun that "I had fun before I got married, now I want to watch TV". When we went to buy our first house, it turned out that he couldn't live farther than 5 miles from his dad. I inquired about our North Carolina plan and was informed that he had decided he could never move that far away (it was his idea in the first place!). He ended up joining the Baptist church and now my kids are Baptist also.

My point? Just because you discuss all those things, sometimes they are just saying and doing what they think you want so that you'll marry them. Also, sometimes the "committment" of marriage makes them think that they no longer have to work at the relationship at all. I might not have learned all that about him if we'd lived together before we got married, but I WOULD have learned what a total and complete slob he was! LOL .. That would've killed the deal way back then!

Dee

CONGRATULATIONS on making your marriage work! It is harder than most people realize (both the marriage and living together than before marriage). I hope to someday find a guy worthy enough to tame me and wonderful enough to earn my committment, trust, respect, and love :)

I've always heard that sometimes you may have to work at your marriage, but it shouldn't BE work.

I think the phrase "working at a marriage" is misleading. Yes you have to work to make a relationship work (not be "me me me"), but at the same time it shouldn't feel like you are working - you should want to compramise, want to let him has his way sometimes, give a little and get a little :) I know we both had to work to keep this marriage going but it never once felt like work.

Marriage as work
 

I actually (respectfully) disagree. I know that it sounds romantique to say that marriage may be work but should not feel like it.....but, there are days that both of you will want to "win" and be very adamant about it. Not everything in life is a compromise or able to be compromised.

All of the married couples that I know (including Mr.Silver and me) who have been married over ten years have had bad days, months, or even years in our marriages. The longer that I am married, the more that I can see how much strength and effort it takes to stay *happliy* married in today's society.

Just my humble 2 cents,
Silver

don't get me wrong Silver - there have been *many* days where I wanted to ring his neck, and there have been just as many where I know he wanted to ring mine!

I didn't really mean for it to sound romantic, I meant it as - it doesn't feel like you are slaving away for another purpose, or spending time and energy for nothing. The more you "work" at a marriage, the stronger, happier and healthier it will be.

Of all of the above, the one I absolutley agree with is living on your own.

As for the rest -- all of the discussion, classes, experiences and all the others -- some will work for some couples and some won't.

How much have you changed in he past five to ten years? Do you think you'll stop changing now? When you get married? Don't you think those natural changes will sometimes be in opposition to all of those wonderful understandings and decisions you made prior to getting married?

To me, what makes marriages work or not work is a commitment to staying married. Nothing else. Not living together beforhand, not classes, no long talks into the night, not psychologists, not wealth, not romance -- nothing.

I've been married for almost thirty-five years, and at some points it has been really hard for innumerable reasons.

Fortunately, there have been good reasons to stay together as well.

While all of the ideas listed are good, not a single one of them will hold a marriage together without a solid commitment to the institution.

So, my suggestion of what to do before marriage is to mentally check your personal commitment to "Till death do we part."

Edited to add:

I'm not making a case for ABSOLUTE commitment. I don't think anyone should ever stay in an abusive marriage. But, at the moment although some could exist, I can't think of many more things that would shake that commitment.

Well put, DeltAlumn. I couldn't have said it better myself!!

I don't know, DeltAlum - I still think there's a need for discussion of how you think and hope your future together will shape up. Yes, you will change as the years progress, and you have no way of knowing now what sort of person you'll be in 5 or 10 years, or what sort of person your spouse will be. But if you can't even agree right now on, say, whether or not you want children, then maybe getting married isn't such a hot idea.

I agree, though, that you should both be committed to "'til death do us part" and work through minor problems rather than throwing up your hands and getting a divorce when the going gets rough. Major problems, such as abuse, are of course another matter.

Oh, I agree. I didnt' want my comments to be longer than they alredy were.

Of course some or all of the other things listed can be helpful -- but without the commitment I talked about they aren't enough.

Obviously, you can't go into a marriage with no preparation or understanding each other or things in common. It's just that those things alone often aren't enough.

At least I don't think they are.

I am not married yet but this is my plan:

1. Get a real job that has career potential and work at that job/career for at least 2 years prior to the engagement.

2. Get a house of my own (not just an apartment) and live there for at least a year prior to the engagement.

3. Be financially sound, which includes sound savings and checking accounts, a sound credit line on my major credit card, etc., before an engagement

4. When engaged and during the first few months of marriage, I plan on going to marital counseling with a church and through a marriage counselor.

5. Have my own insurance plans (i.e. health, car, and homeowner's).

6. I won't put his name on my car, checking and savings accounts, house, or credit card. We will each sell our own homes and go in together equally on a house. My parents bought me a brand new car for college graduation and I earned that car, not him.

7. Set up a joint checking account for bills and a joint savings account for our possible future children's bills and college tuition. We will each have our own seperate checking and savings accounts and credit cards in case something like divorce happens.

8. Get tested for any STDs on both sides, even if I do know my own status. It's only fair if I want him to do it.

9. Meet the family even if you've seen the movie Meet the Parents and Father of the Bride!

OK think that's it. hehehe.

Sounds like you'll have a financially successful marriage. Which isn't a bad thing if you can really achieve it.

We, for instance, decided not to have children until we could afford to live comfortably on one salary since Mrs. DeltAlum wanted to stay at home with the kids.

After seven years, it occurred to us that it might never happen, so we had our first which effectively halved our total income. It wasn't easy, but it worked out and we are happy, in retrospect, that the kids had mom around. (Please don't turn this into a debate on staying home vs. career, it is used here only as an example -- not a lifestyle suggestion)

Another way of saying what I've said in my past couple of posts is that marriage is not done in a clinical setting. Like in much of life and business, all of the things you learn and read about and take to heart go straight out the window in the light of day to day living.

Without the commitment to each other and the marriage, those can turn out to be really hollow sounding things a few years down the line.

I think people are incorrectly inferring causation from correlation here.

I think the reason for this statistic is that people who live together before marriage tend to have more liberal views towards marriage, thus they are more likely to leave a marriage that isn't working out. People with more conservative views towards marriage are less likely to live together before marriage and more likely to stay in an unhappy marriage, trying to make it work.

I don't think that the idea that living together before marriage causes divorce is true at all.

There's all sorts of wonderful research (yes, we all know research can be biased, but this group found information from all sides of the issue) on www.unmarried.org. It's great how they blew that myth out of the water. :)

Agreed... the hard part is, BOTH of you have to share that committment. When only one is making the marriage a priority, then it gets pretty hopeless!

I have been thinking about this topic a lot and I don't think there is any one thing you can do before marriage to make sure that it is successful. There are a lot of things you should do to make sure that you are ready to make the committment. There is a lot of soul searching you should do to decide whether this is someone you CAN spend the rest of your life with... on an intellectual level, aside from the giddy "in love" feelings. But, who can explain why some couples who get married after knowing each other for 3 weeks have a marriage that lasts forever and others who have known each other 2 or 3 years don't. It does boil down to how committed each party is, but you can't know how committed your partner will stay over time. You can only control what you do.

By the way, divorce isn't the only reason that a woman should make sure that she can make it on her own. Injuries, illnesses or even death can happen to anybody. Everybody should feel comfortable living on their own, managing their money and have knowledge of what it takes.

Dee

Another thing - before you get married you and your spouse should make living wills, like legitimate signed by a pastor and witness living wills. Both of y'all need to know exactly what the other wants in case *God forbid* the unthinkable happened. If something happens to your spouse, the breadwinner, you need to be able to support yourself and/or children you have.

Yes I agree here, and to reiterate what someone else said abotu credit.......it's very important for both sides to have good credit going in. Because for example if the Guy has bad credit and gets married, then that bad credit will then become her bad credit (if everything is jointly done) regardless of her credit status before hand.