living together before marriage: opinions?

[KSUViolet06]

Originally Posted by ThetaDancer

In a very extreme example of this topic...one of my best friends just announced two days ago that she is buying a house with her boyfriend, whom she just met in May. It's honestly hard for me to be happy for her because I can't stop thinking about the likely mess she's getting herself into.

I know this is an opinion thread, but I don't think unmarried couples should buy homes together. There is a one in a million chance that they will end up getting married and it will work, but odds are that it will not and things will get nasty.

I had a friend from HS who dated a guy for a yr and a half, and he covinced her to buy and fix up a house with him, with the rationale that they "were just going to end up getting married and moving anyway." So she did it, and both of their names were on the title, loan, etc. He had just graduated from college and gotten his first job, so he figured he was just going to stay in Akron.

Well a much better job pops up in Vegas. My friend had just started working her dream job here, so she figured he wasn't taking it. Wrong. They argued about it for weeks. Finally, he told her that he loved her but that starting his career was more important and she could either move to Vegas, or stay there by herself and pay the mortgage. She refused, and he pouted around for a couple of days. One weekend, she woke up and he was gone, and she was left to pay for this house (that she never really like but only got because it was with him).

She had no recourse whatsover. She couldn't sue him for alimony or anything to help pay for it. She ended up having to ask her parents to help her.