living together before marriage: opinions?

[PrettyBoy]

I'm not for it at all. Wait until you get married.

[VandalSquirrel]

I live with the guy, but we have separate bedrooms. We are people who recognize that we need our own space, plus our sleep habits and closets are not compatible to sharing a bedroom. Of course we didn't need to live together to figure out that, but we were tired of crap roommates and we're making it work.

[ZTAngel]

I lived with my husband before we got married for about 2 years - 1 year of that we were engaged. He moved up to Atlanta for grad school and I followed a year later. It didn't make sense for me to move into my own place in a city where I hardly knew anyone. Plus, the whole reason I was moving up there was for him. I did lay out my expectations before I moved in with him after seeing my best friend move in with her boyfriend and not having her expectations met (marriage). In fact, they've been living together for almost 5 years now AND he somehow conned her into moving in with his parents and becoming the caretaker for his mother with MS but yet still no ring. I let my husband (boyfriend at the time) know that I wouldn't stick around if we felt after a year that it still wasn't time for marriage. We were engaged within a year and after another year of stressful wedding planning (mostly due to my mother...but that's a story in itself) we are officially married. Had we both stayed in Florida instead of moving to Atlanta, I don't think we would have lived together before we got married but our living situation was more out of convenience and necessity than a trial run. I'm glad that we did it though. I got to see all his quirks before we got married so that I could decide whether it was something I wanted to deal with for the rest of my life.
Studies show that our chance for a successful marriage is now greatly reduced. Time will tell what will happen to us but for now I'm very happy and I'm glad that I had made the decision to move in with him.

[Velocity_14]

Originally Posted by 1908Revelations

I'm too lazy to go back and find who said this but I would rather be engaged and wedding plans underway before I live with someone. Also, there must be discussion of what is expected and when.

^^^^that's what I'm saying....forshizzel!! Otherwise...Just Say No!

[nikki1920]

TRUE!!! lol....I've been with BF for almost 5 years and just wont be comfortable doing that in front of him.

[KSUViolet06]

Something else I've seen with living together that turns me off about it is people using it to "fix" their relationship. I don't know if it's just MY friends that are doing this, but I just had one friend say to me "Well yeah Bob and I have been having some real trust issues lately, so we're moving in together and setting our wedding date for 2011." WTF? Are your issues going to magically disappear if you move in together and set some horribly far away wedding date (even though you never even said you were engaged)?

[AlphaFrog]

Originally Posted by KSUViolet06

Something else I've seen with living together that turns me off about it is people using it to "fix" their relationship. I don't know if it's just MY friends that are doing this, but I just had one friend say to me "Well yeah Bob and I have been having some real trust issues lately, so we're moving in together and setting our wedding date or 2011." WTF? Are your issues going to magically disappear if you move in together and set some horribly far away wedding date (even though you never even said you were engaged)?

Trust issues are the WORST reason to move in together. If you don't trust eachother, BREAK UP - don't monitor eachother's activity. That doesn't build trust, it builds resentment and MORE distrust.

[DSTCHAOS]

Most cohabitated couples won't last.

Moving in together and planning a 2011 wedding is basically a guarantee that there will be no wedding. If the wedding can wait a few more years, so should living together.

[KSUViolet06]

Originally Posted by DSTCHAOS

Most cohabitated couples won't last.

Moving in together and planning a 2011 wedding is basically a guarantee that there will be no wedding.

Right! Seriously, he didn't even propose to her. She prodded and suggested, and he finally agreed to marry her. No ring (not even a ring pop!), no engagement party, no "I love you will you marry me?", nothing.

When she asked him to set a date, he said 2011! She was upset with the "wedding date" and said that since they aren't getting married anytime soon, that they need to move in together so "they can work on their trust issues" and he can "prove how serious he is about her."

It makes no sense at all to me. Really, I would expect this sort of arrangement out of an 18 year old clueless retard, but she's my age (23). I'm not a fan of living together, and I am double NOT a fan of wedding dates that are more than like 2 years away. She was like "well I want it to be really nice so I need all that time to plan." Really? I just don't think it takes 3-4 years to plan a wedding. I think he just doesn't want to marry you and is putting it off, and you're so desperate that you'll go along with anything.

But anyway, I guess people don't think to call my "1-800-OPINION" number beore doing things. LOL.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by AGDee

Some of the problem with pre-marital counseling and relying on discussing the issues is that sometimes one of the people involved may say one thing during these discussions but then do another. I'll give you one example.. money. My second husband appeared to be very responsible with his money. He had a lot of money invested for retirement when he was only 30. He had enough saved in the bank for a down payment on a house. He had a decent car, good suits and was pretty generous for birthdays, Christmas, etc. He agreed that if we both worked, we both made decisions about how the money was spent. So, what was the problem?? Well, he had been living at home his whole life and was working as an accountant for 5 years while living at home with NO living expenses the entire time. When we got married, had a mortgage and a baby within a year (diapers, formula, day care, new wardrobe for baby every few months as baby grew, etc), we had to live on a budget. Mr. Responsible with Money was a mess. He didn't know how to live on a budget.. he never had to before. He spent money like it was water, always using the ATM card and never putting the amounts in the checkbook. What a nightmare it became. Oh the fights about it! And, it was all my fault, because he didn't have money problems before.. so it must be my fault. I must be spending too much. To this day, he blames me for the debt he ended up incurring because I was buying groceries and clothes for the kids. Without sharing finances before, there was no way to foresee this.

Just an example...

I wonder if there would have been a way to foresee it living together but without the additional stress of mortgage and children? I don't know.

I see your point, but I think the example you give is not a problem with pre-marital counseling but, noting the part of your quite I bolded, with him. He wasn't honest with you or with whoever was doing the counseling (or perhaps with himself). Whether it's pre-marital counseling, living together or marriage, you only get out of it what you and he put into it.

I know that with our pre-marital counseling (required by the church before we could be married), we had to do quite a few personality inventories and the like. We were just discussing last week, after 19 years of marriage, how the "danger areas" identified in our pre-marital counseling really are the areas that have been most challenging for us over the years.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

I wonder if there would have been a way to foresee it living together but without the additional stress of mortgage and children? I don't know.

I was going to say if Dee & her hubby had lived together, they would have probably had the same problems unless they kept their finances entirely separate.

Pretty much, look at how your SO's parents handle money...and you'll get a good preview of how he/she will do so. That's one lesson I fortunately learned very early.

Jocelyn, there's no way in hell your friend's going to get married, and if she does, no way it'll last 6 months. "Prodding" does not lead to successful marriages.

[Kevin]

My law practice will probably be majority family law. That said, I am thrilled about the trend where people move in together prior to marriage, have babies, and quickly get divorced. I am even more thrilled that most of these people don't learn that this is not smart the first time they do it.

That said, my wife, who at the time, I had been with for 5 years, moved in with me a year prior to our wedding. For us, it worked. For anyone else? The statistics seem to point out that your chances of a successful relationship at that point are decreased.

-- but what is your goal? A long term relationship? Or a roommate who shares your bed?

[DSTCHAOS]

Kevin is waiting to cash everyone's checks.

But on a more socially significant note, this says a lot about family breakdown and the impact on children (if there are any).

[whittleschmegg]

I feel alot of times the best way to approach the situation is life cicumstance. If you both graduate college and get jobs in the same town but can't move in with family it might be a good idea to move in together. Or your planning to get married and want to save money for the wedding. This way you are living with eachother for personal growth not to make or break the relationship and not because you feel it is a necessary step.

However, I agree that moving in together because you want your relationship to go to the next step is not the answer. After you move in together whats next? Marriage, why not wait the few months, this puts unneeded pressure on the relationship to get married. MysticCat made the point that statistics show that people who move in together are more likely to get diviorced. I think the reason this is so true is that after moving in with someone; people feel the pressure to get engaged and get married even though it might not be the right time or right thing for them to do.

[AOII Angel]

I think this whole deal about "statistics" proving people who live together before getting married makes them more likely to divorce is right up there with people believing that more people have pre-marital sex now than they did 50 years ago. A recent, very well conducted survey of people aged 12-90-ish proved that more than 80% of people had pre-marital sex. We want to think that being virgins until marriage is the way things are supposed to be, but it's a fantasy. Now no one jump down my throat, I know there are people who do this, but they are a minority.
My husband and I practically moved in with each other the second we started dating. We'd known each other for about six months by that point. We did everything that people say not to do. He was on my checking account by six months into the relationship. We shared everything, so it was easier. Our only real problem with the arrangement came when I made the mistake of telling my parents about six months prior to our wedding. I had phone calls three times a day from my parents all worried about my "relationship with God!" Anyway, for us, living together before marriage was fine. We'd made the commitment to each other long ago. My husband made the choice to do his residency where we went to med school since I was already in a residency there. He could have gone to any top Med/Peds program in the country. Our wedding was simple but memorable. No, marriage was not some big thing that changed our lives. Our relationship did that, and I'm glad the marriage certificate is just a document to officialize the bond that we sealed two years earlier. The key to keep it going after that is to keep talking, forgiving and learning (and not having kids! That tends to put a huge strain on most marriages, IMHO. Of course, procreation is necessary for the human race so if you do it, work extra hard at the talking, forgiving and learning stuff!)