Living together before marriage

[SweetDreams]

Personally, I could never do it....mainly due to moral/cultural/spiritual/religious etc reasons

 

[Gaze]

My feeling on this has changed slightly. I do think couples should wait if they can to live together. For example, I'd wait until I knew the person well, and once we're sure that we are life partners (although of course, nothing is ever guaranteed). But if living together before marriage was not an option, at least staying with each other for a month or so to see how we handle living arrangements would be a possibility.

I've waivered on this issue. I still think that it's best to wait until marriage. However, I would live together with the person if we intend on spending our lives together before getting married. In this case, if marriage was the plan I would opt for a short engagement so that we can look forward to being a married couple living together. I can't see myself, even if I do make this choice, feeling comfortable living together over a long period of time with someone if we're not going to be married. I'd probably feel guilty and not very fulfilled. It would feel like a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship rather than a couple embarking on a lifelong romantic partnership. At worse, I'd feel like we're roommates who probably use any opportunity to leave the relationship too quickly and not work things out if there's no firm and willing lifelong commitment.

 

[FGordon]

From what I've heard, couples who live together treat each other differently before and after the wedding. If this is the case, I think it best to not live together until after-the-fact.

 

[NYLilac]

I personally don't think it's a good idea because there is more infidelity, child abuse, poverty, and violence among cohabitants than among married couples. Among live-in's who later marry, there is a greater risk of divorce than if had not practiced non-marital cohabitation. While most women consider it a step toward marriage, most cohabiting men consider it a convenient arrangement where they get all of the goodies (sex, cooking, housekeeping, companionship) with none of the obligations (fidelity, protecting, providing). The woman auditions frantically for the wife role, while her biological clock sounds louder and louder. She doesn't want to throw away a relationship she has invested years in, yet she isn't getting any younger. He is in no hurry- he can always find a much younger woman to have a family with. He is keeping his options open, stalling his marriage-hungry partner with a plethora of excuses. She walks on eggshells lest she drive him away. He holds the power in this unbalanced situation. She knows he can either ask her to leave or move out at any time. There is always one foot out the door, the attitude of, "I can walk away if my needs aren't being met." The longer a couple has been operating in this mindset, the harder it is for them to shift to the totally committed, stick-together-come -what-may mentality of marriage.
My husband and I had not planned to live together before our wedding- and ideally would not have. Our cohabitation period was brief- only six weeks while we wrapped up the wedding details (small daytime ceremony, officiated by a minister, outdoor venue). He had to leave his apartment because his neighbor was making his life hell (dumping water on her floor to flood through his ceiling, eavesdropping, thumping around when he was trying to sleep). He lived with his ex-wife for five years before their wedding 19 years ago (they divorced 7 years ago). She cheated on him shamelessly and squandered his money- facts verified by others. No cheating or money mismanagement here!
If an engaged couple cannot afford separate residences, they can each get a roommate of the same sex to share expenses.

 

[magister343]

Among live-in's who later marry, there is a greater risk of divorce than if had not practiced non-marital cohabitation.

Not exactly. The studies that showed this are flawed.

If you measure the risk of divorce by the average length of the legally binding marriage, then couples who cohabitated before marriage do indeed tend to divorce sooner.

The difference in the average duration of marriages of those who did or did not cohabitate first seems to precisely equal the duration of the stage of unmarried cohabitation.

If you instead measure the duration of the relationships from the point where couples moved in together and ignore their legal wedding date, then relationships where cohabitation preceded legal matrimony last just as long.



Infidelity, child abuse, and violence are statistically much more common among cohabitants in general than among married couples, but they are not statistically any more common among the subset of cohabitating couples who later marry.