Living together before marriage

[JohnnytheSkin]

Re: Living together before marriage

I lived with my wife of 9+ years for six months before we got married. Granted, she got kicked out of her house after she told her guardians that we were getting hitched, but that's a minor detail, as she was staying over a few nights a week anyway.

[Trevytrev11]

Re: Living together before marriage

He asked me my opinion, and I told him I thought it would be a mistake. I took the time and counted seven other friends that moved in with their serious girlfriends. Only one relationship still stands, and it is shaky.

So with that being said, wouldn't that have been six divorces that would have happened eventually? Or would somehow the fact that they were married "saved" their relationship.

I see only benefits that can come out of living together ahead of time and really can't think of any major draw backs.

Most importantly, you get to find out if you are compatible on a day to day basis. And this really covers so much. Going on dates and spending the occasional night at ones house doesn't let you see their true habbits. You'd only get to experience a part of that person before committing to them for life (or until divorce). However when you live with someone, you get to experience everything about them. How messy/clean they are, how they deal with their finances, how they spend their free time, how they deal with stress, how they diet, etc...all things that are important to find balance in when in a relationship.

FWIW, my wife and I "played house" for the better part of college (staying the night at one or anothers place probably 40-50% of the time). As soon as we graduated, we moved in together for about a year and a half before we were married...regardless to say, there were no suprises about what we were getting our selves into.

[slickdtc]

Re: Living together before marriage

I've been living with my now-fiance for the past almost 3 years. To me, living together was never a problem, even in our one room suite, as I call it (at my father's house).

I don't think it's totally necessary, but I think it is a good idea. Honestly, you don't truly KNOW a person until you live with them non-stop. When you're just going out, and seeing each other when you want to, it's all peaches. When you're constantly together, you see everything, good, bad, ugly, and beautiful.

[Beantown]

Re: Living together before marriage

It's a must for me whenever I get to that point. No may I'm getting married to someone I've never lived with.

[Phobia]

Re: Living together before marriage

I feel it is a must to find out what you are getting. Other wise trust me, you will NEVER truly know someone till you live with them day in and day out.

[MattUMD224]

Re: Living together before marriage

Me and my brother have a house together in downtown baltimore. his girl was never over, it was great. We added 24 feet to our house to triple to size and now she has a toothbrush at the house and always over. Now it's terrible.

She has said she wont "move" in until he asked her for marriage even thought shes over 5 times out of 7

[Aggies7]

I was actually going to post this a few weeks back. My feelings are simple it's best to live together and realize you can't do it before you get married instead of get married and then move in and realize you can't live under the same roof

[12]

Re: Living together before marriage

I'm doing it in two weeks with my girlfriend of 1.5 years.

Being an officer, I talk with plenty of people who have been divorced. I can't recall a single person telling me to wait until being married to live with somebody. We're not even thinking about marriage at this point. We both just want to enjoy life together. I feel fortunate to find a girl who isn't hell bent on "put a ring on my finger".

Her dad, for religious reasons, is not very happy with it. He really, really likes me, but he clearly wants us to be married prior to.

Apostle, your post is so biased. You have nothing to back up your "almost everybody who moves in together splits within two years".

Do you honestly think a ring on a finger would change that? Actually you probably do. I definitely don't.

I wouldn't have said that if I had nothing to back up that statement. Every couple I've personally known who has lived together ending up breaking up. Maybe they would have split anyway.

It was a statement made based on my experiences.

I'm not trying to be biased at all.

[12]

Re: Living together before marriage

Question for you, if you don't mind:

How old are you and your friends, and how serious were these relationships that didn't work out.

I've seen plenty of couples split after moving in together too, but they were also late teens/early twenties, short relationships that weren't that strong to begin with. Essentially, everyone knew they wouldn't last in the first place.

I'll be 30 in three weeks.

Admittedly, some of these relationships were from a long time ago, when we were in our early 20''s, so that had a lot to do with it.

A few of them have been more recent.

[12]

Re: Living together before marriage

You guys all make good points and yeah, living together beforehand probably did save a lot of divorces.

I don't mean to slam the practice of living together.

[Trevytrev11]

Re: Living together before marriage

You guys all make good points and yeah, living together beforehand probably did save a lot of divorces.

I don't mean to slam the practice of living together.

Out of curiousity, in your opinion, what is the benefit of waiting until marriage to live together?

[cardsfan2222]

Re: Living together before marriage

I have my reasons for thinking it's not a good idea to live together before marriage. For one, if you live with someone for awhile before marriage, what's the difference when you get married? I liked that it felt special to live with my wife after we got married, instead of it already being a normal thing.

We did spent enough time together to know each other habits though. I didn't feel like there were any surprises once we started living together. As to apostle's statement of knowing people who lived together who it didn't work out for, it's really hard to say whether it would have been different if they had been married first. I do think couples are more likely to try and work things out if they're married than if they're just living together.

[Scottdau]

Re: Living together before marriage

You can find the percentages of marriage that don't work out lived together first. Don't want to get into it why I think they don't always last. But do some searches on the numbers, they are pretty high.

Here is a good read on the subject.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/03/us/03marry.html

[Trevytrev11]

Re: Living together before marriage

You can find the percentages of marriage that don't work out lived together first. Don't want to get into it why I think they don't always last. But do some searches on the numbers, they are pretty high.

Here is a good read on the subject.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/03/us/03marry.html

I think a big part of it is that there are people who don't believe in divorce and I would assume based on many religious/spritual practices and beliefs that these are probably many of the same people who don't believe in living together before marriage.

Good and bad, right?

GOOD:Chances are you have people that have worked through the tough times and have learned to either accept their spouse for their flaws, or their spouses have adapted or they have reached some sort of compromise and they are happier for it or have just learned to accept the situation for what it is (whatever it is).

BAD: You also probably have a lot of people that are in horrible marriages, but won't divorce themselves out of it because of their beliefs...they're stuck.

It's either "wow, this sucks, good thing we are not married, so I can get out of this relationship" or "wow, this sucks, but we are married and we will do whatever it takes to make this work.".I have no proof on which person ends up the happiest in the long run, but my money is on the first situation.

[Phobia]

Re: Living together before marriage

I feel it is common sense.

1) If you live together BEFORE you get married you find out all the little quirks and negative things she does that irritate you. You find out if you are compatible in a "married" situation.

2) If you don't live together and you get married then move in together you have multiple areas of issues. First, the rush of being married will make everything seem perfect. Then once the newness of being married wears off and you find out she has some quirks that might make you think "what did I get myself into" further pushing for divorce. Next, you truly don't know someone until you live with them....no one can make me think you truly know your "girlfriend" until you have lived with her for a extensive period of time. I have been in enough long relationships and been through this situation to many times to know YOU TRULY DON'T KNOW.

3) What does living together BEFORE or AFTER have anything to do with success rate of the relationship just because you have a piece of paper either BEFORE or AFTER??? This is my ultimate question, because logically to me after several months/years with a person then it does not matter if you lived together before or after. Either you work or you don't. Getting married THEN moving in together will do nothing to decide if you will end up together forever over a couple who tests to see if they will work before getting married.

Now I will share a few situations of my own. Like I have said I have been in several long relationships. One for 4 years(Lived together 3), then another 3 (Lived together 3), then another for 6 (Lived together 5).

First one was right out of highschool. We dated through Senior year, graduated and moved out to different city together. Everything fine and dandy, then I found out bitches be crazy. I came home one day from a fishing trip and my entire house was empty, literally just walls, a few rolls of toilet paper, and a couple forks. Even my car was gone. Long story short she was cheating on me and left when I was away on a fishing trip. This was my first run in that you MUST live with someone and learn how they are.

Second one, we lived together almost to quick. But it started out how Matt was talking about with his brother. First she was over couple times a week, then she was over 5 out of 7 days. Then she just never left lol. Well everything was great for couple years. But I learned she was NEEDY, so the quick being ALWAYS over kinda of tipped me off but I thought it could be worked on. Nawww she was always wanting to know where I was going, who I was talking to, why she was not my shadow everything and everywhere I went. Bottom line we split because I learned no way in hell that could be my wife. You need trust for a relationship to work. You gotta do your own separate things to appreciate when you do see each other also.

Last girl and she is the one I will be marrying here next year (would of been sooner but its to long a story). Perfect girl, love the girl to death. When we met it was kinda like the above girl, we hung out all the time. But she was graduating college so she had her own **** going on to be all up my butt all the time. Plus she is independent and likes to do her "girl time" so we meshed well together.

Well I would go over to her place, place was spotless everything looked picture perfect for over a year. Then I asked her to move in and we got a place. 5 years later and we about to get married and everything is literally perfect. Both got good jobs, both know what we want in life, both have the same vision of our future. Ohhhh but she is messy, talkative, opinionated to a fault almost, and can be a straight up bitch at points. Granted these are "women" faults to a degree and they are small-ish on scale, But you know what I figured out everything about her BEFORE asking her to marry me. Because I wanted to make sure this one would work. Now we are both confident we can honestly be one of those rare couples to stay married for life.

Bottom line, this was a lot of rambling and it might not all make sense. But I have been there done that sorta thing. Learning a girl in & out (literally lol) is KEY for a relationship to last. In the end it won't be that piece of paper, it will be if you truly love each other and work well together as a unit.