Living together before marriage

[jct32]

Re: Living together before marriage

I would never marry a woman without living with her for at least a year or so first. The steps towards marriage are as follows:

Dating/Hookup to dating > Relationship > Meet the family > Key to their apartment or house > Move in together > Get a pet together > Get engaged > Get married > Have children.

These are not hard rules, but ideally, for me.

I disagree with the idea of living together before marriage, but I digress, my main disagreement here is with the "steps of marriage." Not every relationship is the same, so to say that there is a so-called steps of marriage would be incorrect, now if you are saying that those are the steps for you individually, then I apologize and disregard my post.

[12]

Re: Living together before marriage

I disagree with the idea of living together before marriage, but I digress, my main disagreement here is with the "steps of marriage." Not every relationship is the same, so to say that there is a so-called steps of marriage would be incorrect, now if you are saying that those are the steps for you individually, then I apologize and disregard my post.

I think he said that they were ideal for him, judging by his last sentence.

[NDAlum]

Re: Living together before marriage

Okay... So what's the purpose of getting married if you have already slept together and lived together?

Just curious as to what the upside is. I'm not being facetious. I am sincerely curious. My wife and I abstained from sex and living together until we were married.

As a person who is not religious...not to violate TOS...but honestly marriage is great to just make that commitment to somebody and become a part of each other's family.

Other than that...I don't know too much of a benefit. I know that if it goes south marriage brings all type of contractual issues into play and ruins everything!

[Phobia]

Re: Living together before marriage

Okay... So what's the purpose of getting married if you have already slept together and lived together?

Just curious as to what the upside is. I'm not being facetious. I am sincerely curious. My wife and I abstained from sex and living together until we were married.

Well there is many reasons I see.

1) The girl won't stay around for ever if she wants to be married. Just because she feels as if sleeping together or living together before marriage is ok does not mean she would not want to get married. So if you want to spend your life with this women well you better put a ring on her finger.

2) Like in #1, you WANT to spend your life with this women. You would not want someone you believe to be your perfect partner to "slip away".

3) Tax benefits helps both him and her. So once you find someone that you would like to be with forever then it plays in both your favor to be married.

4) Plenty of other smaller benefits such as credit unions, family rates on insurances, and other money related benefits.

5) Sex is hardly the benefit of marriage. I mean hell most guys can hit the bar couple times a week and find someone to have sex with. Now it is a benefit to have it just about anytime you want it AND have it with the one you love.

All in all I think people get married because they LOVE that person, don't want them to "slip away", and lastly want to spend their life with that person. I think sex or living together are VERY low on the scale of the reasons why they want to marry someone.

[Trevytrev11]

Re: Living together before marriage

Okay... So what's the purpose of getting married if you have already slept together and lived together?

Just curious as to what the upside is. I'm not being facetious. I am sincerely curious. My wife and I abstained from sex and living together until we were married.

As others have stated, there are a lot of reasons and the reasons for getting married and the meaning of marriage is different for every person.

Obviously for many, there are religious implications, but for those that are not religious, there is still something sacred about the marriage ceremony and the fact that in front of all the most important people in your lives, you are promising yourselves to eachother; making a commitment to one another that you will always be there for the other person.

I guess you could say that over dinner some time, but people like to make that a special occaion and annouce it to those that are close to them.

As far as the benefits of marriage, they range from financial to social to emotional and spiritual depending on the person.

There are obviouly tax breaks that married folk get that are not available to others. It also, in many states, provides protection in the event of a divorce for a stay-at-home spouse. Without marriage, a breakup could leave somone who has dedicated their life to raising their children, while the other earned the money, absolutely nothing, where as in certain states, these people are entitled to a fair share of the couples total earnings.

I also think it's much easier on the children and more socially acceptable to raise children as a united family unit. Your not raising a kid who has daddy's last name instead of mommy's and you also have a bit of legal protection involved in the event of a divorce. Maybe a silly reason to some, but saves a lot of question answering for others.

As far as the emotional and spiritiual stuff, it is going to differ by person, but I think it's nice to know that the person you are with has promised everything that comes with a marriage, to you.

[slickdtc]

Re: Living together before marriage

I'm not religious at all, but marriage, and taking that step to become engaged to my now-fiance, has always been special to me. I've always just held marriage as the ultimate commitment. It's going to mean a lot to me when I get to say "I do" and become a part of her family, and her a part of mine. Just announcing to all the family and friends that we were engaged has been special and I've already been welcomed into her family by her mother and father. Can't really describe how it makes me feel, totally.

[Gotmadskillzson]

Re: Living together before marriage

Aweeeeeeeeeeeeee

Consider yourself lucky......

Not everybody is lucky enough to marry into a family that likes them.

[ehh]

Re: Living together before marriage

Just curious what scared you and made you bail when she moved in.
.

1. She was my first post-college serious GF and I was falling into the trap that many people do IMO - just marry the first serious GF you have as an "adult". I guess it took us moving in together for me to realize that she wasn't the right girl for me and, as dumb as it sounds, I had to put some serious thought into whether or a given GF is someone I could spend the rest of my life with. It was kinda like I was on auto-pilot for the American Dream. Get a college degree, get a job, find a girl to settle down with, get some property (which we thankfully didn't though we were discussing purchasing when we broke up). I didn't even stop to think about certain things that were ridiculously important.

I can remember the exact moment I knew it was over. We were at her friends place for a big Labor Day BBQ. All the women were outside and the husbands were inside hanging out inside in the kitchen and all of them were in there avoiding their wives so they could have some time away from them. Just the look on their collective faces, it was so weird. And that's when I realized that subconsciously that I was doing the same thing - avoiding my GF. That was all she wrote.

Two of the five couples from that BBQ are already divorced before the age of 33. All of those couples got married before the age of 26.

2. I wasn't ready to marry anybody, which is still the case. Cliche but I have goals I want to accomplish (the usual - career, personal, finance, etc) before I ever consider getting married. Nothing outrageous, but it'll take a few more years. At that point in my life I felt like I was at a cross-roads, I could either get married while my personal ish was a bit of a mess or break it off with her and focus on just myself and really getting my ducks in a row. I knew I had to do the latter or I'd regret it.

[NDAlum]

Re: Living together before marriage

That's some solid reasoning if you ask me

[Scottdau]

Re: Living together before marriage

Nothing wrong with that ehh.