Cohabiting Before Marriage

[efish1042]

I've been reading a really interesting book for school - The Defining Decade by Dr. Meg Jay. It's all about why your twenties matter and how to make the most of them. It's broken into three sections - Work, Love, The Brain and Body.
In "Love" she discusses living together. She takes up the opinion that most couples that live together do it out of "sliding, not deciding", meaning that they don't really decide to live together and consider what it means for their relationship. It's just convenient and most people figure it is easy to get out if things don't work out. She claims that the reality is - most couples then continue to slide into bigger commitments because it is easier than ending things and moving out, dividing furniture, starting a new relationship, etc. This is all instead of sitting down, discussing, considering, and carefully deciding to make a commitment to each other before moving in together.
She claims that couples that move in together before making this commitment have the roughly same divorce rate as the overall nation (ie. about 50% ish).
She claims that couples who become engaged before moving in together have a significantly lower divorce rate.
She states that she is neutral on the topic of moving in together before marriage, but this is what she has found to be true.

I wonder, what do you all think? Cohabiting is great? Cohabiting after engagement is the way to go? Or just wait until you're married?

[MadMolly]

What if you never have any intention to be married at all? I don't ever plan to! I don't think marrying makes any difference to a relationship to be honest. Whether you move in together and get married 5, 10, 20 years down the track you could divorce at any time. Same with couples who get engaged/married before living together. I don't really believe these sorts of studies because relationships are all different. Who's to say that the people who divorced would have stayed together if they'd gotten engaged before moving in together or what not? No way to tell!

[Tooki]

I will end up living with my GF before marriage. We see marriage as an option down the line but we don't want to go through with it until we are in a financial situation that allows us to be comfortable with it.

People get a divorce for a ton of reasons. Reading into their living situation before/after marriage isn't enough to make a decision off of it.

[Zephii]

The thing I think about these studies that is bogus is the fact that they all assume that breaking up is a bad thing. I think it's good to live together and be unsuccessful and find that out before you get married, personally.
I don't think the sliding deeper into commitment rather than planning and discussing thing is necessarily true either - I know more than one couple who met and became engaged in under a month - no time for living together there! You can't tell me these people planned and discussed.
The other thing is, people who don't live together before marriage are generally belonging to religions that frown upon divorce. It doesn't mean they are happily married just because they stay together til death - it just means they don't believe in divorce. (I'm not saying this is true in all cases, I'm just saying it should be considered).

For us personally, and for many people here, moving in together before marriage is still a huge commitment. I didn't just move in with my boyfriend - I got a visa, I put all my life in cardboard boxes; what couldn't be stored was discarded, and moved to a different country. I moved my cat too - and there isn't a bigger level of commitment than that, because I knew exactly how hard it would be to bring him back to my country if the relationship failed. We did a lot of talking before we moved in together. Yes, part of it was for the convenience. No way would I have found the money to live alone - and I didn't think I should have to. If I could move for him, he could certainly show me some commitment by living with me!

With that said, we never once discussed marriage before we got engaged, at least not in any way relating to ourselves. There was never any pressure for a marriage to take place.

[dragonlady]

even the line: It's all about why your twenties matter and how to make the most of them
that makes my skin crawl, i am 34 now and have the feeling that i just started living!! i that age i made alot of "mistakes" and know now what i want in life.
so i am a fuck up because i didnt setteld down then? in my eyes that is what the world pusshes down your throat. you should get married have a house and a job and get kids and such and if you dont have that you failed somewhere. (atleast that is what i think about it!)

i think it is good to live together first at that age, if you think it is right for you marry go ahead but always follow your gut!
sometimes i think people marry to fast at that age, just because of the pressure of the world that that is what you have to do....

[chizatlauren]

Cohabitating before marriage is always a good choice because you see each other's quirks and you'll know more if the person is REALLY worth marrying or not in the long run.

In my case though, it's not an option because the only way for me to get a US visa is to get married first. -_-

[nicole]

I lived with my SO for around 5 months, maybe 1 of those months we were engaged. You learn a lot about a person living with them than you do just hanging out or staying over at their apartment a couple of nights. I learned that my SO is the best roommate I've ever had, and had he had any of the same qualities as people I have lived with in the past, we wouldn't have worked out!

I don't see why anyone would think that marrying someone is easier than splitting and moving out? Makes no sense to me. Moving out takes a few days at most, a marriage (if you don't "believe" in divorce) is for a lifetime. I know what I'd pick if I was miserable before my engagement!

[lucybelle]

For us personally, and for many people here, moving in together before marriage is still a huge commitment. I didn't just move in with my boyfriend - I got a visa, I put all my life in cardboard boxes; what couldn't be stored was discarded, and moved to a different country.

Totally agree with this. When my SO moved in with me in the USA he had never lived outside his country before. He left his job of 10 years. If that's not a huge commitment I don't know what is. I did the same when I moved down with him.

After much thought and reflection we decided to get married after living together for about 2 years. We didn't "slide" into anything. And honestly, it really pisses me off when people assume living together is just an excuse to have more sex or a whinge decision. They paint the picture of two floozies making rash decisions for the hell of it. It's not like that at all! Sure there are couples that crash and burn. But better to crash and burn before getting married than after.

[kittyo9]

The thing I think about these studies that is bogus is the fact that they all assume that breaking up is a bad thing. I think it's good to live together and be unsuccessful and find that out before you get married, personally.
I don't think the sliding deeper into commitment rather than planning and discussing thing is necessarily true either - I know more than one couple who met and became engaged in under a month - no time for living together there! You can't tell me these people planned and discussed.

I definitely want to agree with and comment on this part.

The idea that cohabitation before marriage is "bad" comes from the fact that cohabitation forces you to confront what it will be like to live with this person before you make a commitment to force yourself to work through any and all unforeseen issues (lest you end up in divorce). For some people, this wakes them up to the fact that this relationship is not for them; for others, it deceives them into thinking that they can overlook their partner's shortcomings in cohabitation and ends up biting them in the rear later on. The rest of relationships get along just fine and proceed on (to marriage or to lifetime commitment or however they choose to live).

Also in agreement with lucybelle's post, most opponents of pre-marital cohabitation share the idea that pre-marital sex is bad and that young'uns are lazy and irresponsible and can't commit to anything, thus pre-marital cohabitation must be a dirty excuse to start sexing it up without any of the responsibility.

I am absolutely going to live with my SO before marrying him if I can. In a way, I have already, but not alone and only for a very short period of time.

[Alsfia]

I would say the slipping goes the other way... atleast in the cases I know where any slipping has occured, the majority of the times the couples have got so comfortable living together (engaged or not) so any ideas or planning of a wedding gets postponed...
Others than that, I agree with the other posts

[bethyylovee]

I'm going to be the odd duck here, again. Stephen and I are VERY traditional and old fashioned. That's just how we were raised. You date, get engaged, get married, move in together, and then have children. That's the order for us. And I don't mind it one bit. I love him enough to where I can get used to any quirks or annoying habits that he has (and trust me, he and I BOTH have very annoying habits) but that's just who he is. I don't see living together first as a "trial" to see if I like how he acts.

But that's just us. Honestly, I find it nice since we're in a time where premarital sex and cohabitation is the "norm." It's nice to be able to say that we're totally okay with doing it our way in our faith and beliefs.

[lucybelle]

I would say the slipping goes the other way... atleast in the cases I know where any slipping has occured, the majority of the times the couples have got so comfortable living together (engaged or not) so any ideas or planning of a wedding gets postponed...
Others than that, I agree with the other posts

What's wrong with that? Why does marriage have to be an ultimate goal to begin with?

[lademoiselle]

I think what matters more than anything is that you and your SO are on the same page about it.

[Alsfia]

What's wrong with that? Why does marriage have to be an ultimate goal to begin with?

Maybe I wasn't clear on that point, no, it doesn't, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. My point was merely that, from my somewhat limited experience, people don't want to "slip in to marriage", and from what I've seen it goes the other way, and the plans remain plans. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that either, from my perspective a marriage means an opportunity to throw a party and to get some legal advantages just as much as it's a bond between two people being celebrated. In the end, it's every couples own choice

[Dziubka]

I was going to ask the same thing lucybelle asked Alsfia. I don't see what's wrong with being so comfortable with just living together, that you don't feel the need to get married.

The statistics about couples being more likely to get divorced if they lived together before marriage are not necessarily bogus, but like Zephii (? I think it was her) already pointed out: Correlation doesn't imply causation. They most likely have a differen approach to marriage and are less (or more) likely to get divorced because of the approach or view of marriage they have, not because they lived together or not.

I'm very glad I get to live with my boyfriend before marriage and if it's in any way possible, I'd always want to live together before getting married. If it wasn't possible because of visas or money, I'd accept that, but I don't think it's ideal. I want to know if I'm compatible with someone in everyday life before I decide to have a family with them. I don't believe in love conquers everything. I can love someone very much and still be unable to live with them or raise kids together. And I don't think there's any way to find that out without trying. Or I couldn't anyway. Maybe other people know themselves better than I do