Living together before marriage

[Sora1101]

Marriages are like cars you need to test drive them before you purchase.

I'd hate being married to someone only to find out later that we are totally incompatible as "roommates"

[kiara_silver]

Just thought i would ask and bring it up. My parents wanted the traditional route for me, save myself for marriage, wait till married to move in together. But thats not happening. Me and my SO been talking and we both want to move in together and start our life together soon. So it just brought up some questions, my problem is i still let my parents opinions and wants get to me, need to just worry and focus on whats best for me and my SO.

[BoogleBee]

I think it's great! I wouldn't even be able to afford a marriage any time soon so I wouldn't want that to stand in the way of me moving in with my SO. Also we can't even get married due to the law at the moment. Unless your including civil unions, but even those are complicated when we are from different countries. Also for my SO to get a visa, or extend a temporary visa it helps to have proof that we have lived together for a period of time. Once we are financially secure we can consider marriage <3 as it is an expensive thing!

[Trethsparr]

I might be a lone voice in the crowd, but...

I waited until after marriage to live with my SO, and I'm very, very happy with my decision to wait.

[snow_girl]

I always thought I would wait till marriage or at least engaged to move in with a SO just as something to look forward to when you get married but then I met my SO who lives on the other side of the world and when we closed the distance I didn't make sense to move that far and not move in with him. No real complaints so far.

[Dziubka]

My guess is that if couples who live together before marriage really get divorced more often, it's not because they moved in together before marriage, but because they might generally have a different attitude to marriage.
The quote kteire posted sums it up pretty well.

I would like to live together with my boyfriend before marriage. Granted, by the time we will finally be able to live together we will have been dating for 5 years and we'll want to have children pretty soon-ish. It looks like we're getting married shortly after we move in together. I'd ideally live together with him for longer before we tie the knot, but it doesn't seeem very doable in our circumstances.

[Kiara]

In my country, Italy, Catholicism still plays an important role in social life. Living together before marriage is not approved, as it implies to have sex before marriage, which is considered sin. Even though I personally disagree with this outdated moralistic idea, I don’t like what I see is happening at people of my age or a little bit older. Because living costs are high, many couple choose to live together to share expenses. THAT’S WRONG FOR ME! Living together (not just for a couple of months I mean) is an important decision and I think it should be taken with the same spirit of getting married. Otherwise you just live together for convenience!
Talking about divorce rates, I know the US has a high rate; India has a low one... I think it depends a lot on culture and what people are ready to accept with marriage. I’ve the impression couples are less tolerant than in the past…

[Dziubka]

You're right about carefully considering moving in together. My absolute horror-nightmare-end-of-the-world-vision is living with an ex and not being able to move out, because we can't afford it. The thought of this makes my skin crawl. It's something I never want to experience.
I'm so glad I never moved in with my ex, even though we were seriously considering it at some point.

I'm not sure I agree with you on the couples being less tolerant issue. Even if you're right. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. Obviously back in the time, when women had little independence, people were less likely to get divorced. But is sticking with someone you don't love or respect just because you have nowhere else to go and couldn't support yourself, better than getting divorced?
I'm all for divorces, if that's what makes people happier.

[JennyRW]

you are right, but divorce is also more socially accepted today than before. And the cultures where the divorce rate is higher is because it is more socially accepted (USA vs India...)

[kteire]

you are right, but divorce is also more socially accepted today than before. And the cultures where the divorce rate is higher is because it is more socially accepted (USA vs India...)

I think that's incredible! My sister's studying to become a divorce lawyer, and she always tells me about the incredible history behind divorce, and the things people have had to go through to get them.

And can you imagine what it would be like if they weren't available and socially acceptable? Having to remain married to someone who abused you, or cheated, or who things didn't work out with, or who you fell out of love with? They were only made legal in Ireland in 1995, and I could see the effects of that when I lived there. So many of my friends' parents (and my SO's incidentally) were stuck being married to each other even after their relationship had ended in every other way, and had to wait years before marrying the person they loved afterwards.

I'm all for divorce, I just hope I never have to get one

[leonsfangirl]

I'm all for living together before getting married but i dont match up to the stats as i lived with my Ex for 7 years before we married and we split 3 years after tying the knot. But that hasn't put me off.

[milaya]

I'm not sure I agree with you on the couples being less tolerant issue. Even if you're right. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. Obviously back in the time, when women had little independence, people were less likely to get divorced. But is sticking with someone you don't love or respect just because you have nowhere else to go and couldn't support yourself, better than getting divorced?
I'm all for divorces, if that's what makes people happier.

I agree. Even if there are children involved. Because I've always believed that "Two happy parents apart, is better then two miserable parents together"

My SO and I are married. I can't say that we've "fully" lived together, yet. I mean we have our own apartment (he pays half) and we live together just the two of us, for a month and then we're apart for 6 weeks and then again we live together for a month etc. So not sure if it counts or not.
Probably not, since he doesn't have a everyday life with work and etc. here. But, having the experience we have now, have helped us to get an understanding when it comes to our "roles" and such things that comes with a relationship.

This mostly considering CDRs, but I think living together at first is a good thing. Mostly just to experience how being together 24 hours a day with no breaks can sometimes have some negative effects. I hate when some of my friends, who have never lived with their boyfriends asks me how my husband and I can argue (and sometimes fight) so much considering we haven't dated that long. Well, ... we're together 24 hours a day! So when one's partner get a bit annoying (or some other word), you can't just say "well, see you tomorrow honey", ... he's/she's there all the time.
When you're in a bad mood... he's/she's still there. Especially also if cultural differences are involved.
Gosh... I need to say something positive about my relationship, before people get a wrong image.

Well, I love my SO more than anything, but we're still in the adapting-phase. I think it's going very well, but for some this phase might not turn out that well and then being married can complicate things. And like I started out with saying: I don't like the idea of continuing a unhappy marriage just because a divorce is complicated.

But! I don't find it wrong to wait either. There's always different ways for different people and we need to personally find our own way, without anyone trying to show us their map.

[lucybelle]

I would be interested to find out the religion statistics of the studies done. As I agree with some of the above posts that usually couples who do not live together before marriage are more religiously inclined. This would lead me to believe they either don't believe in divorce, or are more willing to work through whatever may come along. Couples who live together before marriage are more open to divorces.

As for me, I am currently living with my SO and everything is going great. I always wanted (and expected) to live with [whoever] before we got married because I need to see how they live. And they need to see how I live. I am also a true believer in divorces. Although I can imagine my life with my SO, I also remember that people change over time. And perhaps down the line we might not be right for each other anymore. So, I fit my own hypothesis...

[Zephii]

We're living together before marriage. The whole "If he gets free milk he wont buy the cow" thing is way off. He should know the free milk is a sample, and that it will get better once he buys the cow!

But seriously, I think it's easier to iron out all the living together kinks before you get married. That way you can just enjoy being married. Some people say living together first makes marriage less special. And while you don't have the added moving-in together aspect, I don't think that extra stress makes it more special necessarily. Obviously I can't speak from experience, but there's a feeling you get after being married that is likely to be the same regardless. (I confidenty assue this because there's a feeling you get after getting engaged that makes the quality of the relationship change, thus it's logical that marriage has a similar effect)

In our case though, we discussed at least living apart for a while after closing the distance to have a normal dating experience and whatever, but when you're international it's not really a practical option. So we moved right in together. So far, so good.

[Moon]

Just thought i would ask and bring it up. My parents wanted the traditional route for me, save myself for marriage, wait till married to move in together. But thats not happening. Me and my SO been talking and we both want to move in together and start our life together soon. So it just brought up some questions, my problem is i still let my parents opinions and wants get to me, need to just worry and focus on whats best for me and my SO.

I think most people's parents want the traditional route for them, doesn't usually work out that way though!

For me, I've been married, and I'd never do again without a "test run", especially in the context of an LDR. I'm kinda biased though, since I'm not that into marriage anyway. I do think it's easy to get a bit lazy when you already live together, and end up putting the marriage off for some other time, so it really depends on what's important to you and what you want the end result to be. If your goal is marriage, make sure that's understood when you move in and continue planning.