Living together before marriage

[floridaellen]

This is why living together first would be a very good idea.

My aunt didn't live with her ex-husband until after they got married and she said it's the biggest mistake she ever made in her life.


I've said in other threads before, I think it's VERY IMPORTANT for couples to live together before they get married, if you can't live together, you need to at least spend 3 weeks together on a vacation or something. You never know who someone really is until they can't escape you, and that's something that truly tests compatibility with another person. My mom says never marry someone you haven't left the country with before, and while I wouldn't go that far, I really do think most people don't realize the trials and tribulations that come with living with another person. Love isn't enough to overcome all obstacles or enough to make living with someone work, just because you are compatible romantically doesn't mean you can successfully cohabitate and it's something I see proof of every day in my job when I file for divorce after divorce.

Well my relationship is close distance for half of the year and I essentially live at my SO's house. I spend basically all my time with him when we are close distance and routinely spend weeks upon weeks there when my parents are away on vacation. His parents are more lenient so I'm allowed to sleep in his room at his house and he sleeps in the living room at mine. So I have spent many many many hours with him at a time. I know how he never wants to clean the dishes in the sink and how much 'neater' I am than him. I know how he likes to have his dogs sleep with him and I despise it. But technically, we live apart even though I spent 5/7 nights with him this week and will be living with him for two weeks starting tomorrow.

Unfortunately, if your family will basically disown you if you move in together before getting married, it's probably not the best option. That's what we get for having religious parents.

Neither of our parents lived together before marriage. For his mom, it didn't work out. His dad was abusive after a few years of marriage and they got divorced. Even if they had lived together, he still didn't show it until a few years so she wouldn't have known anyway and the divorce still would have happened. For my parents, it worked. They've been married, happily, for 30 years. I think it very much depends on the people and the couple.

[ChibiFelicia]

I have very mixed ideas and emotions about living together with someone prior to marriage.

Most people who have replied seem to view living together beforehand as a trial run, as a good way to figure out if the whole marriage thing will work. And on the one hand I think that's very true. It's much harder to figure out how someone handles finances and whether they let the dirty dishes stack sky high if you're only dating them, and those are things that are handy to know before settling on a marriage partner. It's harder to hide flaws and potential deal breakers if you're under the same roof as your partner.

However, I think there's a very big danger of "trial runs", in that people might not work as hard at the relationship. If this is a trial, I'm assuming there's a chance of failure. I suspect more (though certainly not all) married people don't see failure as an option, so I think they might make more effort in working at the relationship. When I look at my last live-in relationship, I have to sadly admit that I was guilty of this. I was pretty damn lazy for the first year we lived together, and then when I finally started making improvements I only got annoyed because he wasn't making any of his own. Doesn't he know I could choose to end this relationship at any time, that living together isn't permanent and nothing's been signed? After a while, I went back to old habits. I don't think I really realized this at the time, but looking back on it, I think this was my attitude to my live-in arrangement, and I think it hurt us in the long run.

I still lean towards living together before marriage as better than not living together beforehand, but as I'll be moving in with someone for a second time, I've thought a lot about what went wrong the first time round, and why. I've discussed with my current boyfriend some of my thoughts, and we both agree that this is as a give-it-your all deal. Yes there is an out, but we have to work at this with the same level of enthusiasm we would have if we were married and divorce was not available. I couldn't move in with someone who saw it as anything less. I worry whether I can do this because I sort of have to convince myself this is a permanent situation while knowing it's not really. But I have to try, otherwise this will fail.

In addition, I think my other problem with trial live in periods is that people (at least from what I see) don't give the trial any parameters. How long is this trial? What is acceptable? What is not? In what time frame? What will I do if the trial is a failure? I think it's important to have answers to these questions. I've made these decisions for me, in my heart of hearts, and while I hope I'll never have to end it all, I know it's better to have a plan than live with a partner, hoping things might change one day, and feeling trapped. That happened to me once, and I never want it to happen again, to me or anyone else.

Anyhow, a bit rambly. Does anyone else have any thoughts on live in arrangements and what makes them work or not? I'd be especially interested to hear opinions from people who had a live-in arrangement that didn't work out.

For me you hit the nail on the head. My last relationship was a live in, for nearly 4 years. We were together for 7 and he moved in with me just over 3 years together. It was great in the beginning otherwise i wouldnt have let him move in with me. But i got annoyed at how he didnt put the effort in. I just didnt see the relationship going anywhere after living with him for 2 years. I felt trapped. He had no where to go and a lot of stuff happened. Thing is that relationship wasnt going to work anyway. I was young at 18 and didnt know where my life was heading, i didnt know my own head. I dont think i ever wanted to spend the rest of my life with that person, main reason the relationship didnt work. For some ppl living together is the logical thing to do. For me i dont feel as though it is. There is no trial to getting married. If we know we want to spend the rest of our lives with each other, we will work our damn hardest to make the relationship work.

Just one thing. People say you wont know a person till you live with them etc etc. For me it's "you wont know the person till you have been married to them for x amount of years" People change over time. Your "trial" may be all well and good for a year, 2 years 3 years whatever...then you get married, whose to say your SO wont turn in to a complete a hole? Living together before just does not equate to better success in marriage imho. Same can be said with not living together with them before hand. We all will do what we feel is right. Live together before hand or not thats up to the couple. I find it irritating when i keep reading the general "you should live together beforehand"..why? It really should be more "you should do what is right for the both of you". Which ever way people go about it, to make a relationship work you both have to work towards it and want it and be honest.

[lucybelle]

I don't agree with ChibiFelicia or greensweatergirl. My SO and I have been living together for 10 months, not a super long time, but enough to get a feel for each other. And I don't feel anything going stale or that we're not "trying hard enough". If you're going to be lazy in a relationship it doesn't matter whether you live together or not, you'll be lazy. The reason you know a relationship is working is if both of you are constantly trying to improve and trying new things and keeping things exciting.

Also, whether you live together or not you need to know where the relationship is going. Living together isn't the only trial run, DATING is a trial run. And if two people in a relationship want different things in different time periods, it won't work out. So that's something you have to talk about.

I don't know, I'm not really wording this correctly. I guess what I'm trying to say is living together doesn't make a relationship lazy or an eternal "trial period", the people in the relationship do that. And with a lack of communication about both those things, that relationship was going to fail no matter what.

Oh and I wanted to add-- I also "almost lived" with a boyfriend when I was 18/19. We spent every day together, all day. For over a year. And living with someone is completely different.

[floridaellen]

I don't agree with ChibiFelicia or greensweatergirl. My SO and I have been living together for 10 months, not a super long time, but enough to get a feel for each other. And I don't feel anything going stale or that we're not "trying hard enough". If you're going to be lazy in a relationship it doesn't matter whether you live together or not, you'll be lazy. The reason you know a relationship is working is if both of you are constantly trying to improve and trying new things and keeping things exciting.

Also, whether you live together or not you need to know where the relationship is going. Living together isn't the only trial run, DATING is a trial run. And if two people in a relationship want different things in different time periods, it won't work out. So that's something you have to talk about.

I don't know, I'm not really wording this correctly. I guess what I'm trying to say is living together doesn't make a relationship lazy or an eternal "trial period", the people in the relationship do that. And with a lack of communication about both those things, that relationship was going to fail no matter what.

Oh and I wanted to add-- I also "almost lived" with a boyfriend when I was 18/19. We spent every day together, all day. For over a year. And living with someone is completely different.

But if the "almost living" is the closest that you can get without alienating both of your families, it's going to have to do, especially since the only time that I would live with my boyfriend without being married would be during graduate school when my parents would be helping financially support me.

[greensweatergirl]

Lucybelle, I think you misunderstood me. I actually agree with nearly everything you said. I don't think it's the living together that necessarily equals things going stale or people not trying hard enough. I also think that it's largely the people in the relationship that make something work or not. I am all too aware that my past relationship broke down mostly because of myself and my ex, and that living together was not the entire cause. Living together # FAIL. But I do think that there are certain types of risk involved with living together prior to marriage, just as I think there are certain risks in not living together. I used my own live-in relationship as an example, but I'm really speaking about people in general.

I think one MAJOR risk in living together with someone prior to marriage centres around the ideas of permanency and investment. If everything is going swimmingly in a relationship, if you have good communications skills and you're compatible, and you can resolve any arguments fairly easily you probably don't need to consider what I'm saying. Reading about how well your live-in relationship has turned out on this and other threads leads me to believe you're very skilled, very lucky, or both. But I think that there are tons of relationships where people don't communicate or don't communicate as well as they should, and that even the very best of relationships are going to run into rough times that are going to stress the bond you have with the other person.

And in those situations, I believe people are more likely to do what they have to do to make something work if they don't see getting out as an option, or as an undesirable option. Going out on a limb here, I would say that most people would say:

least invested dating - living together - marriage - marriage with kids most invested

Would I work harder and longer to put back the pieces if my husband cheated on me with 2 kids in the house rather than the boy from next door I've been dating, even if we had been together the same amount of time? Hell yes. If I was having serious problems with the in laws, and I felt like the situation was unsolvable, would I be more willing to drag myself through a lifetime of weekly dinners and afternoon get togethers filled with snide remarks if I was married, as opposed to just living with someone? Hell yes.

Dating may also be a trial run, but it's one that is far, far, far easier to break off if things don't pan out. If you decide the trial fails, you break up, and you go back to your separate lives. If the trial of living together doesn't work out, you're saddled with making sure both parties have enough money to move out, divvying up things you've bought together, possibly deciding where a pet goes to live...it's a trial with huge costs, that only continue to rack up more and more the longer you live together without benefit of marriage.

And I'm truly not trying to be rude or mean, and I'm really not trying to speak for you or step on your toes, but I would tentatively suggest that you are more invested in your live-in arrangement than most people, as much if not more than many marriages. I think that most live-in arrangements that come out of an LDR are naturally stronger, with parties that are very invested in making the relationship work. Someone has probably given up a job, friends and family. Maybe they've moved countries or had to learn a new language. That's huge. On top of that, a couple has probably spent a huge chunk of time learning how to communicate well, and they've already weathered the storm of just getting together. I think people who manage to close the distance in an LDR are in a great position to succeed, because they've had to be strong and they've invested a ton.

But I do think many people just move in together without those skills and discussions, and coupled with the attitude of "well, let's see where this goes", and then a difficult problem that needs tackling, I think you've setting yourself up in a position where you're more likely to stop trying if things go belly up. Especially if you take the view that your relationship will be at a higher level once you're married. I actually suspect what I think doesn't apply to people who don't want to get married, because they've already given the highest commitment they feel they can give.

Anyhow, I don't know why I always have such long posts. Just what I think.

[ChibiFelicia]

well i just answered with my opinion, from my own experiences. I wasnt asking or expecting someone to agree with me. We all have our own opinions regarding relationships..there is no right or wrong opinion. I wasnt trying to sound rude either.

For me when i let that ex live with me, it was a huge mistake. I wasnt ready for it. At that point in my life i thought living together would be a good hmm "trial run" i guess?

Iunno regardless how you enter a marriage, i believe once in the marriage you are more likely to work harder toward things. I agree with greensweatergirl that once you have kids etc you will work harder and maybe forgive things you otherwise would not have. Hmm i think if there are kids involved..married or not, you will work harder to keep things together.

I kinda get that my posts arent exactly well laid out so apologies, i kinda type as if im talking to you guys in an on going conversation >.<.

One of the major factors why i sit on the fence regarding living together before marriage is the way i've been brought up. My culture isn't exactly pro living together without being married. Kinda thinking i let my ex move in to spite my parents...the im so grown up mum dad..lol Yeah i was a silly girl. Well I've learnt from it that's the main thing right? Learning from your past experiences.

[efish1042]

I don't know that I feel strongly one way or another about it. I know that my SO and I will probably not be living together before we get married, but I might be at his place often enough that all of the pro's of living together will apply without most of the cons.

[Haley53]

I second lucybelle and still disagree with ChibiFelicia and greensweatergirl.

While I will say that I believe two people who may be married and/or have children might work harder at something than two people merely living together, I also have to wonder why they're working harder. For example, my grandmother and grandfather married young. Though there was a time at which point they considered divorce as a very possible option, they ended up deciding to stay together. Why? Because they had my mother and her brother to think about, because my grandfather was the sole breadwinner for their family, because my grandmother was becoming more and more handicapped... The list goes on. Was my grandfather made happy by this? Sure, but did his behaviour change? No. Was my grandmother happy? No. Did they work on their problems in order to have a happier, more fulfilled, more successful marriage? No. But they grin and bore it for their children. My mother repeated my grandmother's mistake, got married young, married a man as abusive, if not more, as my grandfather. They were married for 19 years. He cheated on her too. Why did they stay together? Because they had two children, my sister and I, and my mother believed that it was important for us to grow up with a father (even if we rarely saw him/that's not at all what I'd consider him). Did their marriage improve? No. Did my father's behaviour improve? No. The same goes for my high school best friend's parents, with a serial cheater for a father and a mother who did her best to smile through their dead marriage. I could list any number of cases, with parents who I am well aware of who have stayed together because they've been married or because they had children, not because they wanted their marriage to work for them but because they had children to think about and felt stuck.

Whether or not two people are going to work on their problems is not dependent on marriage or children. Whether or not you're going to be able to forgive your husband for screwing Mary Sue down the street while you struggled to feed, change, and put two children to bed isn't going to be dependent on a marriage certificate. Whether or not you're going to work through your problems, and situations you may face, is always going to be dependent on the individuals and on the relationship, not on the status of it. For example, my partner and I. Six months in to our relationship, he lost his mother. This is something I have been told people have seen break up marriages. I have also had several people tell me they could not do it/that what happened and what we went through would have been a deal breaker; they would have hit their breaking point and left. Although there was a slight "break" (mostly from the labels of our relationship) in between then and now, we still made it through. Things are still not easy - it's only been three months - but we are slowly achieving a state of normalcy. Although we have been friends for almost three years, we were still a young relationship. This was a situation that tested it entirely, and still tests it sometimes. Then, I had to deal with him not having internet access or a working phone, and only being able to text a couple times per day if I were lucky. Then, I had to deal with his stress of being out of house and home, separated from his brother, and being bounced from family member to family member. Then, I had to deal with his abusive father fighting for the custody of his 15-year-old brother. Now, I still have to deal with his grief. Now, I still have to accept the fact he has a 15-year-old brother that is quite similar to a child; his brother is his priority, and he has to think about his brother when it comes to everything we discuss, from visits now to our recent future. Though there have been high points and low points, we have made it through and are making it through based on our foundation, our communication, our shattering honesty, our loyalty, our determination, our commitment, and our love. This is something that can shatter marriages, and we have made it through in our young relationship.

That being said, I could not forgive him if he ever cheated on me. Emotionally or physically. I could not forgive him if he ever started abusing me. I could not forgive him if he ever started mistreating me, or if he ever gave up on making our relationship work. I could not continue to stay with him if he stopped changing/growing with me. If he ever settled in life, that would cause tension in our relationship, and unless he regained his dreams and sense of ambition, our relationship, dating or married life, would likely fall apart. These are things I would not forgive whether we were dating, engaged, or married. These are things I could not forgive or work through whether we had children or didn't. Would I want to be on civil terms with him should our marriage come to end, and we had children to think about? Yes. I could swallow my resentment (say if he cheated) long enough to drop the children off to see him when it was his time with them; I would likely want him to have joint custody. However, I would not/never sacrifice my happiness and I have dealbreakers as well as any. Those dealbreakers don't change based on the status of my relationship same as my determination and commitment to the relationship don't change based on it. Any repercussions would not be worth the happiness I would sacrifice trying to make something work for someone else, because that's how I see working towards keeping a marriage for the sake of the kids is like; so long as you're doing something for someone else's happiness, you're not going to be happy, and if you can't do it for your own happiness, then you shouldn't be doing it. I don't think it's possible for someone to work completely through their issues if it's being done or prompted because it's in marriage, and if you're the sort to back out as soon as times get hard simply because there's no legal commitment or third party involved... Then I think that says more about the individual and perhaps the individual should take some time to look more introspectively, and also consider their relationship.

I still believe that living together is a great trial run, because you get down to the nitty gritty. :P The longer you stay, the more of a chance you have of seeing the person when not in the honeymoon period. I'll admit, when I'm living with my boyfriend, I imagine there will be things about it/him that drive me up the wall and vice versa. We will both have to work on figuring things out and on adapting to life with one another. It could be as simple as that he likes to pay his bills immediately and I like to pay them based on paycheques etc. that would call for a compromise, something as simple as that that gets in the way that we need to work on. It's not only about the bigger picture, and what's good about your relationship from a distance (or even living close by) but about the miniscule details and everything in between. Living together is one way you see if you mesh, and if you don't mesh, if it's something that can be worked out or can't be. These are things I would want to know prior to marriage. However, that might also be because I don't believe that marriage automatically means someone's more dedicated. If I'm dedicated enough to move in with someone, then I'm dedicated enough to not become lazy. This goes for if I were moving out of the country or if I were moving down the street. Relationships take work, and I don't think that if you're in a serious relationship (past the point of what most people consider "dating") that the different stages of your relationship should require different stages of commitment. I put effort into my relationship now, I'd put effort into it living together, and I'd put effort into it married, assuming that he's "the one." The way I feel about it is if you're prepared to put effort into a married relationship but not a live-in relationship, then maybe you're not ready to be thinking about marriage.

But I do think many people just move in together without those skills and discussions, and coupled with the attitude of "well, let's see where this goes", and then a difficult problem that needs tackling, I think you've setting yourself up in a position where you're more likely to stop trying if things go belly up. Especially if you take the view that your relationship will be at a higher level once you're married.

However, this threw me off a bit from the rest of your post. If your point is about the intention, then I think you have a very good one. For example, if a couple moves in together with the attitude of "let's see where this goes," then I think of course it will turn out differently than if you go into it with the attitude of seeing how well you really mesh/as though living together is the next dedicated step before marriage. But in that case, I'd say you're not ready to be living together either. *shrug*

The way I see it is that marriage is not the fixer-upper to your communication problems. If you have an issue with communication, you have an issue with communication, and it's going to be as present in your marriage as it was in your relationship. And sure, there are some people who do work on their communication and who do improve their marriages and relationships, but this is dependent on the person, not the status. There's a reason there's so much infidelity and unhappiness in marriages and a reason there's such a high divorce rate. Though I won't say it's dependent on whether you lived together or didn't, I will say that the same goes for the success of a marriage not being dependent on being married or not. The individuals that make it make it based on the individuals and their dedication, and I think those individuals probably gave as much promise and dedication to their relationship as they have their marriage.

[lucybelle]

But if the "almost living" is the closest that you can get without alienating both of your families, it's going to have to do, especially since the only time that I would live with my boyfriend without being married would be during graduate school when my parents would be helping financially support me.

Yeah I'm not trying to convince anyone to live with each other before they are married. I was just commenting on how you said you basically lived with your SO. Just wanted to saying actually living with someone is way different

@greensweatergirl and LilyChibi, I'm sorry but I didn't read your replied... I'm just too ADD to make it through them! But I'm sure you made some very good points.

[greensweatergirl]

Thank you Eclaire for your extremely well written post. You've given me a lot to consider. If nothing else, it made me think about why I might have the views I do.

Looking back at it, I guess my perception of why I think people would work harder if they run into problems if married comes directly from my own parents. My dad had a year long affair when I was about 17. He ended it and then told my mom. I thought it was the end of our family. My dad slept in the basement for two months, then something happened that absolutely floored me. My mom started talking with him again. A month after that my dad packed up his sleeping back and they moved back into the same room. They checked into therapy together, and my mom changed her attitude to my dad. Before she constantly criticized him, nagged him, yelled at him, never displayed any affection, and suddenly she was cracking more jokes and kissing him all the time. I asked her how she could be so forgiving. She told me that she had to fix how she was more than my dad, that good people don't suddenly have an affair after 25 years for no reason, that while my dad wasn't blameless and he had done was truly awful, she had as much work to do as him. She told me it would take a while for her to feel love and trust again, but those had nothing to do with marriage. Marriage was not something to throw away she thought, even under her present circumstances.

But you're very right when you say that marriage could mean staying together but not working on problems. Amazingly I've never known anyone in that kind of relationship, despite hearing about them all the time. The marriages I've seen have always been at least middling, and the others are good or even great. The people who stay in long, long, long dead marriages sort of confuse me (unless it was a woman living prior to 1950 and she had no way to make an income). But I'd like to point out that I don't advocate and never advocated that people stay in marriages if the horse is dead and been beaten for years and years. But I don't think the existence of those dead marriages negate the fact that,at least in my opinion, married people are more likely to work hard towards a happy relationship than people living together. Again, to clarify, I didn't say working on a relationship was dependent upon marriage, I said it was more likely to happen within marriages as opposed to live in situations.

Commenting about your blurb on unfaithfulness I don't understand the attitude of "he cheated on me, I can't forgive him, our relationship is over" in marriage situations. If someone was a serial cheater, or it had been a year or two and nothing had changed after putting in effort, I would contemplate breaking up with them. But I think if someone's behaviour is an aberration, such as cheating after 20 years, 10 years, or even 5 years, you really have to take a deep breath and consider that the cheating may derive from the situation (the relationship with you), and not place all the blame on the person. I know it's a wildly unpopular view, but in situations where the cheating is out of the blue and after a long period of time in a relationship, I think the cheatee (in most cases) is also partly to blame, and needs to work just as hard to put things back on track.

Similarly, I don't understand breaking up with someone for an emotional affair. I know I would be very upset, more upset than if there was a physical affair. But to dissolve a relationship because someone had feelings? To break up with someone over their thoughts? I don't understand. People have thoughts, and feelings, and I don't think they can always be controlled. I read somewhere that the majority of people have imagined their spouse as someone else when having sex, yet we don't think that's grounds for a break up. I don't think I would feel a sense of "betrayal" unless someone had put themselves in a situation which they knew would prolong their emotional affair - namely contact. Chatting on Facebook, meeting up for lunches after they recognized their feelings, keeping in touch...those are situations which can be changed. Thoughts can't be, so breaking up immediately after discovery of feelings and thoughts before they've been worked on seems crazy to me. Not being able to forgive....sorry, don't get it.

Reading over your post and lucybelle's posts, I think the main reasons I may think differently than you may be that (and please correct me if I'm wrong):
A)you see the success of a relationship as coming purely from the two individuals involved, whereas I see it as coming from both the individuals and the situation (including status).

B)you decide whether to remain in a relationship or not based on what is happening or what has happened recently. I think I have a slightly larger time window than you.

A. I don't think you can really say that the success of all relationships is not due to status. Perhaps it has no bearing on how you behave in a relationship, but it does have weight for some people. Me, for example. I think I'm a fairly patient, loving, and forgiving sort of person now, but I know I would be all that and more to a husband as opposed to a boyfriend. I would stick around longer, and bear more hardship if it came to it, if I was married than if I was just living with someone. I believe this is why I have concerns about living with someone again - because after doing it once, I'm now of the opinion that living together with someone sort of requires you to have that deeper commitment that I see as belonging to marriage. My mom falls into this category as well - her commitment to her marriage, the status of her relationship, was what spurred her through a situation that you and probably most people would consider a deal breaker.

That's why I think intent is insanely important to establish prior to moving in with someone. I believe marriage, although this has changed a lot, has a more agreed upon definition among people. It's forever, it's two people locked in, it's as permanent as a relationship can get, it's commitment. When you move in with someone immediately following marriage, I think you are more likely to have people who are dedicated, even if they aren't the best communicators in the world, because the population has a more agreed upon definition of what "marriage" means (or at least should mean) than what "live-in relationship" does. Living with someone can be more things - it can be ultimate commitment, it can be a trial, it can be a step to marriage, it can be to get out of living with annoying roommates or parents, it can be to save on bills.

I'd like to ask you something though, which I'm interested in knowing. If you're just as committed to a person prior to getting married, say living with them or even before that, then why get married at all? What's the point of it? Or, why not just get married now? Something I've never really understood.

Finally, and I'm not sure if you were directing the last bit to something I'd said in a post, but I'd like to mention that I do not perceive marriage as a fixer upper to relationship problems. It is not a magical cure-all, it will not make people discuss important issues, it will not stop affairs or unhappiness, it will not reveal the pathway through Diagon Alley. Individual traits, communication, and compatibility matter hugely. But for some people it means so much more than living together, and does imply greater dedication. It means putting the relationship above yourself, and it means working through the worst "deal breakers" - cheating included. I find my attitude is shared mainly with older people and religious people. I'm not old or religious, weirdly enough. Maybe those people like me shouldn't get involved in live-in relationships.

In an ideal world, I'd date till I was engaged, move in for 6 months so I could make sure there were no huge red flags, then spend 6 months to 1 year planning a wedding. Since I can't do that with my boyfriend due to finances, I made damn sure he knew what living together meant to me. What marriage means to me. At a certain point, if he does not wish to marry me, I will let that "status" influence how I behave. Probably by flying back to Canada.

[Haley53]

I want to clarify that I'm not stating the relationship's success or failure has nothing at all to do with the status of the relationship but rather with the individuals within that relationship. For example, you and your mother may see cheating as something that would be a dealbreaker within the relationship but not within a marriage. I, however, do not. We could both be married, yet we would both handle the situation very differently. I feel that would more be based on our morals, values, and views of marriage than it would on the status of either of our relationships. I wanted to clarify that much, and if you don't mind, I'm going to skirt the topic of cheating and my opinions on it because I also have an extreme, maybe somewhat unpopular view, but it's completely different to yours, and if you don't mind, I would like to respectfully agree to disagree. :P I will say, though, that it is wonderful your mother and your father managed to work through what happened. That sort of forgiveness and dedication is commendable.

In response to your question, I'll admit, though I wouldn't be marrying solely for a/his greencard, that's a huge part of it. Because we're in an international long distance relationship, we have very few options for achieving permanent residency in either of our countries that do not involve marriage. Don't get me wrong, I do love the idea of marriage. I fantasise like anyone here and I love the idea of him being my Mister and me being his Misses. But at the same time, I'd be happy having rings and a ceremony without the legal union. I don't feel like I need a piece of paper to prove that he's committed to me or that we're committed to each other, and I don't need the security of marriage to feel like we're going to make it. That being said, I also don't want to rush to get married, because as I said in a previous post, and maybe in my longer one above (too lazy to re-read it), I do believe in living together prior to getting married. I don't count the time spent staying with my boyfriend as trial periods for living one another, maybe in one sense but not in the technical sense, simply because living together isn't like a holiday. I would want to have the trial run beforehand simply because I would want to learn that much more about my partner before committing to being married. I don't mind waiting a while for marriage because one, if we're going to make it "til death do us part," we'll make it a few additional years and two, I think we have a lot of growing, changing, and developing left to do between now and the point of marriage. We may grow together or we may not, and that can happen at any point in a marriage, but I need to have the solid proof that we will continue being as dedicated and committed to one another as we are, and that is why I would not get married immediately simply because I feel there's no higher level of dedication once we've attained that status. At this point, to me, marriage isn't solely about the Visa, but I think if the Visa process were not to be involved in any potential future we had together, our options would be open a little bit more.