abaya

Attempting to avoid thread-jacking a Sexuality forum thread by starting this one...

I used to think living together beforehand was a bad idea, but now I've started to change my views a bit and wonder if it isn't such a bad thing, after all.

c172g's following comment surprised me though (from the other Forum), since everything has been great in his marriage but they might not have gotten married in the first place if they'd lived together first and seen how different they were (in his case, her being messy and him being neat).

c172g, what made the difference between losing it if you'd lived together before marriage, as opposed to keeping sane while living together after marriage?

And for the rest, how many of you happily-marrieds (or happily-divorced!) think living together before marriage was good, bad, or irrelevant for your decision to get married?

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

Sugar&Spice

I just read that thread and I think I know what C172g is saying. If you are only dating and living with someone, you don't have to work through things if you don't want to.

Perhaps the little things such as not picking up things around the house would lead to irritation and instead of working through it, which you need to do in a marriage, you can just break it off with the person and move on. But, since they were married, he put an effort into working through their differences because its not as easy to get a divorce as it is to break up with someone.

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-Speak your mind even if your voice shakes

veruca

this was actually a sticking point for me after a bad living together experiance..I would never live with somone before marriage again.
For ME, and I know this isn't for everyone, but it was the same for my husband..there is something differant about being married. You can't just walk away anymore, and that changes everything. If you are messy and he is not..all those little things you have to comprimise on.
And I also am not comfortable with depending on someone so much finacially..and they can walk away with no repurcussions.
But, this is coming from someone who lost everything when my fiance left me...I chose never to give anyone but my HUSBAND that kind of dependance.

__________________
How you turned my world, you precious thing
You starve and near exhaust me
Everything I've done, I've done for you
I move the stars for no one

abaya

Well I agree with both Sugar and veruca... that's why I used to think it was a bad idea, because the whole premise of living together is usually this is temporary, let's see what happens as opposed to, I love you and want to wake up with you every day for the rest of our lives, no matter how much work that takes and no matter how many compromises we have to make (which is a summary of marriage vows, basically). And it's that process of learning to communicate and compromise that makes the marriage, because you are basically stuck together and have to learn to live with each other... no way out (other than messy divorce).

But then I started thinking, isn't it a good idea to do the whole test-drive thing? I lived together with my bf for 5 months and nearly broke up with him because we weren't ready to be that committed, but at the same time, I didn't break up with him because in my mind, we were sort of (emotionally?) married, in a way. Luckily the situation was temporary (he needed a place to stay), so now we're living apart again, but the question still remains... to live together first, or not? I didn't want to abandon ship unless it was the absolute last option, and I think he saw things the same way, so we were saved by that ... love and commitment. Can you have these things without being married? Or is that just our human perception of things?

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

ShaniFaye

personally I think the commitment to live together should be just as big as getting married. Dave and I have lived together all but the first two weeks of our relationship and we've honestly considered ourselves "married in our hearts" though not legally the entire time. There is no way IF a problem had arisen I'd have looked at it less seriously just because we didnt 'have a piece of legality' between us.

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I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

lindseylatch

http://ecp3113-21.fa03.fsu.edu/research_paper/draft/jak_draft.pdf#search='divorce%20rate%20in%20couples%20cohabitate%20before%20marriage'
Ok, well, I found a term paper about cohabitation before marriage correlating to a higher divorce rate, but I can't find their sources. I'll continure to peruse...
I wanted to show some stats to show that there is a relationship there, although whether there's causation is anyones guess.

Edit:
from
http://www.smartmarriages.com/cohabit.html
The quotes are from this study: Alfred DeMaris and K. Vaninadha Rao. 1992. "Premarital Cohabitation
and Subsequent Marital Stability in the United States: A Reassessment."
Journal of Marriage and the Family 54: 178-190.

__________________
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"
"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him."
"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."
-Voltaire

Supple Cow

I agree with ShaniFaye. This particular matter is entirely about what you both expect from living together, and not about whether or not living together before marriage is a good convention. Personally, I would never move in with anyone I was dating without the intent to eventually marry them, and I think living with somebody is a good way to make sure that marriage really is the right option before I sign the contract. I don't really trust any studies about what percentages of marriages that started out with the couple living together end in divorce as a method of deciding if it's right or wrong for me. If a study came out saying that 7 out of 10 people in the world are allergic to dogs and I knew I wasn't allergic to them, I wouldn't not get a dog because of the study.

__________________
"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
(Michael Jordan)

lindseylatch

Plus if you live together for long enough, you become married...I think it's 5 years for a Common Law marriage in OR.

__________________
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"
"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him."
"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."
-Voltaire

abaya

Nice comments, all. I always appreciate your feedback!! And yeah, studies aren't everything... sometimes I like to see what data/patterns they come up with, though, since I'm a social scientist nerd. (Hence I like seeing how individuals on TFP deal with these life decisions, gives me much more perspective.)

Supple Cow, I see what you mean. Seems there are (at least) two approaches to this whole thing... people either see living together as a test-drive, and therefore very subject to change (these folks are prob most likely to get a divorce later on??); or they see living together as the next most logical step towards quite possibly spending the rest of your life with someone you love, and therefore getting married to them later wouldn't change much anyway. ShaniFaye's "married in our hearts" sentiment rings most true for the second option, and for me personally... living together, for me, is sort of a spatial representation of being engaged, maybe??... pretty much to the point of no return, and certainly not thinking about "returning" unless something drastic happens.

But I'm still curious! Why do you all think some people live together first while others jump into marriage right from the get-go? Is it just some people aren't ready to make that commitment while others make it, ready or not?

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

little_tippler

I have always thought that if I move in with someone who I am in a relationship with, then it's a pretty serious step to take, and I don't take it as a temporary thing. I take it because I can genuinely see us being together for a long time. I would never marry before living with someone, that's insane. What if you really can't get on in a house together, what then? You're stuck? No, I need a test-drive, as someone said, first.

__________________
Whether we write or speak or do but look
We are ever unapparent. What we are
Cannot be transfused into word or book.
Our soul from us is infinitely far.
However much we give our thoughts the will
To be our soul and gesture it abroad,
Our hearts are incommunicable still.
In what we show ourselves we are ignored.
The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged
By any skill of thought or trick of seeming.
Unto our very selves we are abridged
When we would utter to our thought our being.
We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams,
And each to each other dreams of others' dreams.

Fernando Pessoa, 1918

mazagmot

In a way, I'd almost prefer to not get legally married. I think I'd rather have the knowledge that if we don't work out whatever differences or problems we are experiencing, she can walk out. If it's that easy, we'd damn well better work our ass off, not because of how much trouble a divorce is, but because we'd rather be together. I want my commitment to come totally from inside and not be tied to anything outside of me, except the other person.

It'd be more like ShaniFaye's arrangement I guess; moving in together becomes the marriage vows in a way.

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d^_^b Got my headphones on.

Gilda

Absolutely you can have love and commitment--long term commitment--and even have a family without being married. Grace and I would be married if we could, but the fact that we aren't doesn't in any way diminish the commitment we've made to each other. Now perhaps the fact that we are legally prohibited from marrying has some impact on this. We'd have been married at least a year ago, possibly two, if we could. We consider ourselves to be married in every way that's important except for in the legal definition of marriage.

veruca

I think it is totally a commitment issue. People have had bad previous marriages and are not going to do it again...or they are just scared. for me personally, I want a commitment. If you are too scared to give me that, then you aren't for me.
I completely understand why, in gilda's and shani's situations, but for all of you who are legally able to get married...why are u just going to live together and have no legal commitment?
I don't feel that it takes 5 years of engagement and living together to figure out if you are going to work. If it takes that long to figure it out..it's not meant to be...you shouldn't have to convince yourself that you love or someone or can deal with thier shit.

__________________
How you turned my world, you precious thing
You starve and near exhaust me
Everything I've done, I've done for you
I move the stars for no one

c172g

Sorry for the late reply, but I think the question has already been answered regarding my original post. I think it would have been MUCH easier to walk away from living together with someone than actually being married & getting to the point of divorce. Like Dr Phil says on TV, he & his wife have been married for I think 30 years & they have never once mentioned divorce. I don't have quite that many years under my belt (10 this year) but we haven't either.

My wife and I are simply different in the one respect, which is how we pick up after ourselves. I continually clean up all day long...not to say I'm continually dirty, but if I'm going to the bedroom, I look for something that might need to eventually get there & put it away, on my way there. My wife will leave everything scattered for the entire day, and spend an hour at night putting stuff away. It's the same with cooking, I clean dishes as I'm cooking, she gets every pot, pan & dish out in the entire kitchen, messes them up, and cleans for an hour after things are done cooking. We simply operate differently.

I will now add that having a two & four year old have changed my high-strung ways about cleanliness, since it is now three (wife and two kids) versus the anal clean up guy. It's hardly even an issue anymore.

I never lived with anyone except my college roommates, I'm just from a family where you wouldn't really do that & expect to ever see your parents at your place. As I said before, it probably wouldn't have worked with my wife & I, and I'm glad things are the way they are.

That being said, I'll also add that I would never say my wife & I have an "easy" marriage...I don't think there is such a thing. There will always be something that irks you, maybe pisses you off, maybe drives you absolutely nuts, could even put you on the brink of throwing in the towel all together. There is no one I'd rather be married to, but we both do shit that drives the other one crazy. The thing that keeps us together is our ability to discuss it without having to strangle each other and our commitment that we made to each other. I feel like I married my ideal mate, and we work at our marriage every day. In turn, every day is better than the last.

There are I think five top reasons people get divorced: money, sex, infidelity, in-laws, and children (desire to or not to have). As far as our marriage goes, I'd say money problems occasionally arise, as we all want a little more than we have, but we do pretty well with SEPARATE bank accounts & checkbooks. As a guy, I'd always like more sex but am happy with our frequency, which is 2-3 times a week. We both dated people who cheated on us before we got together, so infidelity isn't even a remote possibility for either of us. In-laws are what they are, her family drives me bonkers once in a while as I'm sure mine does her. I can always leave or go downstairs. I didn't care if we did or did not have kids, she wanted them & so it happened. By far the greatest gift of my life.

Sorry for the lengthy (and off the subject post) but once I started rolling I couldn't stop.

Sage

For that matter, what is marriage anyway? I mean, for the goverment, it just means you have a piece of official paper that you pay $50 for down at the courthouse, and it's been signed by all parties involved. But does that mean you're really, truly married? Look at Brittney Spear's first, short, Vegas wedding, and that whole Carmen Electra/Dennis Rodman thing. They had the piece of paper, but were they REALLY married? I'd say no.

For me, there was no "living together before marriage" with me and Martel. I'm with ShaniFaye on this one, for us, we just knew we were already married in our hearts and had to wait for the rest of the world to catch up! My mom was all upset cause she thought we were "shackin up" but we knew that shacking up didn't describe out situation at all!

If you love each other, and are married in your heart, by all means should you live as a a married couple. However, I think this "taking it out for a test drive" is bullshit (IMHO). You're in it for the sex, and the maid, nothing else (speaking from expierence, which I admit, was not the best). BUT, on the flipside, having been down that painful road, I learned some things about relationships and what it really means to be married that I probably wouldn't have. So it's a double edged sword, for me.

__________________

fatbob

i live with my partner and have done for about 6 years now. we have no plans to get married. ever. but we do plan to spend the rest of our lives together.
however, i can not imagine being in the position of actually marrying someone without living with them first. it is only when you live with someone for a couple of years that you know what they are really like, even then you might never fully get to know someone (but that is for another thread...) and to commit to marriage you have to know someone completely.
i think that it might also depend on what you want from your marriage/partnership. if you just want to be married to someone that will always be there then sure go ahead and marry them without fully knowing them, however, if you want to be with someone that will make you happier and that will, in a sense, 'complete' you then you need to take your time and get to know them. this involves, i believe, living with them.
sticking in a unhappy marriage because you are married seems like a daft place to be for me...

as to why my partner and i won't get married. well i don't wish to offend those who are married or who are christian (or pagan) but i don't believe that a religious ceremony should have such standing in my society; i see marriage as a fundamentally religious commitment that i have no place to make because i am not religious. i don't believe that for my relationship (of 8 years) to be recognised legally i should have to submit to a religious ceremony that i have no belief in, it would be an insult to me and to that religion too. if i were to get married i would be part of a problem that i don't think should exist; namely that my long term committed should have more social and legal standing than a one month old marriage.

sorry if i ended up ranting. i had an incident where i was in hospital where they wouldn't let my partner in to see me because she was not 'a family member' and that is just not on in my eyes.

fb

__________________
change happens when those who don't normally speak get heard by those who don't normally listen.

c172g

I'll throw in another two cents here. I have no problem with being married (read the rather long post above, my wife & I are nuts about each other after 10 years). I also have no problem with people two live together, forever, and don't get married. There is a very big problem in our society where other people feel what you do in your own house is somehow their business because the bible, koran, or whatever book you like says something different. Live your life & don't worry about everyone else's.

I did get married in a Lutheran church, even though I really don't believe in God or any religion in particular. My wife is Lutheran, I was born Catholic, and maybe I'm a hypocrite for being married in a church, but that's what we did. I will raise my children to believe in God but when they are older (probably 17 or so) they will definately know how I feel, when the time is right. I don't feel that raising my children with each parent having a very different view on God would do them much good. My parents did the exact same thing with me, Mom was a good Catholic, dad told me his feelings in the duck blind one day while the sun was coming up.

You can also get married in a courthouse, and you don't have to profess any religious belief to do so. The paperwork is the same no matter how you do it.

I have friends that have two children and they are not married. The kids are in their teens and they have lived together for over 20 years. I suppose Michigan law probably considers them married, but they decided not to actually get married. That's their way of doing it, good for them.

You get one go around down here, make the most of it, be kind to others, and enjoy your life. Have a happy "hump" day...

f6twister

My wife and I lived together with my parents for almost four years before we got married. She moved in with us out of necessity after her parents basically threw her out. If she didn't move in with me, she would have been on the street.

Since it was my parents house, the only place we had to keep all of our stuff was "our" room. Having such a small space to keep our combined stuff actually helped us for when we got our own place. We had to try so hard to manage how much stuff we had and where we kept it that it carried over to our house.

I'm going to go with the "trial and error" reasoning because it really does gives people a chance to preview what cohabitation is really like, especially for those people who are living away from their parents for the first time.

__________________
A little rudeness and disrespect can elevate a meaningless interaction to a battle of wills and add drama to an otherwise dull day. Calvin

little_tippler

can I just say that financially, in my country, it's easier to live as an unmarried couple, and you have even more benefits if you're divorced...says a lot

__________________
Whether we write or speak or do but look
We are ever unapparent. What we are
Cannot be transfused into word or book.
Our soul from us is infinitely far.
However much we give our thoughts the will
To be our soul and gesture it abroad,
Our hearts are incommunicable still.
In what we show ourselves we are ignored.
The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged
By any skill of thought or trick of seeming.
Unto our very selves we are abridged
When we would utter to our thought our being.
We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams,
And each to each other dreams of others' dreams.

Fernando Pessoa, 1918

abaya

Hmm, I tend to agree with you but then I read TFP and hear about all these couples who really do seem to get along like peas and carrots (maybe even second marriages, but still, a remarkable number of TFP'ers seem to be happily married or in a happy long-term committed relationship). And I wonder if you guys would say you have an "easy" marriage out there... if so, why?

Keeping it on topic: Did you "easy" marriage folks live together first, which made it easier once you actually got married? Sometimes I imagine that if two people come from very different backgrounds (ethnicities, social class, education level, etc), they need that time to live together and sort of wear each other down (sanding off the edges?) in terms of living style before things get "easy." Of course, this could happen the first few years of marriage, too. Thoughts?

To me, marriage is always going to be hard work, just like any relationship that is worth keeping... but maybe I'm just cynical.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

Rodney

I'm kind of in synch with fatbob, in that you can be married in fact without being married in law. If both partners feel that way, it really is a marriage rather than "living together."

I've done both. I moved in with a woman who I thought, I _would_ be willing to marry if she could just iron out some little problems of hers, with my support. Well, it never happened (can you spell c-o-d-e-p-e-n-d-e-n-c-e? I knew you could). And since my commitment was only conditional, I walked.

Then I started a relationship with somebody I'd known as a friend for ten years; we'd worked together and really trusted each other, but like fatbob, she didn't feel the state should sanction relationships. So we decided what our goals were together, committed ourselves to 'til death do us part, and we declared ourselves married.

A few years later, we got legally married anyway, by a judge; I won't go into why. But things were the same before the ceremony as after, because we were really married already. We'd worked everything out.

If -- and I say if -- there is a higher divorce rate among those who live together first than those who don't, it may be because many of those who live together first don't realize the greater commitment that marriage requires, and thus don't do all the work up front that marriage requires.

I would recommend to anyone living together to see a marriage counselor _before_ they get married, to see if they need to clear anything up first. It'd really help. Some ministers are good at this kind of counseling, too -- practically the only kind they are good at -- but it's hit or miss.

c172g

I maybe misled you by saying we didn't have an "easy" marriage. My wife & I get along great. We rarely fight (probably a registerable argument once every six months tops).

I guess I'm trying to say you can't take the other person for granted. While you are married and live together, many people get into a routine. We try to avoid that. We go out without the kids once every week or so, just to be by ourselves without distractions. We do things for each other to keep our lives fun & interesting. I send her flowers at work once in a while, instead of just on valentine's day. You can't just plant the ring, go to work every day, come home, eat dinner, watch TV, kiss each other goodnight & go to bed. It takes effort to stay out of the "routine" many couples find themselves in.

abaya

c172g, how long did it take for you to get to that point of realizing you couldn't take the other person for granted? Did you guys get into that "routine" at first, and then have to work your way out of it, or were you naturals from the start? I think it's great that you both still "romance" each other regularly... it seems quite important for keeping the flame alive.

Do other long-term relationship people do this, too?

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

c172g

I would say after the first year (as stated above we didn't live together first) things might have gotten a little routine for a while. I had quit smoking before we got married & like an idiot started up again, but tried to hide it from my wife, so I was always looking for an excuse to leave the house to go smoke (drive around, smoke cigarette, chew lots of gum). In addition, I travelled about 25 weekends a year for business, so I would leave Thursday and wouldn't be home until Monday every other weekend pretty much. That didn't leave a lot of time for the two of us. We didn't fight all the time or anything, but we were both very busy. She had activities with the girls, I played hockey, pool, etc. We were both in our 20's and I guess at that time of your life that's the way things are, you get involved in a lot.

I would say it was probably like that the first four or five years we were married. In 2000 we had our first child, and ever since we have really grown together as a couple and as a family. The last five years have been the best of our time together, but the previous eight weren't by any means bad or unenjoyable. I think back to when we first started dating & everyone knows the buzz inside you during that first year or two.

I guess I feel that our marriage is going in exactly the right direction, we both appreciate each other more every day. What more could you ask for?

Charlatan

Technically speaking my wife and I are not married. We never signed a marriage licence and didn't have a "religious authority" at our wedding.

We exchanged vows in front of about 100 friends and family and a handful of caterers...

Twelve years later we are still married and "lving in sin".

Prior to that we lived together for a few years. It was financially speaking the best thing. I can't understand the need of paying twice as much for two apartments.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

snowy

Well, technically in Canada after a year of co-habitating you're common-law spouses anyways...2 years in most provinces (I looked it up, ha...I am the queen of the internet).

I keep having to point this out to people who say "Oh, my parents aren't really married, they never signed a license, etc..." Well, technically, according to the gov't, if you live together long enough it's just like being married.

However, things get sticky when it comes to asset division.

Anyways, I wouldn't want to live with my future spouse for very long. I figure if you're gonna get married, you should do it sooner rather than later. I'm not a big believer in long engagements, etc. That said...I don't plan on getting married for some time. Would I live with a romantic partner in the meantime? Probably not...I like my space.

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If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

JustJess

That is what will keep people together, married or not. Quadro and I were together almost 8 years, living together for around 3 years, before getting married last October. I have to agree with other posts - marriage is only what you make of it, and so is living together.

The most important point I can make is: be on the same level as your partner whether you are cohabitating or marrying or buying a house or whatever. I know that we got married cause we're mushy and we just plain wanted to; I know neither of us are ready for kids, but we're open to the idea of having them LATER; I know we're both moving towards buying a place; basically, I know we're on the same wavelength. It wouldn't matter if we had lived together only casually, as long as that's all either one of us wanted.

You can have what you want, you just have to communicate what you want to get it.

__________________
My heart knows me better than I know myself, so I'm gonna let it do all the talkin'.

amonkie

For me, when I sign my marriage certificate, I want it to change something in my life. It's a big investment of each other to move in with someone, and as someone who has worked in a residental/housing field, I've seen how messy living situations can get when things go bad, and most often it's because things were not completely thought out before people decided to move in together.


I'm a pretty independent person, and I just really do not trust many people, and living with someone and being financially connected is a big step. I want to make sure I don't get hurt in the prcoess.

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Calling from deep in the heart, from where the eyes can't see and the ears can't hear, from where the mountain trails end and only love can go... ~~~ Three Rivers Hare Krishna

Squishor

Actually there are a lot of misconceptions about the whole "common-law marriage" thing. Contrary to popular belief, most states in the US don't recognize it. A quick google search found this list of states that do; there are many others of course.

http://www.unmarried.org/common.html