What do you think of couples that live together?

well, this is the kind of thing that is different for different couples…just because it didn’t work out for you in the past doesn’t mean you have to get married for it to go well…on the other hand, marriage doesn’t protect against the issues of living…it’s a good idea to try it out

It seems to make sense. Marriage doesn’t equal you being together forever. What if you had married the first guy?

When a relationship is serious.

I lived with my husband before we were married. It will be 26 years this month.

I did not live with my first husband before marriage. If I had, I would not have married him.

I also lived with a guy after college and we broke up.

I like the idea.

I think it’s fine and only you can determine when you’re ready for it, be it after 3 weeks of dating or 3 years.

My boyfriend will be moving in with me in October and we’ve been dating 8 months.

My grandparents don’t even look down on cohabitation. I didn’t even think this was an issue anymore.

Marriage doesn’t guarantee anything. Some of us aren’t even allowed to get married.

It worked for me. I think I would be sad if I didn’t live with my husband. ;)

Seriously though, we lived together for a couple years before getting married. I think living together earlier is the only way to find out if you will really get along living together later. If you don’t get along, or you freak out, you can still go – just like your ex did. If you find that it goes well, it’s a clue that deepening the relationship might be the way to go.

I would never EVER marry someone that I wasn’t living with first. Your function in a relationship is much different from dating to living together. If you wait to get married you could be setting yourself up for a quick divorce, or a miserable life together.

I currently live with my gf and while we have talked about marriage its not something we both care too much about. We love each other and are happy being together and living together and having a life together, what is marriage gonna bring?

I think living together is a much bigger step then marriage.

Why would you not wanna live with the person you love?

After I finish up with worrying about cancer, war, racism, diabetes, homelessness, natural disasters, automobile accidents, my hairline, failure, success, house fires, what’s for dinner, how will I pay my bills, what is my purpose in life, and what happened to Ivan that made him so sour, I really don’t care if a couple of adults shack up.

I think they are fortunate to be that close to the one they love.

@Blondesjon what happened to you to make you the biggest hypocrite on fluther – yourwords?

After a year or more of a serious relationship, I think it’s stupid not to live together.

I’m on my second boyfriend. I lived with my first, and I live with my second now. It’s a good idea.

It’s the same premise as not having sex before marriage, and I’ve had this philosophy since I was a young teenager:

You wouldn’t buy a car without taking it for a test drive, would you?

@Simone_De_Beauvoir . . .I agree with the hypocrite statement but I don’t get the context. Do you think my words make me as such or do you want me to explain why in my own words?

@Blondesjon no I just want you to explain why

@samanthabarnum What if its a really hot car?

@InspecterJones Even more reason to have sex with it before you buy it.

@samanthabarnum whyyyy would you have sex with a car you sicko!?....how would that even work?

@InspecterJones I thought you were using a car as a euphemism for a hot piece of ass! I guess if you were a guy you could do the tailpipe, but ew, and ow.

I never judge anyone so for me the answer is simple..it is none of my business, and I wish the parties involved well. I repeat my oft observation from that great fellow Jesus Christ, one of the smartest guys who may never have existed: Judge not and ye shall not be judged.

My daughter lived with her SO for twenty years. They were considered married by common law in the state of RI. When it finally ended, they divided the assets they had shared, kept their own stuff and remained friends..no court, no lawyers, no bitterness, no hostility. Of course, there were no children either.

@samanthabarnum I suppose if you used enough lube….

….whats this “euphemism” you talk about? :P

It isn’t for me, but I don’t care if others chose to cohabitate.

However, even without actually living with him, by the time we decided to marry I knew the man I was marrying well enough to be sure I wanted to marry him and not someone else.

Quite frankly, my opinion of him hasn’t changed over the 21 years I have known him, 20 years of which we were married to each other.

I’m biased in favor of it since I’ve only ever lived with my loves, married and non married. Living alone for a spell now, I look back and miss co habitation.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir . . .Well hell, nothing happened to make me that way, except being born human.

For me to say that I am the biggest hypocrite on Fluther would violate my own ethical code of humility. I would like to think I am the biggest one but you know what they say:

“There’s always somebody out there better than you.”

@Blondesjon well it’s still nothing to be proud of, no? or is this the kind of thing you take pride in or only joke about? let me explain myself further – I take you seriously when you or anyone else accuses me of hypocrisy and would like to think that the person doing so isn’t flaunting it in the next thread…frankly, I was a bit surprised to learn that you, such an aggressive nay-sayer about it so easily proclaim yourself as the biggest one

@Simone_De_Beauvoir . . .I do it so I can use the “takes one to know one” retort with layered irony.

@Blondesjon oh, irony, why didn’t I think of that…anyway, thanks

@Simone_De_Beauvoir . . .For some strange reason, call it a hunch, I don’t think you mean that thanks at all. I will still say you’re welcome because I may be a hypocrite but I am not impolite.

Ok. I am impolite…I was just being a hypocrite again. Damn! I am good at this.

@Blondesjon you might be an impolite hypocrite, @Blondesjon, but you’ve got a ways to learn about me – I always mean what I say

@Simone_De_Beauvoir . . .As do I. I am probably the most sincere hypocrite you will come across during your journey through this life. Remember me and learn.

@Blondesjon meh, maybe you’ll dazzle me later, I suppose

You two get a room. :)

And let me watch.

I think living together is actually a good idea. Don’t go to the extreme of living together for 12 years and not get married, but getting married to someone you’ve never heard snore, fart or burp will only result in disaster. I know that our parents’ morality said “no sex before marriage” (which automatically made living together practically impossible), but it also said “thou shalt not divorce”. People got married to a person they didn’t know, and then spent the rest of their lives trying to make things work, since divorce was not an option. Today things are different, and you should definitely try out your future flatmate for a while before deciding to spend a lifetime with them.

I lived with my partner first before I married him and I am glad I did, we got to know each other in a lot more initimate way how smelly each other’s toile habits were etc… these thiings are important :)

My cousin didn’t live with her parnter, spent a whole heap of money on her wedding, well her parents did and she divorced after 12months as they couldn’t live together.

You will hear lots of pros and cons during this debate, but it really is your own choice, if you feel comfortable with this person then go for it, as long as you are covered legally etc.. if anything should happen not paying rent wise etc…

Living together is simply put, a trial run of marriage. It gives you the chance to see if you work together as a team well. I would never marry someone I didn’t live with beforehand. That’s just too much of a risk I’m not willing to take. Same with having sex, I would never commit myself to a person without trying them on, just as I wouldn’t buy an expensive sweater without trying it on.

Co-habiting premaritally is an excellent idea and can actually reduce the number of divorces. Live in an apartment more at least 3 years, learn how to handle conflicts, get married then, and you’ve got a good chance the marriage will last.

I think if a couple is at that point in the relationship then it is an excellent idea to live together. As @mattbrowne said, it allows you time to learn how to handle conflicts and really know each other on a completely different level before getting married.

Worked for me.

OTOH, I have known far too many people who lived together and then, when they felt they needed a bit more commitment “glue,” got married, only to divorce within a year.

Personally, I feel you can get to know someone well enough without actually living with them to know whether marriage is the right next step or not. However, you have to work at both knowing them and accepting them, just as they do you.

But then, that’s just me.

My brother lived with four different serious girlfriends over the years, married three of them, and divorced two of them. I’m not sure I like his odds.

It sure helps with the expenses. Also, nice to have a warm body at hand.

@Darwin Maybe your brother shouldn’t have rushed into marriage just “cause they needed more commitment”.

Marriage has so many weird fucked connotations attached to it these days that’s its almost not worth it.

I hope civil unions get the same privileges as marriage one day so me and my gf can just do that instead. (that would be possible, yes?)

@InspecterJones – He really didn’t rush into any of his marriages, and he really was in love with each of the women. However, the women fell out of love with him or changed the rules once the I dos were said..

One married him for the romance of being married to a musician but then expected he would get a day job and move to Seattle (why Seattle? We have never found that out). She also backtracked and said no children ever.

The next claimed to marry him forever and for children but after 14 years and three children she had an affair and announced that she wanted him out of the house (but he had to come back to have dinner with the kids each night).

The one he is married to now is also a night person, so we hope things will continue. They are raising a grandbaby together.

@Darwin Wow, well that just seems like a string of shit luck. I kinda feel bad for him. These things do kinda happen, people change and sometimes they grow apart. Except for the first one, seems like they got married for the wrong reasons and she had expectations of him that weren’t realistic (but of coarse the expectations don’t come out till they’re married). I still don’t see any correlation to living together and thing falling apart, if anything, getting married is the part that made things fall apart for him.

Seriously… I lived with my GF for a year. she had to go to her mom’s for a month and from then on I moved alone… Living alone is amazing, if you can afford it.
Note* I live with a roommate who has a separate room, but it’s still alone cause I never see him.

Definitely better than “couples” who live apart. I mean, if you don’t live together, can you really call yourselves a couple?

When I go out with my Mother, we’re a couple. When I go out with my best friend, we’re a couple. I don’t live with either of them, and I don’t ever want to.

When I got serious about my (now) wife, we moved in together. Long before we got married. I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t want to live with your love, unless you weren’t really sure they were your love. But if you don’t live with them, how can you find out if you can live with them?

@daloon I have to say when I read my post then read yours. you do bring up some valid points into the topic, but you can find out if you can live with them without living with them. just by them spending a weekend, A couple of nights you can tell if you can or cannot live with them. Just because you don’t live with them doesn’t make you single, so you can and should call it “being a couple” as you did in Junior High, and High School. College (as I am now) isn’t and shouldn’t be any different as it is from when your not studying. You live alone make your own rules and shouldn’t have to bother with someone who isn’t ready for that situation, especially if the one that isn’t ready is you. Lol.

If your serious with someone, you shouldn’t move in with them. Sleep over a lot, so much so it seems like you live there. After you’re sure it’ll be okay to sleep at the same place, then you should. before that. It’ll just ruin the whole thing.

At least that’s my opinion.

As a person who has lived with four people for a year or more, I have never found that I knew very much about living with them after a few nights or even a few months. These things, it seems to me, take years to figure out. Perhaps it is why there are so many divorces in the first three years of marriage. For women who divorce, around one-third of those marriages lasted five years or less (Number, Timing, and Duration of
Marriages and Divorces: 2001, Figure 3.)

For women, cohabitation before marriage leads to fewer marriages that end in divorce (except for people who have cohabited more than one time). This article says

“Cornell sociologist Daniel Lichter…. found that for woman, the odds of a marriage ending in divorce were 30 percent lower if they lived with their husbands before getting married; however, this is true only in cases where the woman’s husband was the only man she had cohabitated with before getting married.”

My guess that the reason this is true is that cohabitation lets you know how well you can get along with your partner. You need this knowledge if you want a marriage that will last. Women have got to see how loyal their potential husbands are.

Failed to live with each other before marriage——————>Marital Bliss

@daloon Well as SeventhSense said : They got Divorced before they even got married.

But if you can’t find out how people act, for example their mannerisms, just by hanging out with them or staying a few nights in their house* then their either hiding what their like your not just not paying enough attention to it. Because I spent a few nights at my girlfriends house and vice versa, before we moved in together… I knew what I was getting into and it’s all because of my few weekends.
Note* that includes spending the day not just coming at sleepy time.

A few days of “living together” will show you what someone is like who is on their best behaviour and wanting to impress.

@Malcrony Will you write me in five years and tell me if you still believe what you just wrote?

@daloon I’d say yes, but I doubt I’d remember why…

I’m not saying it’s the same for everyone, I’m just giving out my opinion with a little of what I’ve gone thru. Maybe for daloon it worked out fine but for others and sadly it’s a pretty common nowadays moving in with someone just doesn’t work as one would like. Mostly because they (as Laureth said) give you their fake reality of how they really are.

So as I’ve said I’ve lived with my girlfriend for a few months as a test run, in My apartment and her apartment just to see how things are. And from that I didn’t think I’d be comfortable living with her, I gave it a short thinking it wouldn’t work
since I was right
I decided I’d live alone… At least for now.
I’m still with her, I still love her, she stays over… but I have my on place.

Rereading some of the posts I have to say…
@shortysith Honestly you’ll have to weight the Pros and the Cons of living with your guy.

@laureth
But a couple of years will tell you all you need to know.
you can only hold in a fart for 6 months