Marriage vs. cohabitation (relationship wise) which is best to you and why?

I personally don’t think the ceremony and signed document change anything. So I’m reading this question as: Which is better, a costly cohabitation – or a cheaper one with better investments?

And thus I am naturally leaning to B.

Why only celebrate your union/cohabitation.relaitonship only once in a lifetime with your friends? How about you hold a party to yourselves every few years or more frequently – with only a fraction of the cost and twice the fun.

Oh, and you get to do the honeymoon thing as often as you desire ;)

I think both are equal, the only difference is that marriage is more definite and actually is a legal ceremony. I feel that you need to be living with your significant other for a while before marriage because other wise, you don’t know what you’re getting into.

@oxymoron As far as Canada is considered, common-law is just as legal.

Marriage is a visible ceremony of commitment. It makes it less easy to walk away from. It is a sign to the community of your commitment to one another.

It is a binding of two spirits.

Cohabitation is wiser financially. The whole commitment and vow thing isn’t really trustworthy now, it’s too easy to get trapped by someone with ulterior motives.

Marriage is a contract to compromise….Cohabitation is an agreement to compromise…subtle difference that expensive lawyers can help you sort through.

Either way you slice it there comes a point and time where compromise and living life becomes a debatable precept.

Why can’t one make a ceremony for his spouse and friends and celebrate their togetherness. Nearly all the bids and pieces of a ‘wedding’ except the signing etc.

I understand that weddings make it official, but does that help or stress the relationship?

I have co habitated with and then married a partner. I have co habitated with a few other partners and chosen not to marry them. Personally, I enjoyed being married, I enjoyed to have a public ceremony/display/binding to my friends and family. In my mind the legal binding is the ultimate pledge I can extend my partner aside from my personal spiritual outlook and the morals I choose to live by.

Well if the marriage is a healthy one I think it is a lot nicer to be referred to as someone’s wife or husband. I think that creates more meaning to the household then simple girlfriend / boyfriend. Plus I believe in a healthy relationship cohabitation should eventually lead to marriage. My mom always says that living with your S/O forever doesn’t mean anything unless you plan on marrying them.

@phoebusg Marriage is only stressful because people probably feel trapped. You cannot easily walk away. Literally, you can, but legally there are leaps and bounds to overcome.

Cohabitation should always come before marriage. It’s not a sin (in my book), so I don’t see any issues with it. Marriage is a legal commitment that shouldn’t be taken lightly.

To me, whats best is what works for that individual couple. If they don’t want to get married, then don’t. Simple as that. For me, we wanted to reap the benefits of marriage, plus we wanted to make that commitment to each other. We lived together for over two years prior to getting married, and I will say….marriage is completely different than just living together.

It can mean nothing, or it can mean everything. There are couples that just decide to be married without marrying, there are couples that like the whole wedding thing. There are couples that show up at the mayor’s office and get it done legally.
It really depends on your – compromise with your spouse – on how you will proceed with this compromise.

I don’t think there should be one way to do this. Relationships are as unique as the people involved. And people can be very diverse. So why can’t relationships be diverse?

Hehe @casheroo – yes, agreed. I’m reading a lot of shoulds here. Let’s not forget what really matters – the happiness of the couple. So let’s brainstorm ideas an alternatives – and then they can pick their favorite ;)

Why do you have to pay for a wedding if you get married? You can go down to the courthouse, sign a paper, and say a few words, boom, legally married.

I certainly don’t think living together is a sin. I think if you live together because you have doubts and want to see how it goes, most likely you should be breaking up. If youo mov into together because a relationship is going great and that is your next step, then I say fine. Or, if you are already engaged and it makes sense to live together and start saving money.

If you are going to have children I think much better to be married for legal reasons. In fact legal protections are the best reason to get married. Like, own a house together you need to make sure your contract is written correctly, there are two types of non-married co-owners (at least in FL there is) Tenants in Common, and Joint Tenancy. If you are tennants in common and one of you dies, that half of the house goes to legal heirs of the dead person not you. In fact, even if he/she is still alive and wants to sell his half of the house he can. People probably don’t even know what they are signing half the time, you have to hope the contracts are written correctly. In Joint Tenancy if an owner dies his/her portion of ownership goes to the other owner(s). Married couple have a whole different type of ownership, Tenancy in the Entirety (it is like they are two parts of a whole, the both own 100% in a way) where the survivor becomes the sole owner, and even if the spouses name is not on the deed they have rights to a percentage of the home, and can’t be thrown nout of where they live. Not to mention bring able to see them and make decisions for them if they are unable to speak for themselves in a hospital, and all of the many other things gay people bring up who want the right to marry.

I think there is something special about being married. But, I guess any long standing relationship with a commitment could feel the same.

@Blackberry Kind of a sad statement. By the way married people are statistically more likely to be wealthy. But maybe that was comparing married to single, which might not be the same as married compared to living together.

Ok make your case.

@Oxymoron What role does dating play? Just to see who to live with and size up for a marriage and if it don’t work pack your bags and toothbrush and start over? To feel the person out is what dating use to be, what is it today?

@Blackberry “The whole commitment and vow thing isn’t really trustworthy now, it’s too easy to get trapped by someone with ulterior motives.” How is living together with no legal vows or public declaration makes the union more genuine, trustworthy, and more safe from manipulation by one party or the other? Just like to know that.

@Cruiser “Marriage is a contract to compromise….Cohabitation is an agreement to compromise…” Expand please, if there were no marriage contract the guy and gal would have less reason to compromise than if they just lived together; as if they were force or bound by the marriage and not by the love to their spouse?

@hungryhungryhortence “I enjoyed being married, I enjoyed to have a public ceremony/display/binding to my friends and family. In my mind the legal binding is the ultimate pledge I can extend my partner aside from my personal spiritual outlook and the morals I choose to live by.” Many would say the priest and ceremony is just an expensive show to prove what they know for nothing, if you love you love why spend the money? And Morals, that is a religious hobbling that if you are not spiritual or you are an atheist it is nothing at all. You would say to that?

@Hypocrisy_Central about your response to @hungryhungryhortence why do you say an atheist can’t have morals? I find that offensive. And, it seems you are only talking about a religious ceremony, not a civil one? Like I said above, you don’t need a big expensive show to be married.

@Hypocrisy_Central Not so fast! If you decide to live under one roof with the one you love there are all sorts of compromises…no getting around that! Cohabitating you merely agree to mutual compromises…again a marriage it is a piece of paper binding you to the same compromises but with legal consequences. Pretty straight forward!

@Hypocrisy_Central: I have been legally married before without a priest or expensive show and I honored that binding just as well as when we stood under a church to honor the wishes of family and some friends. I have my own set of morals I choose to live by and look for in other people but I am not religious so I don’t know what kind of hobbling you think I have been dealt. Do I want an expensive wedding the next time around? I haven’t thought about that part. What’s been in my mind is excitement to feel so deeply for a particular person as to want to pledge myself again. I’ll offer them past, present and future- tradition as well the person I am right now.

Neither.I vant to be alooone. ;)

My wife and I never dated! We courted online for 5 months and we sure we loved each other before we ever met in person. We were together for 2 weeks or so before she went home and packed up her life in Oregon and returned to Missouri so we could be “closer”. We started meeting for delightful in a town in South Dakota once a month. It was an 8 hour drive for each of us. After 5 months more and we knew we had to live together. She moved up to northwestern Minnesota and got work nearby in a town in North Dakota. I put my home up for sale and moved to a little town in southeastern Manitoba. I spent my days working 60 miles north of my residence and spent nights and weekends with her in Minnesota, a ten minute drive from my residence. We lived together for 7 months and I asked her to marry me. She had been determined never to marry again, (having been married twice before).
I had been married thrice before (having cohabited with each of the last two for over a year). What made getting married worthwhile to me and also to her, was that we knew that the other was the “other half” of ourselves. I’d been in love before but never felt truly loved until we found each other. She said it was the same for her and the reason why she accepted my proposal that we should marry. We went to a North Dakota courthouse and paid the fee, signed some paperwork and hunted around the courthouse for two strangers who would agree to be our witnesses. We forgot we would need some! We ate dinner in the same town where we were married and went back to her residence.

Marrying each other was the best decision for us and we will probably be together for the rest of our lives.There was nothing wrong with cohabiting. Our wedding cost less than fifty dollars including gifts for the witnesses that we ran out and purchased after the ceremony.

My wife and I chose marriage because we were both looking for a solid commitment.

What do you guys think of this article?

(It was the first hit when I did this search)

@phoenyx I think it’s cheaper than a divorce. Cohabiting is a lot like marriage, may not be exactly that. But you get to see what living with the person really is like. You can’t really “predict” those things, this is a scientific pursuit, as in. Try and fail, or succeed.

I don’t think not cohabiting is a predictive variable to marital success by any means. But if it does succeed, it’s more likely the marriage would.

On the same search. (Google ranking does not imply validity or reliability of a source.)
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/the_differences_between_marria.html

Well… If you were ask me to answer this question a year ago, my answers would have been very different.

Now… I don’t believe in marriage, don’t want to be married and not looking to ever be married again.

My priorities changed greatly as they often do with time and experience…

Now, all I want is someone I can trust who has their own, can take care of themselves, by themselves and can every once and a while tolerate me, and forgive me when they can’t.

Last I checked, you don’t need legal binding documents for that.

@JLeslie Right, I forget where I am sometimes and I should have spelled it out as “church wedding” is what most equate to marriage because more have church marriages than going to the court house downtown. So that would be an argument of what type of marriage to have but not what would make it better than just cohabitating. As for morals, I was commenting to her spiritual leanings. But logically I see morals like speed limits, and the being more supreme than us, the traffic cops. If you have no speed limit, then there is no reason to have traffic cops so, no law against speeding exist.

@Cruiser Ok I can see the compromise part better that you make it clear the marriage document makes the pledge to compromise more official (if I got you right) But you would say (as your comment) it is better to have none official consequences? There would or could still be legal consequences to those who decide to life together. What if they are both young and decide to have a joint bank account and did not think to get around to a will and one is killed accidently somehow? With no marriage I don’t think the b/f or g/f will just be able to go in and loot the deceased money over his/her living relatives. That would be a legal consequence. Same if they buy property, they are both 50% owners but if one dies un-expectantly I speculate with no will there would be no smooth sailing to get the other have of the house. Children, can we just say look at the mess with Anna Nicole Smith, and the child she left because she was not married to any of those blokes. Seemed like consequences to me. Just seems like the consequences are there just in different areas.

@Dr_Lawrence GREAT for you two! I hope many great years, can I come to the 15th year anni? “We courted online for 5 months and we sure we loved each other before we ever met in person.” During those time what did you chat about? Anything you would have if you were face to face with a bottle of wine and a dish of lobster in front of you? You may not say it was dating but I would say you were doing a form od dating in the digital world, you just did not have the candles and the violin guy.

@Hypocrisy_Central You answer your comments to me in your original question as it all depends on what is best for you! Marriage provides the legal benefits and consequences of the compromise where cohabitation requires the same levels of compromise with out the added expense of marriage and possibly divorce.

I didn’t know my husband at all when I moved in with him. We probably could have lived together just fine. But we got married, at the courthouse. I have health insurance now and he has a tax deduction. Plus, he wanted to be sure that if anything happened to him I’d be ok.

A marriage license does change things. You are making a commitment that cannot be easily broken. You can’t just get up from the table, say “That’s it!”, walk out, and be done with it. That commitment brings a lot of harmony to the relationship.
I am also a believer in cohabitating first, though I didn’t. It’s a good idea to make sure it’s a good fit, but don’t go longer than a year. You should know by then.

It depends on the needs of the couple involved. Co-habitation doesn’t provide the legal protections a married couple have, and it also doesn’t provide the financial advantages of being married. If they are not particularly committed to each other it provides an easy out, if that is what they need.

@Cruiser I see I was seeing ‘consequences’ as more than just the cost of a divorce people who cohabitate can have costly consequences just in different areas so there is no big plus there.

@filmfann “You can’t just get up from the table, say “That’s it!”, walk out, and be done with it.” But isn’t that the best ot better part of avoidng marriage? So if the “love of your life” turns into a monster you can get out quick and cheap?

Great question. I am happy with cohabitation, but I do want to get married. With marriage (like you said) there are legal rights. I also like the idea of taking the man’s last name, sharing insurance, and of course, the wedding. I don’t like that gay marriage is not legal in all 50 states.

For me, marriage has two aspects, 1) the legal rights it brings (different in different countries), and 2) the ceremonial “making it official” before your community.

The latter does not need to be thousands-of-dollars worth of gowns and cakes, either; I have been to very lovely ceremonies with just the couple and closest family present, with simple coffee served after, and that’s it. Marriage that is just about THE WEDDING is certainly not worth it.

Other than that, I do not think you can in any sort of absolute say which is better. It depends on the situation. We lived together for years, then got married when it seemed like the thing we wanted to do.

@Janka I am very happy for you. You and a few others have shown that you can have the wedding and not go broke, which seems to be a reason people use to avoid marriage; I would hope it was not just that, but they haven’t done much else. What would you say of those who want to live as married but not when children come along? Unless there is some major meltdown by the mother, the father may find himself in an expensive mess to try to stay in his children’s life. What if the mother moves away and is injured permanently, with out being married where would he stack neck to the grandparents, aunts or uncles who may want to take and raise the child if the mother has to be cared for at a facility?

I am happy with cohabitation. I don’t have any plans to marry as I don’t think it is necessary for our relationship. I’m sure whether or not you have or plan to have kids makesa big difference in this decision as well.

I think marriage has tied to itself some benefits that we need, in our family, like health insurance and whatever else – personally, I wouldn’t be married if it wasn’t for those benefits and further, I don’t think marriage should have these benefits tied to it at all…our wedding didn’t cost much at all (prob $1500) so the money argument doesn’t work…and of course we can have a ‘honey-moon’ any time because we’re actually into keeping our relationship alive so, for us, we get all the benefits of cohabitation and all the benefits out there for hetero marriage…we’re not heterosexual but being sexed as female and male, we get to use the system…and it should be used because it’s flawed…everyone should be able to get married if marriage is to have benefits in connection to it…to deny some people marriage is plain wrong.

@Hypocrisy_Central You call it “church marriage” but you are talking again about a church wedding reception when you talk about all of the money and hoopla. You can get married by clergy in a small ceremony and not even have a recepetion if you don’t want to. You are just talking about societal norms, but the church does not require you to wear a $1000 dress and serve a 5 course meal and spend $600 on a cake. What you are forgetting also is here in the US (are you in the US?) your church wedding does involve the clergy also officiating the civil marriage, empowered by the state to do so (I think this is a problem in the US) so pretty much every time there is a church wedding there is a civil marriage and a church marriage.

Your traffic analogy is incorrect, because people would probably still have discussions of what is a safe driving speed, and people would use logical judgment about it. Sure there would be people who drive too fast, but that happens now anyway. Plus, it is not just how fast you drive, but whether you are driving recklessly, which includes driving too fast (you can get a ticket for driving 50 in a 55 if the weather is bad, if it is dangerous in the officers opinion). Germany had no speed limits on their highways and from what I understand there were fewer accidents, although if I remember correctly when an accident did occur there were typically more cars involved; I really don’t know how accurate that info is.

@phoenyx that article is talking a lot about correlations and not necessarily causation. It mentions those who live together first are more likely to divorce. This goes back to what I said before, I think if you are not sure about each other, and decide to live together to test it out, then I think you should just break up. Those people aren’t sure about each other, that’s the problem. And, cohabitation rates increase domestic violence, is more of a comment on the type of person who is prone to violence, it is too separate issues, you can’t say if those two people were married he wouldn’t hit her. And that unmarried couple are less happy than married couples, again this would not be solved by those two people being married. All it says is that now people can live together, even if they should not be together, it has nothing to do with being married or not, marriage would not cure these negative things in my opinion.

I think probably having children, is an important argument to be married, which I had said above also, but it is not only because of the child having a stable home with two parents (it can be unstable even if they are married) but because then the father is legally obligated to the child (I know you can go the rigors of proving paternity, so this is less of a problem). Movie stars are single parents or parents when cohabitating, but each adult has the MONEY to support the child. Obviously raising childen is not all about the money, but it counts. No matter what, an absent parent is difficult for a child. Recently I saw Ann Coulter talking about her book on single parents and she said that single parents are defined as parents who are not married when the child is born, and their kids do tend to have more troubles; but that divorced and widowed parents have children who fair as well as married couples. It has more to do with the parents involvement, and committment to the child, and I would submit that a lot of the children of single parents who have trouble are children of single parents of lower income mothers with fathers who never gave a damn in the first place. It has less to do with being married, and more to do with the atitudes of the adult about having children.

“What would you say of those who want to live as married but not when children come along? Unless there is some major meltdown by the mother, the father may find himself in an expensive mess to try to stay in his children’s life. What if the mother moves away and is injured permanently, with out being married where would he stack neck to the grandparents, aunts or uncles who may want to take and raise the child if the mother has to be cared for at a facility?”

This depends on the legislation you are at. I would say that if indeed your law requires the father to be married to the mother to be recognized as a parent, then yes, get married before children. You do not need to have a big huge wedding, but I think it is absolutely vital to be recognized before law as the parent of your child. If the wedding is just a money question, why not get married now, and throw the party later once you are better off financially?

@Cruiser @Hypocrisy_Central about the property, as I mentioned depending on the ownership is what dictates who gets the portion of the house if someone in the couple dies. Tenants in Common, and Joint Tenancy being the two typical choices. http://real-estate-law.freeadvice.com/real-estate-law/property_ownership_forms.htm in joint tenancy, even without a will, the other property owner has the rights of survivorship. You just have to get the contract right when you buy the house. Still, being married is better protection, and may have tax implications, I am not sure about the taxes.

@Hypocrisy_Central It’s easier to not get screwed over financially by someone if you decide to divorce. No alimony, usually no joint bank account, if you’re not married, you don’t have to spend money on a lawyer, or wait to be divorced, preventing you from meeting someone else. It makes it easier to escape a situation if you find out it’s not going to work.

@JLeslie Yeah you’re right, but I’m just using the assumption that both parties make around the same income and have separate bank accounts and don’t have kids lol. If you’re married assuming you aren’t rich, someones getting the shaft at divorce court.

@Blackberry No. If all things are equal no one is likely to get the shaft, but it can be heartwrenching. Most states are community property and everything is 50/50, some aren’t. But, what both people lose is their combined wealth. A married couple might have $300K in savings, but once divorced each of them only has $150K and so farther away from having their nest egg for the future, and both people feel less “wealthy.” This is part of the reason married people tend to be wealthier than their singles. The money is also multiplying at a better rate most likely. The Millionaire Mind by Thomas J. Stanley talks in depth about marriage and wealth, from what I remember, I skimmed the book a long time ago. It is very interesting, not only because of the money aspect, but also generally about good supportive marriages. http://www.thomasjstanley.com/

Many times woman go after money to stick it to their husbands when they have been assholes. Like Tigers wife. If she goes for half, it is not because she needs more money than her prenup provides, it is because she wants to TAKE IT from him. She has no way to hurt him, except take his money, it is the only justice. It is not greed, it is her trying to punish him. But, she still can only get what she can legally get.

Hmmm I see, I guess I just assumed that was a normal part of divorce. I don’t want to risk getting ‘punished’ though so that’s enough reason for me to not get married.

@Blackberry So even if you are in a long term relationship you will keep all of your money and property separate? Lots of people try to do this in marriage too (although you really can’t in most states for your primary residence). I was just wondering how you look at it. Yours will always be yours, and if you have children you have no desire for you or your SO to stay home with the children?

So, for the most part, people are saying if you don’t think your relationship will last, co-habitation is better, but if you are convinced that you are “forever” than the legal ‘paper’ is better.

@YARNLADY I believe based on the responses given it comes down to the fear of lost vs. the desire to gain; if you fear you will end up losing your money and possessions to cohabitate, and if you want to gain a life long mate you marry. As it was said: “It’s easier to not get screwed over financially by someone if you decide to divorce. No alimony, usually no joint bank account, if you’re not married, you don’t have to spend money on a lawyer, or wait to be divorced, preventing you from meeting someone else. It makes it easier to escape a situation if you find out it’s not going to work.” Cohabitation is the ultimate relationship egress system if things start to go South, you don’t have to stick around to try and salvage it, just cut and run.

@JLeslie Well…the thing is….I don’t think about or plan on having kids to be honest. I don’t factor them in or consider them at all, that’s how much I don’t want them. If it changes in the future, I’ll plan then. What I would like to happen is find a woman with the same desires (I think I already have) and try to move forward without the kid and see how it goes. I wouldn’t separate things like furniture, that’s just childish, but I would just want to be in control of what I earn. My S/O would know if it came down to it, but she wouldn’t be able to just randomly have access to my account, that’s too risky.

Of course who knows if it will end up this way, but what I do plan on is to not have kids for a long long time, so I could focus on building a relation instead of it being clouded by children.

Sadly, like Hypocrisy just said, it’s all about the egress system. Monogamy takes too much discipline and it seems like all marriages end up some boring, sexless lifestyle where you just end up dedicating your life to simply work and kids, I just don’t like the lack of freedom.

@Blackberry Fair enough. I think children are the big game changer not being married or being in a long-term relationship. I think your plan is reasonable, just sad that you feel you can’t trust another person fully and completely, but I can understand why, too many people have been duped. I have heard people say that financial problems are in the top three for breaking up marriages, which I believe. But building financial success together can be a great thing. Money unites people I think. Meanwhile I am in no way trying to convince you to get married and merge all of your money, not at all.

I would be interested to speak to people who have never combined their money with their spouse or SO, and how they feel about it, what their relationship is like, or what happens when they want to buy something big like a house. I do have one friend who kept bank accounts totally separate, she is divorced, but I am not trying to say that is why, but the money was indicative of ther relationship, they were never very united. I would guess if you both make similar salaries it is much easier than if you make very different salaries. And, I think it matters how much money you already have, where you are in life. When you are both in your early 20’s just starting out it is easier to start building together I think. When you already have some money saved, I think people are less inclined to just put everything in everyone’s name. Well, just thinking out loud. Thanks for the response :).

@JLeslie Yeah I would definitely feel more comfortable doing a traditional marriage if I had the financial cushion to share and still be ok. I was already married and I was the only person making money and I was also a stepdad so that’s why I think this way lol. Yeah..I don’t want to be jaded and cynical, but I feel so traumatized from that experience that I don’t ever want it again lol. But my ex wife wasn’t a normal, honest woman so that’s what made it so bad. But I know what I want for next time, and I’m not going to surrender until my demands are met lol.

@Blackberry I see. Good. Have high standards, you should. Trust is everything.

Anyone who doesn’t think co-habitation would not involve attorneys is sadly mistaken. Any time one partner feels ‘dumped’ on they can hire a lawyer to ‘punish’ the other party or to receive whatever they believe is rightfully theirs. The lawyer can sue for promises not kept, or the division of property, and many other legal considerations.

@YARNLADY What do you think if twi guys or two gals cohabitated had a child by Surrogate and neither has DNA with the child. Wonder what happens when one or both want tpo make a quick unencumbered egrees from the relationship?

@YARNLADY Man this sucks…...looks like I’ll be living alone or with male roommates forever lol. What’s up with this people having to punish the other just because they’re hurt?

@Blackberry I have been married for 17 years, love my husband and love being married.

@YARNLADY You are right.. certain states have that “common law marriage” where you actually have to get divorced is your domestic partner stays with you for a period of time and you share living expenses. Its crazy

@TheBlackRanger Common law marraiges will be less and less necessary as women get more and more empowered. That is why these laws exist. I had a situation in my family that was very upsetting, and they could not prove common law marriage, and it was really very unfair. The man in the situation had made promises, supposedly changed his will, had told his best friend he was going to change his will(he and his friend are lawyers) and then at the time of his death supposedly the will said nothing. The friend was willing to sign whatever he needed to supporting the claim. The man who passed away, his son was a lawyer too. We hypothesize that a new will was made, and the son buried it. Realize the son was not going to be excluded, these people had millions, and we were not looking for millions, just what he had been contributing to help pay rent while living with my relative for years and some spending money. While he was alive he was very generous, gave her more than she would ever asked for, but she still lived fairly modestly.