<p>I really agree with this. Until this thread I had forgotten all about the “studies” that showed living together before getting married increased the chance of getting divorced. I hadn’t heard that line of thinking for years, decades even.</p>
<p>There are so many reasons marriages end in divorce, and I doubt that whether or not a couple lived together before hand factors into the equation. I think living together is a good idea. It is a dose of reality, see what it is really like to live with someone, can you work out issues, because the issues to be worked out only multiply once you introduce children and a mortgage. Living together before you get married could potentially help you avoid making a legal commitment to the wrong person.</p>
<p>The cow quote really gets me going, and I see it primarily from woman to woman. I am engaged to be married, and am involved in a few forums designated for engaged couples. Often we get couples who are cohabitating and one (usually the woman) wants to get engaged but for some reason it just isn’t happening. The overwhelming response from dozens of women is always that obnoxious, “why buy the cow” quote. In that scenario, it is really something women use to tear other women down. They are implying that since they are already “giving it up,” and you know what that means, why would the man want to bother marrying her? It’s the cliche girl A calling girl B a slut BS that girls have been doing since they were old enough to know the word. And of course they take the moral high ground and say “OH, well we waited to move in until after we were married, of course!” I posed the question to them once, “do you really think that way of the man you married? That if you’d given him the option he’d have just taken free sex and never married you? It seems to me that’s what you’re implying if you assume this is the case for every cohabitating woman that comes here.” I just couldn’t imagine thinking that poorly of the man I am with and his intentions and still actually going through with a marriage. And make of it what you will, but usually the women employing this tactic are the same ones who suggest they’d have had nothing to look forward to after the wedding if they had already experienced living together. These are the women who suggest that they have a better understanding and appreciation of marriage than the cohabitating women they are attacking. It’s just pitiful.</p>
<p>We are leaning toward not cohabitating before the wedding just because my mother has offered to let me live with her rent free until the wedding, and we need that opportunity to save money. However, depending on how things work out, we may end up living together before. I am not really particular either way. We’ve had joint finances for over a year as it is and do most of the housework in our separate residences together. I am already well aware of his money habits and what chores he will simply refuse to do, and vice versa. I know how he handles stress and how he reacts to a crisis, and I know how we solve problems together-- and we have had practice with some real big problems. I am sure there are still plenty of things I don’t know about him, but I look forward to discovering those other things as we go. We are going to start pemarital counseling sometime soon and I am really pleased to have that opportunity (and financial counseling, too!.) While living together is certainly one way to get to know somebody, I don’t think it’s the only way. But I would certainly never judge anybody for choosing one way or the other. I hate that people do that, and I can’t help but think that the comments they make are reflective of the weaknesses in their own relationships.</p>
<p>ETA: </p>
<p>And I wonder how many couples move in together and think they’re doing what they need to do to get to know each other and then DON’T DO THE WORK to build their relationship and ACTUALLY get to know each other. That would certainly explain a discrepancy in divorce rates, if there is one.</p>
<p>I have to say he practiced what he preached. He married a pharmacist and loved her and respected her very much…I was amazed the way he used to talk about her… like she was a Princess. </p>
<p>Eventhough he laughed and joked about it and eventhough he was younger than many of us in the group, looking back I think he belived in it dearly.</p>
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<p>What amazes me is the attitude of some young couples, have you ever heard people saying…well “I will marry if does not work out I will divorce”</p>
<p>Also, with the busy schedules of today’s young people, living together may be the only way that a couple can see each other often enough to maintain a relationship. They may not have time for a date, but at least they will run into each other in the kitchen from time to time.</p>
<p>I’ve often wondered what kind of conversations would occur if we applied the same standards to men.</p>
<p>“He wouldn’t have gotten drunk with those guys and invited him back to his dorm room if he didn’t want to them to throw him over the couch and have their way with him. He was asking for it!”</p>