Living together

Parent Cafe
61

Both my sons are living together with their GFs, and both my sons have indicated to the GFs and all important people that these are permanent relationships. Marriage would be nice – I love a good party!! – but not essential as far as I’m concerned, at least until the kiddies come along. Both sons are in grad school and their intention is to wait until that’s over.

I think that in this day and age, not living together before marriage is taking unnecessary risk. You’d take a car out for a test drive, wouldn’t you?

62

@VeryHappy I’m asking this truly and honestly out of pure curiosity, not judging in the least (as it can sound like that over the internet). Why, if they have been living together and are considered “permanent”, does he want to wait until grad school is over? Why wait? What are the reasons they give for that, or do they give any at all?

63

There are economic realities, too. It is simply very expensive in many areas of the country to maintain two residences when a couple is, essentially, living together in the two residences!

I am a religious person and I put a lot of value in a church wedding. It is very meaningful to me (and to our family). My daughter is an Episcopal priest, and two years ago she officiated at the wedding of her best friend, who was marrying the man with whom she had been living. It was a special day for everyone and was a significant step in the relationship of the couple.

64

I find this discussion interesting, but somewhat disturbing when people talk about “starter marriages” and marriage being outdated, etc. I don’t know if I would ever get married or not - but if I did, it would only be to a person that I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Does it always work out that way? No. Of course, it takes two, and you can’t control the other person. But the idea of “starter marriages” - I would absolutely rather stay single - I don’t feel the need to be “coupled-up”. By the way, it’s not a religious thing. I would say I am a spiritual person, but I don’t belong to an organized religion. So, this is just my personal view.

I don’t mind people living together, although sometimes I think people do it for the wrong reasons, or people do it with one expecting marriage and the other wanting to avoid it. I also don’t think, like someone upthread mentioned, that it HAS to be a sleeping together thing. Realistically, in the majority of cases it probably is, but it doesn’t have to be. I lived with my serious boyfriend over the summer in college, and we weren’t sleeping together (I wouldn’t sleep with anyone unless I were married to them - again, to me, it’s not a religious thing - just my personal choice, based on what I want and believe). In the end, whatever it is, I think it should be up to the couple, not the families, to decide.

65

My mom, who was several generations ahead of her time, thought that people should be required to live together first before getting married. Due diligence and all that.

She would be very pleased that one of her grandchildren is currently living with a partner. So am I.

66

Kind of. But it is not because of the living together. And now even that data is becoming obsolete as the majority of people live together before marriage.

67

@conmama: Very reasonable questions. With my older son, his GF is one year ahead of him in their grad program. She is leaving their college town at the end of this summer to do a required internship four hours away from where my son will be, finishing one more year of school. Then, he’ll have an internship – which could be anywhere in the country – and then he’ll get his degree (Psy.D.). They want to wait until then to make the Big Move. I think for them it also has to do with earning money, not being students anymore, and starting their Grown-Up Lives.

For my younger son, there is no real reason not to wait, although he’s just finishing up his first year of grad school (with four more to go) and she is earning diddly squat working for a non-profit. He and his GF have been together for about five years (since undergrad) and just bought a house together. DS is considering one of two heirloom diamond rings to give her (and she doesn’t know anything about them), so I know it’s not too far in the future. They have joked about going to City Hall, and I’ve said I wouldn’t have a problem with that – but I want a big party at some point!!

68

I am not VH but I am in the same situation. We had been living together since (unofficially) sophomore year and officially since junior year. Engaged summer between undergrad and grad school and are getting married now that I’m down with grad school round 1. (When we set the date, grad school round 2 was not part of the picture).

Planning a wedding while in grad school has been the biggest PITA ever and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. Everyone (IMO) should give themselves a year at least between school and the wedding in order to plan it. Just my opinion as someone going through this mess right now!

69

I’ve seen lots of non traditional options

  1. Living together -> dog/cat -> marriage -> kids - we did this
  2. Living together -> marriage -> dog/cat -> kids
  3. kids -> living together -> marriage -> dog/cat
  4. Living together -> engagement -> no dogs/cats/kids engaged 33 years and going strong. Plan to marry soon. Same as ever.

All of these options work for different people. DW and I are together 33 years and only on our 3rd cat.

70

Very Happy and gypsy…thanks for your responses, it does help in understanding. It sounds like it’s just moving around, economics (waiting to have more!), etc. DH and I got married starting his 3rd year of law school, but…I was not the one in law school so had plenty of time with my Mother to plan a wedding. I will say that I think being married during law school was not the easiest thing for him. The distraction of me being there, wanting to do things, etc just made it tougher for him. I think he would have personally be happy to wait until he had graduated…but I was tired of waiting.

71

They need to get over it. My wife and I lived “in sin” for 13 years and have now been married for 24 years.

You wouldn’t by a car without taking it for a test drive…

72

We lived together for about a year and a half before getting married. Got engaged within a few months of living together.

H has very conservative religious parents. They weren’t thriiled but they dealt with it. Unexpected bonus: when we did get married they were so relieved that they didn’t nag us having a church wedding.

This was 20+ years ago. I can’t imagine the extended family saying much about it these days, given how common it is. If they do, just say something to the effect that they’re adults now and will do what they want to do.

73

“You wouldn’t by a car without taking it for a test drive…”

Although logical, the comparison to a purchase a kind of rubs me the wrong way. I agree that a couple should get to know each other well before marriage. I don’t think that necessarily means cohabiting first, or even having sex first.
That works for some, not for all.

For women I think sometimes cohabiting can lead to more emotional pain. It’s not that big a deal so you don’t really examine your feelings first, and move in with the wrong guy. A couple of years later you have a painful breakup.

YMMV

74

“Although logical, the comparison to a purchase a kind of rubs me the wrong way. I agree that a couple should get to know each other well before marriage. I don’t think that necessarily means cohabiting first, or even having sex first.”

^^^This. People are not cars.

75

I’d rather have a painful breakup than a painful divorce. But that’s just me.

76

To echo what @scholarme said, the level of commitment for entering a marriage is different for most people. I think more people would be willing to move in with someone without being certain of the relationship as opposed to getting married.

77

What if you get married without living together first or having sex, then find out you are not compatible, sexually or otherwise? I’m sure that must happen. That would stink.

78

Everyone has to make their own decision about that. For me personally, I am not interested in having sex with anyone I am not committed to enough to marry (as I mentioned, I wouldn’t mind living with the person though if the relationship was serious). Let me put it another way, if I love someone enough/was committed enough to marry them, I wouldn’t not marry them if the sex was bad, even if I knew that in advance.

79

My fiance is the same way, acollegestudent. He wouldn’t care one bit if we were sexually incompatible. Me? I’m shallow. I want good sex and wouldn’t marry someone I was sexually incompatible with just as I wouldn’t marry someone who isn’t compatible with me about a bunch of other things. We all have our standards and expectations and that is ok! The world would be boring if we all valued the same thing.

At the same time, going back to the op, I’ve never understood why people could be upset about what other consenting adults do that doesn’t affect me.

80

I lived together with my wife for 3 years before we married, and in the last couple of years of college we might as well have been. Some people live together as roommates, where they are dating and such but aren’t that committed, others do it because they feel it is time. We have been together over 30 years, and will be married 27 years in June.

It is funny, the squeamishness is I think to a large extent that they will be living together not married and having, you know, sex…meanwhile, living together or not, this isn’t the old days (and to be honest, it was a crock of bull baloney that couples didn’t have sex before marriage back then, either) and couples are having sex, but people of a certain mindset like to pretend that if a couple lives separately, that they aren’t having sex, which isn’t true, it is the old pretense of practicing traditional morality.

I would encourage people to try living together before getting married, while I do think it is different living together than being married for some people, others it doesn’t matter, I think having that period where you get to know one another, where you experience day to day life with work and other responsibilities, with making decisions on bill paying, on friends, etc, tells you a lot, as well as dealing with being in each others space that much. Like with the whole concept of no sex before marriage, it doesn’t make sense to me not to live together first,to make sure, before the legal responsibilities and other things are added in, the same way that figuring out if you are sexually compatible is huge, too. Living together doesn’t guarantee the marriage will work, of course, but I think it does increase the chance of success in that relationships that wouldn’t work married get weeded out living together.

Obviously, that doesn’t mean that couples that don’t live together are wrong, this still comes down to personal feelings, too. I never thought marriage would be that different, but it was for me, it was a bit of finality, and it meant a lot to my wife, in part because I think it represented to her stability, something she didn’t have growing up. My thoughts are not a knock on personal decisions and morality, I just think if a couple decides to live together before marriage it makes sense, and everyone else should respect that. There were some people when my wife and I lived together right out of school who probably weren’t happy with it, my parents didn’t give me grief and if my relatives had a problem, they didn’t say it to us (fear of my mom probably).

I am always dubious at the stats that show that people that live together before marriage get divorced at a higher rate, I am not surprised studies done right would show that isn’t true, the old correlation and causality doesn’t necessarily hold, and factors like age are important (for example, if living together first is a factor of age, then if you looked at young people and marriage versus young people living together, you would probably see the correlation that if you get together young and marry young, whether you live together or not, your marriage is more likely to fail.I guess we were the exception, we have been living together for 30 years now, marriage 27 in a month, so doesn’t always fail:)