Would You Live Together Before Married?

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i'm albanian which says it all. albanians, most, have arranged marriages. yes, even now. my parents met on their wedding day. they were both born in kosovo, so my siblings and i are the 1st generation in america, which means we have to deal with all these old-fashioned rules even though we're born and raised here.

almost 2 weeks ago, my older sister, who(m?) we knew wouldn't marry an albanian because she's not very albanian herself (doesn't really know the language, doesn't know traditions, etc.) moved out to live with her irish boyfriend of 3 years. my mom isn't speaking to her now (my dad's outta my life, so i don't know how he'd react to it) and neither am i, really.

although yes, we're born in america and welcome to america and blah blah blah, my mom doesn't know that. my mom was married at 16 and like i said, she met my dad on their wedding day. sadly, 2 years ago they were separated after 22 years of marriage. my sister's reasoning for moving in with her boyfriend was that she didn't wanna end up like my parents and wanted to see if she could live with her boyfriend BEFORE getting engaged, which i can understand. we can't tell our relatives, so every time they come over to visit or we go over there, we tell them she's busy, working, at the gym, etc.

 
Originally Posted by Jennifer i'm albanian which says it all. albanians, most, have arranged marriages. yes, even now. my parents met on their wedding day. they were both born in kosovo, so my siblings and i are the 1st generation in america, which means we have to deal with all these old-fashioned rules even though we're born and raised here.
almost 2 weeks ago, my older sister, who(m?) we knew wouldn't marry an albanian because she's not very albanian herself (doesn't really know the language, doesn't know traditions, etc.) moved out to live with her irish boyfriend of 3 years. my mom isn't speaking to her now (my dad's outta my life, so i don't know how he'd react to it) and neither am i, really.

although yes, we're born in america and welcome to america and blah blah blah, my mom doesn't know that. my mom was married at 16 and like i said, she met my dad on their wedding day. sadly, 2 years ago they were separated after 22 years of marriage. my sister's reasoning for moving in with her boyfriend was that she didn't wanna end up like my parents and wanted to see if she could live with her boyfriend BEFORE getting engaged, which i can understand. we can't tell our relatives, so every time they come over to visit or we go over there, we tell them she's busy, working, at the gym, etc.

It's nice to see that you can adjust things so that they work for you! You make your mom happy by carrying on with your cultural ways, yet you make yourself happy by not having to have an arranged marriage. You have a good balance of things! Hope things work out with your sister though!
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Originally Posted by Loki Thanks! I'm Stacy from coastal NC. Nice to meetcha... Although it's kind of funny, I've been lurking around here for a while and almost feel like I know y'all already! You should've came in earlier!
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Always nice to have new faces to add to our chats
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Originally Posted by NYAngel98 It's nice to see that you can adjust things so that they work for you! You make your mom happy by carrying on with your cultural ways, yet you make yourself happy by not having to have an arranged marriage. You have a good balance of things! Hope things work out with your sister though!
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thank you!
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Been there, done that & would absolutely do it again. It made me realize that the guy I was dating really wasn't marriage material & was a little boy trapped in a grown man's body. I learned a lot from living w/him & although he was a great cook & very neat, he was a dreadful boyfriend for me.

 
Originally Posted by keaLoha Been there, done that & would absolutely do it again. It made me realize that the guy I was dating really wasn't marriage material & was a little boy trapped in a grown man's body. I learned a lot from living w/him & although he was a great cook & very neat, he was a dreadful boyfriend for me. Yeah my ex was like that too - and I'm glad I found that out early on... I think that although being married will make you work out your problems... I also feel that you should do that in any kind of a relationship - regardless of the title. Besides, if you really care about the person & want it to work, you'd want to strive to work at it anyway
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It better I think to live with him/her before married, because without living together we can't know perfectly well the other, and can't imagin exactly how it is to live with him/her. I mean that's better to know exactly where you go when you would say "yes" to the other, and not discover how he/she is after... lol

Here we use to live some years together before to be engaged, but some people don't do that, we are all different of course (and happy to be different!
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Thank you for sharing your thought, these are really helpful for my projects....
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Originally Posted by girl_geek My husband and I did not live together before we got married, because we wanted to save sex for marriage (due to religious beliefs, which I could explain more but I'm not sure if that would be necessary). Thus if we lived together, even if we shared separate bedrooms, that would just be too much temptation.
Now if we had not saved sex for marriage, I'm sure we would have lived together to save money -- now that we're married we're saving much more money by paying rent on one apartment instead of two!
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Anyways, I certainly do not think that living together is a requirement for marriage. My husband and I spent so much time together before we were married, almost nothing surprised us when we moved in together. What quirky habits that we did not see (such as how clean we each kept our apartments), we told each other -- he told me that he slept in his street clothes, I told him how long it takes me to get ready in the morning, things like that. I think the only thing I learned when I got married was that he likes to brush his teeth and shave naked right after he takes a shower.
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And I can't think of anything he learned about me, but he probably learned a few equally silly things. We didn't even have to argue about chores -- when we were engaged, he cooked dinner and washed dishes every night while I studied. Now, he cooks and washes dishes during the school year (I cook on breaks), and I do the weekly cleaning like laundry and the bathroom since it's easier for me to fit those into my schedule. Granted, we have only been married for 7 months, but so far the only thing different between before the marriage and now is that now we can have sex.
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Our relationship is otherwise still the same, we still communicate in the same ways, we don't fight any more or any less.... I really don't think that our marriage would be any better or any worse than if we had lived together first. But then again, due to our religious beliefs, we had faith that if God wanted us to get married, then he would make sure we were compatible! God wouldn't want us to marry someone that will make us miserable for most of our lives!

As for the statistics, I've never heard anything about child abuse, but I have heard that couples that live together first are more likely to get divorced. However, I have also heard that out of the couples who lived together with the intent to get married later, the divorce rate was the same as couples who did not live together. You could also argue that couples who do not live together are more likely to be religious and disapprove of divorce, so maybe those couples are living in unhappy marriages. And who is better off -- the couple that divorces (especially if they have children, divorce is almost always painful for the children), or the couple that live in an unhappy marriage? It's hard to say in general (although for a specific couple that you know personally, you might be able to decide).

Anyways those are just my random thoughts, you can take them or leave them.
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Hi LOKI WC to MUT...Am Mina nice2meet w/u...and thank u for sharing...

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Originally Posted by Loki Hi, actually this is my first post. I come from an extremely religious family (fundamentalist Christian) and dated my husband for five years before we got married (engaged for three). When he graduated from college, I still had a year or two to go (double major, co-op, etc.). We got married when I was 22 and he was 24. Within three years, we were divorced. I would do anything to go back and live together before marriage, but I think we both felt REALLY pressured by our respective families not to "live in sin". I feel that if we had lived together before marriage, we would have never gotten married in the first place. And it's a lot easier to break up than it is to divorce. (He agrees, by the way. We're still friends.) I dunno, to each their own - but I would NEVER marry again without living together first.
 
Wow what an extremely HOT thread! Controversy all over it with so many different points of view. Nice to see so many views.

For me, I would rather live with my g/f prior to getting married. It's all about knowing quirks, habits and who this person REALLY is. My personal feeling is that you don't know someone fully until you see them 24/7. In fact, I feel like my most excellent relationship with GOD has nothing to do with living with a g/f prior to marriage. Seems pretty separate in my mind.





Originally Posted by Trisha

OK this is my opinion, so dont tell me im wrong! Everyone is entitled to their own!

  • I would never live with someone before marriage, if I cannot judge the content of their character after being with them for years (without living with them) then I would be disappointed in myself.
  • I can't stand it when people get married in church/have babies christened when they have no beliefs whatsoever, its just a farce to me.
Im gona have to hold back on a lot of things i think cos it'll be too much and i dont wana offend any of my MuT guys!!! x



 
Yes, I definitely believe it is best to live together before marriage. You really don't get to know a person, until you have lived under the same roof with them.

 
I have lived with my BF for 11 years now.... we each have a child of our own ....we own a house and all the other stuff that married people do. BUT .... I'm not 100% happy b/c I want to be married and he's never bother to ask me (not for lack of me trying!!) Anyway....it kinda bugs me to still refer to him as my BF after all these years, but I won't give him the satisfaction of calling him my husband. Basically I'd say .... if you live with someone.... don't let it go for too long without getting married. For us it seems kinda stupid to get married now and as for us getting divorced ..... at this point it would be the exact same as if we were married..... we are very finacially tied to each other by now!!

 
I would say yes to living with my boyfriend before marriage. BUT it would have to be just the two of us... not with his mom. I have a boyfriend who is glued to his mom's side still at the age of 21 going on 22. Its definitely a challenge and gets very annoying at times.
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Before I got hitched, I lived with a guy for two years, and another one for about four months. Neither one of those arrangements culminated in marriage. In those situations, money is an issue and blah, blah, blah. However, I lived with my husband shortly before we got married and I have noticed there was change once we were wed. He felt and acted different, was more settled, and acted more maturely. I don't know, experimentation is a good idea, and the old adage, "You don't know someone until you live with them" rings true. Then again, the saying, "Why buy the cow when the milk's free" is true too. Oh, hell, I don't know.

 
Holy .......... are u my mother ???????????!!!!!!!!!!! She tells me that cow thing ALL THE TIME!!!!!
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Originally Posted by Tony(admin) Wow what an extremely HOT thread! Controversy all over it with so many different points of view. Nice to see so many views.
For me, I would rather live with my g/f prior to getting married. It's all about knowing quirks, habits and who this person REALLY is. My personal feeling is that you don't know someone fully until you see them 24/7. In fact, I feel like my most excellent relationship with GOD has nothing to do with living with a g/f prior to marriage. Seems pretty separate in my mind.

I agree with your points T-rex... That is pretty much how I feel as well. I live with Rob and while we aren't married yet, we FEEL like we are, and we will be getting married as soon as one of us is out of school (probably me first).
I like knowing his quirks, and there is a HUGE closeness that comes with being with someone so much. Besides, we like to spend so much time together, being apart isn't really an option and would be rather stressful for us.

 
It is such a personal choice but I have lived with B/f in the past and am currently doing so. We have a child together. In the eyes of the law-common law technically we are married..taxes, benefits, money etc. Not to say that we will never get married.

It has really exposed most of our likes/dislikes, responsibilities, we share everything. I still get the living in sin comment from some but we are not religious. I didn't have our daughter baptized because although it is a tradition in the religion I was raised in Catholic and his Orthodox..to me it just wasn't right because we are not practicing either religion. If and when she chooses a religion we will go from there. It doesn't mean we don't have values but I would feel like a hypocrite because we we not married in the Orthodox church where they wanted to have the ceremony for her-sorry if I am getting a little off track
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. My family and his have been great about it!

Anyways I think that you can really learn alot from living with someone first. As a child of divorce (a bad one at that)..I am not against marriage, I would like to get married someday when we are ready.

 
I lived with my husband for 7 years before we got married. I found out ahead of time those little things that bother me
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& im sure it also goes the other way around
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. Although we have been together for 16 years thats plenty of time to figure all that out.

 

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