[ckilmer]

the pastor at a church I went to at one time recounted this story.

He said that in the 1990’s he’d marry people and they’d come back several years later for marriage counseling. Invariably the problem was that they had been sleeping together before marriage. As a result, there was not transition between not married and married. So the woman had no confidence in the permanence of their marriage or their husbands commitment to them. The women just didn’t feel married. Rather they felt more alone and vulnerable.

After too many episodes of this the pastor installed new rules over how he would do marriages. People, if they had been sleeping together had to spend a certain period celebate. (I’ve forgotten just how long.) Also, they had to go through marriage counseling.

[Vigilanteman]

Does he make me feel happy?

When it is all about me, your marriage is already on the road to ruin. When it is about genuine commitment and love for your marital partner, it just might work out.

Spoken as a guy married for 38 + years to a woman that I genuinely loved as she did me until heaven reclaimed her about two months ago.

[CFW]

With marriage you are making a commitment, but with just living together you are admitting you aren’t really committed to making a marriage work and want to make sure you have an easy “out”.

Look, your spouse is going to piss you off at times. Plan ahead to just get over it and forgive them when they do. In sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, and even when she leaves off the top of the toothpaste and he leaves the toilet seat up.

[gitmo]

I married my girlfriend in 1972.

We are still married.

I'm beginning to suspect she may be The One.

[StAnDeliver]

“Couples who live together before marrying have nearly an 80 percent higher divorce rate than those who do not,” Bennett noted incredulously. “Which is crazy because you’d think you’d be the opposite,” Woodruff responded. “I lived with my boyfriend of five years and we broke up because we knew we weren’t compatible because we lived together.” “Because living together is the way you find out,” Bennett added, even though, as she noted, she and her husband didn’t move in together before marriage (mostly as a matter of coincidence)."

You have to be kidding me. There are two possibilities, let's look at them:

• No pre-cohabitation: You are too fu----g stupid to admit you made a mistake, for an average of 5 years. This one is as obvious as a parade float down 6th Ave. on Turkey Day.

• Pre-cohabitation: You decide to get married, warts and all, and then you decide that what you had hoped for after marriage, that your spouse would clean up their bad habits, never happens, and then you get divorced.

This is a Federalist article? LOFL. This is some Millenial garbage, Seekie, but I'm indulging it with my wisdom because there are, remarkably, some Gen X/Y Freepers who need this guidance.

Listen, young lions, ramrods, dumbasses -- marry based on spiritual compatibility (God above all); kindred compatibility (raising a family + relations between the two families); and fiscal compatibility (try to make as much as humanly possible truly without compromising your humanity).

[Vaduz]

Unless they want kids don’t get married save you money you change over the years and you don’t have to worry about losing half of what you worked for.

I know I know there are exceptions to the rule but why risk it.

Only death and taxes are the sure thing

[SamAdams76]

Doing the dishes is fine if the other one cooks the meal.

Whoever gets to cook the meal gets to spend time surfing Free Republic while the other one does the dishes and scrubs the pots and pans.

Those who cannot accept that cannot stay married too long.

[arthurus]

People who cohabit before marrying have from the beginning a more casual concept of marriage.

[going hot]

Lots of virtue going on here.