My wife and I lived together for two years before getting married. Three kids and close to thirty years later, we’re doing just fine.
While there are, of course exceptions, overall research does show negative results, especially for children. This is learned, surprisingly from a very liberal but honest prof.
While there are, of course exceptions, overall research does show negative results, especially for children. This is learned, surprisingly from a very liberal but honest prof.
Although I agree with the list for the most part, and believe it goes against God’s will for us to live together before we are married, I have seen the sexual compatibility thing in action. In my first marriage, my then-wife was happy with sex every few weeks at the most. And she literally denied it for the last 14 months of the marriage. It was 20 years long and, to be clear, she divorced me, without cause, completely out of the blue. I never saw it coming.
Now I’ve been married to my wife for 14 years and we are in our late 50’s. I feel uncomfortable discussing frequency but will say that most married 20 somethings would be jealous. We never tire of each other and it is a very important part of our relationship to this day. And as the author points out, it is both physical AND spiritual.
Having my then-girlfriend move in with me back in ‘93 revealed something about her I never expected and it happened within the first month. She was 27 and I was 34.
Much to my surprise and disgust, she vehemently resented the fact that I would close the bathroom door behind me when I sat down on the toilet. “It’s just a force-of-habit kind of thing”, I explained...”I don’t even think about it. But at least I don’t lock the door when I close it.”
I meant no disrespect, nor did I mean to shut her out of my life. To her, it meant that I must not have loved her very much if I had to close the bathroom door while I went about my business. In my mind, I was enjoying a bit of personal privacy while at the same time, respecting her olfactory comfort zone but she just didn’t get it.
Apparently, she had no concept of common domestic courtesy and once I was able to wrap my head around that, I realized that the relationship and living arrangement were far less than ideal. We were so far apart yet there we were sharing an apartment as though we had as much in common as did the long-married couples we knew including neigbors, my parents, aunts and uncles and friends of mine.
I ignored the warning signs and I was in denial. She was just a crude, vulgar and ill-tempered idiot who thought everything was always supposed to be about her.
Now that I know what to look for and what to avoid, I think maybe there could be a next time with somebody else whether we’re married or not.
Live and learn.
I’m fairly conservative on a lot of issues but I guess I’m a liberal on this one. I’ve seen from experience — myself and others — that living together really is a good “test run” for marriage. You don’t know someone until you live with them. I think it actually strengthens marriage by giving you a trial period before you make the commitment.
Amen & Amen!
Back in the 80s I was employed by a large Engineering firm (70 to 300 employees) there was a number of young couples that just lived to gether.
One I remember most, I learned the names of their partners, when I seldom knew the names of both married couples. They could say, “MY Wife, or My Husband.” Those could only call their live-ins by name.
“Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word. Tha He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So men ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the Church. Foe we are members of His body, of His flesh, and His bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning the church. Nevertheless let every one of in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.” (Ephesians 5:24-33)
My wife and I lived together for 2 years before getting married. It was the best decision we ever made. And it had nothing to do with any of those myths. We were aware that you don’t truly know a person until you live with them.
It’s one thing when you are seeing someone, you are always putting up a front. Truly knowing someone cannot happen until you live with them and the front is taken down.
Again, best decision we ever made.
Sorry, but God is great and this post is dumb.
Given the character of modern social conventions, sensibilities, and judicial intrusion, I no longer see marriage as a worthwhile institution EXCEPT for those with religious motivations.
This kind of thing is always mistaking correlation with cause. It’s not the what it’s the who. If the two people are a good and supporting couple that will be able to make a long term commitment then they are a good and supporting couple that will be able to make a long term commitment whether or not they move in together before marriage. If they aren’t then they aren’t and no amount of waiting for marriage or not waiting for marriage will change that.
My husband and I didn’t live in the same time zone until we got married. Had absolutely no problems meshing lives. I will tell my daughter never to live with someone who doesn’t respect her enough to marry her.
All just a bunch of religious nuttery. Wife and I lived together before our marriage after we were engaged, no sense in her renewing her apartment. Been together nearly 20 years and doing just fine. In fact, living together DID answer a number of good questions about us.
Parents should make sure that their teens read materials such as this article. And, unfortunately, these days, young teens should be exposed to these truths that have been tested and shown to be correct for millennia.
Good article.
Missing component, though, is the grace from the Sacrament of Marriage — a true covenant with God.
My husband and I didn’t live together even one day before we got married. He didn’t even move his stuff into my place until after we got back from our honeymoon.
And we don’t regret it at all. The article is spot on.
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Excellent article and appropos for people of any faiths. Of course some couples do live together without marriage and wind up marrying happily. But most do not.
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What about God? As I look at it, living together outside of marriage shows disrespect to God because He created marriage.