One of my best friends and the maid of honor at my wedding called yesterday to tell me that she is planning on moving in with her boyfriend. She wanted advice from someone who was neither her parents nor her boyfriend about the pros and cons. I think I was picked because all turned out well after I lived with PJO prior to being engaged and married.
She struggled with feeling like she was a fairly traditional girl (who certainly has traditional parents) but at the same time feeling like co-habitating was the next natural step. They have discussed marriage quite a bit and both want that, just not right now. She also wondered if moving in with him would just cause him to delay proposing until much further down the road...you know, why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free?
I told her that I honestly can't believe some people get married without having lived together first. It seems to me like the best way to know if you'll be compatible living with someone for the rest of your life is to just do it for a little while. The most in love and perfect couple can make horrible roommates, which would make marriage hard, especially in the beginning.
Living together exposes weird idiosyncrasies and helps a couple work out the kinks of sharing a home before the wedding, when just adjusting to newlywed status can be a little stressful in itself. PJO was fully exposed to my OCD before saying "I do" so after carrying me over the threshold (again), he knew right away to use the pink sponge for dishes and the yellow sponge for counter tops.
Obviously if the relationship is not solid enough to withstand marriage, it would be nice to know that before the wedding. Living together can help sort out those relationships from the real thing. But at the same time, a successful test run can really give you peace of mind on the big day that you're making a good decision and help you just enjoy the day instead of paying any attention to the nerves and anxiety.
As a practical matter, usually moving in together happens at the point in the relationship where you are basically living together anyway. Every night is spent together, in one place or another. So why not cut down expenses and pay for one apartment? Why not save time and avoid commuting from one to the other?
Now that I've been happily married for a few years, I look back and wonder how different our lives would be if we hadn't moved in together when we were dating. It's hard to say, because we moved to CA from NYC before getting engaged. Maybe it was the right order for PJO and I, despite being non-traditional. Maybe it was "right" because it's what almost all of our friends did and it seemed normal. Perhaps PJO and I should just consider ourselves lucky that despite living together, we wound up happily married.
8 comments:
I completely agree on all points.
We "never lived together." My husband just let his apartment lease go and "stayed on a friend's couch."
It was silly, as we were already engaged, and as you pointed out we'd been as good as living together for over a year already. But it helped my mother sleep at night.
One thing I'll say in the "con" department - and it was a minor con . . . Because we lived together - er, *coff*, DIDN'T LIVE TOGETHER - for about 9 months before the wedding date, actually getting married was somewhat anticlimactic. What I mean is, coming home from the wedding, the only thing different was that he was now also wearing a ring. Not a big deal at all, though, and all things considered I wouldn't have done it any differently.
I also, incidentally, have lived with two other men prior to my marriage, for periods of a year each. I wouldn't say the living together is what disqualified them - we would have broken up anyway - but it also didn't get me to marry someone that I shouldn't have married, simply because inertia set in. So I feel like, esp. as long as they aren't investing in real estate together but just renting, it's kind of a no-lose situation.
Gillian, I think I agree with you about the minor con, the "getting married" part being a little anticlimactic. Or at least I remember thinking that when we came home after the wedding. When people asked how married life was, I responded "pretty much the same as our life before!"
But then I started to think that it's not actually getting married that is less exciting, it's just that it doesn't happen to coincide with another really exciting thing (moving in together) anymore. I just enjoyed the moving in excitement early.
Seems similar to having a baby...the actual birth was still an incredible experience even though hearing "it's a boy" was a little anticlimactic since I had known Timmy was a boy for 4 months. I'm sure some people really like saving up these milestones to make an event seem bigger and more memorable, but it doesn't really change the nature of the event itself. Getting married is not so much about that wedding day (or any particular day), so why should it feel soooooo different from before?
My husband and I have been married for a little over 5 years, and we didn't live together before we got married. That wasn't a choice that either of us made - we both have very conservative families - if we hadn't faced such resistance from our parents (and still lived in our hometown), we probably would have moved in together first. Honestly, though, I don't think it matters much either way. I think there are very minor cons for both. While I didn't know exactly what it would be like to live with my husband before we married, I can't imagine letting roommate type problems kill our marriage. To me, the important things were obviously our values, our goals, our lifestyles... as long as we were compatible on those fronts, I didn't worry so much about the clean/messy spender/saver etc things. I mean, is it really a deal breaker that I leave my clothes on our bedroom floor or that he doesn't put his dirty dishes in the dishwasher?
I do think that inertia can be a problem when you live together, but I think that applies to all relationships after you've been together for a while. You can get too comfortable regardless of where you live.
Sooo in this very long comment, my point is that in the long run, if you've focused on the important things, it really isn't going to impact your relationship one way or the other if you live together first.
I never lived with a man before marriage because of religious reasons. But I think statistics show (I was a sociology major) that people who live together first are more likely to divorce once they marry. Obviously, correlation doesn't prove causation and there could be numerous reasons that explain this.
I don't ever plan on living with somebody before I marry them, but it seems to be a pretty hot topic. It's one of those things that I think just goes couple-by-couple because for every couple who I've seen be successful in the "figuring out the kinks before marriage" camp, I've also seen the fall out from that statistic that anon. mentioned - they move in together and either a) never get married while one of them wants to or b) get divorced. Not saying that those who don't live together first don't also get divorced...
It's an interesting question from a sociology stand point, but general trends can only go so far, you know?
PS - my word verification was "dizingle" which I really like for some reason! ;)
Totally agree with you, but then we did the same thing (actually, the same "not living together" as Gillian). For me, marriage was still a meaningful change because it was the first time I felt like we were really, permanently part of each other's families.
My husband and I began living together when I was 20. He had just graduated from college and I was a sophomore. I still did a semester abroad. We chose and he bought a house at 21. We married when I was 24. I went to law school at 26, first baby 18 months later.
Now we've been married 8 years and together 13 and I don't think living together hampered getting married. I DO think living together in a very inexpensive house set us up for my being able to go to law school. We started law school debt free (except for the $490 a month mortgage), which was a good thing because we ended with a freaking MOUNTAIN of debt.
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