After a year of living with my SO, we have recently started talking a bit more about getting married. Unfortunately, I’m not very excited about it. Why?
Well…what’s the difference going to be from what we have now? I know things like taxes and insurance will change, but other than little things like that, I don’t see how things would be much different. It really makes me wish we had waited to get married first. We met as two lonely virgins who were “waiting” until after marriage. Now look at us…
One of my coworkers just got married to her live-in SO. After the wedding they went home to their apartment. That just seems so wrong to me… Weddings are supposed to be exciting…a whole new beginning…Not a short intermission before you go back to what you already have…
So…to get to the question:
Do you think it’s better to live with someone before marriage or wait? Did you follow that belief? and, How did everything work out?
I wish I had stuck to my original beliefs and not moved-in together first. Things are working out great, but I think it would have been better if we had waited. It could have been so much more special to be husband and wife if we had. Now I could care less if we have a “real” wedding or not.
Huh. While I can respect your feelings, I think that things kind of do change, emotionally, once you’re married, even if you have been living together. To quote one friend (who lived with her SO for a couple of years before they eloped): “It’s like an extra little kernel of ‘Go, Team’ that feels really nice.”
But that’s just me.
And you don’t have to listen to me, because although I have been a staunch believer in shacking up before marriage, I am not only eschewing that route, I’m getting married way before I shack up!
I lived with my wife for about two years before we married. I looked at it like you do. For me, marriage is a social, religious institution and we were already “married”, so what was the big deal. Society has deemed marriage to be a legal institution, also, so there are some legal ramifications, such as higher taxes. (In most states, though, you are common-law wed after living together for some length of time.)
My wife saw things a little differently. I think it made her more secure, which was good and bad. (E.g., there was a distinct drop-off in sex. ). I remember reading one of those “Dear Abby” type letters in which a woman her attitude to her man changed, much to both of their surprise. I think it just depends on who you are.
Yeah, I was fully prepared to smugly say to all my friends, “Marriage is no different than living together, except we have an extra piece of paper.”
But you know, something does feel different. Mostly I think it’s in the way society views us. It’s just little things – as one example, if I call up my husband’s workplace and say, “I need to speak with my husband immediately,” it seems to command a bit more respect than, “I need to speak with my boyfriend.” Husband implies this entire world of domestic responsibility and mutual shared concerns that “boyfriend” does not.
It’s still a real wedding. And things do change. You are standing up before God (if you believe) and everyone who loves you and whom you love and making a public commitment. That carries some weight.
I am living with my fiance by choice. That we are not yet married is not really by choice for either one of us. I wish with all my heart we could get married today – I can’t wait to be his wife and for him to be my husband. Unfortunately (thanks to the ex Mr. Contrary), I have a situation with the IRS that must be resolved first. I just learned this afternoon that if my petition is denied (should know by the end of next month, after two long years), the next step will take yet another year.
So be happy you have the option. And enjoy the heck out of things – giggle at your new status, gawk at your ring, be silly and maudlin about it, because yes, it’s still a real wedding and yes, it still counts.
For all the reasons you’re expressing here, and then some, living together before marriage was not right for me. My husband comes from a country where co-habitating for years, even having several children together, before marriage is more common than marrying first. He would definitely have done things the way that’s more “traditional” for him had it been his sole decision. But for my part, I refused to be put “on trial”, as it were. I had no desire to be tested out as spouse material – that’s what dating is for, IMO. As my very wise and dear grandmother used to say (may she rest in peace), if he wanted the milk, he was going to have to buy the cow – I wasn’t giving it away for free.
I am not saying that my way is the best way for everyone in the world. I’m sure you’ll get tons of replies from people who felt it was important – even critical – to go the “try before you buy” route, and for whom it worked out well. But it wasn’t right for me and it seems it isn’t feeling right to you, either.
Since you’re already living together, one “solution”, should you choose to get married, is to start apartment or house hunting and have a place picked out and ready to move into after you get back from your honeymoon. Perhaps the actual “building a new home together” thing will make it feel different enough that it’ll be the exciting experience you’re hoping for.
Irishfella and I lived together for 3 months last summer. It was great.
But we won’t be living together again before the big white dress (at least 3 years away, not in any way official).
It just doesn’t feel right.
We both want a proper home, with things we’ve chosen together, somewhere semi-permanent and ours, where we’re independent and self-sufficient.
We can’t do that while we’re studying, with our parents supporting us.
So we’re waiting.
I used to firmly believe in living together before marriage, because I thought you had to know what it’s like to live with someone before deciding to be with them forever.
Well I have changed my mind. After my now-ex-boyfriend (birdguy) were together for about 6 1/2 years, we moved in together. We lived together for 1 1/2 years. I always thought it was great living with him, but in hindsight, it was a mistake. I think if we had NOT moved in together, we would still be together.
We were both recently out of college, and both living at our parents’ houses. We didn’t make enough money to get our own places, but we really wanted to move out of our parents’ houses. So we thought getting a place together was a great idea. Financially it was great. And for a while it was a ton of fun.
BUT because we moved in together, we never had the chance to get established on our own. We didn’t have a chance to be completely independent, and to get to really be adults for the first time. This is an experience everyone needs to have to really learn who they are.
But I also think that, if you’re going to live together, why not just get married? I’ll tell you what though, it REALLY hurts to live with someone and then break up. I should have waited…
we shacked up for a couple of years first, came home to our little rental house after the honeymoon, and it WAS different.
How?
There had been a ritual. I stood in a church in a tux (in mexico) in front of my family, her family, god, the priest, and promised (in spanish, somehow that makes it more religious) in front of all those people to be connected to this woman in the wear only once white dress forever.
Then there was a GREAT party.
You go through a ritual, a rite of passage, and you are changed. You go through it together, you are changed together.
That, and the relationship is permanent now, and there are witnesses and a signed document. You are an institution, and it’s palpable. The relationship is now it’s own thing, and it’s both more secure and more scary. The stakes are higher, but the potential is greater.
We lived together for a year before we got married, he moved in with me a week before we got engaged. It was different, but hard to say how. He stayed in a hotel the night before the wedding so it added back some mystique.
Not to be materialistic, but there are all the wedding presents…
Some other things to consider - should either of you end up in the hospital in bad condition unable to make decisions about his/her own care, as the girlfriend or boyfriend only, you will not be allowed to call the shots - the parents will, if they are still around. Some hopsitals may not even consider you to be immediate family and force you to normal visiting hours instead of 24 hours like a spouse would get. If you don’t have wills, that is something else to consider that could get weird without legal recognition.
I can see not living together or living together first, but I would never consider skipping the wedding part of it.
I’m not married (yet) so I can’t speak for the emotional chances (although I suspect it will be different) and will not live with my fiancee prior to getting married. Why?
Non-cynical/mean: All the reason you state – marriage should be exciting and cool, and getting to live together is one of those “perks.”
Cynical/mean: Lots of people want to live together to test out the waters. To me, this is a half-assed committment. If you’re going to live together, get married and be committed to working out the details.
Have the “real wedding,” go big with it, have the one you’ve always wanted. The living together is pretty irrelevant when you’re up there on the altar (or whatever).
I have never married anyone that I didn’t live with first, can’t say which is better, I don’t think anyone is really qualified to give an unbiased opinion. You’ll never know the difference, might as well let the question go.
I just never really thought of it. For financial reasons, if I was with someone for a while, it seemed to make no sense to pay two rents when we were practically living at only one place anyway. But the expense of a wedding was too much after only 6 months or so, so moving in after 6 months was like a big step, just no ceremony because we didn’t have the money.
When I think about I wonder what it would be like to wait. Then I think of people I broke up with because I didn’t really get to know them until I did live with them. I was glad we weren’t married because I could just leave. Sometimes you don’t find out how controlling someone is until you’re living with them. Of course I learned to recognize signs of controlling after the second time of making the mistake of living with a controlling guy so that I could break off the relationship before it got to that point.
If I can’t leave the house without the guy checking the odometer when I get back…to heck with him!!
Then I hear people who divorce because of the guilt of living with someone before getting married…and that sounds wacky to me!! It never bothered me, and that won’t break up my marriage!! I lived with my husband for about 2 years before we got married. By then I knew he definitely was the guy!! We’ve been married 5 years now and have 2 kids.
Shayna
I think your advice is awesome. Our apartment lease is up around the time that I would like to plan a wedding date, so it would actually work out perfect! The other thing we need to do is get new “stuff”. Almost all of the furniture and decor in our place is mine, left over from my college apartment days. I’ve slowly been getting rid of some of it, replacing it with things we pick out together.
I really hope that things are like some of you have mentioned. I want it to be different once we take that big step. I doubt we would have “shacked up” except for the fact that I’m from an extremely small town and have to move down here to Houston in order to be with my SO. There was no way I was living alone in a new city, not when it was one this big! Plus I didn’t really know anyone else here.
It does have many benefits though. It’s great having someone to eat dinner with every night…and being able to cook real food. I would eat cereal for dinner before. I love snuggling up in bed and watching a good movie on the weekends.
I guess I’m just jealous of all those girls that get so excited about planning their weddings. We definitely have no money to spend on anything fancy, but I want it to be special…and not just the ceremony. And yes, I know that my situation doesn’t prevent me from the whole wedding excitement, but with thinking it wasn’t going to change things, it’s hard to be excited about it.
I think the new apartment idea is perfect for making things a “new” beginning. And I’m feeling much better knowing that those in similar situations do think it will be “different”.
I don’t necessarily think it’s better to live with someone before marriage; there’s probably a lot to be said for the romance and mystery of waiting until you’re married before you find out that he pees in the shower.
I think the only time when living together is a not-so-great idea is when you’re not positive you want to marry him or her. That’s what gives it that “trial period” feeling, which is probably going to go south because you haven’t already made up your mind that he or she is The One. If you move in together with the intention of getting married, you’ve already accepted them with warts intact; you just haven’t declared it publicly yet.
I moved in with Mr. Levins with the intention of getting married immediately; the reasons why I didn’t are far too long to go into here, but they had nothing to do with Mr. Levins himself. (Psychotic family, finances, etc.) We are getting married in the spring, five years after we moved in together, and we have never once regretted the past five years.
I do think it’ll be a bit strange to refer to him as my husband, rather than my fiance or my boyfriend; I think it’ll be even more strange to hear myself referred to as a wife.
But I’m looking forward to it and I don’t regret a thing.
Kyann, MrWhatsit and I eloped in Vegas, and spent a grand total of $500, including plane tickets and hotel. It was absolutely one of the greatest experiences of my life, even though it was relatively on the cheap – and if you want, you can get married for even a lot cheaper than we did – and we did it on very short notice.
If you find yourself needing tips on Vegas weddings (no, they do not have to be cheesy affairs involving Elvis impersonators), just drop me a line.
I think Audrey Levins is onto something about the “trial period” mentality being a problem. I lived with my husband for three years before we were married, but I (and I think he) never thought of it as an experiment of any kind. We lived together because we wanted to be together. We got married when the time seemed right and we could afford it (20 years ago this August.)
And yes, as others have said, marriage does make a difference. But it’s mainly an internal difference–it doesn’t have that much to do with cake and crock-pots. Weddings are our cultural symbol for serious commitment to another person and we all absorb that meaning to some degree. Just ask someone who wants to get married but legally can’t why he or she isn’t satisfied with just living together.
That said, though, I think people tend to attach too much weight to milestone days like weddings and births. They are lovely memories, hopefully, but they are only a moment out of your whole family life together.
). I remember reading one of those “Dear Abby” type letters in which a woman her attitude to her man changed, much to both of their surprise. I think it just depends on who you are.
