(In most states, though, you are common-law wed after living together for some length of time.)
This is not true. The vast majority of states do not recognize CL marriage and in those that do, the amount of time you’ve lived together is just one of the criteria.
(Note: the list of states that recognize CL marriage might not be up to date on that site.)
That said, I think Shayna has a good idea. Or, depending on how far off in the future the wedding is, you could get a place of your own between now and then. Or, you could do Shayna’s idea but like, move out a couple of weeks before the wedding (got a cousin you could stay with? Parents? Aunt? Best friend?)
– even that small amount of time apart might put the excitement in it for you?
Subgirl and I lived logether for three years before getting married. It worked fine for us, but you do what feels right for you.
In our case, the marriage was more a legal formality than anything else (we’re not citizens of the same country, so having government recognition makes issues like visas, kids, etc., much simpler). We considered ourselves husband and wife, and our parents felt the same way.
I’ll answer your last statement first. Personally? I couldn’t care LESS about having a “real wedding”. To me they are a ridiculous waste of money, money that could be better spent on YOU, the couple, either having fun, or going toward building your life together.
What I care about is the MARRIAGE. If I found the right person, I’d marry them (in a tiny, “moneyless” ceremony :D) in a heartbeat :D.
Now, the living together part. It depends upon who your partner is. You’ll get people with the “what’s a piece of paper” or “why buy the cow (WBTC)” attitude (and if that’s what you want and it works for you, that’s your right).
The problem (imho) is when one person is a “WBTC” person and the other is a death do us part (DDUP) person.
Sometimes a living together arrangement can drag out interminably for the DDUP person who is living with a WBTC person. Or conversely, the DDUP person can bring unpleasant pressure to bear on the WBTC person.
Are you a DDUP person? If so, what the “wedding” will change, will be nothing. It’s just a ceremony, fun, pretty, and you get presents. But the MARRIAGE and all it entails changes a LOT of stuff.
No matter how much people living together like to say “oh, we don’t need a piece of paper” they can’t deny, that in the back of their minds (and yes, with some people it’s WAAAAAAAAAAAAY back there) that there is always the knowledge that you aren’t reeeeeaaaally legally bound to stay, that you can always ditch if you really wanted to.
Of course, with divorce as easy as it is to get today, I guess those who oppose marriage could make the argument that the piece of paper doesn’t really mean anything anyway.
Sooo? Says who? If it is what YOU want, and it means something to YOU and you wish to have a marriage (not a wedding) and make it work (and your partner feels the same), then you should go for it.
Maybe you have other concerns, or cold feet for other reasons other than “but we’re already living together, and we’ll come home just like before, so what’s the fun in that”?
You never really know someone until you live with them.
Hubby and I lived together for a year before we married, and I can tell you it was an amazing change when we finally tied the knot. Our relationship became stronger, calmer, and more wonderful.
There’s no need for a fancy wedding for it to be special. We were married by the Justice of the Peace in the local courthouse, and afterward had a party for friends and family. Everyone had a great time, and we had saved enough money to have a wonderful honeymoon in Paris. (I strongly suggest a honeymoon. Even if you’re just going out of town, it’s important.)
A couple getting married without living together beforehand brings one odd image to my mind:
Buying a car, from a catalogue, without test driving it, and hoping that you like it when it’s delivered.
Yes, that’s a bizarre (and pretty weak) analogy, but I can’t get it out of my head.
There are some things you just can’t learn about a person unless you live with them. Some of these things can (probably) be huge dealbreakers for a long term relationship. Considering that you’re talking about spending the rest of your lives together (depending on how seriously you take the idea of “marriage”) that’s a pretty big leap of faith.
Of course, for a whole slew of reasons, some folks do, and some folks don’t, and whatever works for you is the way to go. Offhand, though, I can’t think of anyone in my (admittedly small, and statistically insignificant) circle of friends who got married without living together first, and stayed that way for very long.
My parents set a requirement that I live with the man before I considered marriage. My mother had been married 3 times and my father’s been down the altar 5 times (almost 6! But my sis put her foot up his ass when she found out he was cheating on very pregnant step-mother number 4, even though we both didn’t/don’t like her much. Enough is enough, keep you’re damned pants on, Dad!)
So, I lived with TD 6 months before we got engaged, though I knew he was the guy. We continued to live together for a year up until the wedding and I want to advise all engaged dopers to elope and save themselves a mes o’ stress. Still glad I married him, but if I had it to do all over, I’d have taken his dad up on the offer and gotten hitched in Vegas when I had the chance. The whole wedding thing, to me, was a lot of hassle. Maybe one year, we will re-new our vows, the way we want.
Um, yeah, there was a tangent. Sorry 'bout that. Living together, I have never regretted. The dog and pony show wasn’t worth the stress though. The taxes, insurance and security are very nice, but not as great as the man I married.
I find it interesting, and to me a little strange, that you mention that “Weddings are supposed to be exciting…a whole new beginning.” I don’t think of them that way at all. I think of them as sealing by vow, in front of witnesses and (if you swing that way) the deity/ies of your choice, what has already been forged by the two of you. A wedding ceremony is a ritual formalizing of your relationship. It makes very little sense to me to seal a relationship that has not been tested.
Of course, you needen’t live together first if your idea of testing a relationship doesn’t include that, but mine certainly does. I would not be able to make a vow in good faith to a person I had not already shared life deeply with - and that meant living with them beforehand, down to the hairs left in the sink and the folding of laundry.
I also wouldn’t make such a vow to someone I hadn’t already shared sex with. And yes, the “living with” and the sharing sex are two totally different parts of the process. Not necessarily in that order, of course.
Were things different afterwards? Well, yes. His sex drive perked up for about a year afterwards, for one thing. (Unfortunately, then it went back to normal. sigh) More importantly, we live in a community property state; our financial arrangement changed completely, much for the better. Thirdly, it reinforced in him the knowledge that I was not going to leave him - I had made a vow (actually, I made it twice - we had two ceremonies, one legal in front of the families and one religious in front of the friends) to stay with him. Since he can be very insecure, that helped a lot. Most of all, though, it acted like an initiation ceremony - our relationship seemed to settle into a more mature phase, afterwards.
Oh, and the wedding doesn’t have to be big and sparkling. We spent less than $2000 total on both ceremonies. It’s more important that it be meaningful than that it be picture-perfect.
I guess I phrased some things wrong in my OP, so let me try and clarify. As for the wedding part of things, I really could care less. We are both somewhat shy and quiet, so a big to-do would not be what either of us would want. I think the Las Vegas idea is perfect for us because it is more likely NOT to stress us out…plus it would be much cheaper. A little country church would be my ideal place, but I haven’t seen any of those around. Either way I just want a simple ceremony, but I do want a ceremony. Never did before, but I do now. I would never want one of those big expensive things though. That’s wasting money I could use as a down payment on my future house!!!
I guess what I’m worried about is the MARRIAGE not being any change from what we have now. Honestly, I would have married him the week after I met him IRL. I’ve always been that sure that he’s my true soulmate. (And for the record, neither of us were the “try before you buy type”). Things have just never worked out so that we had the money to “fix” our current situation. And truthfully, I’m starting to feel like its dragging on… I’m ready to do it. He’s more concerned with trying to save up money to buy a ring. It doesn’t matter to me whether I get a certified diamond or not. I think we’ll have a talk this weekend and see if we can plan how we want things to go. Maybe I haven’t stressed enough how I don’t want an expensive wedding or ring or whatever. I think most of that stuff is just for show anyway.
I do think weddings should be exciting. It’s like it’s finally time to put your seperate lives in the past and start a new one together. (Which it seems I’ve already done that anyway). I do look on it as a whole new beginning. I think the unity candle ceremony that can be performed at weddings is an excellent demonstration of this. Maybe I’m a weirdo…
A Las Vegas wedding/honeymoon, followed by returning home to a whole new apartment… Sounds like a plan to me!
Good luck, sweetie. It can be hard to convince a guy that you really don’t want all that crap, and you’re not just saying it to make him feel better. Been there, did that, have the tanzanite ring to prove it.
DrJ is pretty vocal about his disgust for the diamond cartel, their business practices, and the notion they’ve fostered that the money you spend on a ring is directly proportional to how much you love someone. Fine by me, I don’t care for diamonds anyway. They’re fine as accents, but as main stones they’re booorrrring, and I much prefer opals or sapphires. He worried, though, that I was just trying to keep him from feeling guilty about not wanting to buy a diamond. The man stewed about this for a couple of years (we started talking eventual marriage when he still had 5 years of school left, and neither of us was willing to get married till he graduated) before he finally figured it out.
We did live together for the last 6 months before the wedding, because it was just more practical for us. We had to make an interstate move, and we could either move together and plan our wedding together, or we could live in different states while planning a wedding in a third state and have a lot more moving and housing expenses in the meantime.
Of course the wedding was a whole new beginning. It was the beginning of the time when the changes and the promises and the commitments we’d made in private were acknowledged in public. It was like spending 8 years on a huge project, and finally bringing it out and saying, “Here’s what I’ve got so far, and I’m damn proud of it.”
And it does affect your daily life. Do we start every discussion with “now that we’re married…”? No. Have either of our personal habits or the way we interact changed? Heh, if that ring could stop his snoring or stop either of us from saying really stupid stuff, I’d have married him years ago, school or no school. Still, there’s some subtle, hard-to-define difference that permeates everything, like that texture the air gets one day that makes you look around and realize that it’s really and truly spring now.
I lived with my husband before we got married. We had one of those long engagements where we knew we were going to get married but he needed to finish school and stuff first. When we both finally had full time jobs so we could support ourselves we got an apartment and started planning a wedding.
The wedding was all about us. We had a slightly bigger wedding than we planned to include some of his more extended family but it wasn’t that bad. We did get everything else we wanted that day. Most importantly we got married … for real … but the wedding does not make the marriage. (If it did those hollywood couples would never get divorced!)
The only thing that changed after the wedding was my name and status on forms for work. This was because we were already deeply committed to each other before we even moved in together. We’ve been married 7 years now and a lot about our lives has changed (we’re on our second house and I’m having our second child for example but our feelings for each other and about our relationship really haven’t changed - there was no lightbulb that lit and made me think ‘wow ok now I’m married so I have to be/feel/do whatever.’ Moving in for us was our new beginning and the formal ceremony just legalized the commitment we already had. (if that makes sense)
What I wonder is what there is in your relationship that you want marriage to change. You said in the OP that things were going great and yet you are worried that nothing will change when you marry. Life changes us all the time and your relationship will change too in a variety of ways even if you don’t feel it. But what I get from your posts is that you’re looking for marriage to add something that is missing right now.
to answer the OP, if you’re both strong enough to follow through once the ‘thrill is gone’, then I can’t see where it would hurt you. But the thrill is the reward at the end of a long journey (seating charts, dress agida, caterer agida, wedding hall agida, band agida, florist agida, Family Agida, ad naseum).
tanookie
I don’t believe that there is necessarily anything wrong with my relationship, but as it’s more of an idea left over from childhood. I always had my head stuck in the clouds, loved fairy tales, and read way too many romance novels as a teenager. Even though I know better (life is definitely NOT a fairy tale), I still want to think of marriage in that light. (Lordy…Dr. Phil would have a time with me).
I’m not making any sense, I know. I’m just not sure how to put in to words what I’m trying to say. Maybe that we’ve already experienced all the initial things getting married has to offer (first night of lovemaking, settling in a new place together, etc), so why should we worry about what type of wedding we have or a ring or all that stuff. We already skipped over it, so what’s the point now? But in my heart, I still want that. I need to realize, and I’m starting to, that we still have our first night to share…as husband and wife…our first home… as husband and wife… Those things are still possible. It’s just going to take us realizing that and making it special for each other. I’ll just have work on planning a wedding night that will knock his socks off!
After posting this, reading all the replies, having a talk w/ my SO, and doing much thinking, I realize that I am very lucky. I’ve been listening to the people in my lab talk about relationships and they are so jaded and have horrible opinions of the opposite sex. I can see now that what I have w/ my SO is very special and I wouldn’t want that to change for anything. Looking in to his eyes last night and feeling him hug me as he told me he loved me was all I need. I get that every day of my life now. How could I ask for anything more?
I’ll agree with everyone who says it is different once you’re married. Mrs. Cliffy and I lived together for five years before tying the knot, and our relationship is better and more fun than it was. OTOH, a pal of mine had been living with his girlfriend for about six or seven years; they got married, and now they’re separated less than a year later.
