DrJ:
Obligatory personal history disclosure: My wife and I avoided living together for several years after our intention to marry became a foregone conclusion. By that time, we’d been through several quasi-breakups, a year-long separation while she was in Taiwan, etc. She returned earlier than she might have from Taiwan on the basis of my declared intention to propose marriage in the near future. I still had several things I felt obligated to do, however, before making a formal proposal (such as saving money for a ring). A little over a year after she returned from Taiwan, the building my apartment was in burned. Most of my stuff was saved, but I had to find new digs quickly. I’d been spending most of my time at her place anyway (I didn’t find out about the fire for four or five days), and so we decided, though neither of us were completely at ease with it, that I would move in with her. At the time, she was living in a 600 sq. ft. loft apartment, so we were in very close quarters until her lease ended the following summer and we moved into a larger place. The fire was in October, we got engaged in March, moved into another apartment in June, got married the following June, and bought a house that fall. We celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary yesterday, and have two wonderful kids and a relationship we’re both committed to making last.
I believe our cohabitation had a positive outcome because we were both already fully committed to getting married and making our marriage last. Neither of us approached it as a “trial” period or as a way to convince the other that our relationship could work in the long run; we’d already determined that through six years of dating, long geographical separations, times when one of us disappointed the other, times when one of us pulled the other through a tough time, etc. In short, we approached it as if we were already married and under all the obligations that entails. We (particularly she) had certain expectations for the way our marriage would be publicly solemnized and celebrated that necessitated delaying the actual event, but we tried to live up to what it means to be married throughout this time.
In short, I don’t believe that living together would significantly harm or help your relationship, provided that you already have that sort of commitment. If you don’t have that sort of commitment, then I’d definitely advise against it.
The reasons I’m typically against unmarried couples cohabiting are that too often one or both parties do regard it as merely sticking their toe in the water, expecting to be able to quickly pull back if they don’t like it, or they expect that it will somehow fix whatever’s wrong with their relationship or change the other person. One party’s not ready, and the other feels obliged to try to drag them along into readiness. Once they’re depending on each other for so many things, the stakes are higher, and it becomes more urgent for the more committed party to bring the other up to that level, leading to tension, pressure, and usually a withdrawal by the less committed party. The more committed party ratchets up the pressure another notch, so that the whole situation spirals out of control, feeding on itself. Since ending the relationship is now more difficult than if they were at least nominally living apart, the situation lasts longer and often gets uglier than if each could retire to their separate corners at will.
FWIW, don’t make the mistake of assuming that once you’re living together you’ll know what it’s like to be married. Everyone I’ve ever discussed this with who’s had experience of both states agrees that married fundamentally differs from unmarried, but in ways I’ve never seen articulated so that someone who’s not married could understand them (if that sounds supercilious or smug, I apologize – that’s not my intent).
As for the opinion of relatives, I was much more apprehensive about this than my wife was. This was mainly a result of my being from a rural Southern Methodist background, while she was of New York/Miami Jewish extraction, albeit having been raised in North Carolina. My parents were so thrilled that I’d finally pulled my life together and hadn’t let my wife-to-be slip away that they didn’t say a word. My wife and I had been to family events together so frequently for so long that by the time we moved in together, the subject never came up with other relatives. If it had, I wouldn’t have denied it, but I didn’t call attention to it either. Granted Southern Baptists tend to be more judgmental in these matters than Methodists (generally speaking), but I think you’d be able to come through it OK. I obviously know nothing of your grandmother, but I’d advocate not drawing her attention to the situation, conducting yourself in a responsible, respectable and respectful manner. If she does become aware of it, it’ll by then be a fait accompli, and in my experience the heat and noise expended to prevent something are generally greater than that spent trying to change or undo something. If you aren’t making a big deal of it, and if she’s worried about it reflecting on her, then she’ll be quite willing to keep it under wraps and avoid calling others’ attention to it.
Whatever you decide, I hope things work out for the best for you both.
