I’m just curious on how people feel about living together as boyfriend and girlfriend. I always thought it was a good idea, because you really get to know a person well by living with them, right? A friend of mine believes that you should wait until you decide to get married, but the only response to my ‘but why?’ was “because thats the way I feel.”. I just want some info to both sides. WHY OR WHY NOT?
I’m sorry if I started this thread in the wrong room!
There are arguements for both sides of this one. It can be good, because you really get to know someone when you live with them. However, it can also be a bad thing, because you don’t really know someone until you live with them. Of course, this assumes that the end goal of the situation is marriage, and not finding the right person. If you want to marry someone, I would suggest not living with them until you’ve been dating for a while and have already been discussing marriage. If you want to try to find the right person, I’d say just go for it. If you aren’t compatible, living together will definately let you know.
I personally believe its not a great idea.
I think the only thing gained by living with someone first is the ability to find real glaring warnings that you should not get married. But even then what would really hope to learn. That they leave the toilet seat up (God, I hate when she does that!!)? I really don’t see alot of benefit to it myself? In fact, I do think there can be a problem. And that the two people, finding themselves in the same rut most long term relationships find themselves in, get married and/or have kids thinking it will take their relationship to a new level. This, IMHO, is why marriages that start as live-ins fail more than those that don’t.
I see no problem living together first. My wife and I lived together for years before we got married. Why not, she was spending 3-4 nights a week at my place anyway.
[Moderator Hat: ON]
Jersey, as you suspected, you posted this in the wrong area. It belongs in IMHO, so that’s where I’m sending it.
David B, SDMB Great Debates Moderator
[Moderator Hat: OFF]
There was a study (Larry L. Bumpass and James A. Sweet. 1995. “Cohabitation, Marriage and Union Stability: Preliminary Findings from NSFH2.” NSFH Working Paper No. 65. Center for Demography and Ecology: University of Wisconsin-Madison.) that showed that couples did not live together before marriage have a lower divorce rate–but that might be mostly because people whose moral system prevented them from living together outside marriage would also disapprove of divorce.
If you think it’s wrong to have sex before marriage, it’s kinda crazy to live together first.
Also, if you aren’t planning on getting married eventually, there might be financial concerns. If you don’t 100% trust someone, you might not be ready to live together as BF/GF because you have a greater level of financial entanglement. It takes time to get to know one another, so you shouldn’t move in too soon. Then again, if you don’t live together first, you might be in for a nasty suprise when you get married.
In looking for that cite, I found a lot of sites on this subject, mostly against cohabitation for religious reasons, but there were some alternate viewpoints. Go to google.com and type in “live together before marriage”
Eh, as my mom says, there are a lot of worse things in the world than two people who love each other being together. 
Depends on the people involved. If they don’t feel comfortable living together before marriage, then get married. If they don’t feel comfortable getting married, then don’t.
The problem lies when one party wants to get married and one doesn’t and living together looks like a decent comprimise. Its not. Then when party A, who has been pretending that “its just like marriage only with out the paper” gets pissed that party B is not behaving married, and party B who is fine with not being married gets pissed that party A has become “hyper-controlling/too close/whatever” bad things happen.
Different things are good for differnt people. The bad stuff happens when honesty leaves.