Moving In Together..

it can go whichever way you both decide you want it to go. Some get married, some just stay living together and some separate. Not sure what else there is.

My husband and I lived together for 18 months before getting married, but the intention to marry was there pretty much the entire time. It doesn't always lead to marriage, you both need to have the same plan, or else it could lead to heartbreak for the one who was hoping it would lead to more.

Testing it out before you buy is not a bad thing

This. And keep separate bank accounts.

It won't necessarily lead to marriage and you should be clear when communicating about your relationship expectations. It is, however, a great way to find out if you want to spend the rest of your life living with your significant other.

I also think its a great Idea.If people Moved In together before getting hitched there'd be Less Divorces.

People have been living together for years. Divorce rates aren't going down. It's a great concept, just not born out by facts.

I don't have a traditional view on these things. If you're ready to move in with your partner, do it. I moved in with my husband prior to marriage. I think it's important to know whether you're compatible with someone and able to live with them before you do anything like marry them.

I also think its a great Idea.If people Moved In together before getting hitched there'd be Less Divorces.

I agree, because there would be fewer people getting married. But the breakup rate would increase.

Many couples today choose to live together before they're married, some because they want to spend more time together, and others because it just makes financial sense. But can this have negative consequences once the couple does get married? In some cases, it can. According to a recent University of Denver study, couples that had lived together before getting married contemplated divorce at higher rates than couples that either moved in after getting engaged or couples that began to live together only after getting married [source: Bryner]. The study also found that couples that had cohabitated before marriage were less satisfied with their marriages than the other two groups surveyed.

One estimate shows that as many as 60 to 70 percent of couples today will cohabit before they're married [source: McCarthy]. This number includes millions of couples, compared to only about 500,000 couples who lived together pre-marriage in the 1970s [source: Wartik]. There are several explanations for the fact that couples who have lived together before marriage are more likely to consider divorce -- a phenomenon that holds up in more than one study. One theory is that cohabitating couples tend to slide into marriage because it's the convenient thing to do [source: University of Denver]. (This is the slippery slope of relationships, keeping the status quo or just "doing the next right thing". Getting married is not a conscious and deliberate decision, but rather the convenient thing to do. - my opinion). On the other hand, couples that only move in together after either getting engaged or married have made a clear commitment about living together as a couple forever. Couples that live together before marrying can also use this cohabitation period to see if the relationship has a future; however, if someone feels a relationship has to pass a trial period, that could be a bad omen.

Another reason to tie the knot before moving in? Studies show that married couples are generally happier than cohabitating couples in some ways -- they enjoy better health, more money and even more satisfying sex [source: Steinhauer].

http://curiosity.discovery.com/question/living-before-marriage-increase-divorce

After my divorce, I did a lot of research on this subject. Here are my thoughts on the subject from a blog I wrote awhile back:

I think the chance of divorce has little to do with whether you live together/have sex first and more to do with your views on love and marriage. Two people who take the "love is a feeling" approach to marriage have a much high probability of divorce than two people who take the "love is an action" approach.

The "love is a feeling" view would say the spouses in a failing marriage have "fallen out of love" or "grown apart", where the "love is an action" view would say that if the marriage is failing, the spouses are "failing to love". I can see where divorce would likely be less prevalent in the second case because a failed marriage indicates deliberate personal failure by the spouses.

For spouses who are in a "love is an action" marriage, sexual compatibility and the annoyances that come with living together are viewed as small issues that can be worked through with patience, communication, and mutual respect. Character, fiscal responsibility, religious views and, of course, philosophy of marriage are usually the larger issues at hand. /blog entry

This is just my non-professional opinion. I'm certainly not addressing marriages that fail due to addiction, abuse or adultery. Those are an entirely different story.

Testing it out before you buy is not a bad thing

This. And keep separate bank accounts.

This. Particulary separate bank accounts.

60% of couples live together before getting married, and people are still divorcing like crazy. Compare that to the first half of the 20th century when nobody lived together before marriage and divorce was highly uncommon.

All due respect, what you're citing has more to do with evolving views on both marriage and divorce, and the fact that since a much much greater percentage of women have jobs outside the home so they don't have to stay in crappy marriage strictly for financial reasons.

I've known my fiancé since we were 15 we've seen each other at our best and worst. so I'm not worried. i still live at home and he just bought his first house. i plan on moving in shortly before the wedding.

My husband and I lived together first to make sure we still worked good together living together. And after a month he proposed to me because living together was great! We just lived together for the summer, then we actually lived apart while I was finishing my last year in college (he graduated before me), and that was tough, so he got a job closer to me until we could get married and move away together.

60% of couples live together before getting married, and people are still divorcing like crazy. Compare that to the first half of the 20th century when nobody lived together before marriage and divorce was highly uncommon.

Flawed logic. there has been very many changes in society that will contribute to changes in divorce rates aside from whether people have lived together or not before marriage, including divorce being easier to sort legally (compared with pre 70s) less social stigma for those that do (particularly for women) less acceptance of abusive partners (mainly women but sometimes men too) changes in incomes/working lives for women making them less dependant on the male breadwinner and probably a host of more reasons I have not mentioned. I have no idea if co-habitating does, or does not lead to more divorce, but to take that and apply to increased divorce rates as the only cause just does not make sense. Co-habitating may even mean less divorces as people split up before they get as far as marriage. I am all for working hard to make marriages work though.