Social standards for marriage?
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I profoundly, strongly, utterly disagree with that statement. D and I lived together for over a year while her (legally separated) first hubs fought and finagled and refused to sign papers, and we learned to much. While dating you can keep the "Date face" on. You can carry on the act and never let the other person see your imperfections. But living together is living together, and pretty soon both people show who they really are.<<snip>>
There is noting you can learn from living together that you can't learn from talking, visting, vacationing, and/or staying the night all while still maintaining your own residence.
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I never said it was "wrong". It's just not something that is necessary. There is noting you can learn from living together that you can't learn from talking, visting, vacationing, and/or staying the night all while still maintaining your own residence.
Exactly what Casper said in his previous post. He said it better than I could. The "Date Face" comes off after living with someone for a while. The "Date Face" can be kept up through talking, visiting, vacationing, sleepovers, etc. Also, living with someone first allows me to see how they handle problems at home--how do they handle a major repair? How do we handle it TOGETHER? How do we handle home improvements together? How do we handle a big purchase for the home together? How do we handle (if applicable) moving somewhere together? How do we handle little day-to-day issues that will only arise while living together? That cannot be learned from talking to someone, or staying a night here and there.I do hope that my kids won't live with someone unless they are at least engaged already.
I was raised differently.IMO it lessens the significance of the wedding and start of the marriage. When DH and I got married we moved in together after the wedding. The bed became ours. The couch was ours. The silverware was ours. It was new and special. If we had lived together the only thing that would have changed after the wedding would have been my last name. It was nice to have a bigger impact to a wedding than just going to sleep on Friday as Bahet Smith and going to sleep on Saturday as Bahet Jones with no other real significant differences.
Well, I have no dreams of a wedding, and will not be having one. Our bed, couch, silverware, etc....most of the furniture and kitchen stuff...it's all hand-me-downs. Most of it wasn't "ours" in the first place. Just about everything we have appliance and furniture-wise consists of hand-me-downs from both of our families.I'm genuinely curious as to why, though, you feel a couple who lives together first has more odds stacked against them than a couple who doesn't live together until they're married?
Divorce statistics. It's not just my opinion. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2904561/
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Quoted from the statistic: "Further, there is evidence that changes in attitudes about marriage and divorce can come from the cumulative experience of cohabitation." Well, I sure hope. :laugh: I didn't move into my current situation in hopes of getting married to someone. Also, that statistic provides a lot of "if this certain variable/person is present" and "for this type of"...which only applies to a certain range of people.0 -
I profoundly, strongly, utterly disagree with that statement. D and I lived together for over a year while her (legally separated) first hubs fought and finagled and refused to sign papers, and we learned to much. While dating you can keep the "Date face" on. You can carry on the act and never let the other person see your imperfections. But living together is living together, and pretty soon both people show who they really are.<<snip>>
There is noting you can learn from living together that you can't learn from talking, visting, vacationing, and/or staying the night all while still maintaining your own residence.
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I also have to disagree. My bf was almost 2 hours away during us dating and he spent the weekends at my house. usually 1-2 nights of sleeping over a week. I picked up MANY new things about him after he lived with me full time.0 -
My father in law paid for the wedding. My own criteria for marriage was making sure I was debt free and my fiance being debt free as well. She also said, after we got married, that if I had credit issues, she wouldn't have gotten engaged with me. I was fresh outta school and she was done a year before when we got married. We didn't live with each other until after marriage (father's rule. He was a minister.) I will be married 10 years on 7/27, and we have accomplished a lot (home, kids, cars, yada yada). If you feel like you can marry for love, go for it. From what I have read, 65% of marriages end because of money issues. And I see it all around, since I work at a bank. If those aren't your issues, screw what everyone else thinks. Enjoy life!0
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I profoundly, strongly, utterly disagree with that statement. D and I lived together for over a year while her (legally separated) first hubs fought and finagled and refused to sign papers, and we learned to much. While dating you can keep the "Date face" on. You can carry on the act and never let the other person see your imperfections. But living together is living together, and pretty soon both people show who they really are.<<snip>>
There is noting you can learn from living together that you can't learn from talking, visting, vacationing, and/or staying the night all while still maintaining your own residence.
<<snip>>
I also have to disagree. My bf was almost 2 hours away during us dating and he spent the weekends at my house. usually 1-2 nights of sleeping over a week. I picked up MANY new things about him after he lived with me full time.
I also disagree. I've been with my boyfriend for five years, living together for one now and before we were 2.5 hours away from each other, spending two - four nights together a month. After four years I still learned A LOT more about his habits after moving in with him. Like how he likes to leave wet towels lying around on the floor after showers or he leaves his socks turned inside out when he takes them off (which means they're really gross to turn right side out to wash after he's been working all day outside) or how he leaves glasses all over the house and not by the sink. That stuff I didn't know before living with him. How would I? He'd never leave wet towels on the bedroom floor if he was visiting my place, he's got manners when at other people's houses.
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I don't really think it matters if you are financially stable, own a house, etc before you get married. It just means you have a smaller wedding or something if you do want to get married. Personally, I could get married right now without going into debt. I'm a VERY frugal person. I'd love to do a back yard wedding, a barbeque or pot luck style supper, I have two friends who are photographers (not professional, but the one has already photographed three weddings and she's amazing!) and I have considered making my own wedding dress and would want to make a lot of my decorations and favours and everything, etc, etc. I could have a very, very cheap wedding if I wanted.
And I don't necessarily think it's a big deal if you marry before 30. What if you've been with the same person since you were 15...should you wait until 30 to marry them still just because you will change in those 15 years? I've been with my guy since 15, 20 years old now and yes we've both changed but we've GROWN TOGETHER. We rarely ever fight and even then it's not too serious that it's not fixable and moving in together only made us closer. So that being said, should I wait until I've dated him half my life to marry him? Would it be a huge mistake to marry him after being together for 10 years, living together for 6? Or even earlier? Maybe the after 30 advice is good for somebody not already in a relationship, but I don't think it applies to those in a relationship from a young age. In my mind, whether or not we're married, we're together and have agreed to stick things out and deal with issues that come up. We don't need to be married to be committed. Being married just means sharing a last name really, in our situation. We already live like a married couple. Heck, my mom pretty much tells people that we're "like already married".0 -
No that I ask, here is my reason:
My boyfriend and I have been discussing marriage, quite often actually and I would say as we aren't 'facebook offcially engaged' no ring yet (though we've already looked and I've given him an idea of what I would wear), we are definitely planning on getting married within the next two years and in pre-planning phase. To his family, I am introduced to people as his fiance'. Since a wedding we attended last weekend, I've caught my boyfriend googling wedding decorations and rings. :laugh:
Anyway, we joined theknot.com for planning. We are both having fun and getting excited just browsing color schemes and getting ideas of venues and will eventually track expenses and checklists there. I introduced myself, my situation on the forum and was bombarded for joining. I have many people sending me messages about being a pushy girlfriend for starting this (though it's a mutual adventure) and was told if we could not yet afford a ring there is no reason we should be thinking about marriage. For us, we already live together, share our expenses, and we both know what we want. All that will be changing for us is that we will be able to have the same last name, call each other husband and wife and be on the same insurance plan. BOTH of our families are anxious for us to get married and are going to be helping out financially with the wedding, so what is the big deal? Why so much much hate about him still being in school and not being 'financially stable' or not being together 'long enough' from strangers and even acquaintances?
Wow, those people sound inconsiderate. I don't think you need to be financialy stable to marry. Hell, all your eally need is love and the $20 or so it costs for the wedding certificate.0 -
Financial security is the basis of a good marriage. Money problems are often the cause of divorce. IMO, a couple who gets married without debt, and who live within their means and on a budget....and agree with how their money is allocated, is a couple who will stay married.0
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i think they should, but that never happens.0
