I suppose this will be my most controversial post yet... only because I don't have many posts and none of them are really controversial. But then again, I don't think this is all that controversial. That being said, standard disclaimer, every person and couple is different, there's always exceptions to the rules, do what feels right, don't get forced into anything, my intention is not to step on anyone's religious or personal beliefs, etc etc etc. Blah blah blah. Whatever.
A lot of people think that moving in together before marriage is a bad thing, because it often leads to fighting and breakups. This surprises me... because that's exactly why I think it's a good thing. It means you figure that out BEFORE you sign the [sacred] legal contract that is marriage. I bet you it'd drive down divorce rates. It's a classic instance of people confusing proximal (easy to see) causes with distal (root) causes. Yes, moving in together often leads to fighting and breaking up. But I have news for you. Having a marriage contract merely makes it more of an effort to break up... it doesn't cure the reasons you're going to be fighting. Marriage is not magic. Magical, maybe. Not magic.
In fact, I've developed a rule of thumb (still flexible). If you've been dating less than 2 years, I actually ENCOURAGE a couple to move in together before they get married (before or after engaged whatever) for at least 3 months, preferably 6. I figure 3 months is enough to experience 2-3 full PMS cycles (no offense ladies). But 6 months is better, because you can experience two weather seasons (one of which is either summer-why-do-you-radiate-so-much-heat-get-out-of-my-bed-and-sleep-on-the-couch or winter-wtf-stop-stealing-the-covers-or-i'll-staple-them-to-your-nipples-since-you-love-them-so-much-more-than-me).
See, dating is like slow-roasting a relationship. Tossing in sex is like passing a marshmallow through a campfire (might get burned to a crisp, but if you do it just right, it can make it that much more fantastic). Living together is a high-powered microwave. Oh, since I didn't mention it before, I do not equate living together with sex. Sure, if you're not having sex, it'll make it a whole lot more difficult to stay that way, but they're still mutually exclusive decisions. If you are, then you'll continue so (presumably).
Everything happens at an accelerated rate when you live together. Things that would otherwise take months or years to come up will suddenly reveal themselves all at once. It can be difficult to handle, but I really don't think living together CREATES these things. It just shows them to you sooner, and maybe in batch. Can you handle suddenly being exposed to it? Well, if you get married, you will be anyway.
Some people like to slowly simmer into things. Others like to just to jump in head first. In the end, it's really up to you, but living together isn't the problem, it just tends to bring them out sooner than later. I personally like to take things slow and find out in due time, but I lived separate and together with my ex over the years. We learned a lot both ways.
My point is this. Moving in together does not suddenly create differences and points of contention in a relationship. But it definitely highlights them, quickly, and often many at a time. This can definitely lead to the demise of a relationship that would otherwise have survived (if taken slowly, so these problems could be worked out one at a time).
So if you're thinking about getting married, and want to live together first, do it. I dare you.
For the rest of you thinking about moving in together just for the sake of it, a few cautionary words (this isn't the main point of my post, but I feel it would be lopsided if I left it out):
Living together exaggerates everything, not just fights. It increases sexual tension and desire. If you are running the virgin until marriage route, this is obviously not desirable. It increases your influence on each other. If one partner is a lot younger than (or heavily influenced by) the other, this is a huge danger. Intimacy is forced at nearly all times. Value your privacy? Gone. When you leave, when you come home, how much you go out, with whom you go out, when you wake up, when you go to sleep, how much you're on the computer, how much you snack, how loudly you fart when you poo, yeah, all of it, out in the open.
But if you're ready, living togther also can exaggerate the good things. Popping in to share the shower. Washing your hands together before you cook dinner. Falling asleep together on the couch watching Friends reruns. Carrying her into your (shared) bed. Waking up together with a naughty look and a wink for some early morning exercise, or 3AM exercise, or 7PM-the-pizza-is-burning-nevermind-we'll-get-delivery exercise. Noticing a guy oogling her, sidling up next to him and saying, "yeah, I think I'll take her home with me tonight," and do.
But in the end, the most obvious thing of all about living together, is that you'll suddenly find out things about your SO that you just had no idea about. My friend A found out that her bf takes off all his clothes and jumps up and down over the toilet when he's constipated (i have not yet tested this, do so at your own risk of embarrassment and fecal disaster). Apparently he also doesn't care to close the bathroom door. I discovered that my ex squeezes toothpaste from the top (AARRRGHHHH, took me 3 years to break her of it, she's good for 3 more years, we're separated 6 months and she starts squeezing from the top again).
Eh, maybe this post wasn't controversial after all. So tell me, what surprises did YOU find out after you started living with your significant other? Does he tweeze more often than you do? Does she belch like a walrus? And how long (if at all) until you discovered that deal-breaker? Would it still have been a deal-breaker if you had been married already?
Comments (42)
LOL We lived together for about 5 years when we got married... so I found this post really amusing and of course relatable.
We've been married for over 5 yrs (so together over 10 now) and you know what? He STILL squeezes the toothpaste from the top! LOL How did you break her of this habit?
Your post analyzes quite effectively the many issues involved with cohabiting. It is a far more complex situation--as is any coexistence within the same physical space--than most people realize when they move in together (either before or after a wedding).
I never lived with any of the women I dated, but most of my friends cohabited before they walked down the aisle. The results were mixed: some couples imploded before they reached the altar, some sailed on for years without trouble before later imploding, and most continue in healthy relationships to this day. At the same time, the couples I know who never cohabited have had similar results.
I think the real key is gaining a good knowledge of each other--how the other person really thinks and lives, emotionally and mentally and spiritually, as well as the physical. Too often I think we think relationships begin and end with sex, but emotional and psychological compatibility is far more important than whether two people can make a lot of things happen between the sheets. And that kind of assessment of each other's internal habits can be determined sometimes more effectively when you have some space to reflect between each encounter. If the couple is always together, there may not be enough time for reflection, causing one or both to miss major warning signs of trouble to come.
One of the women I dated seemed like "the one," until, six months into the relationship, I began to realize that her lack of curiosity of the world around her gave her very little interest in learning and growing intellectually, in any way whatsoever. As someone whose vocation is teaching, I'm surrounded by books and ideas, and while a woman I'm with doesn't need to be excited about the same things I am, if she's not excited about learning and growing deeper in some way, then there's a potentially serious conflict waiting to happen. (I later realized that, during the eight months we dated, when I had been around her for any period of time, I couldn't write or concentrate on anything I was trying to read. I'm not sure why, since it never happened while I was in any other relationship. But it was frightening to realize how I almost missed that sign of trouble, because I was really interested in her. A lot.)
By the way, I heard a statistic a few years ago that, while the divorce rate for all couple is somewhere around 50%, divorce rate for couples who cohabitate before marriage is nearly 80%. I'm not sure how true that is, but since the divorce rate among my friends is (thankfully!) way below the national average in either category, I can't speak from firsthand observation. . . .
Wonderful post. Excellent dissection of an argument that has long been thrust upon too many young couples..
@SamsPeeps - Haha! Well, I think it was just about the only thing that annoyed me, so after I complained about it lightly a few times, I decided that we'd just 'fight' about it until one of us gave is. Every time she'd brush her teeth, she'd squeeze from the top and of course the toothpaste gets pushed towards the bottom. Then I would squish all the toothpaste back up towards the top. Back and forth. In a way it was kinda a game, but eventually she gave up first and after a long time it became her habit to just squeeze it from the bottom. It didn't take the whole 3 years for her to start, it just took that long for her to completely stop!
@death_by_chocolat - Thanky kindly Kayla.
@ghosthouse - Thanks for the additional input ghost! And on your 80% statistic, no offense to you personally, but I'm going to call BS. It's not possible for it to be THAT high. That aside... I just glanced around on divorce rates, and they indeed are between 40-50%, based on how it's calculated and things like that. I didn't want to go too deep into it, but I'll point this out. Statistics are very very prone to misinterpretation. This is a problem with correlation and not causality. I am going to make up some exaggerated numbers here to make my point:
Fake fact: 10% of catholic couples live together before marriage, due to church restrictions and the remaining 90% non-co-habitants have a divorce rate of 25% within 10 years.
Fake fact: Of those 10%, 80% of those co-habitating couples resulted in divorce within 10 years
Resulting correlating statistic: 80% divorce rate among cohabitants, 25% divorce rate among non.
Not listed causal reason: Of the 10%, 75% co-habitated before marriage due to a unplanned pregnancy, had relationships lasting less than 1 year before marriage, and later expressed that the primary reason for getting married was bowing to pressure from the church and family, whereas, once they were old enough, were strong enough to choose divorce.
More accurate statistic: Among co-habitating couples with similar pre-marital relationship lengths of greater than 2 years (including time before co-habitation), the divorce rate within 10 years is 20% compared to the overall of 25%.
*THESE ARE COMPLETELY MADE UP NUMBERS*
Anyway, the point is, statistics don't lie, but the conclusions drawn from them REALLY DO. Well, that and I don't believe the 80% number, nor can my 5 minute half-hearted search find it. As an economist, statistician, and psychologist, I am usually hard pressed to use published statistics for anything more than loose correlation, since the underlying factors tend to skew the conclusions greatly. AND, that's assuming the polling group are representative of whoever you're placing the conclusion. Clearly in my example I'm only polling catholic couples (which churches WILL do, poll their congregations with surveys, and then post statistics from it, hell, they may even say "nationwide survey*" where the fine print is, *catholic couples). Gotta read that fine print ;). Oh, and by no means am I pointing this out to bash Catholic churches. Just about everyone uses statistics incorrectly...
@MusingsOfAnAlmostSocio - That's why I said that my personal observations contradicted the statistics, both in general divorce rate and in the divorce rate among those couples who cohabit prior to marriage. It was a published statistic that I found in a newspaper--the clipping is somewhere in my files, as I reprinted it in an underground newsletter I wrote/compiled some years ago. At the time, it did lead to some discussion among the readers. . . .
My observations have led me to believe that cohabitation before marriage doesn't necessarily lead to a better relationship afterwards. It also doesn't necessarily mean a poorer quality relationship, either. Much depends on the couple involved. They need to realize that, even if there's no ring on the finger yet, there is still some sort of commitment involved with living together so intimately. If either one forgets that fact, then hurt and conflict are quite likely to follow!
I'll do it if you double dare me :p. Okay, enough silliness.
I’ve never cohabited with men I
dated because I never thought to be exclusive with any of them and marriage is definitely not a
priority of mine at this time. Also, I need a great deal of space and “alone”
time.
Your friend’s bf was probably a monkey in his
past life. It is true, you do find things about another person you never knew
before after residing with them for a while. I stayed with a friend (known her for 3 years) during my summer visit a while back. Anyways, quite a few things annoyed me
about her, but the worse thing was her not flushing the toilet after using it
at night. Squeezing the toothpaste from
the top of the tube was another thing she did, too. I also found extra
toothpaste left on the counter. I wonder how her boyfriend is handling her little quirks :).
@ladyofthesilk - Ha ha! He IS a monkey. One Christmas my mom got him a monkey bobblehead (I got a ninja, woot woot). And wth? Does she like sleep pee or something? I mean, it's not like it takes extra effort to flush...
@ghosthouse - Agreed!
I used to be big on not living together, but this actually makes a lot of sense.
haha I enjoyed this post esp the staple the covers part :) My ex was super dirty (i didn't know that until I semi lived with him for a few months) When I came over (while we began dating), he always cleaned up his room. After a while, he just stopped lol :P Also, I learned he takes his laptop into the bathroom. haha hilarious~
Either way, I'm a proponent of living together when engaged. I think it's a taste of married life to come w/o the piece of paper.
Btw, I like to squeeze toothpaste from the top when I finish half of a tube~ then close the cap and squeeze from the bottom to fill the top so each time i can squeeze from the top there on :P hahaha I would drive you nuts ^_^
A hilarious post. But with some good insight and an opinion that is well thought out. When I was a closeted, naive little nun in a nutshell I would have protested vehemnetly against this. But I can agree with it now wholeheartedly. My sister lived with a beau of hers for about six months, then threw him out flat on the doorstep because they were entirely incompatible at home. From the food the noise level, cleanliness, toilet habits etc, from tucking vs. not tucking the bedsheets to courtesy flushes--it was a disaster. And before they had seemed absolutely perfect for each other.
Though combining households is a really big deal for some people. Someone I knew had issues with the thought of completely dropping her apartment, so she simply lived with her boyfriend for a week, then he'd live with her for a week, and so forth. It worked out quite nicely, and by the time they were getting married they were so integrated into each others lives they had no idea whose toaster was whose etc.
i think it's wise to live together before tying the knot. sure, you think you know everything about that person... but when you spend several hours a day together rather than every hour for several days together, you are bound to miss a few odd habits you never thought about.
besides, living together shows you what it would be like to marry that person - just minus a ring and a big party.
@Casa_blanca_lilies - Thanks! Laptop into bathroom = porn *nod*. Oh noes, another top squeezer. I wonder if I could keep adding staples to the bottom of the toothpaste bottle to prevent it from squishing back towards the bottom -_-
@fakegeisha - Thanks! Yeah... it sucks when that happens. Better sooner than later, right? Glad to hear about the couple it worked great for! I was like that with my ex, which was even easier because our apartments were one building apart, a quarter of a block walk from one to the other. We had those two apartments for 2 years, even though I was rarely at mine. We did all the cooking and everything else at hers. Eventually the last semester of senior year my air matress (yes, I slept on an aerobed in college) sprung a leak, and I was like, AH, guess I should just move in with YOU love! Haha. As good an excuse as any. I still have the bed, and I fixed the hole years later. Took me about 10 minutes to find the leak and patch it. Who "knew"? =)
@JustMe003 - Yup yup! Speaking of rings and big parties, my cousin got married last year at DISNEYLAND. Way sweet. Mickey and Minnie and Goofie even showed up at the reception. They're both in their late 30s, but she's a manager at the Disney store, so she loves everything Disney. I took my little cousin and we stayed at their new house and she had the most fantastic time taking pictures of all their disney stuff. Fun times.
vice versa stuff.
agreed agreed agreed agreed agreed.
did I mention I completely agree with what you're saying?
don't ask how I even stumbled across your post, but it was brilliant!!
I don't live with my boy, but we go to the same college and I basically live in his room. we get a long fine, the only thing is, he's a REALLY light sleeper, and I sleep like a rock. So on those teeny tiny dorm room beds, he tells me he'll often roll over, knock into me and wake up.
sucks for him, thankfully I'm a heavy sleeper!! hehe
"because you can experience two weather seasons (one of which is either summer-why-do-you-radiate-so-much-heat-get-out-of-my-bed-and-sleep-on-the-couch or winter-wtf-stop-stealing-the-covers-or-i'll-staple-them-to-your-nipples-since-you-love-them-so-much-more-than-me)..."
haha nicely! koodos on that one! (well the whole post really...)
I just popped in for a minute because I wanted to see if your blogs are as interesting as your responses on datingish. You didn't disappoint! And I have to agree with you. It's idiotic to marry someone before you know if you can tolerate living with them!
@immaairheadxl - who what now?
@Fool0nThePlanet - I'm lucky! We were both heavy sleepers. The only thing about that we had to figure out was to put me on the inside against the wall, because she likes to squish me and pin me up against the wall. That turned out to be much preferable to me falling off the bed... and she'd follow right after me. Despite being a deep sleeper, she was so CUTE when she was asleep. She'd always fall asleep first (because as quickly as I fall asleep, she can go down instantly). I used to always tease her by giving her light kisses as she was falling asleep. After awhile, even if she's asleep, if we touch noses, she'll make the smooch face and kiss me. It was nice, because I'm a night owl and she often went to bed before me, so I kiss her goodnight early, and when I jump into bed she rolls over, pins me against the wall, and kisses me goodnight too! :)
@fatty_gerrl - Thanks!
@babble_of_the_braindead - Ahhh, thanky kindly! :)
Like..
"""A lot of people think that moving in together before marriage is a bad thing, because it often leads to fighting and breakups. """"
We can see if it works out before we get to the marriage..
@immaairheadxl - OH, yup :).
Hey, sorry it took so long for me to get back to. I get really lazy on xanga sometimes, haha. But no, I have no problem if you read my entries. Actually, I'm not sure why we don't argue, but I started thinking about it, and I believe that I used to hold back how I truly felt about some things. That might have had something to do with it. Recently, I've been a lot more open about things, and I won't be afraid to disagree when necessary. It hasn't led to a major argument, but I'm fine with the little debates that we have. :)
Oh, and about cohabitation..you don't want to hear from me about that one. I wrote a ten page paper on that...in a negative aspect. lol.
Hmm..I'm not familiar with all of those stages that you're referring to, but I am familiar with whatever comes up from "google," when you type in "relationship stages." Lmao. I think that there's about 5-8 that come up, haha. But anyway, I would have no problem getting married in the Catholic church. My only objection is the baptism of the children as they are babies. Like I mentioned, I went to my SO's nephew's baptism the other day, and truly it was a wonderful experience..but I just don't believe that it's necessary.
My Protestant beliefs overtake me on that one. I cannot agree that by baptizing an infant, that the child will saved. I believe in baptism when one truly understands the act, and one has prayed and accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior. (I did so at about age 10.) I do not believe that a baby has such understanding. It is a part of Catholicism, and I don't agree with that portion. As to my knowledge, they don't have a second baptism, for when the child is aware of what is going on, do they? See..I just don't understand...
awww.. i remembered seeing a wedding happening at Disneyland last year. It was such a cute and romantic wedding! And I'm not too sure that living together would necessarily prove or show anything other than one's living habits. Sure living habits can make or break a relationship but it doesn't mean that a couple should necessarily live together before marriage. I guess it's just an option that a couple could consider. I used to think it didn't matter but now that you've mentioned how much more intimately you can know a person just by living w/ that person, I think I may consider cohabitating during an engagement and not necessarily through the courtship/dating stage.
It makes sense. I figure, the sooner a deal-breaker comes along, then it's that much less time you spend in a doomed relationship. My thing has always been- put her through all kinds of hell and if she survives, she's a keeper.
Not antagonizing her, but more along the lines of subject her to every extreme in my life. How many girls would be willing to go hiking in the mud, swing dancing, and other similar things to risk one's comfort zone.
Turns out a lot of girls don't have the courage to go learn how to swing dance. Never would have guessed that one.
- rant-o-the-day
@music_of_the_heart08 - 10 pages huh? Maybe another week O.o
@silver0a1 - Haha. There's a balance though! Gotta at least be on good behavior for a BIT. But yeah, sounds like if she can survive the heat, she's a keeper!