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One of my twitter friends asked how many of her friends /
followers lived together before marriage last night. I was one of them who said
yes. I think living together before marriage is a great idea, but I didn’t
always think that way.
When I was younger, I saw the world in black and white. I am
a Christian, so back then I thought living together before marriage was morally
wrong. I got to college, and I found that things were not as black and white as
I thought they were.
I didn’t date a lot and I didn’t start dating until college.
I only dated my first boyfriend for about six months. He was really clingy and
I realized I didn’t really like him that much, so I broke up with him.
My next serious boyfriend was a guy I was madly in love
with. He was the first guy I lived with, and we were so very wrong for each
other. Living together just made our problems worse and we fought all the time.
Finally we broke up. I was very upset but I felt a bit like a weight had been
lifted off of me. It did take me a good year to finally get over him.
When I met Todd, we started out long distance since we were
living on different sides of the state. We’d communicate via email and talk on
the phone about once a week because we were on separate work shifts. Our second
date was on Valentine’s Day and we went to a wrestling house show with some
friends. After the show, we went out to dinner. Todd and I had gotten to the restaurant
first and we were just talking. During this conversation, he asked me to move
in with him.
I was a bit freaked out because my last living with a
boyfriend experience was such a miserable ordeal. But Todd, logically, pointed out
that it would be hard to know if we were compatible doing the long distance
thing. His logic won out and we moved in together.
It was a completely different experience because it just
felt so comfortable and normal living with him. Our relationship has had its
ups and downs, but we are able to communicate fairly well to have a happy
relationship that lead to marriage.
Now I’m a huge fan of living together with a significant
other before marriage. It’s a great way to figure out if you are truly compatible
or not.
I am of two minds on this. I think people should NOT move in together before they're seriously talking about marriage. If they move in casually, as I did with my ex-boyfriend, they wind up far more committed to each other than they intended. I know people who stayed together because financially it would have been so hard to break up. And things happen -- you buy dishes together, or a couch, or a game system. Now you have to deal with all that. It's not as simple as an ordinary break-up. That's not a problem if it was a serious relationship, but a lot of my friends moved in with their boyfriends right after college because, why not? Sex and fun all the time! And then when they realized it wasn't working, they were unconsciously encouraged to not examine it closely because it would have made life so difficult to separate.
ReplyDeleteWell, I'm not a casual dating person. I was engaged to the first guy I lived with before we moved in together. Todd and I had at least talked marriage before we moved in as well.
DeleteBoth were preludes to marriage for me :)