On Living Together before Marriage...

okay okay, so I've always been an advocate of "not doing certain things" before marriage... but as most of you know, I've strayed from that idea...BUT... there is one thing that I don't think is wise to do before you're married...and it's living together.

I mean, sometimes it works.. but if you have marriage in mind for the near future, then it's probably something you should think about twice before jumping into this "committment" of sharing living quarters.

Don't get me wrong, living common-law is not WRONG...like I said, it works for some and doesn't work for others, depending on your situation. If you aren't ready for marriage or if you are set on being common law, then by all means, live together - it'll work. But if you're looking for something more - like an official proposal, it'll probably take a lot longer if you live together before.

I was having this discussion with a friend, who is married a year, the other week. She said that if she had agreed to live together before she was married, she would have never gotten the proposal when she did. She said that if she was already living with her bf (at the time), then he would have been satisfied with their status and would not have pushed for marriage so soon, because "he'd have what he wanted without the necessary committment to me."

To some extent, I agree with her. I was watching a special on 20/20 about year ago called "How to Close the Deal" and they featured two women who really wanted to get married to their current partners. One woman was living with her partner and the other wasn't. And the one thing the advisors said is that because they are living together, her partner will be reluctant to change the "situation" by getting married. They told her that if she wanted to get married in the next year, she should give him an ultimatum and move out. Well, at the end of the show, they gave an update and the woman had refused to take the advice and was still waiting for a proposal - which probably won't come for a while.

When you get married, you want this experience of living together to be an exciting, new, learning experience. What happens after the honeymoon? Do you just go home and live life the same way? A lot of people say that getting married changes the expectations of people who lived together before exchanging vows - it's a challenge because you are no longer just bf/gf, you are husband/wife.

SS and I have talked about living together but we think it would take away from the experience we are looking forward to having after we get married. Cooking together, purchasing furniture together, decorating together, waking up to each other every day...all the special firsts that we don't want to take advantage of just yet...

I was thinking about this when I was at my cousin's shower at the beginning of the month. As she was opening her gifts, she said things like, "Now we can replace the toaster at home!.. it's so OLD!" and it made me think of how I don't want to just be "replacing" items that I already have.

I don't know.. this is just my opinion and I don't mean to offend anybody or be judgmental...just the way I'm approaching it.