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Many couples who are getting serious will wonder if they should start living together before marriage. It’s become far more acceptable today than ever before, with many areas providing local legislation to provide for insurance and benefits of domestic partnerships. As more and more people are living less “traditionally”, living together before getting married is now considered just as normal as waiting until after the wedding date to schedule the moving truck.
However, just because living together before marriage is no longer considered taboo does it mean that moving in together is always a good idea.
When asking yourself “should we move in together?”, think about these Pros and Cons of living together before marriage first.
Pros of Living Together Before Marriage
- You have a chance to find out if you can live together in peace and harmony before making a final commitment.
- You will find out any annoying habits of your future spouse early on.
- You can test drive to see how you do managing money together and balancing housework.
- It can save you money if you are currently both paying separate rents and utilities for two different places or currently live far apart from each other.
Cons of Living Together Before Marriage
- You or your partner may find yourselves arguing more over petty things, like who left the towels on the floor.
- You will lose your personal space and privacy.
- Without official commitment, you may be more likely to break up if things get rough.
- Getting married/having a wedding might not seem as special or it could take take longer to make happen.
- You may still get a little grief from religious folks or people with traditional values.
This post isn’t here to be judgmental about living before marriage or to persuade you into one viewpoint or another. It is simply to help guide you to make the right decision for your relationship. Weighing the pros and cons of living together before you make the decision will make a big difference in your overall happiness and success in your relationship.
Even though living together and marriage are not exactly the same thing, and they certainly do have some differences, there’s a great article I read that has some very good advice for not only married couples but those who are considering living together before getting married. It’s about 20 marriage principles that are sure to help any couple be happier whether married or testing the waters.
What are your thoughts on living together before marriage? Share your viewpoint in the comments below.
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i think it’s a great idea. living together truly allows you to get to know this other person you plan to spend the rest of your life with. and it quickly identifies potential areas of friction which need to be dealt with.
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Well, St. Paul, being a practical man, said it is better to marry than to burn, and if he were around today he would probably say it is better to live together with good intentions toward one another than apart with bad ones. Times change and conventions change with them, but love is eternal. If people are truly in love it probably makes less difference if they are married or not than if they are not, because they will have that eternal trust and confidence in each other and act honorably, we hope.
The danger with living together is that it is too easy, at least on the surface. Increasingly I see people moving in together on a fairly informal basis, with little love or commitment before hand, perhaps as an outgrowth of the “friends with benefits” concept.
Thee is a built in impermanence to the arrangement, and yet it involves some fairly serious commitments. it is my thought that there needs to be a sense of commitment before entering into such an arrangement, otherwise it becomes just too easy to bounce from one “friend with benefits” to the next.
Cheers, Marc
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Well, I am not agree on living together before marriage just to know each other well. That is not a good option. What if the girl get pregnant and they found out that they are not truly meant for each other? I believed that long dating is a good idea.
I agree with Fly…Knowing each other does not always through living together. And I still believe in marriage holiness.
This is a great post. I can relate to the pros and cons because I used to live with someone before I was married (which I never was). These pointers are very on track and they describe it well.
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I feel that a lot of people move in to “see if it’s right”. This is quite a different approach than “for better or worse”. The former presupposes that you might fail in your relationship and leaves you a back door. The second choice is supposed to mean that you will fight for each others love and really make a go of it.
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I won’t say that living together makes us fight a lot. It really depends on the individuals, like if you really like fighting, you WILL whether married or not. We stay because we want to, particularly since we don’t have divorce in the Philippines. No, legal separation doesnt count. It’s really “forever” when you let the divine blessings of the Roman Catholic Church bless your union here. And so, I’m not biting just yet.
The only time I will get married is when I “need” to, like there’s a legality involved or there’s no getting around it (like a prerequisite for immigration).
Otherwise, marriage with a piece of paper will be HYPOCRITICAL for me, particularly if it’s in the USA and divorce is an option. Who are they kidding??? The option to separate is STILL there with divorce legalized. Just more messy, and much more expensive.
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Testing the waters is good for compatibility and for financial responsibilities and sharing. You don’t want to go down the road of a messy divorce.
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Its certainly a good idea as it is the only way to really understand how compatible you are with your partner. Its better to find out soon rather than later, when things are generally more complicated with marriage and children.
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I am against living together before marriage. I think that it makes things too ‘easy’ and people forget about the long term commitment needed in marriage and having children
It depends on culture and country, family. some work some not.
I against.
I disgree with living together before marriage.I have to admit that I am a bit tradditional at this aspect.
I am very traditional and I disagree with living together before marriage. I agree with the logical aspects of it but from a moral perspective I just do not agree. That is not to say that I judge anyone that does. Everybody is free to make their own decisions and I am perfectly accepting of that too!
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My 2 cents? If you have to live together to “try it out”, you always have that “out” in the back of your head. There is less of a commitment and a higher propensity for irreconcilable differences. Just get married already, as long it is an opposite sex marriage till death does you part.
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Interesting. Well according to US divorce rates, people who live together before marriage are more likely to divorce than those who don’t. I am personally 50/50 on this. I come from a Catholic family with a lot of values and although I think that when you live together before marriage you get to “know” the person better, the bond and uniqueness of marriage becomes less special. The saying if your getting the milk free why pay for the cow? is appropriate in this situation. Of course living together with a ring on your finger is an undeniably different mentality than w/o. You try your best to make it work when you know the ring is on, as opposed to when not!
What do people think about those that simply choose not to marry. I know people that have lived together for 17 years and consider themselves in a lifetime commitment. Their view is their personal lives are none of the governments business so they have choosen not to get a marriage certificate from the government.
I see no problem with people living together before they are married. This gives them a great opportunity to see if they can live together happily before getting married.
I HAVE LIVED WITH MY CURRENT BF FOR A YEAR NOW AND WE HAVE BEEN TOGETHER 2 YEARS. I WAS MARRIED BEFORE HIM AND WE WERE TOGETHER A YEAR WHEN WE GOT MARRIED. SO EITHER WAY THERE IS A CHANCE FOR DIVORCE.
I agree with Jesse, that logically it might sound OK, but morally its not the right thing. Plus, if you look at it morally you realize in the long run it’s probably better for the relation even from a logical standpoint.
I also don’t agree with living together before marriage. My husband and I did not. We did not want any potential problems such as forming bad habits, not valuing marriage, the what if’s, the fear that it might not work out, etc. Also, it made our wedding day and marriage much more special. Not only that, we didn’t have “old habits” to break. As they say, “old habits die hard”. There’s much more commitment, respect, and confidence when married.
When I go to weddings where the couple has lived together for years, I always wonder why they have the large registry, the big blown-out wedding, and all the traditions of a “traditional wedding”. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for them and glad they chose to make the right decision. But why have a traditional wedding when they did not have a traditional courtship? The wedding doesn’t seem as meaningful as the wedding of a couple who did not live together before marriage.
I also don’t understand the pros about living together, such as you’ll find out annoying habits or you can see if you can live together in harmony? Sorry, but isn’t that a part of marriage… going through trials together and working through them. When I was dating my husband, we both had our own places. When I went over to his place, I could tell if he was neat or not. And throughout our courtship, I knew what his annoying habits were. We all have them.
Overall, you continually learn about your spouse everyday. So, when couples live together to “test their relationship”, I don’t see the point because things will always pop up in a marriage. We live in a culture where we want things done fast and easy. One man I know gave me a little insight about his 35 year marriage. He said, “My wife has been married to 5 different men and they’re all me.” Good line!
I am in that group of not living together before marriage. I almost want to though, what if I cannot live with her!
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Living together before marriage sure makes a no contest divorce a lot easier if there is a beak up. There are no legal proceeding at all. You both just have to agree on who gets the TV, couch, apartment etc. Once you’re married the legal stuff gets really complicated.
Of course, that just address the practical aspect, not the moral.
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Very interesting post and comments. My opinion is that testing the waters before getting married is an extremely good idea, as a lot of compromises will need to be made by both. Whether this is always a good idea all depends on the culture, family etc. In the UK, living together has now become more popular than getting married.