What if you are planning to live together with the idea of getting married?
How long should a person date or be seeing someone before they move in together?

Aly

Hi Aly,
For what purpose have you and your fiance decided to move in together before marriage?

Do you have a date set? How long until the big day?

How do you feel about the Harley perspective on cohabitation?

Smile

When we moved in together (after being togeher almost 2 years) we did it with the intention of marrige being the next step-although it took 3.5 years (we were engaged after 2 years). We had some issues we wanted to work on before being married and I'm glad we worked it all out and waited.

How long should a person date or be seeing someone before they move in together?
A person should wait until the day they are married to move in together.

Aly,

You should get married when you feel its right. It's okay to live together...I live with my fiance also. It's going on a year in January. We have had some things thrown at us...I guess to test the strength of our relationship. We were both married before to other people so we understand the seriousness of marriage. We are still working on some issues that we have. Our tentative wedding date is Feb 14, 2004.

Do I see it happening? Maybe not... I don't think that most of our issues will be resolved by then. Do I want to maryy him...Of course I do...But we both love each other and we're not going anywhere. We are working on ourselves to make this marriage last forever.

Aly,

You should get married when you feel its right. It's okay to live together...I live with my fiance also. It's going on a year in January. We have had some things thrown at us...I guess to test the strength of our relationship. We were both married before to other people so we understand the seriousness of marriage. We are still working on some issues that we have. Our tentative wedding date is Feb 14, 2004.

Do I see it happening? Maybe not... I don't think that most of our issues will be resolved by then. Do I want to maryy him...Of course I do...But we both love each other and we're not going anywhere. We are working on ourselves to make this marriage last forever.

You should get married when you feel its right.
How does one know when it “feels right”?

It's okay to live together
What does, “it’s okay” mean?

We are working on ourselves to make this marriage last forever.
Why not actually have a marriage to be working on? Why work on something to get to place where you can work on something?

From Preparing for Marriage
“There has been extensive research on the subject of living together, and it all points to a startling conclusion: Living together before marriage seems to doom subsequent marriage.“

From Living Together Before Marriage
“In my experience and in reports I've read, the chances of a divorce after living together are huge, much higher than for couples who have not lived together prior to marriage. If living together were a test of marital compatibility, the statistics should show opposite results -- couples living together should have stronger marriages. But they don't. They have weaker marriages.“

Aly hasn't posted since mid-September. Hard to say if she'll see this, but ...

If you are planning to marry, I'd say wait until you are married to live together. You can't "test drive" marriage, sorry. That's the grand idea that gets so many couples into cohabitation with every intention to wed, but then either keeps them from tying the knot or dooms the marriage.

There is ALWAYS an exception to the rule, waiting in the wings to say "that's not how it happened for me" ... which is great, for them. They beat the odds.

Westley and I could have moved in together after just less than a year, but decided to wait. We will have been together almost three years before we move into our new house. The difference is, we have no plans to wed. We aren't testing anything. I am certain we can live quite happily for many years without a piece of paper stating that we are legally married. From a legal standpoint, it would be a huge liability. I would be happy to devote my life and my love to him before God. I don't think God intended marriage to be what the government has turned it into.

I don't think all couples move in together in order to "test drive" what marriage will be like. That wasn't the case for us-we chose to pay for our own wedding without any help and in order to do that financially it made more sense for us to live together.

I think living together or not a marriage has a chance to pass or fail. 20 years ago there wasn't a trend to live together before marriage but there were many divorces (I'm the product of one of them and many of my friends parents are divorced). I think each couple should do what is right for them.

Sue

I don't think all couples move in together in order to "test drive" what marriage will be like.
True. But that is what Aly was questioning.

I think 20 years ago, living together INSTEAD of marriage was much more prevalent than now.
However, now people now are "trying out" marriage by living together.

And it doesn't work (as far as making a "better marriage").

I think each couple should do what is right for them.
True, but they should look at the facts also.

We've been living together for 2 months now and plan to be engaged by January 1 and have set a wedding date in June of 04. I think it's all about how you plan. Someone has to take the iniatitive to make time to discuss your future plans together.