I think so. I have learned from my own experiences that you never know what a person is truley like until you live with them. Wouldn't you test drive a new car before sinking loads of money and time into it? I suggest you take him for a "test drive". I hope it all works out for you! Congrats!

In my opinion it is a sinful effect of the modern world. Statistics show that people who co-habitate before marriage have an 80% higher risk of divorce. But I'm what everyone else calls a religious fanatic. http://marriageandfamilies.byu.edu/issues/2001/January/cohabitation.htm http://www.family.org/socialissues/A000000629.cfm http://www.psc.isr.umich.edu/pubs/abs.html?ID=546 http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:6WwMTF_oxP0J:www.clasp.org/publications/cohabation_snapshot.pdf+cohabitation+and+divorce&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=7&gl=us http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2005/12/cohabitation-and-divorce.html http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1272/is_2707_132/ai_115405749 http://www.geocities.com/maggi19/sex/cohabitation.htm But God doesn't know shit does he?

There's nothing at all wrong with couples living together before marriage. Although being forced into it by financial troubles isn't ideal. Really, you should do it when you're ready to, not because one or both of you has income problems. But the general idea of couples moving in together before getting married is not a bad idea at all, it gives them time to get to know eachother and get some idea of what it would actually be like to be married to the person.

G'day BrittyJ, Thank you for your question. Opinions are mixed on this issue and it depends on the couple. However, I would favour it as you get to know how well you get on when living together day to day. It will also allow you to sort out some issues prior to getting married. Hopefully, you can get the financial problems sorted out as they can cause problems in your relationship. However, there are others who believe that people should marry before they live together as a sign of your commitment to each other and there is some strength to that as well. Regards

I don't see how it can hurt. If you get along well living apart, it gives you a more realistic picture of what day to day life will be like living together for the rest of your lives. If you are the least bit religious, it is no more sinful that engaging in sex before marriage while not cohabiting. As for statistics, you have to consider both sides--that is, why couples chose NOT to live together to interpret the statistic. Couples that don't live together before marriage often do so based on strict religious or familial beliefs. It has been statistically shown that couples that pray together and/or attend religious services together have lower divorce rates. But they may also go into marriage not accepting divorce as an option. So, maybe it is the religious affiliation and disbelief in the divorce option that is responsible for the lower divorce rate, not necessarily that they are happier marriages or in any way related to cohabitation before marriage.

I think that living together first really helps you to get to know your partner.

It's not the best situation, but if it works for you do it. I have lived it both as a child and as an adult. My mother was married several times and if I'm not mistaken she lived with all of them before they got married. Three ended in divorce because of abuse or no love. And the last is going on twenty years. I have lived with four of my boyfriends. Two didn't last long because they were jerks. One led to marriage and divorce because he never loved me and thought he could get money off my family by marring me. And the last was on it's way to marriage before his death. I would definitly recommend that people live together before marriage. Hell,my last relationship was more like a marriage then the actaul marriage. And to us it was not the piece of paper or the ceremony or the rings that made a marriage valid. It was your level of commitment to your partner and the love you had that truely made you married. And in my religion you don't need a ceremony to make you married. His grandparents were together for fourty years and he said you could tell they didn't love each other, but they wouldn't get divorced for religious reasons. And it made their kids lives hell.

I agree with Valparaiso a 100%. Another reason you should not do it: If you both are strugulling with your finances it will probably be a problem, and without marriage it is so much easier to just give up and walk away. Marriage alone will not keep you together but it will be one thing that will have you hang in there longer. Learn how to deal with your money on your own first , then get married and move in together. Life is too short to waist your time with something that may not work. Gob bless you and give you the wisdom to make your decision.

I can only repeat to you what my daughter, of five divorces, told me. You never buy a pair of shoes, without trying them on first. i guess this means living together before marriage, to see if the shoes really does fit. Living together calls for a contract between the two of you. you need this and here is why. renting and sharing all the expenses sounds great at the beginning. but, like so many couples do, breakup, and who is responsible for the bills now? this is why you need a written contract between both of you. if both are on the lease, have the payment arrangement in writing in a contract. who is to pay for what, should be in writing and in the contract. Upfront, this may sound distrusting, but believe me, its a comfort to know that if one or the other fails in their part of the contract, that the other party can find relief in civil court. it is legal and binding in court. make sure both partners sign the contract and its witnessed by a notary.

Live together. Don't worry about what the puritans say. Enjoy!

My opinion is that if you feel ready to live together, then do it. I have seen many couples move in too quickly and then find themselves in a tense roomate situation. You need to set up clear groundrules before hand. Will you share expenses and help to cover each other when the other is short? That is how marriages work. Will you spilt everything down the middle and assign chores? That is how roomates work. If you are both unsure of what you expect from this situation, talk it out until you are sure. If you are very intimate now, you may find yourselves in a weird place in a few months.

Why are you asking for opinons, you have already made your decision. What is the difference if you are having sex without being married on the weekends or every day of the week.

I don't think it is a bad idea because if you do get married you already know how your future husband keeps his house clean and all of his little flaws that you never noticed before.

it is ultimately your decision, and you have don it, so I do not know why you are asking, unless you have a niggling doubt in the back of your mind that there might be something wrong. Now, I know I am going to get picked on, but there are scholarly studies that indicate that living together is not a good thing and can affect the survival of a marriage that may eventually take place: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-08/ps-ltb080403.php Living together before marriage: Now common but still risky Even though more than half of couples now do it, compared with only 10 percent 30 years ago, living together before marriage still is linked to higher rates of troubled unions, divorce and separation, Penn State researchers have found. The Penn State team compared data on 1425 people married between 1964 and 1980 when cohabitation was less common and between 1981 and 1997 when cohabitation was more common. They found that, in both groups, cohabiters reported less happiness and more marital conflict than noncohabiters. Also, in both groups, couples who lived together before marriage were more likely to divorce. Claire M. Kamp Dush, doctoral candidate in human development and family studies, is first author of the study. She says, "It had been consistently shown in the past that, contrary to the popular belief that living together will improve a person's ability to choose a marriage partner and stay married, the opposite is actually the case." The study, "The Relationship Between Cohabitation and Marital Quality and Stability: Change Across Cohorts?," was published this month in the Journal of Marriage and the Family. Dush's co-authors are Dr. Catherine Cohan, research scientist, and Dr. Paul Amato, professor of sociology and demography. Although all the reasons why cohabitation and troubled unions are related remains unknown, the researchers report that their data and a review of the literature suggest that both personal characteristics and the experience of cohabitation play important roles. The Penn State team notes that research indicates that people choose riskier partners when cohabiting because they think cohabitation will be easier to break up than marriage. However, once a couple is living together, the fact that they share possessions, pets, and children and have invested time in their relationship may propel them to marry. Research has also shown that living together in an unconventional relationship can make people less religious and may encourage them to develop problematic relationship skills and to spend less time resolving problems or providing support to their partners. They write, "A weak commitment to lifelong marriage and less attention to communication skills during cohabitation may carry over into marriage and make couples more vulnerable to the inevitable challenges that couples face over time." ### The study was supported by grants from the National Institute of Aging and by the Penn State Population Research Institute with core support from a National Institute of Child Health and Human Development grant. ====================== Living Together Before Marriage Letter #2 Dear Dr. Harley, I've often heard that living together before marriage is perilous and that statistics bear that out. My friend is planning to move in with his girlfriend. I told him what I've heard but have not actually seen these statistics. He questioned my stats, imagine that! If it's not too much trouble I would appreciate any hard info on these stats and their sources. Thanks in advance. W.K. Dear W.K., My own numbers (85% failure rate among those who live together before marriage), comes from my own research and extrapolations of studies I've read in the past. Since I have not published any of these, nor do I intend to publish them, I'll direct you to some recent studies done by others. One study that you may find interesting was done by Bennett, Blan, and Bloom (American Sociological Review, 1988, Vol 53: 127-138) entitled, "Commitment and the Modern Union: Assessing the Link Between Premarital Cohabitation and Subsequent Marital Stability." The point made by the authors is that, overall, the risk of divorce after living together is 80% higher than the risk of divorce after not living together, which is already too high. In other words, those who live together before marriage are almost twice as likely to divorce than those who did not live together. But they also point out that the risk of divorce is even higher if you don't live together more than three years prior to marriage. The longer you live together prior to marriage, the less the risk of divorce until after 8 years of living together, when the risk of divorce is equal to those who have not lived together. Another interesting study was conducted by Hall and Zhao (Cohabitation and Divorce in Canada, Journal of Marriage and the Family, May 1995: 421-427). They write, The popular belief that cohabitation is an effective strategy in a high-divorce society rests on the common-sense notion that getting to know one another before marrying should improve the quality and stability of marriage. However, in this instance, it is looking more and more as if common sense is a poor guide. Their study showed that cohabitation itself was shown to account for a higher divorce rate, rather than factors that might have led to cohabitation, such as parental divorce, age at marriage, stepchildren, religion, and other factors. In other words, other factors being equal, you are much more likely to divorce if you live together first. DeMaris and MacDonald (Premarital Cohabitation and Marital Instability: A Test of the unconventionality Hypothesis, Journal of Marriage and the Family, May 1993: 399-407), echo Hall and Zhao. They found that the unconventionality of those who live together does not explain their subsequent struggle when married. There is something about living together first that creates marital problems later. They write: Despite a widespread public faith in premarital cohabitation as a testing ground for marital incompatibility, research to date indicates that cohabitors' marriages are less satisfactory and more unstable than those of noncohabitors. Undoubtedly there are some self-selection factors that make people who live together more prone to marital problems later. But the gist of current research is that these factors are not enough to explain the astonishingly huge effect. Simply stated, if you live together before marriage, you will be fighting an uphill battle to save your marriage. If you like to spend your evenings hidden among the periodicals of your local library, here are some other studies that show how risky it is to live together before marriage: Balakrishnan, Rao, et. al., (1987) A hazard model analysis of the covariates of marriage dissolution in Canada. Demography, 24, 395-406. Booth and Johnson (1988). Premarital cohabitation and marital success. Journal of Family Issues, 9, 255-272. Bumpass and Sweet (1989). National estimates of cohabitation. Demography, 26, 615-625. DeMaris and Leslie (1984). Cohabitation with the future spouse: Its influence upon marital satisfaction and communication. Journal of Marriage and the family, 46, 77-84. DeMaris and Rao (1992). Premarital cohabitation and subsequent marital stability in the United States: A reassessment. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 54, 178-190. Teachman and Polonko (1990). Cohabitation and marital stability in the United States. Social Forces, 69, 207-220. Teachman, Thomas and Paasch (1991). Legal status and the stability of coresidential unions. Demography, 28, 571-486. Thompson and Colella, (1992). Cohabitation and marital stability: Quality or commitment? Journal of Marriage and the Family, 54, 259-267 http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5025b_qa.html ============== www.leaderu.com/critical/cohabitation-socio.html http://www.teencarecenter.org/index.php?s=vital&p=cohabiting http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/163503/living_together_before_marriage.html http://www.clarian.org/portal/patients/healthyliving;jsessionid=QTXNQXXRS3UN5LAQA5MSFEQ?paf_gear_id=200001&paf_dm=full&paf_gm=content&task_name=articleDetail&articleId=8832&sectionId=11 and so it goes....all say that if you are intending to marry, this is a bad idea. (that is apart from any spiritual advice which I could give, but would be further shouted down on, so I won't. )

my own opinion on that would be that i would think that it is o k unless there are kids involved.kids get totally confused by this whole thing. you have no kids ? i see no problem with it.

I have mixed feelings about this. While I do feel that there is absolutely nothing wrong with moving in together, I feel that once you do, there is nothing to look forward to.

I think it's best to wait for marriage. When you live together, you are basically playing marriage. I've lived with a boyfriend and it took him forever to propose to me, because he was in a comfortable zone. Hope this helps. I think a marriage license says alot.