Moving in together before wedding?

Nikita2013 · December 2013

I wanted to ask is it really that important to move in together before the wedding?

clarke10 · December 2013

To me, yes. I couldn't imagine marrying someone without knowing if we were compatible living together. But really, that's just my preference. I've had friends wait until marriage to live together and its worked out wonderfully. I think its just a matter of preference.

misssunshine17 · December 2013

My H and I moved in together one month before our wedding (into a home we bought). We've been together since high school, but lived separately in college (different states), so we didn't have the chance to live together before we got married. Sure, there have been growing pains of living together, but I don't think it affected us either way that we didn't live together for an extended amount of time.

Some people think it's good to have a 'trial run' but I know many couple who didn't and have had long, happy marriages.

emmyg65 · December 2013

It's important for me as well. Moving in together can be really hard, especially if you've never lived on your own, or if you've lived alone for a while. It's nice to have some stress-free time to work things out, without feeling like "OMG, now I'm going to have socks on the floor for the REST OF MY LIFE!!!"

But I'm not a big fan of cohabitating unless you view it as a lifetime commitment (with marriage later or not). Breaking up is hard and having to move out makes it harder, which can work like inertia to keep you in a relationship you shouldn't be in. I speak from experience.

ktjanesmom · December 2013

Marriage is a commitment. For better or for worse and all of that. What difference should it make whether or not you live with someone before you marry them? What? are you going to divorce him because he leaves the toilet seat up, or his socks are on the floor? Its about compromise and working things out.

Nikita2013 · December 2013

ok great. thanks for all the replies. see i'm in college right now, so my fiancee and I can't move in together yet. my finacee also thinks it's important, and i'm not disagreeing with him just wanted to see other opinions.

climbingsingle · December 2013

I personally would never marry someone until I had lived with them first.

ktjanesmom · December 2013

So people are willing to toss the love of their life aside because they have some issues while living together? "I love you, I want to marry you and spend the rest of my life with you, but lets live together first and make sure I can stand it'? Thats nonsense! Of course there are going to be issues but adults can work things out. Gosh I just hate it when people say they would never marry someone without living with them first.

JCbride2015 · December 2013

Here is my spin on this: I think it is important that you live independently from your parents, either on your own, with roommates, or with your SO, before getting married and starting a household together. Fi and I moved in together right after college and since we had already been together so long, I don't think living together really changed our relationship a whole lot. But living under our own roof really changed both of us for the better. We have a better understanding of things like budgeting (so crucial), housekeeping, time management, and being an independent adult, than when either of us was going home to Mom and Dad, or even living in a college dorm where a lot of stuff was taken care of for us. So-- I think it's great to live together before you get married, but I get that not everybody wants to. But I do think you should live independently.

Nikita2013 · December 2013

See my thing is I have no problem with it either way, but as I said my fiancee wants to move in together before we get married. I mean it is understandable, some people can change when you live together whether it's their personalities, their ideals anything. But at the same time I don't mind not living together before the wedding, I love my fiancee I would work out any problems that we would have along the way. That's kinda why you are getting married or at least a part of it.

climbingsingle · December 2013

ktjanesmom said:

So people are willing to toss the love of their life aside because they have some issues while living together? "I love you, I want to marry you and spend the rest of my life with you, but lets live together first and make sure I can stand it'? Thats nonsense! Of course there are going to be issues but adults can work things out. Gosh I just hate it when people say they would never marry someone without living with them first.

Can I ask why you're so bothered by that statement? It has no bearing on your life whatsoever.

You don't know someone until you live with them. I know this. I'm 33. I'm divorced. I've been on my own since I was 20. I've had roommates. I've lived with people I've dated. Again, you don't know someone until you live with them.

Case in point: I dated a guy who seemed wonderful and normal. He was kind and treated me with respect. Once we moved in together, that all changed. He became controlling. He expected me to have a home cooked dinner ready for him every night, no matter what. He criticized everything I did - cleaning, laundry, etc. He gave me shit if I had two glasses of wine. I could keep going. I think you get the point. We had discussed these things before we moved in together. But he became a totally different person once we were living together. And those were things I wasn't going to stand for.

Now, I'm not saying if I was madly in love with someone and they left their socks on the floor that I would hightail it out the door. But living together can bring up so many issues that you just don't see when you have your own residences. Of course, most reasonable stuff can be worked out. Again, you never know what issues are there. And with the above case, that was not someone I was going to devote the rest of my life too.

KatWAG · December 2013

ktjanesmom said:

So people are willing to toss the love of their life aside because they have some issues while living together? "I love you, I want to marry you and spend the rest of my life with you, but lets live together first and make sure I can stand it'? Thats nonsense! Of course there are going to be issues but adults can work things out. Gosh I just hate it when people say they would never marry someone without living with them first.

I dont think that is nonsense at all. There is a lot more to marriage than love. Yes, leaving dirty socks on the floor is trivial. But some of these things that are seemingly small bring up bigger more fundamental issues that cannot always be overcome.

MrsAitch · December 2013

ktjanesmom said:

So people are willing to toss the love of their life aside because they have some issues while living together? "I love you, I want to marry you and spend the rest of my life with you, but lets live together first and make sure I can stand it'? Thats nonsense! Of course there are going to be issues but adults can work things out. Gosh I just hate it when people say they would never marry someone without living with them first.

I agree, but I am terribly old fashioned and I wouldn't want to live with someone before getting married. I actually get a bit annoyed sometimes when people are shocked that my fiance and I don't live together and won't until after the wedding--when did this suddenly become so rare?

Nikita2013 · December 2013

@MrsAitch yeah I'm kinda traditional myself too. I feel like a 30 year old inside a 22 year old's body sometimes lol. But that's why I figured I would ask this question. I'm kinda confused on what to do.

jdluvr06 · December 2013

It's really a preference thing and IMO there is nothing wrong with either option. My fiancé and I have lived together for five years and I think that it was good for us but it's not necessarily the best choice for everyone.

smalfrie19 · December 2013

I am firmly in the camp of try before your buy.

smalfrie19 · December 2013

dup

cruffino · December 2013

ktjanesmom said:

So people are willing to toss the love of their life aside because they have some issues while living together? "I love you, I want to marry you and spend the rest of my life with you, but lets live together first and make sure I can stand it'? Thats nonsense! Of course there are going to be issues but adults can work things out. Gosh I just hate it when people say they would never marry someone without living with them first.

for me living with someone is not a trial run to see if i can "stand it". i'm 35. i have had countless roommates, lived with an ex, and lived on my own. i was living alone when i met my FI. i loved living alone. i also have had the experience of shitty roommates and an even shittier ex.

for me at least, i agree with climbing bride. you do not always know someone's true colors until you live together. can you in some cases, of course. i would never say its impossible. but my life experience has taught me otherwise. so living with someone is right for me.

JCbride2015 · December 2013

MrsAitch said:

ktjanesmom said:

So people are willing to toss the love of their life aside because they have some issues while living together? "I love you, I want to marry you and spend the rest of my life with you, but lets live together first and make sure I can stand it'? Thats nonsense! Of course there are going to be issues but adults can work things out. Gosh I just hate it when people say they would never marry someone without living with them first.

I agree, but I am terribly old fashioned and I wouldn't want to live with someone before getting married. I actually get a bit annoyed sometimes when people are shocked that my fiance and I don't live together and won't until after the wedding--when did this suddenly become so rare?

I'm 26 and I'd say it's very rare among my contemporaries not to live together once the relationship is heading for marriage. The more conservative among my friends have waited until the engagement is official before moving in together, but I don't think I know anybody who has said that they wouldn't live together. Part of this is financial-- nobody can afford to live alone anyway around here, and if you have to have a roommate, wouldn't you rather live with your SO? It can get dangerous though, moving in together without commitment. Fi and I knew we were going to get married by the time we moved in together, so it worked for us.

I agree with @climbingbrideNY that reasonable things can be worked out, it's the unreasonable things that cohabiting will reveal. Of course I would never throw away the love of my life because of socks on the floor, but once you live with someone, they might reveal things about themselves that you wouldn't have noticed. And if those things are red flags, I'd rather find out sooner rather than later.

If anything, I think I know and appreciate Fi more now. I've seen him work hard to correct some bad housekeeping habits, take care of me when I'm sick, make sure I get in bed early when working or studying hard. It's not a drastic change like I didn't "know him" before we lived together, but I think I know him more deeply and am more sure that I want to marry him.

krizzo17 · December 2013

As someone who met her husband at college when we were only 19, I think the more important thing for me was that we each live on our own, rather than together, before we got married. I wasn't concerned about what habits of his that would bother me, but making sure he could survive without me (he was living with his parents before, and they did pretty much everything for him). I also wanted to spend at least a year of my life without a roommate (where we went to school, "roommate" meant "shared bedroom"). By the time we got married, we had been together so long and spent so much time at each other's respective places that moving in together didn't come with any surprises.

ShallowSeas · December 2013

Everyone and every relationship is different. For me, it was important. I don't think you can truly know someone until you are "forced" to be around that person 24/7. Everyone has their own quirks and ways of doing things and sometimes its hard to combine each person's personality together. If you live together before marriage, you can learn more about that person and the way they do things. You are able to see if you can get along with this person and have a functioning household with them. It also gives you time to work things out and figure out a way of running the house together. And if for some reason you find that you can't live with each other happily, its easier to end before getting married.

HaileyDancingbear · December 2013

I think it's important to live with each other before getting married. Now, a lot of stupid magazines claim you shouldn't live together before marriage because it'll make you more likely to call off the wedding. I think that's the exact reason you SHOULD live together first. Living together brings up new issues. If the two of you are a good couple, and really love each other, and are mature enough to handle these new issues, you have nothing at all to worry about, and living together will be a lot of fun. Living together is not going to ruin any good engagement. If you two aren't such a good couple, that'll become clear when you're living together. Above someone mentioned that when they said "new issues" they didn't mean they expected anyone to walk out because of a pair of socks on the floor, but who knows, there are a lot of crappy couples out there, and if someone DOES walk out for something as stupid as that, then it's a good thing they walked out before going through the whole wedding. If living together is going to bring up any issue at all that you can't work through, you want to know before you go through with getting married.

Again, if you're a couple that works, living together will be fine. If you're a couple that doesn't work, living together will save you from making a huge mistake.

chibiyui · December 2013

My FI and I were at a bit of an impasse before I moved in, he asked me to move in with him about 8-9 months after we started dating. I told him I didn't want to move in until we were engaged. He said he wouldn't propose until I moved in. 11 months into the relationship I moved in, largely because my mom pointed out that I spent 3-4 nights of the week down there, so I might as well just move in. I held back from moving in with him in part because my parents are more religious then I and I didn't want to insult them/do so without their approval. And also cause it's a big step, moving out is hard if it doesn't work out.

But moving out is a helluva lot easier then divorce. I don't think you have to live together before you get married, there is certainly no guarantee that you'll stay married just because you lived together first.

I think what you need to figure out is *why* you don't seem to want to move in before marriage. It's totally cool not to, but you should know why and be able to articulate to your FI why. It's obviously important to him.

APDSS22 · December 2013

My husband and I moved in together as an engaged couple after college. We knew where the relationship was going and it made financial sense for us to get a place together. It helped us figure out how to mesh our living styles and it probably made our relationship stronger. However, a couple we know were headed toward marriage (he had a ring but hadn't proposed) and moved in together. It was a complete disaster and they ended up breaking up. If they had waited until after getting married, it would've been an even bigger mess since their relationship obviously couldn't handle their very different styles. If you aren't going to move in together, I would at least have some pretty intensive pre-marriage counseling or prep to help determine what differences you guys have and how to deal with them before making the big commitment.

melbelleup · December 2013

Depends on your beliefs. FI and I have lived together before we were engaged. We did this because if we didn't, I'd only see him during the holidays and maybe summer if I was lucky. We moved 8 hrs away due to his work. Honestly, I couldn't be marrying someone I didn't live with first. Living with someone is completely different than dating. I had college roommates for 2 1/2 out of my 3 1/2 years and they were all nightmares, even my "friends" I roomed with. I learned I am better off living by myself than with someone. Because I have already lived with roommates and solo I knew what I liked, how I liked it. My FI never lived by himself other than for 2-3 weeks before I moved down (due to me leaving my job). It's been a learning process and we learn something new about each other every day we live together.

blabla89 · December 2013

alisonmarie658 said:

I'm one of the few around these parts that generally objects to living together before marriage on a religious basis -- but that obviously doesn't factor in to everyone's decision making.

I don't think living together will automatically make marriage easier or let you know that this one is the one you want to marry. You'll be forced to deal with issues upfront (like whomever said their BF changed when they moved in together) but it doesn't guarantee success. I've known of a number of couples who lived together for years and years and then things fell apart with in less than two years of being married.

Agree with all of this. Also, I love having my own place, maybe a little too much.

HobokensFury · December 2013

I have to be honest- living with someone is a bigger adjustment than marriage. We moved in together a year and a half before our wedding. Thank god we did because we had all of the kinks worked out by the time we got married. Our first year of marriage would have been a lot harder if we were also getting used to living together. So yes, I think it's important.

natswild · December 2013

We've lived together for almost 3 years, been together for 3.5 years. We made that decision, because otherwise, we would literally never see each other, due to our jobs. I also second PP's comments about learning each other-in my last relationship, 20 years ago, my ex-BF was super charming, until after we moved in together, and after a few months, he showed his true colors, becoming abusive, and by the end, a monster-he spent 6 months in prison for trying to kill me. Needless to say, for me, living together is essential before getting married. ETA: to add the paragraph that my ipad won't, which apparently didn't work ;(

Tami87 · December 2013

We did not live together before we got married and while sure moving in together can be an adjustment I can't think of anything I was surprised by or anything major that I learned about my husband after we moved in together. We also met in college but were together almost 5 years before getting married.

I do think living on your own or with roommates and learning to self sufficient before marriage is a good idea. Also highly recommend premarital counseling.

doeydo · December 2013

Is it really important? Well, it depends on the couple, I suppose. My FI and I had lived together for a few months before he proposed and the wedding won't be for another year and a half (estimating-ly, date not set yet) from now. For the first little bit of living together, it was new and nice, but also kind of awkward in a way. We just had to get into a routine and figure out how to handle different things together. For example, I do the cats' litter, food, and water everyday because they're "mine" (ours now, though) and he can't stand the smell of litter while he usually cooks because he is a way better cook than me, and we both do the dishes together and try to do them everyday because it bugs him when they add up.

southernbelle0915 · December 2013

I don't think what one person does or believes means it's right for anyone else. I agree with things said on both sides of this. I understand wanting to live with someone first since that's how it's going to be the rest of your life. And I agree with the sentiment that you should be able to work out living arrangement issues if you're serious and committed enough to get married.

That said, I moved in with my DH before we were married AND before we were engaged. We're married, happy and own a house now. However, if I had it to do over again, I would have waited until we were engaged and committed to marriage to move in together. It obviously worked out for us, but if we had broken up as boyfriend/girlfriend, having a place together would have been a lot more difficult than just saying "see ya". Just my personal opinion for my personal situation.

Moving in together before wedding?

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