To Live Together Before Marriage…Or Not.

A question that came up a lot while Paul and I were still dating was whether or not we should live together first. When we had been together for a couple of years, we started talking about taking the plunge. But it ended up taking us three more years, and a few false starts, to actually take the plunge. In that time, we both had our fair share of people who had no problem telling us their opinions (supportive and not so supportive) about living together before marriage.

The advice we received ranged from ‘Of course you should live together first’ to ‘You should absolutely not live together until you are married.’ Some people landed in the middle with ‘You should at least be engaged first.’ As if an engagement ring was going to somehow seal our future as a perfectly happy post-nuptial couple.

Image: stock.xchng

Well, we have never been very good about taking anyone’s advice. We knew the first time we started looking for places to live that the time wasn’t right. And we knew a few years later when it was. At that point, we were both so busy trying to jumpstart our careers, that we hardly saw each other at all. Which led to petty fights and insecurities when we did finally see each other.

That all ended when we moved in with each other. The silly arguing stopped (of course there were plenty of decent disagreements that did come up every once in a while, mostly just while we adjusted to cohabitation) and we just sort of remembered why we like each other so much. So sure…it took the mystery out of ‘playing house’, but should that really be a surprise anyway?

I have never regretted living with Paul before we got married – though I understand there are some people out there who would never even consider it. This is just my personal experience, but for whatever that is worth, I would say it’s the best sequence of steps through couplehood.