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| Would you live with someone you want to marry?
Posted: 6/7/2009 2:06:09 PM |
Do you honestly believe that if someone takes the huge step of living with someone that they don't want commitment..
I meant to answer you on this one to. The answer is a resounding YES. I've seen it with my own two eyes. As i have already said' There is a lot' A WHOLE LOT' of people who just want to fu$%. They shack up. They don't want to marry. | |
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| Would you live with someone you want to marry?
Posted: 6/7/2009 2:11:06 PM |
By the way' I know several couples who there spouse played around on the other. There still together. They didn't divorce. It took a lot of hard work but they pulled out of it. It can be done when there is unconditional love between the two and a willingness to work it out. I know a few couples like this as well.. however; as I said human nature, ego and pride will not allow most couples to forgive an infidelity. To think otherwise is being naive.
I said:
I think you can love your children unconditionally.. but human nature doesn't allow for most people to love "unconditionally" when in a romantic relationship or else no one would divorce due to infidelity.
You said:
Well' I'm sorry to say it sounds like you have never truly been in love. If you read what I said again.. you may understand what I was saying.. Human Nature doesn't allow MOST people to love "uncondionally" By your comment you are expecting everyone to go against a very basic human nature response to being betrayed.. not EVERYONE is capable of going against things that are inherent.
Well' I'm sorry to say it sounds like you have never truly been in love Perhaps not.. but I've been fortunate enough to experience the happiness of something so close to it that the difference didn't matter and it lasted for many years . . | |
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| Would you live with someone you want to marry?
Posted: 6/7/2009 2:18:18 PM |
I meant to answer you on this one to. The answer is a resounding YES. I've seen it with my own two eyes. As i have already said' There is a lot' A WHOLE LOT' of people who just want to fu$%. They shack up. They don't want to marry.
I'll rebut with this reiteration of mine [The only thing I'm "anti" is people who live together when their partner has shown through his/her habitual selfish/abusive/lying/poor with finances/chronically disloyal in some manner or any other negative actions that actually prove that they won't be a good marriage partner, or co-habitation partner but they go ahead and do either anyway | |
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| Would you live with someone you want to marry?
Posted: 6/7/2009 2:21:29 PM |
If you can unconditionally love another person you can put up with there little quirks. You can marry that person without living with them first. The excuse for living together is bull shyt. If a woman tells me she wants to live with me first before marrying me i know from there that she really doesn't love me the way she should. Then i know it's time for me to find someone else. Someone who has the capability to love me unconditionally. That's the key.
IMHO:
She may very well have the capability to love you unconditionally but it hasn't developed to that level yet. Discuss it, work through definitions and ideals, don't completely 86 the relationship!
RE: above post
Exactly! And the components of unconditional love are?? (drum roll)
Faith - the ability to believe in something that cannot be seen
HOPE - the belief that things can be worked out if both parties are willing to work (as it pertains to relationships)
LOVE - the ability to do what is best for your partner because you've elevated them spiritually, emotionally and physically to the same level of 'care' that you have for yourself.
I don't think all 'live-in' relationships are based on fear of commitment or lack of unconditional love, but I personally wouldn't go that route again because my experiences tell me that "trial runs" puts limitations on how deeply two people can grow with each other. Ideally I should want for you what you want for yourself and visa versa. That's hard to do within the confines of "this is as far as we go."
If I'm going to share your life and you mine, there should be no limitations on that( ie unconditional) so that couples can strengthen and enhance each other's dreams and goals. That's hard to do when the limit is "oops, sorry, this is as committed as I'm willing to get right now". I'd want the chance for our relationship to reach its full potential, and there is no chance of that if it's limited by anxiety over what our relationship is titled or how deep it's allowed to go (this goes for either marriage or living together).
The ol' 'good times and bad' still holds validity, but most seem to only be there til rough waters set in, they disagree on something important, or their egos and pride are bruised, then it's time to bail out. What's scary to me is the sheer number of people who believe that's the time to end a relationship, when it's truly an opportunity for the relationship to take another step of growth/leap of faith (if the above mentioned principles of unconditional love are in tact)!
For me, living together "in general" screams "I'm still my own person and/or don't believe in two hearts joining as one, and I'm not sure I'm able to love you the way I love myself. Let's just do what is 'easy' til we have a guarantee this will work. Let's do a test run and check it out."
For me, that attitude alone ends it before it begins. I'll hold out for the guy who believes that "together we can do anything" and the action, commitment and work attached to that. It's not worth the effort, to me, to have a half-baked relationship that's limited by another's notion that marriage connotates "doom" or "naivity" but they'd be willing to 'live with me'. lol sheesh! Likewise, I wouldn't become involved with someone who felt like marriage was the end-all, but didn't take the time to truly get to know and love me before proposing. Under those circumstances (which exist DAILY everywhere) marrying for what you can 'get' out of the deal is just as wrong as living together because life as two is easier than life as one.
Problem solving, coping skills, and the ability to forgive and laugh about faults and shortcomings are integral qualities, along with unconditional love (which takes a long time to develop). I know couples who have worked through infidelities, terminal illnesses, really weird family members who interfere, etc. You are NOT going to discover everything you need to know to have any sort of 'guarantee' about whether or not a relationship is going to last until you live it.
This isn't a vote for marriage, necessarily, however I do believe in marriage as the appropriate venue for couples to interconnect two lives as one. BUT if you never intend to own property together, have children, or grow in some other way, shacking up probably isn't a bad gig and definitely has the perks. If, however, you would like your life to grow and evolve into something stable and solid, if you weren't in a commited relationship, why bother?
For me personally, I seek a bit deeper connection than "hey, my rent's due and I love you, how about I move on in?" lol It's just a bit too easy. I did it, knowing in my gut it wasn't going to work, and even after nine years and then a marriage, it wasn't the 'contract' of marriage that destroyed our relationship, it was the continuation of the 'enabling' of things to only go to a certain level - the absence of "we can do anything if we work together." When people say "it's only a piece of paper" or it's just a silly contract, they have no clue what a marriage is.
I didn't get married to "get the document' and it, in and of itself held no true value in my life. I married, instead, because I felt we were ready to take the next step to where we could become ONE life, lived to its fullest potential. That was my belief at the time, unfortunately, my ex was more concerned about sharing ownership of what I had materially rather than emotionally. I learned a lot about myself and a lot about what works for me back then, and temporary arrangements just don't.
People can put on the "i love you" face to get what they want, and play the game for years. (my best friend married for money - still at it after twenty years, though she can't leave cuz she can't afford her lifestyle otherwise - pre-nup HAHAHA! ). Even after that type of investment of time and energy, you can still only know so much about a person. Not all 'live together' relationships are grounded, just like not all marriages are grounded. Truly, it's about two individuals and what works for them as a couple. | |
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| Would you live with someone you want to marry?
Posted: 6/7/2009 2:25:44 PM | You fall "head over heels" for someone, and they feel the same way about you. You're GOOD together. Problem is they want to live together before marriage. You don't, knowing that living together is a sure fire way to wreck even the best relatiohship. What do you?
This is a paradox.
Unless you were planning on living in separate dwellings, post nuptials.
Personally, I wouldn't marry someone without cohabitating for at least a year and a half to two years, and I wouldn't even cohabitate with them until we've been on at least one or two vacations.
Been there, done that... | |
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| Would you live with someone you want to marry?
Posted: 6/7/2009 2:32:20 PM | trailgirl
I understand what you're saying but would like to take it a step further. I think there's also a high likelihood that many of your "couple B's" have a deep down inkling that marriage with that person probably wouldn't work. I think a lot of people ignore their intuition and indications because they really want it to work (and some people with simply anyone to avoid being alone). I agree.
I don't think it takes living with someone to discover if you can make a commitment to them. I think what it takes is, while dating and having a great time and enjoying each other's company, also knowing what you want and can't accept and actively being open with communication and aware of the things that may doom you and talking about them first rather than hoping they'll go away, or the other person will miraculously change. The process of deciding whether or not someone is marriage material typically includes self-reflection (which can be done anywhere) and exposure to the person (which in this case is achieved by living with the person before marrying them). Certainly there are other ways of getting to know someone, I was merely trying to explain the correlation between the statistics. | |
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| Would you live with someone you want to marry?
Posted: 6/7/2009 2:38:34 PM | Would I live with someone I wanted to marry? Sure, but only under the right circumstances. A good marriage requires commitment and compromise like Trailgirl said. But those words get thrown around a lot yet have vague meanings to a lot of people. To me it is often as simple as paying attention. Learing and remembering how she behaves in various circumstances and accepting it if seems ingrained. You do have to talk about it and understand. If and when you do you become married. It's a process really. It's not a contract with the state or a religious ceremony that makes you married. It's the emotional and spiritual bonding the developes between people who love and accept each other.
There is a lot of batting around of statistics which I find pretty meaningless. In order for a statistical study to be valid, you have to compare like groups and even then you have to control for odd variances. Just trying to compare couples who lived together prior to marriage with those who did not is no where near sufficient statistically. The groups aren't comparable.
If I met and got to know someone I wanted to marry and who wanted me, what about living together. It would very much depend on why. If there were a valid reason to put off the wedding, we planned next January so relatives could make it, gosh lots of reasons, I see not reason not to move in together. If living together is seen as a test though, can we stand being together for a prolonged period of time, it's a bad idea. What do you think you are going to find out? she leaves cap off the toothpaste despite repeated warnings??? Habits and irritating behaviors are bound to exist. Not only can you usually find out about them but they are inconsequential in a loving relationship.
Living together in lieu of marriage seem like a poor choice to me. While it may protect you from financial hardship in case of breakup it does nothing to protect you against the emotional pain and loss. It fact, just living together probably means you are so unsure of each other that the relationship is pretty unstable to begin with.
There is another factor that no one seems to have discussed, or perhaps I missed it. That is just the sact that our culture, our society I very much set up to support and recognize married couples, their children families in general. So many laws and customs regarding inheritance, medical issues, long list I don't need to get into. Why do you think gay couples want the right to marry afterall. In addition, there are just the social conventions. I lived with a woman for years in the past. In retrospect we never married because though we were good friend and respected and understood each other, we never really connected on that fundamental emotional level. Funny, I never knew how to introduce her. This is "Mary", my ____ uh. I know there are couples who live together and behave, present themselves as married. To my way of thinking they are married, so why not make it legal. There are some reasons which may be valid of course, issues for older couples involving money, inheritance, social security alimony, family conflicts. I don't know, sometimes it matters but sometimes.... I knew a couple years ago, friends, really nice people they met at school and well their families didn't like it, I mean really didn't like it. He was a nice Jewish boy and she was a bright and beautiful Chinese girl. They sort of snuck around for a couple of years. Last time I saw them, years ago they had bought a beautiful house together, elegantly furnished, happy together, but still hadn't married or told their families. Seemed like a silly waste to me, but btthen it had become a habit and a principle.
Oh well. | |
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| Would you live with someone you want to marry?
Posted: 6/7/2009 2:51:14 PM | | Time goes by, the world is changing. And one of the things that changed over a forty years is human awareness. We are, especially in the western world, an individualising humanity. Forty years ago, and longer, the social context, often a relgious one, was directing life. Nowadays it is not anymore. Forty years ago you had to dress like about everyone of your sex was dressed. In modern society that is not a realy issue anymore. I mean we all have become individuals or at least are becoming one. We have become with our Selfs the most important issue in the world. We do not rely on any authority outside our Self. We have become our own priest, our own state of head, our own company president, we have become the one we love the most. So everything what the Self likes, or doesnot like, everything what the Self thinks or doesnot think, everything the Self loves or not loves, has become the main issue in life. So how to love someone? How to stay in a love relation with someone? I think we have to consider that instead of just making our own life even more important and meaningfull by finding ' the most important and meaningfull person' (atleast at that moment we think that one is) for our life to live with, we are not with the two of us after that. Being in a relation is taking care yourself and taking care love. That means in a relation we are with the 3 of us, Our Self, the other Self and Love. Maybe a relation can work out when every person within a relation realises you not only have to take care your self even better by finding the 'best' person in life to make your life even more 'better' you also have to take care the quality of love itself. So when people love eachother, it is like having a 'garden of love' together and the both have to take care that garden of love. The garden is the 3 quality. Both have to take care that garden, choose the plants to plant, , take care the soil, water the plants, take care the shadow, the sun, removing the rubbish, and so on. When a couple just thinks the self is better taking care of by just finding the 'perfect' person to live with and waits for happiness to come,, maybe the failure is shining at the horizon. (Excuse me for my English) | |
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| Would you live with someone you want to marry?
Posted: 6/7/2009 3:06:48 PM |
There is another factor that no one seems to have discussed, or perhaps I missed it. That is just the sact that our culture, our society I very much set up to support and recognize married couples, their children families in general. So many laws and customs regarding inheritance, medical issues, long list I don't need to get into. Why do you think gay couples want the right to marry Those reasons are mainly American viewpoints. In Canada, common-law marriage has primarily the same rights as those legally married... Gay marriage is legal in Canada as well. | |
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| Would you live with someone you want to marry?
Posted: 6/7/2009 3:32:59 PM | I would live with someone I wanted to marry.
I would also live with someone who had issues with being married but was commited to working stuff out with me for the long term. | |
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| Would you live with someone you want to marry?
Posted: 6/7/2009 3:58:48 PM | | Live together before marriage! How would living together before nuptials destroy a relationship if it was a good relationship? I think "the someone" isn't quite sure about you and wants a test run and for that, I don't fault her. | |
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| Would you live with someone you want to marry?
Posted: 6/7/2009 4:00:49 PM | Over the last forty years scientists have been telling us about the dangers of smoking. Even the tabacco companies have given up disputing the ill effects of cigarettes. In fact they print a warning on each pack of cigarettes that in effect says the use of their product may kill you.
Yet people continue to smoke.
For centuries pastors and priests have been warning us about the dangers of living together outside of marriage. About twenty years ago the godless athiest social scientists caught up and began warning us to.
Yet people continue to live together rather than marry.
Smoking will not kill everyone who smokes. There will always be those lucky few like my brother in-law's grandparents. They SMOKED and DRANK every day into their 90's yet remained healthy! It was Bob falling asleep at the wheel and getting them into a head-on car crash that killed them, not 70+ years of chain smoking.
Likewise not everyone who lives together before marriage is destined for a life of failed marriages and heartache. But it surely increases the chances. Maybe you will be one of the lucky ones and beat the odds. However, if you are like the rest of us mere mortals you would do well to not try to buck the odds.
No matter your decision, I wish you luck and happiness.
Sincerely,
Timothy Paul
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| Would you live with someone you want to marry?
Posted: 6/7/2009 4:22:36 PM | | Why is it that our grandparents generation didn't live together before getting married and most of their marriages have lasted until death do us part? This idea that living together before marriage creates stronger marriages is crazy. It is obvious that is doesn't work. It is so funny to hear people say, "We need to live together first to see if we should get married and see if it will work out." Today we have a 50% divorce rate...Obviously this idea of cohabitation before marriage isn't working. Maybe we need to look back in history and look at some of the reasons that older generations didn't have the divorce rates we do today. | |
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| Would you live with someone you want to marry?
Posted: 6/7/2009 4:49:55 PM | Its just not my thing, I could never do it.I see girls living with guys having kids,breaking up, meeting another bloke having more kids.More fathers than the Vatican on a busy Sunday.
I can see plenty of people here have had happy live in relationships and marriages.But it is obvious from their posts, they are intelligent mature people, with the skill to make things work.
I know myself and the living together thing is not for me.Its a personal choice really.Each to their own.
I guess if we look at people realistically, be aware they are only human with the inevitable failings.Take off the rose colored glasses, accept people as they are, instead of who we want them to be.So many fall for a persons -potential in their eyes, instead of the real person.Then they say the person changed, when they did not.
People dont change, just our perception of them changes.If we viewed them realistically from the start, and observed and took time to know them as they really are, there would no need for trial runs.
I asked my father why he married my Mum instead of living together and he said he did not want the best thing ever happened him to get away.He wanted it signed and delivered.He said he could not and still cant believe his luck and she was not getting away. I guess this is why I want to wait for marriage lol.
Its a personal decision and it works for some and not for others. | |
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| Would you live with someone you want to marry?
Posted: 6/7/2009 4:55:34 PM | Yes I would.
I mean, if I seriously wanted to marry them, why would I not want to live with them?
That's silly.
The two of you make or break the relationship, period. End of story.
How much iron will and determination do BOTH of you have to make it work?
Whatever lies hidden in both of you is going to come out one way or the other, whether you live together or not.
The truth is always revealed in time.
I give everyone credit who has ever tried to be in a relationship, married or not. After all, you never know until you try and that is all you can do is try. Really.
Nobody knows anything until they walk down that path. | |
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| Would you live with someone you want to marry?
Posted: 6/7/2009 4:57:56 PM | For centuries pastors and priests have been warning us about the dangers of living together outside of marriage. About twenty years ago the godless athiest social scientists caught up and began warning us to.
Dangers of living together outside of marriage??
Dude, I'd love to hear an elaboration on the "dangers" of living in sin (sic).
Likewise not everyone who lives together before marriage is destined for a life of failed marriages and heartache. But it surely increases the chances.
Please point us to a scientific study that significantly proves any such thing.
People dont change
Wha?
That's headline news are far as I'm concerned....
just our perception of them changes
That's true, but it's also true whether "they" actually change, or not... | |
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| Would you live with someone you want to marry?
Posted: 6/7/2009 5:07:59 PM | For those that are for living together before marriage I have one question...
Why was the divorce rate much lower for our grandparents generation and beyond who did not typically live together much lower than todays divorce rate of 50% with living together being more common? | |
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| Would you live with someone you want to marry?
Posted: 6/7/2009 5:12:58 PM |
For centuries pastors and priests have been warning us about the dangers of living together outside of marriage. About twenty years ago the godless athiest social scientists caught up and began warning us to. Yes.. and for centruies (some) pastors and priests have been:
Burning women at the stake for blasphemy
Drowning women as witches.. gee if the don't float .. They were proclaimed to have not been one.. Gee makes perfect sense.
Having Spanish Type inquisitions
Killing in the name of God
Proclaiming and agreeing to sexual abstinance and raping little boys of their parish. And having sexual relations with the women of their parish as well.
WTH was your point OP? | |
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| Would you live with someone you want to marry?
Posted: 6/7/2009 5:16:17 PM | Why was the divorce rate much lower for our grandparents generation and beyond who did not typically live together much lower than todays divorce rate of 50% with living together being more common?
Because there was a greater religious and societal 'taboo' in being divorced 50 years ago than there is today. | |
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| Would you live with someone you want to marry?
Posted: 6/7/2009 5:28:04 PM | | My boyfriend and I have been together for over a year and we are planning on living together. We have decided (mutually) from the beginning that if, after a year, we were still together we'd live together before getting engaged. We want to see what we are getting. When you live with someone you see the good and the bad. | |
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| Would you live with someone you want to marry?
Posted: 6/7/2009 5:42:59 PM | Actually statistics show those in the Bible belt have a higher rate of divorce. They marry younger as one of the reasons. Atheists actually have less divorce than Christians do.
Why did the marriages last longer in the 50's, that is a no brainer, it has been on threads before. Women didn't have educations or jobs. They would have been without income and could not provide for their children. There were many more unhappy marriages and dysfunctional families back in the 50's. Of course it wasn't socially acceptable to admit that your family was anything but like Father's Knows Best. | |
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