S/O Not living together before marriage

In my case, it's both traditional and religious. We didn't live together before marriage, and so far, we're doing fine. I think people who break up shortly after moving in together don't go at it correctly. From what I've heard on here and in real life, it tends to be a spur of the moment decision and people don't talk it through. DH and I had already established division of chores, learned each other's pet peeves, and etc, before we moved in together.

We don't live together due to religious reasons. We aren't sleeping together before marriage so not living together just makes it easier. I believe that if my creator (God) thinks it's best for me then I should probably listen. After all, who knows us better? I've also read in a ton of studies that relationships that lived together before marriage are more likely to end in divorce. Of course that's just where my mind and heart is, I'm all for everyone doing what they feel is best for them

We've spend practically 24/7 together for the last 2 years (we work together) other then bedtime of course. We've been through so much. I may not know what it's like to spend every moment with him but I know that by this point it doesn't really matter cause we'll figure it out if there is an issue.

Thanks for asking this! I'll be the first to admit that I don't know how NOT to be judgmental on this topic, but I really don't want to be...I'm just waiting to hear an argument that really makes sense to me (and I do realize that such an argument may not exist). I'm very curious!

I have been living with FH for 5 years but I want to address something @SwoleMates said: "I've also read in a ton of studies that relationships that lived together before marriage are more likely to end in divorce". When I read that I immediately thought that the people who choose to not live together before marriage are usually religious and probably don't believe in/or religion does not allow divorce. What do you think? Not trying to stir the pot or anything, just had to express my little thought

It's a hard "argument" to have. Either you feel strongly about it one way or the other or you just don't care. And if you feel strongly for the pro it usually has to do with religion (usually not always) and one can't simply convince another to have conviction for something they don't. There are those that still believe in arranged marriages. If that's how it works for you then that's great! But you're not going to convince me that at a good idea, ha.

Marriage is hard, whether you've lived with your mate for 10 years before or you just met the day off. And some marriage are bound to end in divorce. I honestly don't think that whether or not the couple lived together before makes that big of a difference.

Edited to add: Should probably mention that I have been married before. And I do come from a faith the discourages divorce. It's not "not allowed" but we're definitely taught to fight for our marriages. In my case it was not something I could fight for, it happens. So I think you're right, I think ones that don't live together before hand may take the marriage arrangement a bit more seriously and really fight and work hard to keep it together.

These are all maybes and mights and opinions. I really don't want to offend anyone!!

I do get the religious aspect, I was brought up very catholic, but I don't identify as that anymore. My mum always told me that I should never commit to a man without living with him first. She and my dad actually moved together when it was still considered illegal to live together without being married. (Not sure if that was the case in the US as well, but it was in Switzerland).

But I'm glad to learn other perspectives on life, that's why I asked.

My FH has always wanted to wait until marriage to move in together, mostly due to faith-based reasons. It's something we talked about early on in our relationship, so there was no surprise there.

Sometimes I wish we lived together because it would be so much more convenient (and save us some money), but I can't really complain because we only live 8 minutes apart, and spend at least some hours together everyday. Plus, we're not sleeping together before we get married, so that takes away some temptation.

But now that we're further in planning for our wedding and our marriage, I'm really happy that we haven't moved in together yet. I think it will make that transition into married life that much more exciting and special, because we really are starting our lives together. Plus, it makes us even more excited for our wedding!

A lot of people that don't know us well have voiced their opinions against that, asking how we know that we'll be compatible. Well.. we know each other really well and, honestly, our relationship is really strong. We fight well, we argue well, we have great communication (my mom thinks we talk to each other too much... okay?), we're best friends, and we're around each other a lot. We're also pretty similar so that makes things easier because we agree on a lot of things.

We're going into this marriage because we want to commit our lives to each other, and we know we'll have issues like everyone else, but we want to work through those issues together.

I know it doesn't make sense for a lot of people, but it makes sense for us, both as a couple and individually

I'm curious about another thing, actually. I've heard people say it before, and you said it in your OP.

"I know several couples in long term relationships that broke up shortly after they moved together."

What is it that broke these couples up? What did they learn about each while living together that they didn't know before? Did they have trouble dealing with pet peeves, or money, or having to stay in the same house with the person they are fighting with?

What is it about living together that causes these breakups?

I can't think of anything new that I've learned about DH since we've moved in together. We already knew everything about each other.

We don't live together, also for religious reasons. It's true that couples who live together before marriage have higher divorce rates than those who don't, but I think that's correlation, not causation - i.e., it's not that living together before marriage CAUSES divorce, but that those who don't live together before marriage are also more likely to be religious and thus not divorce as much. And while it's true that Protestant and Catholic divorce rates (not sure about other religions) are similar to the general population, those numbers drastically change when only weekly churchgoers are considered, rather than those who claim a religion on a form but don't practice it.

One of the main differences in this sort of conversation is not just about whether premarital sex/cohabitation is okay or not, but what marriage itself is. People on this forum coming from a strong religious practice are probably going to have different definitions of what marriage even IS to them than people who don't have that same background.

@Kassy: I don't know the details for all off them, but my cousin and his GF of 4 or 5 years broke up after 6 months of living together. And my friends that just broke up couldn't figure out a balance between socialising and being at home and other small things that just added up. I don't think it's necessary that you learn new things, but you have to learn to live with things. Like when you are dating, things are exciting, but when you live together you have to deal with mundane things.

I don't think divorce rates are a good indication btw, I'm pretty sure arranged marriages have a really low divorce rate and nobody here (well I guess at least) is for those.

ETA: The last paragraph was not referring to Rebecca btw, I think we posted at the same time

I'm just going to defer to Rebeccah H from now on. She speaks words better, everything she said

@swolemates -- You're totally right, it's not really an "argument" that can ever be successfully had. I meant more that all of the reasons I've ever heard are just so far from resonating with me.

Not starting a debate, but I decided to do some research, and apparently they've refuted the initial findings that moving in before marriage increases your chances of divorce; it's apparently the age at which you move in or marry that is a better divorce indicator. That makes a lot of sense to me; the more mature you are, the better prepared you are for big life changes like moving in (and everything that comes with it). But like @LDwed said, there are always people who will avoid divorce on principle, but that doesn't make their marriages any more "successful" in my book.

Mundane stuff doesn't happen while dating? Oh. Maybe we're doing it wrong...haha. Life happens whether you're dating or married; family illness, money issues, job loss, communication mishaps, boredom, taking care of each other when all sick and nasty, if you aren't getting any of that and only see each other all done up on the weekends then yeah living together is going to be a new experience.

And that was a very long sentence. My apologies. Ha

We were kept apart for 4 years through our schooling. When we both finally finished we moved in with our parents. Mostly because it took us both several months to earn an income that would allow us to pay rent and make student loans payments. By the time we were settled enough to live on our own it was almost time for FH to hear about residency.

My family is pretty religious so we decided instead of rocking the boat for the sake of spending 4-5 months together we would wait to see where he matched. He ended up moving away so we didn't live together at all. If he had stayed local we had decided to get a place.

We have "lived" together for weeks and months at times depending on where his medical rotations took him. For two years he "lived" with me whenever he was in the area, but since it wasn't permanent my family didn't consider us as living together and everyone was happy.

I have never been too worried about it personally, but given our circumstances didn't think it was worth upsetting my mother as much as it would.

Me and FH aren't planning on living together before the wedding for several reasons. He lives a few hours away so we're waiting on the timing to be right for his job move and with his children he's raising one that is going away to college next year. Also I didn't really like the idea of my daughter seeing me living with someone im not married to, didn't want to set that example. So I guess religion plays a part in it. But we spend a good amount of time together I think we know each other's living habits and we've had those chore and pet peeve fights. But I'm sure we'll learn more about each other once we're together everyday but I don't think it'll be anything we can't work through

SwoleMates, no you are doing it right

I just remember with my Ex-Bf, I could just be: No, I don't want to see you tonight, I want to wallow at home and be a hermit. With my FH, I have to admit on feeling like s**t sometimes and deal with it. It's small stuff of course.

Haha SwoleMates, that's exactly what I was about to say. We definitely dealt with a bunch of mundane stuff while dating.

Religion is definitely part of it. I was taught that you don't have sex outside of marriage, and it's much harder to resist the temptation when you live together. That's not the only reason though.

Around the time FH and I graduated from college, he asked me if I wanted to live together in whatever city we ended up in. I said no pretty much immediately, but after we talked about the logistics for awhile, I started doubting my original stance. I googled "Should we live together before marriage". There were the standard "Why would he buy the cow when he can get the milk for free?" and "You've gotta take the relationship for a test drive before you buy!" articles, both of which I mostly ignored. I guess the main reason I decided to stay on my own was the inertia effect [1]: It's much harder to end a relationship once you move in together. If you break up, you have to deal with the emotional consequences while you find a new place and move, so you're much more likely to just stay together, even if you don't want to. It's not that I thought we wouldn't last, but just like with sex, I wanted to be 100% sure before we went there. In my mind, only marriage can make me 100% sure.

[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/meet-catch-and-keep/201407/should-you-move-in-together-or-not

Just to give a non-religious/cultural reason, we considered not, to make the wedding a more eventful thing, but about a million practical and emotional reasons outweighed that.

(in our case. that doesn't necessarily apply to anyone above)

ETA- as an aside, I don't really believe in living together as a 'test marriage.' I know it is maybe the best option for a few people, but I feel like either a) you know each other well enough to get married, regardless of living together, or b) you don't, and either you'll break up now or after the wedding and either way you should get to know each other better before the wedding, but you should find that out via asking questions to each other (how do you get married without finding out the other does/doesn't want kids?? how does this happen so often?), exploring values, etc, and/or premarital counselling, not by marriage or trial marriage.

I didn't have to be married but I had to be at least engaged. For me it's about my kids. I don't want to up root they life for any type of relationship other than married. Now if I was single without kids then I wouldn't care either way.

ETA: After reading all the comments I realize I'm the only one that had a non-religious reason. Are there any brides out there have a non-religious reason for not living together before marriage?