S/O Not living together before marriage

SwoleMates, I loved your answers too! I agree with Kassy too. And in general, I think dating and the speed of a relationship can be greatly affected by outside factors that allow the two to get to know each other more quickly.

I'll use me and FH as an example - he was convinced from the very beginning that we were going to get married, but I was a bit more reserved. A couple months after we started dating, his dad passed away. Not only could I then see how FH dealt with his family, the grief, and bringing up old emotions (his mom died as a kid and his dad was abusive), but it allowed me to see how deeply I really did already feel for him by how much I was able to grieve with him, despite not knowing his dad. If we hadn't gone through that together, we might have just gotten stuck in a dinner and Netflix rut and not experienced what it was like to go through an intense emotional experience, together.

That's not something that necessarily prepared us for going through the mundane day to day together, but we didn't NEED to be living together to still share that experience.

I have lived with my FH for almost 2 years, but before this relationship I had no desire to live together before marriage. I am not religious, but I value my independence. I also believed that if I wanted to be with someone all the time, I should marry them. I hold marriage to a pretty high esteem, and I wasn't sure if living together before marriage would diminish it. Well, then I grew up and had girlfriends as well as boyfriends and for a long time marrying a woman wasn't a legal option, so my views on living together vs. marriage evolved. Interestingly, I never lived with a female partner, but becoming comfortable with my bisexuality in my 20s made me see more shades of gray rather than everything in black and white. Now I find my earlier reasons for maintaining separate homes silly and irrelevant, at least to me and for us. When FH and I moved in together we knew we wanted to get married but weren't ready to do that yet. Living together was a huge adjustment. We are older and dealt with a lot of tough stuff personally and together before moving in, and also had quiet, mundane times too. Living together was still different and still harder. It's also still worth it IMO. We have worked out a lot of our chore-sharing and weird habit-revealing kinks, and yes, dealt with more mundane stuff. There are times when I want to be alone, and he's there. There are times when I want to come home to him and get super disappointed when he's out. It's easy to get stuck in a rut because most of our lives are routine now, and we know that we can always count on each other to be there tomorrow. A lot of our daily conversations are about taking care of our cats, cooking dinner, and reminding each other of dr appts and yoga classes. But we kiss good night, good bye, and hello every night, morning, and evening no matter what. In 2 years I can count the number of times we have not resolved an argument within minutes on one hand. Living together has forced stubborn, apt-to-hold-a-grudge me to stare my partner in the face when I am trying to stay angry, and has taught me that our love and companionship is not worth being the one who is right or who gets the last word. Communicating face to face more every day has strengthened our relationship and helped me become so much more self aware. We are committed to making our relationship work whether we are married or not, and living together has made us work harder to support each other, be a stronger couple, and the best versions of ourselves. I think we are much better prepared for marriage now. I'm sure there will always be adjustments, but I am grateful for the 2.5 years that we will have cohabitated for when we say our vows next spring. Of course, I still understand and respect that some couples have valid reasons for not living together before marriage. But I don't.

This sort of relates to the discussion but not completely. I didn't want to live with FH until we were engaged. Because I just graduated this past May, it was really easy to make that happen. We got engaged December 2013, but we continued to live with our parents until this month. We signed our lease August 1, and then moved in together the last day in August. It was partially religious, but also just personal feelings regarding living together for an extended amount of time before marriage (not saying that there's anything wrong with living together for years before the wedding, it just wasn't for me).

The way things have changed for us emotionally after moving in together is a scary thing. I can easily see how some couples live together for many, many years without getting married. FH and I talked about this just yesterday- we both feel already married in most ways except for a piece of paper and in the eyes of God (we aren't even super religious people- pray, go to church about once or twice a month or so, etc.). When we discussed how both of us feel that way, it seriously freaked me out. I'm so thankful that our wedding is next month. If we moved in before we were engaged, I can see how we easily would've fell into the trap that many of his older friends have- live together for 5-10 years. have multiple kids together, not engaged, etc.

Edited: Although it's not after the wedding, we've been doing okay. Sometimes we fight over silly things like leaving the toilet lid up or putting the dishes in the wrong side of the sink, but it's been really great!

Honestly before I always said I wouldn't live with a man before marriage because my parents taught me the religious aspect of it. I soon realized that my mother was acting in contradicting manner with her drinking and that's why I was forced to move out. I think I let go of my religious faith when I saw my parents doing bad things. I was scared to live with FH at first because I felt guilty but now I'm over it. I know you wanted to hear from brides that weren't living together but I thought I share my story. If my parents weren't so contradicting I probably would've just stayed living at home with them

Just to share one more non-religious example - my now-husband and I were both in our 30's and each owned houses when we met and started dating. We're both fairly risk-averse when it comes to money, so neither one of us was going to sell a house without getting engaged. Once we got engaged, we quickly decided which of our houses made the most sense for our to share. We started the process of getting one of the houses ready to sell, but with wedding planning and busy jobs, it took us until just a few weeks before the wedding to actually move in together! I know several other couples in our age group who had similar situations. For us, it's had nothing to do with religious beliefs and more to do with having already had established lives and homes that took a bit longer to transition out of.

My attitude is simply this: finding an apartment and a compatible roommate in NYC is HELLACIOUS. I told my FH I wasn't willing to give up a good roommate/affordable rent/good location near the Q train situation unless I was moving into a very stable arrangement-- aka a marriage. Living with an unmarried partner just seemed less stable than either a marriage or living with a roommate. I shot the idea right the hell down when he wanted to live together after knowing me for only 5 months, but he respected my reasons completely! My response to the whole idea of test driving the relationship is basically "uh... isn't that what dating and traveling together is for?"

I also never wanted to experience a combo breakup/move because I've had both breakups and moves cause nervous breakdowns *individually*, so I wasn't willing to risk the mind-shattering combo. It's just all or nothing with me. Either it's stable enough for a marriage, or it's so unstable that I need to keep my own apartment. Dating for over a year can give people a good idea of how things are.

For the record, I'm completely non-religious. 100% decided on the no living together thing for practical reasons.

I even said that living with unmarried partners is what I did BEFORE I was paying rent-- it's fine when you're so unattached that you live in a tent or a squat. At Occupy, I could just tell exes to find another tent. It's just not that simple when you're dealing with rent, leases, owning stuff...