"This prick is asking for someone here to bring him to task Somebody give me some dirt on this vacuous mass so we can at last unmask him I'll pull the trigger on it, someone load the gun and cock it While we were all watching, he got Washington in his pocket."
Post by lasagnasshole on Jul 28, 2014 20:51:14 GMT -5
We did for 5 months, but I actually hadn't planned to and didn't want to. The plan was: I would secure a job, take the bar exam, move into an apartment in Milwaukee, and he'd move in with me after the wedding.
And then the bar exam rolled around, and I hadn't had an interview in 2 months. So it was move into his apartment or stay at a shelter. I had $300 to my name when we got married. :-#
To my mom and her church crowd, living together before marriage was such a no-no that on our way to my bridal shower, my mom said to me, "You know, nobody needs to know that you're staying with mr.lasagna." LOL at "staying." She couldn't even say "living."
We lived together for almost ten years before getting married. TBH, we thought living together would be a temporary thing at first since I moved in after college, but I stayed and it was awesome.
Post by lasagnasshole on Jul 28, 2014 20:55:56 GMT -5
If I ever find myself on the market again, I have no intention of living with anyone before either being married or being within a few months of a wedding, depending on the circumstances.
I lived with a bf for a few years in college. Biggest mistake. We knew we weren't meant for a long term relationship but living together made it so difficult to break up and stay broken up.
Post by secretlyevil on Jul 28, 2014 20:58:48 GMT -5
H and I moved in together about six months after we started dating, we got engaged at least a year or so after that. My mom always told me it was easier to break a lease than get a divorce.
LTBM is quite a bit less common among the college-educated, which I think most of us on this board are. When college-educated couples do LTBM, they often do it quite differently, too. It's often relatively brief, they're engaged beforehand (or get engaged relatively shortly moving in together,) and it doesn't usually last very long before they get married or (sometimes) break up. In contrast, it's more common, lasts longer, and is less likely to lead to marriage the less education a couple has.
Cohabitation is actually a topic I know a lot about if anyone happens to have random questions.
Briefly. I was doing a rotation for a training program, and was rotating in the city, to hopefully be able to transfer to an office there. I could have opted to stay at a corporate apt or residence inn type place, but opted not to for multiple reasons though.
We did buy a house together, whole we were engaged. I wouldn't do that again though.
See, I can't see me doing this. I have money issues. But then, I've never made a big purchase with another person. I had a house and Jflute had a house. He had a paid for car and I had a paid for car. We didn't have to get into any debt together while we were married so that's something I haven't done.
Looking back, I don't even know why I agreed to it.
DH is five years older and already had a house, and wanted a new one. It really would have just been easier and a better choice, for him to buy it and add my name later. I paid the earnest money ($2K), and he paid the down payment. I didn't really even live in the house, except for the times I came to visit, while I was finishing up my training program.
God bless my mother, because looking back, I know she was thinking WTH are you doing, but didn't really say anything negative about it.
Honestly, a lot of the decisions and such I made early in our marriage, may not have been the best.
LTBM is quite a bit less common among the college-educated, which I think most of us on this board are. When college-educated couples do LTBM, they often do it quite differently, too. It's often relatively brief, they're engaged beforehand (or get engaged relatively shortly moving in together,) and it doesn't usually last very long before they get married or (sometimes) break up. In contrast, it's more common, lasts longer, and is less likely to lead to marriage the less education a couple has.
Cohabitation is actually a topic I know a lot about if anyone happens to have random questions.
Interesting. The bolded does not surprise me, but the rest of it does.
I cannot think of any close friends and family who did not live together before marriage, and this includes a few Catholic couples. My sister is the only person I can think of IRL who didn't move in with her now-husband until after they were engaged.
Post by omgzombies on Jul 28, 2014 21:05:47 GMT -5
Yes, and in hindsight I'm amazed that my parents didn't put up a fight.
I was in college, and campus housing was ridiculously expensive. The end of my sophomore year, through a set of ridiculous circumstances, I ended up with a horrible housing slot; incoming freshman we're going to have better dorm options than I was as a junior. I had put in my time, I wanted a non-communal bathroom. At that point I decided to move off campus with future DH and his best friend and his best friend's gf. We had been dating for a year by that time, I was spending 4-5 nights a week there any way, and splitting rent 4 ways in a two bedroom off campus was waaay cheaper than the dorms. It worked out wonderfully in our case, but it's obviously not for everyone.
No I didn't. Then, we got separated. I don't think that has any barring on why our marriage didn't work out though.
I did a complete 180 with my current boyfriend and we moved in together after about 4 months of dating. But now we're living separately on different continents. I have no regrets!
Post by LoveTrains on Jul 28, 2014 21:10:27 GMT -5
Yes, we moved in together after college - well before we were considering marriage. Honestly, living in Boston was expensive. Personally we would not have been able to afford 1 br apartments separately. And it was cheaper to share a 1 br than to share a 2 br with a friend (2 brs tend to be more expensive per bedroom than a 3 bedroom). Plus then we didn't have to deal with roommates.
We actually even bought our condo together before we were engaged. But I flat out told him I wasn't buying the condo with him unless a ring would be coming shortly.
LTBM is quite a bit less common among the college-educated, which I think most of us on this board are. When college-educated couples do LTBM, they often do it quite differently, too. It's often relatively brief, they're engaged beforehand (or get engaged relatively shortly moving in together,) and it doesn't usually last very long before they get married or (sometimes) break up. In contrast, it's more common, lasts longer, and is less likely to lead to marriage the less education a couple has.
Cohabitation is actually a topic I know a lot about if anyone happens to have random questions.
That is interesting. Is the hypothesis that college-educated people tend to have higher-paying jobs and therefore don't have as much financial pressure to live together?
Just to defy the odds, H and I lived together for 5 years before marriage but after both of us got our bachelor's degrees. I was working on my PhD for most of that time. We did, however, wait to buy a house until we were engaged. Our parents weren't happy about it but it didn't damage our relationships with them or anything. We've been married 8 years.
Yes, but only for a few weeks before we got married. In retrospect, I think it may have made the first year of marriage harder because neither of us was used to living with someone else (H had lived by himself for a year before we got married, and I'd lived in an apartment with frequently absent roommates) and we had a lot of arguments about pretty trivial living together stuff.
Interestingly, my parents were not thrilled about us living together (and my grandmother was downright scandalized) in spite of the fact that they had also lived together before getting married.
LTBM is quite a bit less common among the college-educated, which I think most of us on this board are. When college-educated couples do LTBM, they often do it quite differently, too. It's often relatively brief, they're engaged beforehand (or get engaged relatively shortly moving in together,) and it doesn't usually last very long before they get married or (sometimes) break up. In contrast, it's more common, lasts longer, and is less likely to lead to marriage the less education a couple has.
Cohabitation is actually a topic I know a lot about if anyone happens to have random questions.
This interests me. Is there a cultural divide? Anecdotes but...None of my black friend peers ever seem to have an expectation that couples will live together before marriage unless they are counting down to the wedding. It isn't a "step" on the path to marriage. I remember a non-black friend asking after learning me and my beau at the time had been together for two years if we were moving in together and I said uh, no. And she thought it was crazy that we would be together that long and not live together. I thought it was odd that she thought we should be living together.
Is there an age divide? I'm a Gen X-er.
Regional? I'm a Southerner.
This is interesting. Most of my friends from college did live together with their spouse before marriage - but like as mentioned above, it was generally a step on the way to marriage. For those that weren't engaged when they moved in, most of them got engaged shortly thereafter (or broke up). But age divide, I'm 33, and regional, obviously the north east and most folks are socially liberal. I don't really even known very many religious people either. Like I only know a handful of people IRL that are regular church goers and are around my age.
LTBM is quite a bit less common among the college-educated, which I think most of us on this board are. When college-educated couples do LTBM, they often do it quite differently, too. It's often relatively brief, they're engaged beforehand (or get engaged relatively shortly moving in together,) and it doesn't usually last very long before they get married or (sometimes) break up. In contrast, it's more common, lasts longer, and is less likely to lead to marriage the less education a couple has.
Cohabitation is actually a topic I know a lot about if anyone happens to have random questions.
Interesting. The bolded does not surprise me, but the rest of it does.
I cannot think of any close friends and family who did not live together before marriage, and this includes a few Catholic couples. My sister is the only person I can think of IRL who didn't move in with her now-husband until after they were engaged.
About 60% of couples do now, and it probably runs in circles- that is, if one person in your group does it, it wouldn't be surprising if others did as well.
We officially lived together after we were engaged for about six months.
Unofficially we basically lived together once we'd been together about 6 months. We had apartments in the same building but mine was basically just for storage or in case something went awry. And to make our parents happy.
LTBM is quite a bit less common among the college-educated, which I think most of us on this board are. When college-educated couples do LTBM, they often do it quite differently, too. It's often relatively brief, they're engaged beforehand (or get engaged relatively shortly moving in together,) and it doesn't usually last very long before they get married or (sometimes) break up. In contrast, it's more common, lasts longer, and is less likely to lead to marriage the less education a couple has.
Cohabitation is actually a topic I know a lot about if anyone happens to have random questions.
This interests me. Is there a cultural divide? Anecdotes but...None of my black friend peers ever seem to have an expectation that couples will live together before marriage unless they are counting down to the wedding. It isn't a "step" on the path to marriage. I remember a non-black friend asking after learning me and my beau at the time had been together for two years if we were moving in together and I said uh, no. And she thought it was crazy that we would be together that long and not live together. I thought it was odd that she thought we should be living together.
Is there an age divide? I'm a Gen X-er.
Regional? I'm a Southerner.
Regional? I honestly can't remember. I seem to recall it being MORE common in the Bible Belt, but that's because of its association with poverty, not religion. I interviewed a number of couples who said something to the effect of "we ain't livin' right" but couldn't see themselves affording the alternative.
In terms of race/ethnicity, it is nearly equally common among black, Hispanic, and white Americans (though it wasn't until the last decade or so.) What happened is that it's grown the most among whites.
And there's most definitely an age divide. It's increased about 10-15% every 10-15 years for the last several decades. What's kind of funny is that it's also been increasing quite a bit among the olds, in part because (sadly) some couples would lose the pensions/benefits of their deceased spouses if they remarry, but also because some just have no desire to marry again.
Post by UMaineTeach on Jul 28, 2014 21:24:36 GMT -5
We lived together with 2 male roommates on campus, then with 1 male roommate off campus, then in our own apartment H's last year of collage, then in a different own apartment for a year, then we got married.
None of our family cared. Well, maybe they weren't sooo excited about me with 3 male roommates, but they got over it.
LTBM is quite a bit less common among the college-educated, which I think most of us on this board are. When college-educated couples do LTBM, they often do it quite differently, too. It's often relatively brief, they're engaged beforehand (or get engaged relatively shortly moving in together,) and it doesn't usually last very long before they get married or (sometimes) break up. In contrast, it's more common, lasts longer, and is less likely to lead to marriage the less education a couple has.
Cohabitation is actually a topic I know a lot about if anyone happens to have random questions.
That is interesting. Is the hypothesis that college-educated people tend to have higher-paying jobs and therefore don't have as much financial pressure to live together?
Just to defy the odds, H and I lived together for 5 years before marriage but after both of us got our bachelor's degrees. I was working on my PhD for most of that time. We did, however, wait to buy a house until we were engaged. Our parents weren't happy about it but it didn't damage our relationships with them or anything. We've been married 8 years.
Yep. That's a lot of it. College educated people tend to enter cohabitation as a next step the relationship or for financial rationale (that is, they could afford to live alone, but why not live in a nicer place/save up money for a house/put away something in retirement) by sharing the rent. That is, they get to make a very calculated, measured, and deliberate choice to move in when they want (and can more often afford- and often get parental assistance to- get married when they want as well.
The lower and worker class more often report being "pushed" into cohabitation (a roommate moves out unexpectedly, they literally can't afford to live alone, they young are trying to get out of a tumultuous home life, or they experience an unexpected pregnancy.)
LTBM is quite a bit less common among the college-educated, which I think most of us on this board are. When college-educated couples do LTBM, they often do it quite differently, too. It's often relatively brief, they're engaged beforehand (or get engaged relatively shortly moving in together,) and it doesn't usually last very long before they get married or (sometimes) break up. In contrast, it's more common, lasts longer, and is less likely to lead to marriage the less education a couple has.
Cohabitation is actually a topic I know a lot about if anyone happens to have random questions.
This interests me. Is there a cultural divide? Anecdotes but...None of my black friend peers ever seem to have an expectation that couples will live together before marriage unless they are counting down to the wedding. It isn't a "step" on the path to marriage. I remember a non-black friend asking after learning me and my beau at the time had been together for two years if we were moving in together and I said uh, no. And she thought it was crazy that we would be together that long and not live together. I thought it was odd that she thought we should be living together.
Is there an age divide? I'm a Gen X-er.
Regional? I'm a Southerner.
I agree with this. I can only think of one black friend that lives(ed) together, and that friend it's not surprising at all, as she has serious reservations about marriage, due to her own parents volatile marriage and divorce.
I do have some older relatives who are highly educated, that lived together for years with their SO, but I think part of that was a generational thing and they were children of the 60s and just didn't/don't see the need. One couple, I wouldn't be surprised if they were secretly married for legal purposes as one has children and they want to make sure they stay with the "stepparent", should something happen, as the other biological parent is deceased.
Current family, the ones that do live together do not have a higher degree.
Interesting, but not surprising about those without college degrees and Living together. I've seen a lot of common law marriages in that demographic.