I have 4 children with 2 step children. We only moved in 2gether because we moved to another country. Partner convinced me it is the right thing to do.
A year down the line, I have lost my identity, unemployed, because of joining him and kids and in despair.
Advice, don't do it. If you are worth it he'll marry you.
I don't know were we will find ourselves in a years time, but what I do know if we were married, it's easier to stay.
The only reason I'll stay is because I want to give the kids a secured future and by the way all 6 children are his.

Could it be that the reason people who live together prior to marriage have higher divorce rates is simply because they get married for all the wrong reasons? Like, they just figure it's the next step, and why not? Or could it just be that most of those studies are flawed because they don't take into consideration personal and religious beliefs. For instance, people who get married without living together do so because of religious beliefs or family pressures, etc. which would also make them less likely to divorce. So is it really a fair evaluation when comparing the two groups on the basis of living together or not living together prior to marriage solely?

Couples who are living together usually say that they're not sure if they would be compatible as a married couple. But it's just those doubts that lead to them divorcing. If they really have doubts about their compatibility, they should be taking a break from dating each other and getting perspective as to what those doubts are. Most couples who get married without living together are the ones who have no major doubts about their relationship. They know it's right and they're in it for the long haul.

i think people who live together dont make a decition to do that they just spend a night and then another and then its a year and its hard to leave so they marry.

Well, how about a simpler explanation of the statistics? There are people who understand that they are for each other right away and fit together and they don't need any "testing"- they just gat married and make bigger percent of good marriages. And there are people who just think that it might work and might not and they have their doubts in the first place and that what's make the percentage of divorces in this group larger. ?

A mate who does not answer to God, will certainly most likely answer to you. It it does not matter that God forbides a union for mostly pleasure, and that he forbids this, and either of you do it anyway, then your mate will not answer to you when they do another wrong with someone else.

It is unfortunate that in todays' world that women have not been able to fully understand the need for complete commitment. We have been able to obtain better professional careers and a more important standing in the world be still we fall short in our personal lives. After it is all said and done, many times it is our personal lives that bring us true happiness and joy.

The casual way that relationships are looked at in this society is directly proportional to how this society runs on a whole. Most things are based on form without content.......therefore you have a superficial, meaningless society without principles. A Torah based world has never been more needed!!

It seems to me that the need to test this sharing thing before marriage is pretty hectic. "If we can't share, how can we be united?" I understand that, but is there anything for a man to loose by sharing a bed? However, as the toothpastes of yesteryear forcested way before its time, "put your money where your mouth is" (no pun intended) So, if one is testing compatibitly, if one wants to see if "he understands me for whom I am" then forget the bed, check out the nearest bank or A.T.M and see from there. Ladies, don't sell yourself short, you are worth a lot more than a feable promise of "let's see where this takes us."

Any couple buying a house together should be thinking about marriage. Trial living together when you jointly own real estate is at least as risky as getting married.

Civil law recognizes common-law relationship as a type of marriage, whether unmarried couples agree to it or not. Division of property, child custody etc. are often fought over in court just like a divorce. So I don't see where cohabiting -- at least in a long-term relationship -- spares anyone emotional pain or legal consequences if it goes bad.

However, there are many types of living together, some of which evolve way too casually -- first the boyfriend/girlfriend spends several nights over, then the clothes move over and before you know it, they are sharing someone's living quarters. The commitment is not exactly clear because it's not exactly discussed.

Unfortunately, one half of the couple often assumes there is total commitment while the other half is hedging his/her bets. Without total commitment from both parties, it's not likely to work.

I don't blame couples for being afraid of marriage. A bad marriage can destroy many lives and divorce is a horrible process. I just don't think cohabiting is any better or solves any of the problems.

There is something about the public commitment of marriage that should make couples work harder. You make the promise, and it should be hard to break it. People's lives shouldn't be treated lightly.

Are women becoming too easy in order to hup a mate..??.in many circumstances saying no to cohabiting before marriage, makes a Woman more desirable and stronger...

Living together is when one gets real. It is a big step and time commitment to marry someone. IF you value yourself and your partner, you WILL take the necessary PRELIMINARY intimate nitty gritty RESEARCH to make sure you are compatible before investing your life energies in making a lifetime choice. It's easy to put on a persona for a few hours or a day or two, but when people live together one has an opportunity to see a potential partner in the everyday, mundane detail. Does this person have a temper that flares when the going gets tough or does this person have a supportive attitude and nature when things get tough? Does the talk match the walk? These are important matters to know before making a committment. I believe its nigh impossible to know a person well without living with that person. With divorce rates so high, it doesn't make sense to take unnecessary leaps without adequate information. It is key to know how a partner will respond specifically to YOU in a given situation, not just how that partner has reacted with others. Forewarned is forearmed.

The sad truth - the one NOT expressed in your wonderful article, is this: the woman generally initiates the living together, not the man.

I've lived with a boyfriend myself and have tens if not scores of friends who have, too. It's rarely if ever the man who suggests living together. The woman, desirous of marriage and facing a man who'd rather not get married "yet," suggests living together. She thinks, "If he sees what a wonderful life partner I am, how well I cook and launder his clothes, how patient and fun I am, certainly in a few months he'll propose."

While it does work that way sometimes, more often than not it doesn't. I am happily married, but not to the man for whom I cooked and cleaned for 18 months before finally realizing there was no future there. If my own lessons can guide even one reader, I strongly discourage you from living with a man to whom you are not married.

The point of being a couple is to commit to each other "for better or worse". That means that the decision to commit to your partner overrules your search for the perfect knight in shining armor who will rescue you from yourself.
Everyone has flaws. Either you make the choice to commit to someone despite their flaws, or you can forget about ever being happily married.
No amount of "testing" will vet out incompatibilities completely. And if you can be so easily dissuaded from being with your partner by some shallow personality glitch, then you never really loved him in the first place, did you?
What if G-d forbid he gets sick? Or is in a horrible disfiguring accident, G-d forbid? Will you leave him?

I don't understand how you can say that living with someone isn't a commitment. I would not be living with my fiance if we hadn't already been in a commited relationship. We have been together for 9 years and saw no reason to get married until we started talking about wanting children. There just wasn't a need to go through all that when we were as good as married in our own eyes. There is no question to the level of commitment we both feel and this isn't because I was afraid to say no. Belive me, I have no problem saying that word. Maybe the problem is with people who jump into cohabitation too quickly. How long were these people dating before they moved in together? Mike and I have been together for 9 years but have only lived together for a little over 1 year. We bought a house together and have been working together to make it a beautiful home. We will be married in the back yard in October. There is not "quasi-commitment" here. Maybe the problem is not cohabitation but divorce. It is much more the 'norm' today than it ever was to divorce. Nothing says these people wouldn't have gotten a divorce if they hadn't cohabitated. Maybe we should leave cohabitation alone a blame divorce. Its way to easy to say the relationship isn't working and get out. People, perhaps, arn't trying as hard any more because divorce doesn't carry with it the stigma it once did. In some cases that may be a good thing, but in many it isn't. I wonder, if we looked at the details of these failed relationships, if we would find that cohabitation wasn't even a factor.

I like this kind of article to awaken women's value and uplift the standard of moral values. I will be sending this to women who thought that it will be the end of the world if they get married late or donot have a boyfriend or a husband. The pressure of getting married or having a husband is too much for them that they succumb to any Dick, Tom or Harry that come their way altho they know that it will be a disaster to marry any of those guys. Just for the sake of getting married and having children. The end will not only end to divorces but destruction of the lives of their kids.

So please send me more articles which I will in turn forward to my friends or mothers who have young daughters.

T.O. M.

My theory is that even the woman doesn't want to be "stuck" either. They both want quasi-committed relationships; that is, until the woman begins to contemplate having babies, then marriage talk comes--if only so the guy won't "escape" (which he probably does in the end anyway).

I am in my late 30s and most of the couples I know lived together before marriage. What killed me was that they would play house for several yrs (have children, share a mortgage, etc) but when the guy finally proposed the woman acted like a 19-year-old innocent -- excitement, months planning the wedding, showing everyone the ring... It is ridiculous. A wife is not on the level of a concubine and women know it.

Mark Twain aptly said "There are lies, damn lies, and statistic." Perhaps those who are reluctant to commit are inherently bad marriage risks in the first place. And if this sort of person DOES marry, I don't think the formalized vows would carry all that much weight in today's society anyhow. Many still see legal marriage as a sort of a "trap," like it or no. Note the number of pre-nuptial agreements and the no-contest, very relaxed divorce laws. These are irrefutable signs of our times. As Dr. Pangloss says in Candide "Marriage is such an agreeable condition, that people go on marrying in happy repetition."

This article, short and to the point is a must read for all ages. The true joy and excitement of marriage is deleted if a rehearsal is played before the wedding!

My wife and I are Orthodox Jews. Before we were religious and before we were married, we lived together. Of course we believe that it is wrong for people to live together before marriage but only because of religious beliefs. I do not believe that there is anything inherently negative for the relationship. From a statistical standpoint, I disagree with your basic premise that people that cohabit before marriage are are two times more likely to divorce than couples who don't and that this occurs because they live together before marriage. The study that you found, like MANY studies, fails to realize other possible reasons for the end result. I believe that the reason that people who live together before marriage get divorce at such a higher rate is because of the fact that these people are less religious. People who are less religious get divorced in greater numbers. If most of the religious population is in the category of people who don't live together before marriage, and religious people get A LOT less divorces, than your statistics are not taking into account a very important fact that will skew your data.

An example of this is if I was to say the following statement: Statistics show that religion causes more rampant prostitution, drug use, rape, murder, and burglary. Then, I say that I know this because whereever there are higher rates of these crimes (which I know is in big cities), there are more places of worship per square foot (which also is the case in big cities). Of course, my statistical flaw is that my statement failed to think about the fact that the real reason behind the bad habits of the people in these areas is because they are in metropolitan cities, rather than the fact that they live near a place of worship.

I couldn't agree more. It has been a crock since time immemorial & always will be. I remember a song that was around when I was a child that went something like this 'If I'm good enough to something, something (sorry, my mind just went blank)/ Good enough to share your life, If I'm good enough to (have your children ?)/I'm good enough to be your wife.'

I have done both, and I don't care what anyone says, marriage has a status that living together can never have.

If people want to live together, that is entirely their business. But it annoys me when they sneer at marriage as 'just a piece of paper' and feminists spout the centuries old line that it is akin to slavery. I bet that many slaves would dispute this; how many slaves live in a nice house that the slave-owner buys, have half the slave-owner's income, and have the slave-owner obliged by law not only to keep them but to go to war and risk their lives if the government demands it ?

Living together is often-not always- a mug's game.However, in my case, I would have to say that I greatly appreciated being able to pack up and leave when it went horribly wrong (long story).

I don't believe that marriage will ever go out. What can ever replace the glory of being a bride ? For most of us, it's as near as we will ever get to being a princess; the lovely dress, the attention, total stangers stopping to 'see the bride' and wish her well...there is no cohabitation equivalent of that !

Men generate many fancy names and excuses for living with a woman out of wedlock, but it boils down to one plain fact - he wants the spoils under the guise of respectability. Whoredom by any other word smells just as bad. G-d has always expressed his favoritism for the daughters of Eve. That's not what he wants for them or he would not have ordained marriage as the only acceptable relationship.

I want to say the point you make is good, only its a sweeping generalization and therefore ignorant. There are many men that are co-habiting because the woman insisted, not because it is their choice. There are men out there who want to be married, but their girlfriends are the ones that insist on living together first.