Love and Relationships Advice - The Pros and Cons of Living Together Outside of Marriage

In the past few decades, millions of couples of all ages have chosen to live together, either as a prelude to marriage or in place of marriage. I feel it is important to understand both the positive and the negative consequences of living with someone you love. There is a part of me that feels, after having seen so many dysfunctional and incompatible relationships over the years, that all couples should live together before deciding to get married.

Some of the benefits of living together:

You discover sides of your partner's personality you cannot know about unless you live together: There is no way you can get to know a person whom you see intermittently as well as if you lived together. It's a lot easier for someone to be on his best behavior for three hours during a date than it is for him to maintain that behavior day after day when you live under the same roof. When you live with someone you uncover habits, attitudes, and behaviors you never see otherwise. You see him in his natural habitat, his home, and thus become exposed to sides of his personality that may be hidden from you if you're just dating. You see them when they are tired, sick, angry, frustrated, and grumpy. Living together requires a sharing of power and control; it demands compromise and flexibility from both partners. You get exposure to the full range of their emotional reactions.

You discover how capable your partner is of true partnership: Living together requires a sharing of power and control; it demands compromise and flexibility from both partners, since you're merging the habits and desires of two unique individuals. You may not find out how willing or capable your mate is of true partnership until you commit to living together. Only when you have to make decisions together about finances, food, household responsibilities, acquisitions, etc. do you truly discover what kind of team player your partner is.

Some of the possible negative consequences of living together:

You can destroy the relationship by expecting too much from it when it's still developing: Although I personally feel living together with a mate can be a valuable experience at a certain stage of the relationship, I also feel that living together prematurely is a big mistake. Living together before your relationship has reached a significant level of commitment, maturity, and emotional stability can actually speed up the disintegration of the relationship. If your relationship isn't ready to handle the pressures of living together, it might fall apart under the strain brought about by living together prematurely.

You can avoid furthering your commitment to one another: You may have heard the saying, "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk free?" I think it was used by many of our mothers in their attempt to convince us that boys wouldn't marry us if we had sex with them, since they were already getting what they wanted. I've heard this same argument about living together-that if a man is living with you and enjoying the benefits of domestic life, he has no reason to ask you to marry him. I don't believe the solution is to refuse to move in with someone before you're engaged or married, unless that feels right to you. If you're considering living with someone but want the formal structure of marriage somewhere down the road, you need to discuss all this before you actually move in together in order to avoid any misunderstandings.