What's so bad about living in sin?

[Anonymous]

I've seen my friends go through divorces. What a humongous pain in the ass. Extricating is easier when it doesn't require a waiting period and trip to see a judge. Maintain separate assets if you don't want to get married.

[Anonymous]

Happily married person here: I guess I just see living together as not committing. If you truly are committed and just don't want to marry, that's fine. But 99% of the time one half of the couple wants to marry and the other is dragging their feet.

FWIW DH and I didn't live together and we just loved it when we got married and moved in together. It made the marriage more of a new chapter in our lives. We also saw it as a symbol of our commitment. We didn't need to test being married, we already knew. I wanted to get married more than DH and he didn't want to live together, so that's why we both pushed for marriage. (I had lived with my ex). That's us though.

[Anonymous]

I won't think less of you if you don't marry. But as other PPs have said, there are protections in marriage that are not present in cohabitation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The biggest issue I see is that if/when it goes south, you basically go through a divorce but without legal protections and the emotional recognition. If you are very young I feel like you are putting too much on the line by living together. (The older/wiser you get, the more savvy you become about everything.)

I agree with this. Also, I saw several friends get stuck in relationships in their 20s that they knew they should move on from but because they had moved in with the guy it was a MUCH higher barrier to breaking up. My couch served as a way station for a couple of them who needed to find a place to stay to finally get out of the relationship. Because of that, I decided I didn't want to live with someone until we were engaged. If being married wasn't important to me, I'd say it's still important to have a pretty high bar of commitment to your relationship before living together.

I (32) didn't want to discuss engagement with my girlfriend (27) until we had spent some time together. So when she needed a place to live, we rented a house together. We married very quickly after that, so I can't address escape strategies; I never had one. Engagement doesn't prepare you for the nitty gritty of cohabitating: chores, todo lists, money, treating each other with respect even when you piss each other off. I highly recommend cohabitating before marriage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Happily married person here: I guess I just see living together as not committing. If you truly are committed and just don't want to marry, that's fine. But 99% of the time one half of the couple wants to marry and the other is dragging their feet.

FWIW DH and I didn't live together and we just loved it when we got married and moved in together. It made the marriage more of a new chapter in our lives. We also saw it as a symbol of our commitment. We didn't need to test being married, we already knew. I wanted to get married more than DH and he didn't want to live together, so that's why we both pushed for marriage. (I had lived with my ex). That's us though.

That has been my experience. I was living with my ex bf for around 2 years and wound up pregnant. He still didn't want to get married. I knew then that he never would, at least not to me, and I kicked him to the curb. No regrets.

[Anonymous]

Because, unfortunately, our legal system has defined thousands of privileges and rights that are granted to married spouses that do not apply to cohabitating partners. Among the rights and privileges are rights to joint property, to make legal and/or medical decisions for each other, the right to visitation in medical situations, the financial protections under the law and many thousands more. If you choose to cohabitate, then in emergencies or unforeseen circumstances, you have no such protections.

If you don't see the importance of this, then go through the non-explicit relationship forum and just look at the threads of marriages and relationships that are breaking up and the complications that arise when they have to divide joint property, discuss custody issues, etc.

[Anonymous]

Glad I never married my LTR GF. When it was time to split it made it SOOOOOO much easier. My friends who have divorced had a huge pain in the ass to deal with even if they were civil.

[Anonymous]

It makes Baby Jesus cry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The biggest issue I see is that if/when it goes south, you basically go through a divorce but without legal protections and the emotional recognition. If you are very young I feel like you are putting too much on the line by living together. (The older/wiser you get, the more savvy you become about everything.)

This. It makes breaking up really inconvenient, so it tends to drag out semi-functional relationships, causing people to lose time that could be spent finding a good relationship instead. And I definitely have seen guys willing to live together but not willing to get married, and end up taking up a lot of a woman's time with their indecisiveness. Living together makes it easier for that to happen. Of course if you don't care about getting married, then whatever.

This is my brother's relationship to a T right now, except he's the younger man and his GF has made it clear she doesn't want to get married or have kids, two things he wants. I think if they weren't living together they would have broken up a long time ago. He actually admitted as much to our dad but it's just easier to float along even if it means pissing away his 20s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Absolutely nothing. I've done it for over two decades now and we have four kids. Zero problems.

Nobody has problems, until they do. That's the point. It seems like a good idea, until problems arise.

[Anonymous]

I seem to have time travelled to the 1950s by mistake!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Absolutely nothing. I've done it for over two decades now and we have four kids. Zero problems.

Nobody has problems, until they do. That's the point. It seems like a good idea, until problems arise.

Yeah, that can happen with marriage too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Absolutely nothing. I've done it for over two decades now and we have four kids. Zero problems.

Nobody has problems, until they do. That's the point. It seems like a good idea, until problems arise.

Yeah, that can happen with marriage too.

Are you reading this thread?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Absolutely nothing. I've done it for over two decades now and we have four kids. Zero problems.

Nobody has problems, until they do. That's the point. It seems like a good idea, until problems arise.

Yeah, that can happen with marriage too.

And then you have a lot more legal protections than you do as an unmarried couple. See?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because, unfortunately, our legal system has defined thousands of privileges and rights that are granted to married spouses that do not apply to cohabitating partners. Among the rights and privileges are rights to joint property, to make legal and/or medical decisions for each other, the right to visitation in medical situations, the financial protections under the law and many thousands more. If you choose to cohabitate, then in emergencies or unforeseen circumstances, you have no such protections.

If you don't see the importance of this, then go through the non-explicit relationship forum and just look at the threads of marriages and relationships that are breaking up and the complications that arise when they have to divide joint property, discuss custody issues, etc.

Why is this unfortunate? How else should the government know that you wish to join property and give rights to the other person?

Marriage isn't this big awful evil. Marriage is also very important for society. Two people joined together can best care for children and the other person. Life throws you a lot of curve balls. Financially it's best to have a partner and someone to care for you through your ups and downs.