Married or Just Living Together?

[agatha]

I would probably choose, living together. In that case, its really easy when you want to be apart. No divorce or annulment needed. I think marriage is just a formality of living together.

[bluesummer]

I do believe very much in marriage, but I'm also a strong advocate of living together BEFORE you marry. Dating someone and living with someone are two different things, and you need to know if you're compatible on a day-to-day basis, how you work together in the home.

I think, like many other posters said, a lot of women get suckered into living with men who think the living together is enough to shut her up about marriage for awhile. I think the key is discussing it before you move in...are the two of you both hoping for marriage, or are you happy just taking things as they go, for however long that may be?

[lesa]

I have lived together for many years and I was engaged. I would choose none of the above. I would not marry or live with him. The relationship is more exciting without all the issues of living together. I would get married if I am planning a family with him...otherwise, I am not moving in with him.

It's so exciting to not live together that I cannot process it! I wish I had done this before but I was broke in the past and he suggested that we live together. I have never wanted to marry but became used to living together and thought, "What the hell? I might as well marry him. Everyone treated us as a married couple anyways."

[pythongrace]

I not religious, in fact I don't even believe in God, so I guess that it makes me an atheist. But I still feel that I do want to get married. In fact I feel that it's important to me.

I see living together as a step on the "road to marriage".

Marriage is not a religious thing to me, but rather an agreement between to people. Two people promising each other lifelong commitment. The symbolic value of the marriage is important thing to me.

Since you're an atheist, I doubt you would ever get married in a church? You're planning to get married in court only?

[bluesummer]

Since you're an atheist, I doubt you would ever get married in a church? You're planning to get married in court only?

I'm not religious, but I'm having a minister at my wedding (my fiance is Christian). I know lots of atheists who get married in churches. I told my fiance I didn't give a shit if it was a minister, a rabbi or a freakin' buddhist monk.....as long as they had the power to marry us, that was all that mattered.