living together before getting married

Hi Sanjana, I think the ultimate aim of all religions is to promote and support the family life so that we have a healthy society around us. In order to achieve this, promiscuousness is frowned upon by all religions hence, we find live-in relations are not accepted by conservative society or by religious institutions. But I think it has its own pros and cons…with the rate of divorce always on the rise, its better to know your partner thoroughly and work out individual roles before committing marriage. However, it also offers a lot of freedom which might be exploited by people out to have cheap fun…mostly it is detrimental for women specially in conservative society like we have in India.

I agree it is a good idea. Me and my partner actually are living together to see how long we can stand each other before getting married. But seriously, marriage is a very serious thing to get into and we do not want to make the wrong decision by listening to what other people say about living together and not being married and then later realizing that "Oh, I so hate this person!".

Hi! Sanjana! Your idea per se is not bad and could be implemented. However, there is no guarantee as such that living together before marriage will reduce divorce cases. The flip side of this situation is - if after staying together for few months, they start disliking each other, then their marriage may not materialize and whole idea of knowing each other will come to naught. Success of a marriage depends upon many factors, either the couple has together earlier or not. The most important is - how much one can adjust and accept the other partner with his/her negative and positive traits.

I agree with that. It is hard to know the person deeper not until we will live with the person in one house and it helps both parties to know each other better!

I am still conservative and thinks that marriage is a very sacred thing. You may be right in saying that it could reduce the number of divorce cases, but still I believe that lifetime cocmmitments should be under a blessed matrimony in order to be blessed.

Hi, living together before marriage means adjusting to each other, and seeing if we can accept our partner's weaknesses and 'quirky' habits, before signing the papers. However I feel that both parties must be committed; there must be an aim to finally get married, and not just for the fun of it. I've seen people who flit in-and-out of these living together arrangements with no certain objectives. Of course, if it really doesn't work out, then the separation is less messier.

I agree with you and almost everyone I know is either living together or lived together for a period of time before getting married. My first husband and I didn't live together before we married...and we married fairly young (19)...so we discovered many things about each other after the wedding. Some good and some bad.

I also do not see anything wrong in living in together befor getting together. In living in you get the chance to see the real traits of your perspecctive husbands and wife. You can undergo the adjustment stage to each others traits before marriage. You also get to face challenges that most married couples do. The only down-side is when the "trial" stage does not work out like what you ahve expected. You have already invested emotionally to the relationsip making it hard to work thing right and good if the living-in does not work out. Nevertheless, those who engage themselves into this kind of situation must be emotionally and finanacially secure with themselves. They should also be aware and prepared for the consequences of living in prior to marriage.