Yusuf Hazar Musluoglu
914812180
WLD 57
Topic: 4
Living Together
Couples living together before marrying has gotten popular. There are many couples living together, even in college. There are lots of advantages of living together before marriage; on the other hand, it is undeniable that there are disadvantages as well. One of the advantages of living together with your boyfriend or girlfriend is that you get to know your partner better. Knowing your partner as good as knowing yourself sometimes strengthen relationships, but sometimes it can show that your partner is not actually “the one” for you to marry. On the other hand, one of the disadvantages could be religious prohibitions. Seeing that there are advantages and also disadvantages, I believe that the advantages of living together before marriage overweigh the disadvantages.
One of the biggest advantages of living together before marriage is getting to know the person that you may marry in the future. Living together means that you will observe your partner’s habits, routine, personal hygiene, and order as well as his behaviors and reactions to certain things that he/she wouldn’t get to react when you and your partner is on a date such as financial complications or a phone call of a family member. A partner can hide some of his/her bad habits from the other partner, however, when living together, eventually both partners’ true colors will get exposed. It is a fact 50% of all marriages end in divorce; however, this number could change dramatically if you get to know your partner in his/her natural habitat, home. If both partners get along living together and happy, their behaviors Moreover, some people can have some quirks that can drive others crazy. For example, if a messy person starts living together with his/her partner who is obsessed with cleaning and order, one partner could fall out of love with the other. Knowing your partner’s quirks can play a huge part in your decision of spending the rest of your life together with him/her. Lastly, knowing behaviors, habits, quirk of your partner can only be achieved by living together.
Last year one of my best friend and his girlfriend started living together after being in a relationship for 6 months. My friend had lots of long-term relationships, but he was sure that this girl was “the one”. After living together for about two months, they started to dislike each other. Eventually, they broke up. Both of them were happy that their relationship was over. It was an unusual reaction to an 8-month long relationship to result in a break-up. The reason for their breaking up was that they didn’t have so many things in common but spent too much time together. Thus, they started to get bored of each other. This example is a great one to show that living together before marriage is a great way to decide if you want to spend the rest of your life with him /her.
Another advantage of living together before marriage is seeing how efficiently you work with your partner. In other words, you need to function with your partner. Marriage is not all about love; two people have to work efficiently and somewhat equally in order to make their relationship work. Unless there is no distribution for chores, cooking and more, the relationship will go downhill. If the only person is doing the whole work and the other person is not contributing at all, a confrontation is inevitable. I saw a documentary a week ago, which was about a family of three getting help from a psychologist to overcome the dad’s video game addiction problem. After he quits playing video games, the bond between his son and wife gets stronger than ever. Seeing how you function with your partner in the house could indicate how your house life is going to be when you get married.
Disadvantages of living together before marriage are religious and cultural prohibitions, and studies suggesting that the divorce rate of couples lived together before marriage is higher than the couples that did not. In most religions living together before marriage is considered a sin. Some couples living together violate their religious rules. In Bible, for example, man and woman living together can result in temptation of having sexual relationship which is banned in Christianity. In addition, according to some cultures, living together before marriage is an immoral act.
According to statistics of US Attorney Legal Services, a couple who haven’t lived together before getting married have a 20 percent chance of being divorced within five years; on the other hand, if the couple has lived together beforehand, that number expands to 49 percent. Moreover, A married couple has a 33 percent chance of breaking up at a10-year mar; however, for the unmarried couple who is living together, the chance of a breakup is 62 percent. I believe that the brake-up rate being this high for unmarried couples living together is actually a good sign, not a disadvantage because it clearly shows that if the couple had chosen not to live together but instead they had chosen to get married, they would have probably gotten divorced.
However, this could be avoided if unmarried couples follow their responsibilities carefully and use the appropriate means to prevent having a child if they don’t want one. With all the advantages and disadvantages of living together before marriage, it sometimes confuses people whether to chose to live together before getting married to someone or to get to know him / her in some other way. However, the disadvantages in living together before marriage are sometimes avoidable and living together before marriage is a good way to find the right person for your self to marry with. Finally, I think people should be serious and live carefully if they do decide to live together before marriage.
