Wedding Blog
I’ve never lived alone. I went from living in my parent’s house to living with Mr. Kiwi. When I moved out of my parent’s place, I was about to turn 25 - yes, a little bit old. Why did I never move out? I’ve always gotten along with my parents, and never felt the need to “escape.” I came and went as I pleased, sometimes not coming home at all, out spending weekends with friends. Perhaps this is why I don’t have my license - because I was always taken care of with rides from my Dad and Mr. Kiwi and friends. Oh well, that’s a story for another day! I also paid rent (albeit a piddly amount) and bought my own food. It was basically like living alone, only with free cable and internet. 
Anyway, so when Mr. Kiwi came along, I spent most of my time at his place. Cut to almost a year later, Mr. Kiwi wanted to move out of his place because his roommate recently had a baby and it was getting noisy. So, Mr. Kiwi looked at apartments around my parent’s house, and all the while, I was thinking, “Yeah, I could totally live here… or that last place.” I was definitely thinking I was moving in with him, and apparently he did too because he asked my opinion on all of the places.
When we picked out a one bedroom one bath with unbelievable closet space, I moved in when he did. I slowly removed my things from my parent’s house and brought them to our new place. I never slept a night at my parent’s house again. It was about two months later when my dad asked, “Are you going to leave this stuff here forever? Come pick up your crap!” And that was when I moved out for good.
Our reasons for moving in together weren’t financial- we weren’t paying two astronomical rents in Los Angeles. The reason we moved in together was simply because it was the next step for us. Date, move in, get married. If I had to do it all again this way, I totally would. I like living with him before the wedding - that way there are no surprises as to his personality and quirks. And I honestly can’t imagine sleeping without Mr. Kiwi snuffling next to me.
Are you/did you move in together before marriage? What were your reasons to either do it or not?
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Share this post: Living Arrangements
didn’t live together before we married - i had a condo, he was renting a room in an apt complex.
reasons for not living together? PARENTS WOULD’VE KILLED US!!!
We moved in together a few months after getting engaged, and after we’d been dating about a year and a half. It just seemed like an ideal time. My roommate was moving out to get married, and I’d have to find someone else to take his place. Half of my rent was just about what my fiance was paying to rent a room at the house he lived at. Plus he has dogs, and so it was difficult for him to stay overnight at my place because of needing to take care of the dogs, and I didn’t always like staying over there because it was a small house with his nice-but-not-so-neat roommates.
It was just a better choice for both of us. I do have to say that I’m totally glad that I’ve been able to have all sorts of living arrangements until then though. I’ve lived with roommates that I just met, cousins, my younger sister and her bf, friends, by myself, and with fellow students. It allows me to appreciate so many things about how well my fiance and I do things together.
Miss Kiwi - you’re pretty lucky to have such understanding parents. My strict Chinese parents weren’t happy about me even staying out past 10pm, but I sorta pushed my way out… I never officially moved in but it just happened that way, we didn’t like being apart.. and now i’m there full time. But I still have things at home.
Miss Violet, I TOTALLY have it easy. I really was the “we trust you to have good judgement” daughter, but then again I was a nerd! No drinking, no drugs, no sluttin’ about. I loved to sit at home a read a book. They had it lucky having ME as a daughter!
I don’t have my license either and I’m not… well, let’s just say I’m a little older than 25. It’s a sad state of affairs. I need to remedy the situation soon. For years I lived in DC and never needed one, and now that’s not the case.
Anyway, your question: we moved in together because after six months of searching for a job, I was still unemployed in DC and at the end of my rope. I did not renew my lease and was about to move home - the next day, actually - when I finally got a job! Suddenly, I was employed but had nowhere to live. I tried to find a place on my own, but it was just too expensive. I tried to find a roommate, but had a scary encounter after using Craig’s List - and my fiance encouraged me to stay with him.
Then he went to law school and we moved together there, too. His parents are very Catholic and I worried they would have a problem with this, but they were very understanding and have always been supportive of our decisions.
Aww…I wish I had parents as cool as yours! My parents are basically like Miss Violet’s parents, which is why I’ve never wanted to move back home after college. I decided to move in with my bf because it just made more sense. We had basically spent every single night with each other, whether it be my house that I shared with roommates or his apartment. And at the end of my lease, all my roommates were going their separate ways so I had to find my own housing and it just made sense financially and in terms of convenience to move in with him. I had tried hard to find my own room to stay with strangers because I was afraid my parents would be really mad about moving in with my bf, but it was just too expensive. And so, I decided to move in with him and sort of worked it into a conversation with my parents. Surprisingly, they were okay with it (it helps that they like my bf).
I was actually a bit hesitant to move in with him because I had read an entry Mrs. Bee posted once about how there is a higher divorce rate amongst couples who lived together before they got married. I never understood why, I always thought it was the opposite, like what Miss Kiwi said, there’s no surprises. Anyone have thoughts on that?
I’m a lot like you, Kiwi. Liked home, moved out right after my 25th birthday.
The reason we moved in together was because he was putting in for a transfer and was moving to my town, finally! So, it was the next step…not even practicality because I wasn’t paying close to what rent is now (like 100 a month) and kind of my own groceries, but mostly just snacky items. So, it was the next step/our desire to co-habitate!
We ALSO found a great place to rent: a two-story apartment (townhome) with two bedrooms w/ great closets and just one kinda small bathroom…but it’s great! TONS of storage for renting, too.
I went from college straight to my now Fiance’s apartment. After 3 months of dating, he asked me to move in. It wasn’t really for financial (it was more of a pro for me) and also because I didn’t have any other place to go. Plus his bestfriend was planning on moving for school. It was a huge risk and I thought he was crazy, but we did it. We had to keep it from my Korean parents because they would’ve killed us, but after 1 year, he properly asked them for their permission and surprisingly they said yes. Now I’m a big advocate of living with someone before getting married. Maybe you shouldn’t jump into it so soon after dating, but for us, it was just right. It’s been about 3 years and we’re engaged and still so in love. We know eachother’s quirks and expectations around the house, and it’s perfect….
same boat as Peachy…we’re not planning on living together any time earlier than the night of the wedding…both parents would never allow it 
i’m still living at home but i don’t have to pay for anything and really, what’s better than that? i’m spoiled.
my bf has always had it in his mind that he’d live with his gf/fi before he got married. i keep wavering back and forth. we are long distance and i’m sure that, when it comes time to pick a state to be in, we’ll be living together…but i still can’t stop thinking about what my parents would say. but i’m sure i’ll just up and live with him anyway.
I wasn’t planning on moving in with my FI before we were engaged, but I did spend about 2-3 nights there per week (not more because of my beloved kitty cat). Then after my cat passed away (from which I feel I may never recover) I just moved in with him…then I sold my apartment, and he sold his to buy a bigger place. So even though we lived together for about 6 months that always felt a little temporary since I was camping out in his place. It really feels like we’ve moved in together now that it’s shared real estate.
I’m Chinese, too, but I live far away from home. Plus, I’m the youngest so my parents have kind of given up on being really strict.
we are engaged and live together. it was primarily driven by finances–nyc is an expensive place to live!
We live together, too–we sort of moved in together after about 6 months of dating, but really made it official in May. My parents weren’t at all keen on the idea at first, but I won’t say they wouldn’t “let” me–I don’t have that kind of relationship with them.
“I was actually a bit hesitant to move in with him because I had read an entry Mrs. Bee posted once about how there is a higher divorce rate amongst couples who lived together before they got married. I never understood why, I always thought it was the opposite, like what Miss Kiwi said, there’s no surprises. Anyone have thoughts on that?”
Hey L…
I’ve seen several of the studies with that, and the important thing to consider is that it’s correlational, meaning there’s a predictive relationship there, but not necessarily a causal one. A lot of the finding results from the fact that people who are more religious are less likely to live together and also less likely to consider divorce as a viable option. A second reason might be that people who weren’t sure about marriage to begin with were some of the people who chose to move into together first, or that some people got married after living together awhile just because it seemed like the next ‘reasonable step’.
Just for the record, with my parents, they absolutely did not like the idea, but it’s not like they had a choice in the matter. They got over it fairly quickly though!
I took a soc class in college at a liberal arts college and heard that 80% something percent of cohabiting couples that end up marrying, end up in a divorce… ever since I heard that it sort of scared me out of the thought… but the funny thing is the professor admitted that she cohabitted with her now husband of 5 years and they were still happily married
fi and i had been staying together at each other’s apartments since we started dating. we talked about marriage, but never set anything in stone. we started looking for an apartment together since our leases would be up about the same time, and ended up finding a house we liked that was way less than we were paying for rent. the night of our closing on the house, he asked me to marry him!!! so, technically, we never lived together before we were engaged!!
Mr. Lemon and I don’t live together, but we talked about that fact long before we ever got engaged. I’ve lived alone for going-on three years (after living in dorms, a sorority house, and with 2 separate sets of 2 roomies) and he still has a roommate. We’ve both seen bad “pre-marriage” live-in situations that influenced our decisions which overshadowed the good ones. Pre-22 y/o, I thought living together was a mandatory requirement, and the older I got the less I believed it.
we don’t live together, despite it being difficult financially in the city we’re living in, v expensive. we chose not to bcos i wd be moving from my mom’s into his home.
we feel it would be too much of a parent-child relationship if i never learnt to live on my own. it was a good decision. i feel so much more grown up and ready to marry now that i’ve spent a year or so on my own.
i think pre-marital cohabiting can set the tone for a lower level of commitment in a marriage. e.g., living together is “trying out” or “making sure” of the relationship b4 marriage, but truly successful marriages are not those where the partners are extremely compatible or “get along well”, but those where both partners are committed no matter what the obstacles. i think it just creates false expectations for a lot of ppl.
We waited until we got married to move into together for religious reasons, and I’m glad we did. I love the newness and excitement of everything. It has made being a newlywed really special.
I completely agree with Coralie83’s last paragraph. Some people say it’s important to “test the waters” but I think since we love each other and are deeply committed, we didn’t need to try it out to make sure it would work.
a stat I just found puts the risk of divorce of those who cohabitated vs. those who didn’t at something like 23% vs. 18%….but I don’t know over what time period that is…
We moved in together about 8 months before we got engaged. I used to think I would never live together before marriage, but it was just the right thing for us.
I remember reading an article about how there were different motivations behind couples cohabitating, and those led to different results as far as marriage and divorce. True, some couples do move in together to test the waters. For us, we saw it as being a step in the relationship, not an endpoint or some type of litmus test.
Mr. Bluebell & I were dating long distance for most of senior year of college, and then I wasn’t sure where I’d live after graduation (college was hours away from my hometown). So…we just kind of moved in together! There wasn’t a huge amount of drama (neither of our parents had any input) or discussion, it just felt like the Right thing to do. We were very serious about each other but hadn’t explicitly discussed marriage yet when we moved in but pretty much the instant we started living together it became obvious that it would happen sooner or later. Everything just fit so perfectly. I would never dream of doing it any other way. I agree with some of the “you just have to make a commitment and stick to it” type comments, but I disagree that living together first cannot be really beneficial to a relationship. It’s not a matter of “testing the waters” so much as reinforcing what you already believe and decreasing all the doubt that comes from facing the unknown. I KNOW that we will live happily together after we’re married, because we’ve been doing it 3.5 years and neither of us has regretted it for a second. There is a great importance to having faith and commitment in a relationship, but if you don’t go into living together as a “test” then it really can PROVE a lot of things that you might otherwise just have to “believe” in. That said, I know it’s not for everyone, so no offense!
My fiance’s parents are very conservative, so we weren’t planning on living together (or living together and not mentioning it to them, they live in another state).
I guess he was discussing moving, and possibly living together for a couple months before we get married, and his mom actually told him it was a good idea so that we could save money. Parents can be suprising.
Living together is not for everyone, but I have to take issue with the commenter who said there was a lower level of commitment to the marriage if you live together first. My FI and I are absolutely as committed to each other as humanly possible - to imply that we are not simply because we signed a lease together is just thoughtless at best, and judgemental at worst.
Living together may not be for everyone, but living apart is not for everyone either.
She said it could set the tone for less commitment, so I don’t think she meant that everyone who cohabits isn’t committed to each other, but that it happens sometimes. For example, I have a family member that has been living with his girlfriend for years, with no talk of marriage or anything.
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Mrs. Kiwi, Los Angeles
Age and Occupation in 06: 27, Bookkeeper
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, P.E. Teach/Coach @ private schools in LA
Engagement Date: March 31, 2006
Wedding Date: November 3, 2007
Venue: Radisson Hotel
About Me: I'm a bookkeeper who failed high school algebra. I'm currently living in Los Angeles, literally a street over from where I grew up with Mr. Kiwi, my honey of three years. We have a jumbo mini-dachshund (seriously, he's huuuuge), and we're planning an autumn themed wedding on a shoestring, paid for by ourselves. The wedding date is my late grandma's birthday, I needed her there somehow, and that seemed like the best way for us. I can't believe I'm a Bee! I couldn't be more proud!
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