Originally posted byLivLuvAndBootlegMusic
Luckily, we've reached a compromise between my practicality and the traditionalist attitudes of others, so he's living with my parents instead
With your
parents! Now there's a twist! That idea startles me so much it almost seems funny, it is very cool however
.
I've read that in some Amish communities it's a ritual of sorts for a "courting" couple to be given time alone in the bedroom...with the lights turned off...but with a board dividing the two halves of the bed! Not a solution to everyone's taste, but it is an interesting way of balancing the competing values of "waiting" on the one hand, and on the other the value of getting a foretaste of what private, intimate conversations with your partner which don't invove sex are going to be like (they're supposed to be discussing "serious" issues--children, household, money plans, other life goals, etc. during this time). Which after all, in the long run, that is indeed what most of your private, intimate conversations will wind up being like--not sexy, not flirtatious, not starry-eyed Ooohh-isn't-it-sweet,-we-both-like-reggae-and-antique-lamps! kind of stuff.
While I think there is much logic to the "test drive" idea, I have never had the impression that living together really has that effect for many (I don't say all) couples who do it and then later get married, because what often winds up happening is that they don't really make that psychological shift to seeing their futures as irrevocably intertwined until they get married. It makes a big difference. I think in the long run, a shared commitment to making a household work, and a shared vision of what that household should be like--no matter what outside twists and turns life takes you through--is more important than whether or not you have prior experience in merely living under the same roof with that person.
U2democrat said:
I don't have a problem with it but my parents do...in their minds a couple living together means nothing but premarital sex, but in my mind its a good way for a couple to see if they are compatible living together before they get married.
I think this pretty much sums up what the usual nature of the divide is. Also, as you've probably already noted to your irritation
, parents of girls tend to feel more strongly about this, because in particular they worry that the
guy is interested in "nothing but premarital sex," and thus all their daughter's well-meaning plans to learn about other kinds of compatibility will come to naught.
I didn't realize there are still people out there who still think in those terms.
