Yeah I see a lot of difference. It's not the little piece of paper, it's the commitment itself. Sure some people make that commitment without the ceremony, but for most of us the ceremony is a rite of passage. Look that term up if you are ever in the same building with a book on anthropology, psychology, mythology or several other disciplines. While you're there, check whether writing really was invented before marriage as you imply. I'm pretty sure it wasn't.
"Most of us"?? Fraggle, the divorce rate is well over 50% ...so you can't use "most of us" for either case! Commitment? Fraggle, the divorce rate is well over 50% ...so you can't use "commitment" for either case! And once again, Fraggle, your view of the world through rose-colored glasses shows that you're simply overly optimistic about most any-fuckin'-thing ...and can see only the optimism without any of the failings. You remind me of some of those interviewed on tv after a major disaster; The person has just witnessed the horrific destruction of their city, with 472,812 people killed, 862,785 injured, 452,436 missing. And he says, "Oh, it's terrible ....but it could have been much worse." Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Baron Max
Hmmm..... I'm guessing you may be slightly bitter about marriage lately like me. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I lived with my husband for four years before we got married. And I'm glad I did, because I had lived with someone else for 2 months in a previous relationship, and I know that a marriage with that person never would have lasted. And then the first four years of marriage were easy, but the last 2 have been a roller coaster. And does shacking up before marriage have anything to do with it? I don't think so.
If you stay with someone long enough, they will eventually show you who they are. And you will also finally reveal yourself. If you don't have kids (highly recommended), it is best to jump out of a relationship as SOON as it turns sour. Leave the relationship near a high, and go enjoy the falling-in-love process all over again. (and the being-single period!)
Define turning sour? This is partly why the divorce rate is so high, all relationships will have their bad points, and people are too quick to get involved and even quicker to jump ship without trying to work anything out.
Okay dude, you've presented that statistic twice. When are you going to gift us with the other one? You, know the statistic on the rate of dissolution of unmarried domestic partnerships? It doesn't mean squat if you don't compare the two. I can rattle off the names of more than twenty couples who have been married for more than twenty years, and keep rattling. I've never met anyone who shacked up for even ten years. So the divorce rate is high, big deal. I'm in that statistic too. My first marriage lasted three years. My second will be thirty in a few months. We all learn from our mistakes. How many of those divorced people are like me, making a second try and getting it right? How many of them would have accomplished that without the rite of passage that the ceremony comprises? If you don't want to get married then don't. These days and at your age there's certainly no one trying to coerce you. But don't dismiss it for the people for whom it does work, even if imperfectly.
Well, there ya' go! If Fraggle ain't never met no 'shacker-uppers', then there must not be none! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Baron Max
Well hey dude, put up or shut up. How many shacker-uppers do you know that have stayed together for, say, more than ten years? I'm not the world's most social creature, most people have more acquaintances than I do. If my premise is invalid a bunch of people should be jumping up to refute it. This is a debate, not a lecture. Don't criticize, respond. I challenge your reliance on the divorce statistics. I personally have a 50% divorce rate. My first marriage took place when I was 21 and foolish, yet I learned some good things from it. Those things enabled me to do it right the second time. I don't think that speaks badly of marriage.
For what? A divorce after we're retired? My wife has said calmly more than once that anyone who waits that long to dump their spouse should be shot before they have a chance to change their will and life insurance beneficiary.
Of course, a prenup of that type can benefit the woman more if she happens to be the one with the assets. "The loser male gets nothing!"
As Fraggle has pointed out, living together is no commitment whatsoever in the US. You're just two people with the same address. Marriage is a commitment, living together is not. That's the difference.
Perhaps you can explain a bit more fully the term "commitment" for us? Using a word as proof of something is vacuous without an agreed upon definition of that word. Deciding to move in together is, in fact, a "commitment" by most sensible definitions of the word. Marriage, too, is a "commitment", but it can be broken just as simple as the commitment to live together. So ......what's "commitment"? And what makes one "commitment" so much different, so special, as compared to the other? Baron Max
When two people live together, they are roommates. They may sleep together, they may have sex. But one has no claim on the other. When they decide to part, it's as simple as when my college roommate and I went our seperate ways. Absolutely no big deal. A marrage is a commitment, before God and country. You share everything. And ending it is not simple at all. It costs thousands of dollars in lawyer's fees and half of your worldly possesions. There is absolutely no comparison between the two.
I don't know. My husband and I were committed to each other when we moved in together. At that time, that was our commitment. We had joint bank accounts and joint investment properties as well as other investments. Basically not long after we moved in together, we put everything we both owned in joint names. We also had a legal document that if we ever separated, how everything was to be divided. The only thing we had not done was to actually get married. And that was virtually done on a spur of the moment when we went on holidays. Was the best decision we could have taken and we have not looked back once. Actually, I lie. I did 'look back' when I was in labour with our first born and he fell asleep on the recliner in the birth suite after having been awake for nearly 38 hours.. bastard!Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Damn midwife even took pity on him and covered him with a warm blanket. And then had the gall to tell me "he needed sleep and rest"..Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!.. while I sat there and sucked on the gas wishing death lol.. Anywho I digress... I think the only thing that stopped us from actually marrying was the thought of 'the wedding'.. as in the church or ceremony.. reception.. etc. It wasn't us so it was something we just weren't really into doing at the time. But on one of our holidays we literally thought why not and we virtually eloped. That was us because it was private and special to the two of us. I would not take away our having lived together for anything. It helped us develop and grow as a couple. And he still manages to surprise me and annoy me, and I him.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! We had bumpy roads and I am sure there will be more in the future. But you work them out. Living together is a commitment in itself. Sure you don't have the piece of paper to pay through the nose for if you break up, but in many ways, it is a commitment. Especially if you have joint bank accounts, etc.. Even without that, a break up after having lived together can be costly as if you have purchased items together while having lived together, some do end up seeking legal counsel to determine who gets what.
Well sure, that was living together with a commitment. You might as well have gotten married. While your situation displayed a high amount of commitment for two people living together; that level of commitment is normal for any two married people.
