Why I’m not living with my fiance until we’re married

My parents brought my siblings and I up with the clear rule that no one is allowed to move out of home until marriage. It doesn’t matter how old we are when we choose to get married but we must remain under their roof until that day comes.

I’m 27 years old and I’ve never lived out of home. My fiance is also 27 and has never lived out of home.

Lucky for me I found a partner who also has the same household rules so I didn’t have to deal with an added pressure to move out of home during our relationship.

We’re getting married in three months, and we’ve never lived together or travelled together.

For some of you, this might sound familiar, but when the conversation came up with my colleagues a few days ago everyone stared at me in shock and couldn’t take me seriously.

The expressions on their faces were curious and they couldn’t help but ask me more questions about my relationship. Why can’t he sleep over? What if he does something that really annoys you? How do you know you won’t get sick of him?

They thought I was kidding and couldn’t believe I was going to make such a commitment without knowing my partners living habits.

Their reactions were bizarre to me, just like my answers were bizarre to them.

The chat went on for a while before one of my colleagues said, “Aw, I’m so jealous, you’ve got so much to look forward to. I’ve got nothing different to experience after marriage”.

That statement got me thinking: Does living together before marriage take away the excitement or is it an important step to take?

Psychotherapist and relationship specialist Melissa Ferrari says, “when it comes to living together before marriage there are pros and cons. On the pro side, the brain loves novelty so moving in together will stimulate the brain while promoting the creation of a safe and secure relationship. This will give you great memories to draw on and will act to keep your love alive.

“On the con side of things, you are seeing and experiencing your partner in different states including some not so attractive ones such as having early morning breath or leaving the lid off the toothpaste. This requires us to be accepting and open to our differences.

“However, a benefit might be that by experiencing a little more of the up close transactions in a relationship it can be easier to settle the sense that you know your partner well enough to marry them.”

Ms Ferrari believes “It’s not about whether to move in together before marriage or not. The more important questions should be: What is the best way for me to determine that I truly know my partner well enough to commit to them? How do I best establish that there is a ‘marriage’ between our ethics and values and that generally I can work out that I have a pretty good idea of what the future holds for us?

“When we know these things and they align with our own ideas, that we can manage our partners and ourselves and we can relate easily to each other, then we are on the way to being in a secure relationship. These things can be worked out by living together or choosing not to.”

As for me, I’m quite excited about opening a new chapter. The move in, holidays and having arguments about the toilet seat being kept up don’t scare me. And I’m not worried that we haven’t tested our relationship out already just because we don’t live together.

Wish me luck and fingers crossed he doesn’t have an annoying habit that will end in an early divorce.

Originally published as Why we won’t live together until marriage