My Journey: Living Together Before Marriage

When my husband and I were first dating, we literally spent all our time together. You know how it is in those first new days. It’s intoxicating. When we started dating it was the second semester of our junior year and classes just got in the way. Homework? What homework? All we wanted to do was be in each other’s presence. Basically the only thing that kept us apart was class and then, like magnets, we’d gravitate towards each other once it let out.

At the end of our junior year, I left for field training for the Air Force in Florida and Dustin left to go stay with his parents in El Paso for the summer. I’m pretty sure it took us two hours to say our goodbyes. There were tears and pledges of love. That was the longest summer of my life.

Once I got back from field training, I was at home in Kansas with my parents. Dustin and I would talk at night on Instant Messenger. Man, that seems like eons ago. During those months away from each other, we decided that it only made sense to live together when we came back for our senior year. We reasoned that we spent all our time together anyway, so why not? Back in our junior year, we were sleeping over at each other’s house all the time. (If you’ve read previous posts, you know that Dustin and I were not living out our faith by any stretch of the imagination.) It only made sense to us to move in together. We loved each other and “love is all you need,” right?

Well, when we announced that we were going to live together, our parents were less than thrilled, but we were adults and there wasn’t really anything they could do to stop us. However, there was one person who God sent to pierce my conscience–my baby sister.

I remember I was at home and she came into my room and said, “Amy, I heard that you and Dustin are going to live together.”

“Yes, we are,” I replied back.

“Well, I don’t think you are supposed to do that. You aren’t supposed to live together before you get married,” was my 14-year old sister’s reply.

“Oh, Beth, someday you’ll understand. You’ll fall in love and you’ll want to be with that person all the time. I promise you, that we are just going to live together, nothing else.”

What I meant by the “nothing else” was we weren’t going to sleep with each other. This was a total lie, because Dustin and I had already gone down that path. I’ve often thought about why I lied to my sister that day. I realize now that deep down she was making me very uncomfortable. I knew, I KNEW that she was right in questioning my decision, yet, I felt the need to justify myself to her. I knew that our faith taught that you should wait till marriage, so I tried to make myself sound a little more holy by saying we wouldn’t sleep together. I tried to make it sound like Dustin and I would just be living like friends. I know she didn’t buy it. I lied to her because I wanted to make myself feel better about our decision. In the process, I gave great scandal to her and was a poor example. I firmly believe God sent her to try to steer me back on course, but I did not want to listen–not even a little. As it turns out, that “promise” I made to my sister didn’t last too long because I got pregnant.

You know, I wish I could write this and say that living together before marriage was terrible, but it wasn’t. It was fun and I loved spending my time with Dustin. We basically “played house” and I look back on our days in that tiny basement apartment with a lot of fondness. We were poor as dirt and had very little, but, in my mind, we were together and that’s all that mattered.

So, why am I writing this? I’m 18-years removed from those days and I can look back on them with more clarity and less puppy-dog love. Dustin and I have talked about our living together many times. We laugh about all the funny stories we have from that apartment and about how scared we were to be parents. But, we also talk about whether we still think it was right to live together before marriage. We both agree that we should have waited and here’s why.

Not long after I found out I was pregnant, Dustin asked me to marry him. He didn’t ask me just because I was pregnant, but because we both knew pretty much from the get-go of our relationship that we wanted to marry each other. I found out I was pregnant in October and in November, he proposed. Right before our daughter was born in June, we moved into a nicer apartment. I didn’t want to have a newborn baby living in our dark little hovel underneath some lady’s house. She was born in June of 2001 and on August 18th, we married.

Our wedding was everything I hoped it would be; full of love, family, and friends. There were no doubts, no cold feet. When I walked down the aisle, I knew I was walking toward the only man for me. My love for this man knows no bounds.

Since Dustin still had one more year of school left and we had a newborn baby, we couldn’t go on a honeymoon. We did get one night at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Kansas City. We showed up in our 1985 baby blue Buick Century that was covered in shaving cream and had cans trailing off the back bumper. We laughed so hard when we rolled up next to all the luxury cars parked out front of the swanky hotel. We got a few stares to say the least.

After our one night there, we picked up our sweet baby and headed back to Manhattan, Kansas to our little apartment. To be honest, we both felt that we were a little robbed of something. It took us years to figure out what it was, but we know now: Living together before marriage robbed us of that elation that comes with finally coming to your home as husband and wife. We’d already been doing it for a year, so it wasn’t anything new.

You might say, “So, what’s the big deal? You kind of experienced that when you first moved into together.”

I don’t think we did, though. It was exciting to move in together as a dating couple, but it didn’t have the backing or assurance that comes with being married. The climax of coming home to a new place as a newly married couple never happened. I wish we knew how that felt.

Today in our culture, people move in and out with lovers like it’s nothing. By the time many people settle down into marriage, they’ve already lived with several romantic partners and there’s nothing new about it. It’s old hat. A common reason I hear from proponents of cohabitation is that you need to “try someone out first to see if you can live with them.” Dustin and I never had this attitude with each other, but that doesn’t mean our reasoning was more justified.

There are two main reasons, that I can see, against cohabitation. The first is that cohabitation is just a shadow of the real thing. The couple is living together, sharing things, sleeping together, splitting bills, but they aren’t embracing all the major components. They don’t make that full declaration of commitment as you do in marriage, they don’t gather family and friends to celebrate the beginning of a life dedicated to one another, they don’t really intend to start a family, and they don’t give of themselves fully. Whenever something is done as a shadow of the real thing, it is never as satisfying or fulfilling.

The biggest problem with cohabitation is the idea that the couple is “trying each other out.” In effect, this practice says, “I’m going to see if you are good enough to please me. If I discover that there is anything about you that irritates me, makes me unhappy or if you don’t please me in bed, well, then, I’ll jump ship.”  It’s an extremely selfish attitude, because authentic love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1 Cor 13:7) It’s selfish to partake in extremely intimate situations (sex, living together) all the while putting the other person through a trial period. It is not the job of another person to meet our every expectation or to make us happy. People have faults, they will inevitably let us down, there will be times when they won’t make us happy, but real love understands this and bears through people’s humanness. If you are looking for a person that has zero faults and always makes you happy, you will look forever.

Ultimately, what one is saying is, “You are good enough for me to sleep with and share bills with, but not good enough for me to fully commitment myself.” Through dating, it is possible to discern whether a person is compatible. Part of marriage is learning to love and live with a person who is imperfect. Marriage isn’t expecting the other to fulfill our every need and desire. Marriage is where WE give ourselves to the other fully and freely. Marriage is about giving, not taking, and cohabitation lacks the full gift of self. Our love should not be conditional and only given fully if another person meets our expectations.

It is of note that rates of divorce among those that live together before marriage is high. Dustin and I thankfully do not fall into these statistics, but I wouldn’t condone how we did things. My sister was right in coming to me that day. I didn’t want to hear her as she tried to draw me out of a decision that she knew wasn’t best for me. I wanted what I wanted, but I know now that emotions and feelings can often guide us away from what is best.

I do want to say that I understand that not all couples that live together before marriage are doing it for purely selfish and bad motives. I do realize that sometimes people have kids together out-of-wedlock and feel that living together is the way to go. I do realize that sometimes people do it for financial reasons. For some, it’s been the only example they’ve witnessed throughout their lives. There are lots of reasons and I’m not here to condemn anyone, but to encourage a better path. It may be a harder path, but better none-the-less.

I, also, realize that for a certain segment of the population my arguments will make no difference. They won’t see the big deal. That’s typical, though, of a culture that values pleasure, instant-gratification, and hedonism above all else. I’ve long since passed being interested in our culture’s ideologies and I encourage you to see past the shallowness and emptiness of the world’s ways. The world’s ways are often a shadow of the real thing and they can never bring us lasting joy and peace. I admire those of you out there that waited until marriage–what a great gift you gave your spouse. For those that are unsure, just remember this: Often the way that is best for us, asks the most of us. Only something that is good can call us to dig deep and draw out the best in ourselves. The easy way never asks much and therefore we never really grow and become better and, often times, we find ourselves frustrated by the whole experience.

We are called for more, so love well, Catholic Pilgrim.